ESTABLISHED BY EDWARD L. YOUMANS.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE

MONTHLY.

KIEV VCM

EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS.

VOL. XLI.

MAY TO OCTOBER, 1892.

MERCANTftE LIBRARY

MEW YORK.

NEW YORK :

D. A PPL ETON AND COMPANY,

1, 3, and 5 BOND STREET.

1892.

R

C'OPYRUiHT, 1892,
Eft I) API'I.ETON AND COMPANY.

VLESSAKDRO VOLTA.

R

M I '

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

MAY, 1892.

HERBERT SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC

PHILOSOPHY.*

By WILLIAM H. HUDSON.

ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN, CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

THE present paper aims at furnishing an introduction to the
study of Mr. Spencer's philosophic system ; but, to avoid all
possibility of misconception, it may be well to state at the outset
in what sense the word introduction is here employed. Let it be
understood, then, that by it we mean neither an exposition nor
a criticism ; in other words, we do not now undertake either to
summarize the arguments and conclusions of the Synthetic Phi-
losophy, or to pass judgment upon them. Popular introductions
to abstruse and voluminous works too often confine themselves to
one or both of these methods ; our course, on the other hand, will
be a humbler, but, we may trust, not less useful one. Assuming
that the student of any great epoch-making work will feel himself
the better prepared to grapple with that work if he knows some-
thing of its genetic history — I mean, of its inception, formulation,
and growth ; and will be placed in a more advantageous position
for judging of its essential merits if he understands its relation to
the thought and speculation of the time, we purpose to approach
Mr. Spencer's philosophy by way of its evolution ; to consider, not
what it is to-day, but rather how it came to be what it is to-day.
In a brief outline of the gradual unfolding and consolidation of
Mr. Spencer's thought, and in some appreciation of the historic
significance of his writings, will, we believe, be found the best
kind of introduction for those who would prepare themselves for
the direct and personal study of his works.

* Read before the Unity Club, Ithaca, New York.

YOL. XLI. — 1

31770

2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In the first place, then, we have to review the growth and solidi-
fication of Mr. Spencer's thought-in other words, the elaboration,
as exhibited in his earlier writings, of that conception of evolution
which was to find its definite expression in the majestic series of
works of which the Synthetic Philosophy is composed. Let us

rin by making ourselves acquainted with the starting-point of
his mental development— that is, with the general theory of things
which was current during his early years, and under the influ-
ence of which, in common with all his contemporaries, he grew to

man's estate.

The period of Spencer's youth and ripening manhood was a
period of transition in scientific and philosophic thought. On the
ushering in of the present century the old cosmology still held
sway with unabated vigor, along with all those time-worn dogmas
concerning human life and destiny which had grown up with it
during ages of ignorance and superstition, and with which its own
existence was now inextricably bound up. What that cosmology
and what those dogmas meant is a matter of such common his-
tory that we need not linger over them here. Suffice it to say
that the unquestioned doctrines of special creation, fixed types,
and a recent origin of the universe, lay at the bottom of them all,
and that it was in the light of those doctrines that the world and
life and man were one and all interpreted.

But before the century had got far upon its way, signs began
to manifest themselves of an approaching change in the higher
regions of thought. The special-creation hypothesis and the post-
ulate of the world's recent origin and rapid manufacture had
served well enough so long as their field had remained uninvaded
by the results of investigation — so long as they had not been con-
fronted with definite facts. In perfect keeping with the little that
had been known of the universe in the darkness of the middle ages,
they required that no jot or tittle should be added to that knowl-
<'<lge, to hold their place secure. But this could no longer be.
The time came when investigation grew active, and definite facts
— angular, awkward, unpleasant facts, which (after their repre-
hensible manner) were irreverent enough to refuse to fit into the
most sacred and deeply cherished theory — began to accumulate
witli startling rapidity. The result was that the old conception
of things began, little by little, to fall into disrepute, and the
theological edifice of ages was shaken at its very foundations.
Science showed, with a conclusiveness which remained untouched
by all the special pleading with which her arguments and revela-
3 were assailed, that the popular assumptions about the age of
the world were absolutely untenable ; that the commencement of
life, and even of human life upon our globe, so far from taking us
back only a few paltry thousands of years, lay countless millions

SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. 3

of ages behind us ; and that such vague vestiges of our race as
have been handed down to us in sacred book and popular legend
are as nothing compared with that tremendous mass of human
experiences which will never find their historian. Worse than all,
turning full upon the doctrine of special manufacture, she opened
up the grand geologic record, and read thence, as from the pages
of a mighty volume, the long, stupendous story of those vast
cosmic changes which, through aeons of unreckoned time, have
slowly molded and fashioned the world into the condition in
which we find it to-day.

That these revelations were of the most vital interest to all
thinking men needs hardly be said; nor is it necessary here to
dwell on the feverish panic of the theologians, who hurried into
the field with all their heavy artillery, prominent amid which was
the great-gun argument, which had already done yeoman service
on many another such occasion, that the very existence of Chris-
tianity was bound up with the story of creation as narrated in the
first chapters of the Hebrew Scriptures.* What is here of
moment is to notice the general effect of the new discoveries upon
the scientific mind. That effect was at the outset almost entirely
a negative one. The old theories had been destroyed, but as yet
there was nothing to take their place ; the theological interpre-
tation of the world's history was seen to be absurdly insufficient
and unreasonable, but for the time being no scientific interpreta-
tion in lieu thereof appeared to be forthcoming. Hence followed
a kind of intellectual interregnum, during which everything was
vague, shifting, tentative. Meanwhile, however, things were not
by any means standing still. The unceasing activity of inves-
tigators in the special sciences resulted in vast accumulations
of well-established facts, and thus yielded the materials in the
absence of which nothing of real or permanent value could have
been accomplished. And at the same time (largely, indeed, as a
consequence of this extension upon all sides of the scientific
domain) there was ever growing and deepening a conception of
unbroken causation in cosmic changes, of the universality of law,
and the unity of Nature and of natural processes — a conception
in no small degree led up to by such discoveries as those of the
undulatory theory of light and heat, and of the correlation of all
the forces known to exact science. Thus, in spite of the tempo-
rary suspense and hesitation, no time was being lost. As we can
now see, the way was being slowly prepared for a great scientific
generalization — a generalization which, overthrowing all the old

* How fierce and obstinate was the opposition offered to the doctrine of evolution from
this standpoint, we of the present day find it no easy matter to imagine. Even such a
man as Hugh Miller went so far as to declare that acceptance of evolution meant nullifica-
tion of the central truths of Christianity.

4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

-ions once and for all, was in the sequel to alter absolutely
and fundamentally the whole trend and current of thought, not
only as regards the outer organic world and the phenomena pre-
sented by it, bnt as regards also the countless practical problems
in life and s.-cidy, in morality and religion, which are forever
pressing on as for solution.

Such, in the brief est possible summary, was the general intel-
lectual character of the period at which Mr. Spencer began the
Labors of his life. Even the sketch just given, crude and imperfect
as il arily is, will help us to understand the growth of his

own ideas, and their relation to the changing thought of the day.

During the year 1842 Spencer, then in his twenty-second year,
had contributed to a weekly newspaper, called The Nonconformist,
- of letters which were afterward republished in pamphlet
form under the title of The Proper Sphere of Government. "With
the political doctrines of this production we have here no special
concern, though it may be worth while to mention that the key-
note is there struck of that famous doctrine of governmental non-
Interference, since so fully worked out and so frequently insisted
on by the author. The pamphlet is significant for us from quite
another point of view. In the attempt which is made in it to

kblish the nature, scope, and limits — that is, the fundamental
principles — of civil government, there is everywhere implied a
belief in the ultimate dependence of social organization upon
natural causes and natural laws. In other words, society is from
first to last regarded, not as a manufacture but as a growth — a
view which, it maybe remarked incidentally, though familiar
enough in our own day, at all events in its theoretic aspects, was
then little known, even as a matter of mere speculation. Through-
out the entire argument there run the conceptions of gradual
changes naturally necessitated, and of the possibility of a better
and lutter adjustment of man, physically, intellectually, and
morally, to the needs imposed by the conditions of social life. As
Mr. Spencer himself wrote, many years later, "In these letters
will be found, along with many crude ideas," a " belief in the
conformity of social phenomena to invariable laws," and "in hu-
man progression as determined by such laws."* All this revealed,
even at bo early a Btage of mental growth, a marked tendency to

.card the complicated and entangled phenomena of society from

rictly scientific point of view— as phenomena exhibiting rela-

and effect, and thus to be included in the realm of

iral law. But it meant something more than this. The dis-

ad conscious acceptance of the doctrine that society is a

thing, not artificially pieced together, but of slow and natural

* Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte.

SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. 5

growth, implied dissatisfaction with, the current ideas of progress
as an irregular and fortuitous process, and bore testimony to at
least a vague germinal belief in a social development or evo-
lution.

The momentous questions thus raised and briefly dealt with
by Mr. Spencer in this youthful production came in for more
thorough and extended treatment a few years later in his first con-
siderable work, Social Statics, which was published in 1850, when
the author was just thirty years of age. The conception of this
work had entered his mind not long after the appearance of the
just-mentioned pamphlet; for, owing to the rapid growth and ex-
pansion of his ideas at the time, Spencer soon became aware of
the inadequacy of his handling of the various problems there
opened up. " The writing of Social Statics," he has since said,
" arose from a dissatisfaction with the basis on which the doc-
trines set forth in those letters were placed." * Even the briefest
comparison of the earlier and later books is sufficient to show the
enormous strides which his mind had taken during the seven
critical years which divide them one from the other. In Social
Statics almost everything is made to turn upon the doctrine — pre-
viously hardly more than hinted at — that from the very begin-
ning of social life down to the present time there has been going
on, and that there still is going on, a process of slow but none the
less certain adjustment of the natures of men to society, and of
the social organization to the natures of its constituent units :
this adjustment being the result of a perpetual interaction be-
tween units and aggregate which ever tends to bring them into
more perfect adaptation the one to the other. Such adaptation,
it is further shown, is produced by the direct action of circum-
stances upon the natures of men, and by the preservation and
accumulation by inheritance from generation to generation of
the modifications thus initiated ; though another process comes
in for passing recognition— the process of the dying out of those
individuals who fail to adapt themselves to the changing con-
ditions of their environment : which process may be conversely
stated as the survival of those only who so far change as to fit
themselves to the necessities imposed upon them by the totality
of their surroundings. Here, it will be seen, is a faint and partial
adumbration of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest in the
struggle for existence. Moreover, another important point is em-
phasized— the point that all our social evils and imperfections are
due to want of complete adjustment between men and the con-
ditions of social life — are, indeed, nothing more than the tempo-
rary jarring and wrenching of a machine the parts of which are

* Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte •

6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

u,,t v,t brought into thorough working order. Yet, as the pro-
of adaptation is still continuing, and is in the nature of things
7eI to produce between units and aggregate a state of
.,. wrfecl equilibrium, the inevitable if optimistic corollary
thai the evil which we deplore will in the end work itself out

alt ,ther, and that eventually all friction will entirely disap-

a prophecy which seems to point to a realization of the

,ua dreams of speculators like Godwin and Condorcet, far

^omenta upon which it is based are seen to differ from

own. Finally, all these special changes in man and in

sietyare regarded as phases only of a process of universal

jpment or unfolding, which is everywhere conducing, in

ace to an inherent metaphysical tendency, to the produc-

q in man, as throughout the whole of the animate creation, of

more complete individuation and higher and higher types.

We thus see that, unlike Darwin and Wallace, Mr. Spencer
appn (ached the question of general evolution not from the organic
but from the super-organic point of view — by the way of ethical
and sociological investigations. His first conception of develop-
ment was in the limited shape of progress— of development, that
is, of man individually and in society. But Mr. Spencer's was not
the mind to rest content with these vague and partial glimpses of
• 1 1 1 tendons truth. Before long he began to work his way round
thr< mgh researches of quite a different character, toward the affili-
bion of these special and disjointed facts and inferences upon
other facts and inferences of wider sweep and meaning.

His labors upon Social Statics had led him up to a realization
of the important truth that beneath all the much-debated ques-
tions of morality and society lay the fundamental doctrines of
biology and psychology; and that any really scientific or efficient
treatment of man as a moral being or social unit must depend upon
a thorough study of the problems of life and mind. Full of these
ideas he turned with increased enthusiasm to biological and psy-
ehologica] Btndies, and to the prosecution of various lines of re-
urch in connection with these two subjects a large part, though
by no means the whole, of his energies was for some time de-
voted.

The ten years which followed — the years between 1850 and
I860 (it is well to notice the dates, because, as we shall presently
hey have their own importance) — were years of great ac-
tivity— an activity to be measured not so much by their produc-
tiveness, though that was sufficiently remarkable, as by the amaz-
growth and organization of ideas which took place in them.
1'. g this period some twenty-five exhaustive articles from
acer's pen were published in the leading organs of liberal
t; and in these articles, if we take them in the order of

SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. 7

their appearance, we can trace a gradual closing in from all sides,
as it were, upon the great generalizations which were by and by
to fall into their places as integral parts of a coherent system
of thought. As a matter of fact, these years may be regarded,
from the point of view of subsequent achievement, as years of
special and methodical training ; and these essays, diverse as they
are in form and matter, as separate and tentative contributions
toward the treatment of various isolated phenomena which were
ultimately to be taken up in their interrelations and dealt with
in the mass. It would be impossible here to subject these essays
one by one to anything like close analysis, even if it would mate-
rially further our present purpose to do so. But a few words
must be devoted to their general drift and character ; and, should
one or two of them be made the subjects of special mention, it
will not be because these are to be considered the most important
in themselves, but simply because they are the most important
for the object which at the moment I have in view.

Probably the points whioh would most strike any one reading
these essays casually and for the first time would be their strong
grasp upon deep-lying principles, and their extraordinary origi-
nality. On every page they reveal, be the subject what it may,
an astonishing independence of thought, and an absolute freedom
from all trace of traditional methods and ideas. It was this fresh-
ness of treatment and firmness of touch which perhaps most at-
tracted the attention of thoughtful readers when they were first
published — for the most part anonymously — in the pages of the
various English magazines and reviews. But, turning back to
them to-day and regarding them in their mutual relations (as we
are able to do now that they have long since been available in a
collected and permanent form), we are impressed by something
beyond the depth, clearness, and vigor of mind to which they
everywhere bear witness. And that something is the essential
unity of their thought, the oneness of idea which is throughout
seen to underlie and inform the extraordinary diversity of mate-
rials with which they deal. It matters not whether the author is
concerned with the moot questions of physiology and psychology ;
or with the intrinsic principles of a correct literary style ; or with
the changes of the sidereal system ; or with ill-timed and hasty
political panaceas ; or with curiosities of social manners and be-
havior : all these subjects are systematically approached from one
point of view ; all are made to cluster about and find interpreta-
tion in one dominant hypothesis. And what is this hypothesis ?
What is this great cardinal doctrine which is thus made to weld
together subjects so diverse and even so incongruous that on any
merely superficial examination they would never be supposed to
possess anything in common ? It need hardly be said that it is

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the doctrine of development or evolution— a doctrine which mani-

itsrir in every essay with continually increasing distinct-

uhirh is* thus shown to be taking year after year a

rand Btronger hold upon the author's mind and a deeper

and deeper place in all his speculations.

Aj early as the year 1852 he had published in a periodical en-
t it 1. .1 The Leader a short but pithy paper on the Development
Hypothesis, which was afterward referred to by Darwin, in the
historical sketch prefixed to the Origin of Species, as presenting
the general argument for the developmental as against the spe-
cial-creation interpretation of the universe with remarkable co-

y and skill. But, while reasons were here briefly but clearly
stated for a belief in the gradual development of all organisms,
not excluding man, it must be remembered that the essay does
not contain any indication of factors adequate to the production
of the alleged effects. One process only is recognized — the pro-
cess of direct modification by the conditions of life ; and, as with
tli is process alone it is obviously impossible to account for all the
fa^ts of organic creation, the way was left open to the uniformi-
tarians to make good a temporary escape.

But this noteworthy little paper, though it contained a kind
of systematized confession of faith, was only, after all, a start-
ing-point for a long and thorough investigation of various aspects
of the subject with which it dealt. Its leading ideas, as I have
said, came little by little to suffuse all his work, and in the years
which followed they underwent consolidation and reached an ex-
pressit >n at once more definite and more complete. Was it a ques-
tion of deducing a theory of population from the general law of
animal fertility? Then we find distinct recognition of an ad-
vance from lower to higher brought about by excessive reproduc-
tion and the continual pressure of rapidly multiplying organisms

i the slowly increasing means of support (a statement in re-
gard to which we shall have a word to say further on). Did the
discussion turn upon the elaboration on a scientific basis of a true
philosophy of stylo? Then, along with the application to the

ia] phenomena of expression of the general law of " the line
of ]' mce," there is further reached the generalization—

down as applying to all products both of man and of Nature
of those two fundamental processes of evolution— the process of
differentiation and the process of integration; since it is shown that
a highly developed Btyle "will be, not a series of like parts simply
in juxtaposition, but one whole made up of unlike parts
that are mutually dependent."* Are the right and wrong ob-
jects and methods of education brought up for consideration?

• The Philosophy of Style. First published in the Westminster Review, October, 1852.

SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. 9

Then the answer given is firmly established npon the doctrine
of a gradual unfolding of the mental faculties in obedience to
natural law, the unfolding taking the form of a double-sided
change from the simple to the complex, and from the indefinite
to the definite. So is it with all other subjects whatsoever. In
the essay on Manners and Fashions, for example, emphasis is laid
upon the truths that the various forms of restraint exercised by
society as an aggregate over its individual members — such re-
straints being now clearly differentiated into ecclesiastical, politi-
cal, and ceremonial — are all natural developments from one pri-
mordial form, and that the divergence of one from the other and
of all from such primordial form takes place "in conformity
with the laws of evolution of all organized bodies." And once
again a similar line of argument is followed out in the extremely
attractive articles on the Genesis of Science and The Origin and
Function of Music. Finally, in the elaborate essay on Progress :
its Law and Cause, evolutionary principles are enunciated with
the utmost distinctness. The law of progress is shown to con-
sist in the transformation of the homogeneous into the hetero-
geneous (a partial statement afterward completed by the addition
of a factor for the time being overlooked *) ; and this process is
illustrated by examples taken from all orders of phenomena,
while the cause of the transformation is found in the law of the
multiplication of effects, afterward brought out more fully in
First Principles. In this essay, too, as in that on the Develop-
ment Hypothesis, the general law of evolution is presented as
holding good in the production of species and varieties, though
here again direct adaptation to the conditions of existence is the
only factor recognized as playing a part in the stupendous drama
of unfolding life.

I have said enough, I think, to show how active was the period
with which we have just been dealing — active alike in original
production and in the absorption of fresh material and the or-
ganization of new ideas. But the enumeration of these five-and-
twenty essays does not exhaust the record of Spencer's labors dur-
ing this time. His studies in psychology, of which the essays on
The Universal Postulate (1853) and The Art of Education (1854)
were the immediate results, took more systematic form about the
date of the publication of the latter paper ; and in 1855 the first
edition of his Principles of Psychology made its appearance. As
this work was subsequently included as a portion of the two vol-
umes on the Principles of Psychology in the synthetic system,
any analysis of its contents does not fall within the scope of the
present paper. Two remarks may, however, be appropriately made

* This additional factor being increase in definiteness. A change must consist in in-
creasing heterogeneity and increasing definiteness, to constitute evolution.

io

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the preeenl oonnection ero we pass on. In the first place, it is
well thai we should remind ourselves how enormously this book
was in advance of the whole thought of the time— not the com-
mon thoughl only, but the cultivated thought as well. It was in
: fullest sense of the term an epoch-making book— epoch-mak-
ing because it placed the study of mind, theretofore in the hands
of the metaphysicians as sterile a subject as it had proved in the
days of medifflval scholasticism, upon an entirely new and prom-
ly fertile basis. Hitherto, mental philosophy had concerned
itself only with the facts of adult human consciousness. Spencer,
realizing as we are now all able to realize, how little could ever
be accomplished by this time-worn and superficial method, broke
away from all the traditions of the schools, and started out on
an original investigation of the phenomena of mind, in the wide
sweep of which ho took in not only the mental growth of children
and savages, but also the phenomena of intelligence as displayed
by the whole range of the animate world down to the lowest
creatures. To quote his own words, "Life in its multitudinous
and infinitely varied embodiments has arisen out of the lowest
and simplest beginnings by steps as gradual as those which
evolved an homogeneous germ into a complete organism." Start-
ing from this conception, the author proceeds to treat of the
whole subject of intelligence and its forms of manifestation from
an evolutionary point of view; the Principles having "for their
object the establishment by a double process of analysis and of
synthesis, the unity of composition of the phenomena of mind,
and the continuity of their development." * My second remark
Ls pa rely a personal one, yet one which has its interest and im-
portance— though these are of a somewhat melancholy character
— in any account of Mr. Spencer's earlier writings. It was in con-
sequence of overwork while producing the volume now referred
to, that Mr. Spencer suffered a nervous breakdown which com-
pletely incapacitated him for a period of eighteen months, and
which, even after his general recovery, left him stranded in that
condition of partial and varying invalidism in which he has con-
tinued fr,,m that day to this, and under the burden of which all
subsequent great work has been done.

It is not, I think, needful to pause, after even such a rapid
summary of the activities of these ten momentous years, to say
any thin- about the extraordinary perversion of judgment which
I critics from whom, having regard to their positions and
I culture, something better was to have been expected, to
treat these writings as "stock-writings," and to refer to their
author as having "the weakness of omniscience" and a desire to

Th. Ribot, English Psychology, p. 148. London, 1873.

SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY, n

discourse on a great diversity of subjects, from the nebular hy-
pothesis to music and dancing. We are now, I believe, in a fair
position to realize how much, or rather how little, these curiosi-
ties of oracular criticism are really worth. So far from Mr. Spen-
cer's various essays during this epoch being merely examples of
flippant journalistic versatility (as such remarks as we have
spoken of would imply), we have seen how they are all united
and held together by that thread of common principle and com-
mon purpose which runs through them all. Random and unre-
lated as they may appear to superficial or careless readers, they
may, broadly speaking, be regarded as separate and methodical
studies in preparation for a complete working out in general and
in detail of the doctrine of universal evolution.

And now, why have I devoted so large a portion of the present
paper to the consideration and analysis of these earlier, more mis-
cellaneous, and, as it might seem, less important of Mr. Spencer's
writings ? Passing over the fact that in the merest sketch of the
growth and development of such a mind as his we are presented
with a study of which it would not be easy to overrate either the
interest or the value, I may say that I had hopes of achieving two
objects by following the present course. In the first place, by
thus making ourselves to some extent acquainted with the pro-
gression and consolidation of Spencer's thought, we have, I think,
very materially aided in fitting ourselves for the study of those
ideas in the full and highly developed forms in which they ap-
pear in the pages of the Synthetic Philosophy ; and, in the sec-
ond place, it is by traveling together over this preparatory
ground, as we have done, that we have been enabled to reach a
vantage-point from which I trust it will now be easy for us to
take such a survey of the general field as will help us to estimate
with some degree of accuracy the real relation of Herbert Spencer
to the great modern doctrine of evolution.

And this is a question upon which I would fain make myself
particularly clear, because it is one in reference to which there
has long been and still is current an enormous amount of miscon-
ception, not only among the mass of men and women (which would
be only natural), but also, and as it seems a little strangely, among
even the thoughtful and generally well informed. A vagueness
and instability in the meaning of certain words in common use
has been in this case, as in so many others, a main cause of con-
fusion of ideas; another instance being thus furnished of the
truth of Lord Bacon's dictum that, while we fondly suppose that
we govern our vocabulary, it not infrequently happens that, as a
matter of fact, our vocabulary governs us. In the common speech
of the day the word Darwinism is almost invariably employed as
if it were absolutely synonymous with the word evolution : the

1 ;

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

one is treated as being al all points not only coextensive but also
cointensive with the other. Two noteworthy results of this mdis-
crimination are: first, that Darwin is habitually regarded as the
author of the modern doctrine of evolution at large; and, sec-
ondly, that this doctrine has, ever since the publication of his
great work on the Origin of Species, become so intimately bound
up with the special views therein contained, that by the correct-
or incorrectness of those special views the whole theory of

ilntion is supposed to stand or fall.

Thai this confusion, like all such confusions, has been fraught
with many and varied philosophic drawbacks and dangers is a
point which wo need not here pause to emphasize; such draw-
lacks and dangers must be sufficiently patent to all. Here we
aro principally concerned with the entirely unjust and erroneous
estimate of the historical significance of Mr. Spencer's w^ork, and
consequently of the relations of Mr. Spencer himself to the great-
est of modern generalizations, which originated from or which at

• has been largely kept alive by the misconception of which I

ik.

To what extent this unjust and erroneous estimate has taken
mot, even in more cultivated thought, may be shown briefly and
conclusively by one or two quotations. For example, we find the
London Saturday Review remarking, in the course of an article
on Prof. Tyndall's famous Belfast address, that "what Darwin
has done for physiology [!] Spencer would do for psychology, by
applying to the nervous system particularly the principles which
his teacher had already enunciated for the physical system gener-
ally." In much the same strain, and obviously under the same im-
pressii >n that Mr. Spencer's ideas were all obtained at second hand,*
a gentleman whom we are sorry to detect in such carelessness —
Colonel Higginson — writes, "It seems rather absurd to attribute
to him [Spencer] as a scientific achievement any vast enlargement
<>r further generalization of the modern scientific doctrine of evo-
lution." ( face more, sketching out the college life of his friend,
late lamented Prof. Clifford, with whose untimely death so
many brilliant promises came to naught, Mr. Frederick Pollock
" Meanwhile, he [Clifford] was eagerly assimilating the
which had become established as an assured possession of
Lence by Mr. Darwin, and were being applied to the systematic

aping and gathering together of human knowledge by Mr.

rbert Spencer." And, finally (not to weary by needlessly

>a perhaps never been so original a thinker as Mr. Spencer who has had such
Jggle to get or keep possession of the credit due to his own ideas. Not only is
ineed to the position of a mere aide-de-camp of Darwin, but manv of his critics
• ary m Insisting, spite of all disproof of their assertions, upon his vital indebt-
edness to Augusts Comte.

SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. 13

multiplying quotations), a man whose name is of infinitely
greater weight in the world of philosophy and of letters than
that of the pert critic of the Saturday Review, or the gallant
American colonel, or the well-known English lawyer — a man
from whom, on account of his own contributions to the study of
psychology and of his wide and deep knowledge of England and
English thought, a more correct judgment might have been
looked for — I mean M. Taine — has thus summed up his view of
Mr. Spencer's work : " Mr. Spencer possesses the rare merit of
having extended to the sum of phenomena — to the whole history
of Nature and of mind — the two master-thoughts which for the
past thirty years have been giving new form to the positive sci-
ences ; the one being Mayer and Joule's Conservation of Energy,
the other Darwin's Natural Selection."

Now, all this, to the extent to which expressly or by impli-
cation it relegates to Mr. Spencer merely the labors of an adapter,
enlarger, or popularizer of other men's thoughts, is entirely false
and unfounded — ludicrously false and unfounded, as the general
survey of Mr. Spencer's writings which we have just taken shows
beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt. So far from its seeming
" rather absurd " to credit to Mr. Spencer any great personal con-
tribution to the formulation of the doctrine of evolution ; so far
from his being in any sense of the term a pupil or unattached fol-
lower of Darwin, we have seen that he had worked his own way
independently, from a different starting-point and through an en-
tirely dissimilar course of investigation, to a conception of evolu-
tion as a universal process underlying all phenomena whatsoever,
before Darwin himself had made public his special study of the
operation of one of the factors of evolution in the limited sphere
of the organic world. A simple comparison of dates will serve to
make this point sufficiently clear. The first edition of the Origin
of Species was published in the latter part of 1859. The essay on
the Development Hypothesis appeared in 1852 ; in 1855— or four
years before the advent of Darwin's book— there came the first
edition of the Principles of Psychology, in which the laws of
evolution (already conceived as universal) were traced out in
their operations in the domain of mind ; and this was followed in
1857 by the essay on Progress : its Law and Cause, which con-
tains a statement of the doctrine of evolution in its chief outlines,
and an inductive and deductive development of that doctrine in
its application to all classes of phenomena. Spencer's independ-
ence of Darwin is thus placed beyond possibility of question.

Let it not for a moment be imagined that I am endeavoring in
the slightest degree to underestimate the special value or impor-
tance of Darwin's magnificent work. Yielding him the fullest
meed of praise for the great part which he undoubtedly played in

»4

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thedevel >pmen1 1 »f scientific thought, I am aiming only to show, as
(.;m hown,and as simple justice requires to be shown,

t}1;i. atogether an exaggeration to speak of him as the father

of the modem doctrine of .volution. What Darwin did was to
amasa an enormous number of facts from almost every department
0f 0 :ll science, and by the devoted labor, patient examina-

tion, and long-searching thought of many studious years, to

blish, once and for all, not the reality of evolution, nor even
the laws and conditions of evolution, but the operation of one of
the main factors of evolution — a factor which, though it had till
his time entirely eluded the scientific mind, was yet required to
render comprehensible a vast array of phenomena otherwise with-
out interpretation. How near Mr. Spencer's own investigations
had l.i] him to a realization of the process of natural selection, or,
as he afterward called it, the survival of the fittest in the struggle
for existence, we have already been able to remark, and he himself
took occasion to point out, when in the course of his later work

ame 1<> deal more systematically with the whole problem of
animal fertility and its practical implications.* But the factors
mainly relied upon by him, in common with all pre-Darwinian de-

ipmentalists, were the direct action of the environment and the
inheritance, with increase, of functionally-produced modifications ;
and as these processes, whatever might be their individual impor-
tance (and this is probably somewhat underrated by scientists of
■nt day), were obviously incapable of throwing light upon
a large part — perhaps the larger part — of the facts which pressed
f'-r explanation, the theory of evolution could not for the time
being hope for inductive establishment. Darwin's book put the
whole question upon a new foundation, by exhibiting a process
which did account for the hitherto unmanageable facts; and un-
doubtedly it was thus to a large extent effectual in bringing the
general theory intoopen court as an entertainable hypothesis. But
while all this is freely conceded— while the greatness of Darwin's
work in itself, and its importance as a contribution to scientific
LOUght, are acknowledged without hesitation, it has still to be
red that that work was special and limited in character,
and that with the general doctrine of evolution at large it had
bself nothing whatever to do. The laws of evolution as a nniver-

Of Biology, vol. ii, p. 500, note. The whole of this very interesting

fled carefully, not only because it makes clear the scientific relations

" Ud Darwin, but also for the foreshadowing which it contains of a reaction

IttBive recognition of natural selection which soon became typical of bio-

ndoita nt large. In hi., little work, recently published, on The Factors of Organic

"t'"n, H oet has opened the whole question up afresh, by showing that, to ob-

ful! fk w of the methods of evolution, other processes besides natural selection have

to be taken into account.

SPENCER AND THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. 15

sal process — a matter which the aims and objects of Darwin's work
did not lead him to touch — were worked out by Mr. Spencer quite
irrespective of the special process of natural selection ; and when
Darwin's book appeared, that process fell into its place in Spencer's
general system, quite naturally, as a supplementary and not in
any way as a disturbing element. Thus it appears that if any one
man is to be looked upon as the immediate progenitor of a doc-
trine which, in common phraseology, may be said to have been to
some extent in the air, that man is not he who first elucidated one
factor of its process in one domain of phenomena — the biological;
but rather he who first seized iipon it as a universal law, under-
lying all the phenomena of creation ; in a word, it is not Charles
Darwin, but Herbert Spencer.

One word only, in conclusion, about the train of causes which
immediately led up to the projection of the vast work with which
Mr. Spencer's name is more particularly associated — the System
of Synthetic Philosophy.

It was in 1858, while he was engaged on writing an essay on the
Nebular Hypothesis, that there dawned upon him the possibility
of dealing in a more systematic and connected manner than he
had hitherto found possible, with those foundation principles of
evolution to which he had been led by the miscellaneous studies
of the past eight or nine years. The germ of thought thus im-
planted forthwith began to develop with amazing rapidity, and
before long assumed the proportions of an elaborate scheme, in
which all orders of concrete phenomena were to fall into their
places as illustrations of the fundamental processes of evolution.
Thus the conception of evolution presented itself to him as the
basis of a system of thought under which was to be generalized
the complete history of the knowable universe, and by virtue of
which all branches of scientific knowledge were to be unified by
affiliation upon the primal laws underlying them all. Though a
rough sketch of the main outlines of the system, as they occurred
to him at the time, was mapped out almost immediately, it was not
till the following year, 1859 — a year otherwise memorable for the
publication of Darwin's book — that a detailed plan of the various
connected works in which these conceptions were to be developed
was finally drawn up ; and not till 1860 that it was given to the
small handful of readers interested in such subjects in the form
of a prospectus. This prospectus included a brief summary of a
proposed series of ten volumes, embracing thirty-three divisions
or topics ; and any one who cares to take the trouble of comparing
it, as it stood when it first saw the light, thirty years ago, with the
contents of the different volumes and portions of volumes which
have been published up to the present time, will, I think, be as-
tounded to observe the singular correspondence between them — a

l6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

correspondence which .hows how fully and accurately Spencer
himself must have had the whole vast plan marked out in his
lnil. D down to the veriest details, before he sat down to

oomrnit himself to the pinning of a single line.

, having followed Mr. Spencer to the verge of the great
undertaking to the prosecution of which he has devoted the ener-
his after-life, we draw our paper to a close; our present
purpose ii"t emhracing any direct consideration of that undertak-
in itself. The hope which we have ventured to entertain is,
thai even such a rapid review as we have thus taken of the earlier
period of Mr. Spencer's intellectual activity may prove to be not
altogether without its uses to the earnest student of that wonder-
ful Bi riea < >f works which, by the common consent of all those most
entitled to judge, have won for their author a foremost place
long the greatest thinkers of all time.

♦»»

SCIENCE AND FINE ART.*

Bt emil du bois-keymond.

II.

[Concluded.]

ON still another side the development of photography has
sured instructive data for art. In the year 1836 the broth-
ers William and Edward Weber, in their famous work on the
Bit thanism of the Human Organs of Locomotion, represented a
man walking in the positions which it was theoretically supposed
he must go through during the time of making a step. The strange
feature was remarked that while the pictures corresponded at the
inning and the end of the step, when the man for a short time
had both feet on the ground, with the representations which the
ters had always given of a walking man, in the middle of the
when the moving leg was swinging by the stationary leg, the
mosi eccentric and ludicrous spectacle was presented. The man
appeared, like a drunken street musician, to be stumbling over his
own feet Never had anybody seen a walking man in such a situa-
tion. The brothers Weber proposed on the last page of their work
the correctness of their schematic drawings by the aid of
topic slides of Stampfer and Plateau, as in the figures
's d8Bdaleum,t which has curiously come back to us
America as a novelty under the name of the zoetrope or

iln.itz Commemoration-day in the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, July

Magazine, etc., January, 1834, Ser. Ill, vol. iv, p. 36. Poggendorff's
Annalcn, etc., 1834, vol. xxxii, p. 650.

SCIENCE AND FINE ART. 17

vivantoscope ; but it is still not clear whether their purpose was
carried out.

Dr. William Weber lived to see himself and his brother fully-
sustained, after nearly half a century, by instantaneous photog-
raphy. Mr. Eadweard Muybridge, of San Francisco, applied it
in 1872, at the suggestion of Mr. Stanford, to fix the attitudes of
horses in the successive positions of different paces. The same
phenomena were revealed in the photographs as in the Webers'
schematic drawings. Pictures came out the like of which nobody-
believed had ever really been seen.* Directed upon street scenes,
processions, etc., the camera took many views of men in quite as
astonishing positions as those which the brothers Weber had at-
tributed to them on theoretical grounds. It was not different
with the wonderful series of pictures of a flying bird and its wing-
strokes which M. Marey has obtained with his photographic gun.f

The explanation of these facts is evidently- that, when an object
moves with periodically varying velocities, we get a stronger and
more durable impression of the situations in which it halts, and a
weaker and more fugitive one of those in which it moves swiftly.
Even without knowing this law, no painter will represent the
Black Forest clock in a peasant's room with a vertical pendu-
lum, for, if he did, every observer would ask why the clock was
stopped. For the pendulum, when it has swung to one side and
is about to return, necessarily stops for an instant, and this situa-
tion of pausing at one side impresses us more strongly than the
one in which the pendulum is passing through its point of equi-
librium with the greatest velocity. It is the same with the alter-
nately swinging legs of the walking man : he pauses longer in
the position in which both of his legs are at rest, and for the
shortest time in that in which the moving leg swings in front of
the resting leg. The last position and those near it, therefore,
make substantially no impression upon us. We figure to our-
selves the walking man, and the painter represents him accord-
ingly in the position in which between two steps he touches the
ground with both feet.

Something very curious is observed in the running of the
horse. No matter how frequent the intervals at which the pict-
ure is taken, we never get the usual figure of a racing or hunting
horse as it comes to us from England, and as we see it in the
pictures that are hung up in the show-windows of the shops at
the time of races and hunts, and as it in fact strikes our eyes on

* The Horse in Motion, as shown by Instantaneous Photography (London, 1S82) — now
published under the title Animal Locomotion ; an Electro-photographic Investigation of
Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements, etc.

f Developpement de la Methode graphique par l'emploi de la Photographie. Supple-
ment, etc. Paris, 1885, pp. 12 et seq.
vol. xli. — 2

,8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

looking a1 the h< »rse in motion. A difference may be marked here
from what is the case with man; for, among the pictures of men

Iking, taken casually or methodically, besides those which are
Dover Been with the eye, some also appear which correspond with
the « -mmon idea of a walking man. The difference depends upon
the fact that the moment in which the outstretched fore legs of
the racing horse make their longer pause does not coincide with
the one in which the backward-thrown hind legs do so. Both of
these situations are apt to impress themselves upon the eye and
blend in the resultant conception of the racer, but instantaneous
photography catches them one after the other.

An American illustrated journal, in 1882, had a picture of a
hurdle-race, in which all the horses appeared in real attitudes, bor-
rowed from the Muybridge photographs, as only the fast-receiving
plate can see them. Prof. Eder, of Vienna, communicated these
suggestive sketches to us in a paper on instantaneous photography,*
and a rarer spectacle is hardly conceivable. But when the series
of pictures of a periodically moved object taken at sufficiently
short intervals, whether it is presented to the eye in the dseda-
leum or each picture is illuminated for an instant in its passage,
is well projected, the original thought of the Weber brothers is
realized : the periodical motion, dissected as it were into differential
pictures, is integrated again into an impression of the whole, and
the accuracy of the apparently false pictures is demonstrated.
The latter experiment has been worked out by Mr. Muybridge
himself in his zoopraxiscope, and among us by Herr Ottomar
Anschiitz, who manages instantaneous photography with extraor-
dinary skill, in his electrical stroboscope. In both methods we
see men and horses walking, running, jumping ; but there is still
one thing to be remarked — that is, that since the length of the
passage past the eye of one of the slits of the dsedaleum or of the
illumination of the directly visible picture is the same for all the
pictures, the appearance of the whole impression of the move-
ment is a little different from the view of the same movement
itself. That the position in which both feet of the walking man
are standing nevertheless preponderates in the impression, is due
to tho fact that the motion of the legs becomes slower in ap-
proaching this position, so that their rapidly recurring pictures
nearly cover one another.

Tho series of instantaneous pictures of an athlete during a
re exercise, which Mr. Muybridge and Herr Anschiitz have
are m themselves a rich source of instruction in the rep-
resentation of the nude. Herr Anschiitz's stroboscope shows us
the Bpear-thrower and the quoit-caster in the different stages of

* Die Moroentphotographie. Vienna, 1870, p. 10.

SCIENCE AND FINE ART. 19

their greatest strain: we see their muscles swell and contract,
while at last the missile still appears in the picture after it has
been thrown ; for it can not move faster than the hand at the mo-
ment it leaves it. Equally useful are the instantaneous photo-
graphs of domestic and wild animals of all kinds which Herr
Anschutz has taken destined to be to the animal painter.

Instantaneous photography has been applied with surprising
results, as every one knows, even to the surf in storms. But the
sea painter must not forget, in the use of such pictures, that our
eye can not see the waves as the quickly perceiving plate does,
and that one may therefore easily give us a picture of them as
incorrect in some respects as that of the stationary clock or of the
man stumbling over his feet.

Finally, the former method of representing lightning as a fiery
zigzag is, as Mr. Shelf ord Bidwell has very recently shown by
the evidence of two hundred instantaneous photographs, quite as
false as were the old pictures of racing horses. Mr. Eric Stuart
Bruce has, indeed, tried to save the zigzag lightning of the artists
by seeing in it the reflection on the cumulus clouds ; but we can
not understand how an acute-angled zigzag can be produced in
that way.*

Prof, von Brticke has in a special essay worked out the rule
for the representation of motion in art,f which, like the laws of
the combination of colors, has been unconsciously followed by the
masters. From photography in natural colors, of which artists
and laymen continue to dream and hope much, there is unhappily
not only for the immediate future, but, on theoretical grounds
which experience will hardly contradict, for all the future, little or
nothing to be expected. There is a question whether photography
will not have an unfavorable influence in the arts of reproduc-
tion, copper-engraving, lithography, and wood-engraving, whose
place it is taking to a widening extent. So faithful is it that it
even in a certain sense depreciates the original pictures of the old
masters by making them common property.

Is it possible that it should not seem wholly superfluous to
speak here of the advantage which the study of anatomy affords
to the artist ? Has not the Borghese gladiator suggested the
conjecture of anatomical mysteries among the Grecian artists as
the only means by which they could achieve so perfect a repre-
sentation of the uncovered male body ? Did not Michael Angelo
acquire by long years of anatomical study the knowledge that
justified the unparalleled boldness of his attitudes and foreshort-
enings of the body, which have remained to this day the object

* Nature, etc., No. 1076, vol. xlii, June 12, 1890, p. 151 ; No. 1078, June 26, p. 197.
f Deutsche Rundschau, 1881, Bd. xxvi, p. 9 et seq.

20

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the admiration of naturalists like Prof. Henke and Prof, von
Bruoke?* Are there not institutions maintained by the state
wherever art is systematically cultivated for the purpose of giv-
ili opportunity to train the eye on the cadaver to a clearer
perception of what can be seen in the living body beneath the
akin ? H a vo not three of the later members of this Academy been
ned in succession to give such instruction here in Ber-
lin ? Finally, have we not excellent manuals of anatomy pre-

i especially for artists ?
But the most distinguished art- writer of our day, who assumes
a tone of authority that no Lessing exercised, and who enjoys at
home the honor and fame of a Lessing, Mr. Ruskin, in his lectures
at the Art School in Oxford, on the Relation of Science to Art,
expressly forbids his pupils busying themselves with anatomy.
Likewise, in his preface, he laments the deleterious influence
anatomy had on Mantegna and Diirer, in contrast with Botticelli
and Holbein, who kept themselves free from it. "The habit of
contemplating the anatomical structure of the human form," he

later on, "is not only a hindrance but a degradation, and
has been essentially destructive to every school of art in which it
has been practiced " ; and he adds to this that under its influence
the painter, as in the case of Diirer, sees and portrays only the
skull in the face. "The artist should take every sort of view of
animals except one — the butcher's view. He is never to think of
them as bones and meat." \

It would be a waste of time and trouble to refute such er-
rors, and demonstrate what an indispensable help the artist
finds in anatomy, without which he would be groping as in
a fog. It is very nice for him to depend upon his eyes, but
still better to have learned, for example, in what the female
skeleton is different from the male; why the knee-pan follows
the direction of the foot when the leg is stretched out, but does
not when it is bent ; why the profile of the upper arm with the
hand supine is different from the profile in pronation ; why the
furrows and wrinkles of the face run as they do in relation to the
muscles beneath them. Camper's facial angle, although it has

di-throned for more important objects by Herr Virchow's

' , furnishes a great deal of information. How, without

acquaintance with the skull, a forehead can be modeled, or the

rure of a forehead like that of the Jupiter of Otricoli or of the

can be understood, is hardly comprehensible. It is true

that anatomical forms may be abused by fantastic exaltation, as

been often remarked with respect to Michael Angelo's suc-

• Deutsche Bundachau, 1875, vol. v, p. 216; 1890, vol. Lrii, p. 26; vol. lxlv, p. 413.
% Tl \cst. Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art, 188-7, pp.

107, i > ri

SCIENCE AND FINE ART. 21

cessors ; but there can be no better counteractive to this Michael-
angelesque mannerism than an earnest study of the real. And a
little comparative anatomy protects against such faults as that
which overtook a very famous master, who made a joint too many
in the hind leg of a horse ; or, as we see on the Fontaine Cuvier
near the Jardin des Plantes, to the diversion of the naturalist, a
crocodile bending its stiff neck so far back that the snout almost
touches the side of the animal.

We are, however, the less astonished at Mr. Ruskin's judgment
when we learn that he also lays the same ban upon the study of
the nude as upon that of anatomy. It should extend, he says, no
further than health, custom, and propriety permit the exposure of
the body, for which the use of anatomy would certainly be limited.
It is well that propriety, custom, and health permitted more free-
dom on this point among the Hellenes than exists in England.
Fortunately, the English department of the Jubilee Exhibition
four years ago gave us opportunity to satisfy ourselves that Mr.
Ruskin's dangerous paradoxes had not been carried out, and
allowed us to forget them in the sight of Mr. Alma Tadema's and
Mr. Herkomer's magnificent contributions. Mr. Walter Crane's
charming series of pictures, which adorn our book tables, have
also risen up against Mr. Ruskin's absurd doctrine.

In the same lectures Mr. Ruskin assailed the theory of selec-
tion and descent with great vigor, and attacked the censure, based
upon it, of artists' pictures representing vertebrates with more
than four extremities. He said : " Can any law be conceived
more arbitrary or more apparently causeless ? What strongly
planted three-legged animals there might have been ! What
systematically radiant five-legged ones ! What volatile six-
winged ones ! What circumspect seven-headed ones ! Had Dar-
winism been true, we should long ago have split our heads in two
with foolish thinking, or thrust out, from above our covetous
hearts, a hundred desirous arms and clutching hands, and changed
ourselves into Briarean cephalopods." *

It is clear from these words that this false prophet had no
notion of what we in morphology call a type. Can it be necessary
to tell Sir Richard Owen's and Prof. Huxley's countryman that
every vertebrate has as the foundation of its body a vertebral
column, expanding in front into the skull, and contracting behind
into the tail ; encircled in front and behind by two bone girdles,
the pectoral and the pelvic arches, from which depend the fore
and the hinder extremities, regularly jointed ? That paleontology
has never discovered a vertebrate form divergent from this type
is certainly a striking argument in favor of the theory of descent

* The Eagle's Nest, p. 204.

22

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and against the doctrine of special creations ; for it is not easy to
see why a free creating power should impose such limitations

m itself. So little does Nature vary from the once given type
that teratology traces deformities back to it. None of these are
real monstrosities ; not even those with only one eye in the middle
Of the forehead, in which Herr Exner looked for the original of the
Cyclops, while Flaxman erroneously gave Polyphemus three eyes,
a third in the forehead, besides the two normal but blind eyes.
K.al monsters are those invented in the youth of art by an un-
tamed power of portrayal— winged forms, originally derived from
the East : the bulls of Nimroud, the Harpies, Pegasus, the Sphinx,
the griffin ; Artemis, Psyche, the Notos from the Tower of the
Winds, the Victory, the angels of the Semitic-Christian cycle.
A third pair of extremities (and a fourth appears in Ezekiel) is
not only paratypically but mechanically absurd, for the muscles
needed to move them are wanting. With happy tact, Schiller
has avoided, in the Battle with the Dragon, endowing the mon-
ster with the usual wings; and Retsch in his illustrations fur-
nished it with a form so possible in comparative anatomy that
one might have fancied the plesiosaurus or a zeuglodon had re-
turned and become a land-animal.

To the winged figures may be added, as similar abominations,
the Centaurs with two chests and stomachs and double viscera,
and Cerberus and the hydra with many heads on many necks,
warm-blooded hippocamps and Tritons, whose bodies, without
hinder extremities, end in a cold-blooded fish, a conception at the
thought of which even Horace was shocked. If they had had at
least a horizontal tail-paddle, one might find in them a kind of
cetacean. More easily borne are the cloven-footed fauns, horns,
pointed ears, and hoofs of which have been inherited by our devil,
whose menaces, therefore, in Franz von Kobell's witty apology,
Cuvier laughed at as those of a harmless vegetable feeder. The
heraldic beasts, like double eagles and unicorns, set up no claims
to art, and are protected by historical prescription against the
criticism they intrinsically deserve.

It is a remarkable example of the accommodating disposition
of our sense of beauty, that though we are well instructed in the
principles of morphology, our eyes are not more offended by some
of these false creatures, such as the winged figures of Nike and
tin- angels; and it would perhaps be pedantic and idle to forbid
artists these time-honored rather symbolical representations, of
which the greatest masters of the best periods have only made a
v. ry moderate use. But such indulgence has its limits. The
giants in our Gigantomachia, whose thighs change at half their
length into serpents, and which, instead of two legs, stand on two
vertebral columns running out into heads, with separate brains,

SCIENCE AND FINE ART. 23

spinal marrows, hearts, intestinal canals, lungs, kidneys, and
sense-organs, are and remain an intolerable sight to the mor-
phologically cultivated eye, and prove that, although the sculp-
tors of Pergamon were superior in technical ability to their pre-
decessors of the age of Pericles, they were inferior to them in re-
finement of artistic feeling. They were perhaps pardonable, so
far as tradition bound them, for making giants with snakes' legs.
The hippocamps and the Tritons with horses' legs and double
fish-tails which disfigure the railings of our Schlossbrucke, come
from another time, when the antique still ruled unrestrained and
morphological standards were less common property than they
are now. But it is a matter of deep moment to us, if a famous
painter of the present suffers such monstrosities, issuing from
the trunk, as sleek, sheeny salmon hardly concealing the line
between the human skin and the scales, to dance realistically
on the cliffs or splash around in the sea. The multitude ad-
mires such blue sea-marvels as works of genius ; what a genius,
then, must Hollen-Breughel have been !

Singularly enough, the primitive men in the caves of Pe'ri-
gord, contemporaries of the mammoth and the musk ox in
France, and the Bushmen, whose paintings Herr Fritsch discov-
ered,* only painted the animals known to them as truly as they
could, while the comparatively highly civilized Aztecs outran all
that is Oriental in abominable inventions. It almost seems as if
bad taste belonged to a certain middle stage of culture. It fol-
lows from what we have said that anatomical instruction in art
schools should not be confined to osteology, myology, and the
theory of human motion, but should take pains to inculcate in
the pupils — not a very hard thing — the fundamental principles of
vertebrate morphology.

It should be the task of botanists to expose the breaches of
the laws of the metamorphoses of plants which meet them so
frequently in the acanthus arabesques, palmettos, rosettes, and
scroll ornaments that are borrowed from the antique. But for
obvious reasons these offenses do not afflict the student of plants
so painfully as malformations of men and animals, repulsive to a
sound taste, affect the comparative anatomist. Moreover, a more
wholesome turn has lately come over floral ornament. When in
the Renaissance the Gothic was displaced by the antique, art was
impoverished of ornamental motives. The richness of invention,
the naive observation of Nature, of which the rows of capitals
in many cloisters bear witness, yielded gradually to a conventional
schematism at the base of which was nothing real. But as Rauch
at Carrara, instead of the eagle of a statue of Jupiter, made

* Drei Jahre in Siidafrica. Reiseskitzzen, etc. Breslau, 1868, pp. 99, 100.

2 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

his studies for the birds of Lis monument upon a golden eagle
which was captured there, so art began about the middle of the
century to free itself from this dead conventionalism, and, corn-
bin in-" truth to Nature with beauty, applied itself again to the
rv.it ion and appropriation of the world of living plants
ind us. Japanese art long ago struck out the right way in
this region, and has been an inspiring motive for us. The minor
•rations of the house, and the decorations of women's cloth-
ing, ha v.- been most happily enriched by it.

Perhaps the naturalist will be accused of a lack of logical
sequence if he, in another direction, renounces regard for the laws
of Nature in art. The thousand soaring and flying figures in the
art works of ancient and modern times undoubtedly defy the
universal and fundamental law of gravitation quite as much as
the most offensive creation of a perverted fancy defies the funda-
mental laws, vital only in a few adepts, of comparative anatomy.
Still, they do not displease us. We should rather see them with-
out wings than with paratypical wings which could not be of use
when of the usual size and without an immense muscular devel-
opment. "We are thus not shocked at the Sistine Madonna stand-
ing on the clouds and the figures beside her kneeling on the same
impossible ground. The face of Ezekiel in the Pitti Palace is less
acceptable. On the other hand, to mention later examples, in
the procession of the gods hastening to the help of the Trojans,
by Flaxman, Cornelius's Apocalyptic horseman, and Ary Schef-
fer's divine Francesca di Rimini, which Gustave Dore* hopelessly
tried to rival, our pleasure is not disturbed by the unphysical
character of the positions. We likewise do not object to Flax-
man's Sleep and Death bearing the body of Sarpedon through
the air.

Herr Exner, in his admirable address on the Physiology of
Flying and Soaring in Plastic Art,* tries to answer the question
why these impossible representations of conditions never seen
in man or beast, appear so natural and unexceptionable. I can
not agree in the solution with which he seems prepossessed. He
thinks that we experience something similar in ourselves in swim-
ming, and that in diving we see persons swimming over us, as
we w< raid in flying. If we reflect within how short a time swim-
ming has been made more general among civilized men, and
recently it has become an exercise of women, who are no less
with the soaring figures, doubt arises concerning Herr
mert explanation. It would be even hazardous to appeal in a
Darwinian fashion to an atavistic impression coming down from
the fish ago of man. And are not the sensations and the views

* Vienna, 1882.

SCIENCE AND FINE ART. 25

of the skater still closer to those of a flying, soaring being than
those of the swimmer ? More pleasing to me is Herr Exner's re-
mark, which I have also made myself, that under especially
favorable bodily conditions we occasionally have in dreams the
inspiring illusion of soaring and flying. Thus —

..." in each soul is born the pleasure

Of yearning onward, upward, and away,
When o'er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure,

The lark sends down his flickering lay;
When over crags and piny highlands

The poising eagle slowly soars,
And over plains and lakes and islands

The crane sails by to other shores."

Who would not ever and ever again with Faust strive to reach
the setting sun and to see the still world in eternal twilight at
his feet ? But what we should be glad to do, we are glad to hear
of in song and to see in pictures before our eyes. The longing
to rise in the ether, to travel in the sky, and similar visions,
still come to the help of the old delusion of mankind concerning
the heavenly abode of the blessed away up in the starry canopy,
to which Giordano Bruno put an end; but not so completely
but that we sometimes fail to realize how terrible a journey in
endless, airless, frigid space would be to us, in which even a swift,
steadily flying eagle could only after long years light upon a
planet of doubtful habitability.

What, now, can art do for science in return for so many and
various services ? Aside from external matters, like the represen-
tation of natural objects, it does not offer much of a different
character from the reaction of the painter's experience in the
mixing and combination of colors, on the doctrine of colors, an
effect which is indeed not comparable with that of the retroac-
tion of music on acoustics. The ancients had a canon of the pro-
portions of the human body, attributed to Polycletes, which, how-
ever, as Herr Merkel has lately charged * applied, to the disad-
vantage of many an ancient work of art, only to the grown figure ;
a deficiency which Gottfried Schadow first systematically reme-
died. This theory has lately become the foundation of a very
promising branch of anthropology— anthropometry in its applica-
tion to the races of men.

If we extend our idea of art so as to include artistic thought
and creation, there will not then be wanting relations and tran-
sitions between artist and naturalist, how far soever their paths
may diverge. Yet it is not certain that an artistic conception of
its problems would redound wholly to the good of natural sci-

* Deutsche Piundschau, 1888, vol. lvi, p. 414.

,6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

... The p'-i-v. >rs inn of German science under the name of natu-
ral philosophy at the beginning of the century was as much of
Bathetic as of metaphysical origin, and even Goethe's scientific
efforts had the same background. This artistic comprehension
of the problems of Nature is defective because it is satisfied to
stop with the finely rounded figures, and does not press onward
fco the causal connections of the fact, to the limits of our under-
standing. It suffices, where it is concerned with the perceptions
of the resemblances of organic forms with plastic fancies, as in
the plant stem or the vertebrate skeleton; it fails when, as in
the theory of colors, instead of mathematically and physically
analyzing, it satisfies itself with the contemplation of presump-
t iv.-ly original phenomena. It was reserved for Herr von Briicke
to trace the colors of dark media, on which Goethe based his Far-
benlehre, and which to this day spread confusion instead of
clearness in many German heads, by the aid of the undulatory
theory to its true source. The difference between artistic and
scientific treatment is prominently set forth in this incident.*

Yet it should not be said that artistic feeling may not be of
use to the theoretical naturalist. There is an aesthetic of research
which strives to impart mechanical beauty in the sense in which
we have defined it to an experiment; and the experimenter will
not regret having responded as far as possible to its demands.
At the transition-line between the literary and the scientific pe-
riod of a nation's civilization, there rises, under the influence of
the declining and that of the ascending genius, a tendency to a
more vivid representation of natural phenomena, as is illustrated
in France by Buffon and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and in Ger-
many by Alexander von Humboldt, in whom it continued vital
till extreme age. In this sense, as I have once said here and set
it forth as a desirable end, a strictly scientific treatise may under
a tasteful hand become an art-work like a novel, f The attain-
ment of perfection in this direction will reward the naturalist for
the labor, for it affords the best means of proving the faultless
accuracy of the chain of reasoning comprehending the results of
his observations. And in examples of this kind of beauty, which
often flows unsought and unconsciously through the pen of talent,
n< . lark will be found in our Leibnitz.— Translated for Tlie Popular
Scu run Monthly from the Deutsche Rundschau.

The deepest Bounding yet found in the Mediterranean Sea was obtained by an
-ian expedition in July, 1891, between Malta and Crete, 14,436 feet. At 22J
nnk-9 southeast, of this, a sounding of 13,148 feet was taken.

• Popgendorffs Annalen, etc., 1853, vol. lxxxviii, p. 363 et seq. Die Physiologie der
i arhon. Second edition, p. 104.

t Uebcr eine kaiscrliche Akademie der deutschen Sprache. Reden, etc., vol. i, p. 160.

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN. z7

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN.

By W. H. LAKEABEE.

STORIES of men who lived or worked in caves abound in his-
tory, mythology, and folk-lore tales. The youthful imagina-
tion is charmed with accounts of robbers' caves, from that of the
forty thieves down to those described in Gil Bias and those which
are associated with the robber period of the history of the Mis-
sissippi Valley. Mythology furnishes caves of giants, those to
which heroes have resorted, and the homes of supernatural beings
or of gnomes like the Niebelungen and the " little people." Such
stories are suggested by the obvious fact that a cave may afford a
safe and convenient place of refuge when no better is at hand ;
and their imaginative features are the outcome of the rarity or
remoteness of experiences of cave-life within historic times — dis-
tance lending enchantment to the view.

Tribes of cave-dwelling men, or troglodytes, are described by
ancient writers as having lived in Egypt, Ethiopia, on the borders
of the Red Sea, and in the Caucasus. The Red Sea region was
called by the Greeks from this fact Troglodytice. Some of the
ancient caves in Arabia are still occupied by Bedouins.

The caves of the troglodytes near Ain Tarsil, in Morocco,
which have been visited by Balanza and Sir Joseph Hooker, and
described by a correspondent of the London Times, are situated
in a narrow gorge, the cliffs of which rise almost perpendicularly
from a deep valley, and are cut in the solid rock at a considerable
height from the ground. In some places they are in single tiers,
and in other places two or three tiers, one above the other, and
inaccessible except by ropes and ladders. The entrances give ac-
cess to rooms of comfortable size, furnished with windows, which
were in some cases connected with other smaller rooms, also fur-
nished with windows. The appearance of the caves, attesting that
great pains were taken to secure comfort, is hardly consistent with
the conception of the troglodytes as savages, which has been drawn
from Hanno's account of them. Caves have been much used for
burials, and have suggested the form of various artificial burial-
places. The ancient Egyptians used natural caves or hollowed
out artificial ones, preparing elaborate suites of chambers, ante-
chambers, and recesses, and adorning them with brilliant paint-
ings and art-works of religious significance. The recovery and
exploration of these tombs constitute one of the most interesting
and profitable branches of modern archaeological research. The
most ancient real-estate transaction recorded in a historical book
is the purchase of the cave of Machpelah from the children of
Heth by Abraham, to be his family burial-place ; and it is still

28

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

guarded as Buch &\ Hebron by a Mohammedan mosque, which
only the children of the faith and no infidel can pass.

U, markable vestiges of the cave-life of antiquity may be seen
Ln the rock-hewn city of Petra in Edom, some fifty miles south of
the I >• ad Sea. The valley in which it stood is lined on either side
with the remains of tombs, temples, and perhaps habitations,
excavated oui of the rock. These structures are supposed to date
from a remote antiquity. In later times they were faced with

dtectural fronts of a more or less imposing character. They
are believed to have been used chiefly as places of burial. But
there is reason to suppose that most of them were originally in-
tended and used as habitations. Many of the chambers have no
resemblance to tombs, but are such as a primitive race would
construct to live in. Most of these have closets and recesses suit-
able for family uses, and many have windows in front, which
would be superfluous in tombs. It may be that in the course of
time, as customs and people changed, these chambers were aban-
doned for other houses, to be subsequently used as places of
sepulture.

Evidences are found in caves the world over of their use by
1 in •historic men from the stone ages down — so frequently as to
indicate that they were at one or more periods the usual dwell-
ings of the race, and archaeologists have based upon them the

■ or types of cave-men. The evidences of human abode are
often found mingled with traces of animals, some of extinct spe-
cies, which seem to have shared man's occupancy or contested
w i t h him for it, or to have possessed the caves alternately with,
hiin. They have furnished fruitful fields for archaeological and
geological research, and the excavation of them has afforded valu-
able information concerning the condition and surroundings of
the most primitive men, and incidentally as to the age in which.
tiny lived. The most noted localities where the earlier finds of
ancient stone implements were made in France were habitations
of cave-dwellers or in the immediate vicinity of such, habitations,
and the science of palaeolithic archaeology was thus based in its
beginning upon the relics left by men of this type. In Kent's
I in, Torquay, which was one of the first of these palaeolithic
abodes to be studied in England, human bones or articles of
human manufacture have been found in two or three different
strata, the oldest ones under conditions betokening extreme an-
tiquity and in company with the remains of animals that were

act long before the historical period. The first discoveries

were among the earliest evidences that were obtained of

man's having had a greater antiquity than had till then been

ibed to him, and were received incredulously by a public
which the thought struck as contradictory to revelation. The

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN.

29

cave was examined year after year by scientific committees. The
findings were confirmed, and shown to be in place and so situated
as to forbid the supposition of the human remains being of more
recent origin than the accompanying deposits. Similar remains
have been found in many caves in all countries, and now consti-

Fig. 1. — Corinthian Tomb at Petra.

tute only one among several kinds of evidences of man's glacial
and preglacial existence. A cave at Cravan, near Belfort, France,
appears to have been extensively used as a prehistoric burial-
place of the polished-stone period. It contained a number of
skeletons in such positions as suggested deliberate arrangement,
and with them were beautifully ornamented vases, polished-stone
bracelets, and a mat of plaited rushes. The cave of Marsoulas, in
the Haute-Garonne, France, was inhabited by man several times
during the palaeolithic age. The relics of what is designated as
the second occupation are interesting on account of the specimens
of artistic taste they afford. Besides the usual instruments of
silex, arrow-points, and the like, were found some peroxide of
manganese, which was probably used in tattooing, and engraved
designs ; a piece of bone adorned with a regular ornamentation,
engravings very much like those found in the valley of La Ve'zere ;
and a piece of rib having an ovibos (or musk ox) carved upon it,
in which, according to the Marquis de Nadaillac, the design is
treated with exact knowledge of anatomical forms, the relief is
brought out by shadings, and the drawing is vigorous. One of the
recent excursions of the French Association for the Advance-
ment of Science took in its way the grottoes of Lamouroux and
Montrajoux, near Brive. The grottoes of Montrajoux are natural
and have been used as the abodes of shepherds' families since the

VOT Xh — 3

3°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eof the reindeer. Those of Lamouroux are the work of inan, as
i- attested bj bhe marks of the pick which they still bear. They
are grouped in Line and arranged in different stories which com-
municate with one another, there being i n some places five stories.
Some were distinguished by benches in the back, bearing tying-
holes "ii their edges, which suggested that they had been occupied
by the domestic animals. The situation of these grottoes in the
neighborhood of the Chateau of Turenne, crowning the heights,
induces the supposition that they served as places of refuge for
Protestants during the religious wars. The bone caves of Borneo
appear to have been occupied by men who were acquainted with
the use of manufactured iron. The remains have recently been
discovered on the banks of the Amu Daria or Oxus River, in
central Asia, of a considerable city which was composed of cav-
erns hewn in the rock. It seems, from the inscriptions, coins, and
other objects found in it, to have been in existence in the second
century of the Christian era. Some of the houses were of several
stories.

Dr. Arthur Mitchell, of Edinburgh, in a lecture delivered a
t'.w y. 'ai's ago on the condition and antiquity of the cave-men of
western Europe, showed — of the men of the caves which he had

AX'W1

V

ure-a piece of bone, bearing regular designs. Lower Sgure-a piece of
a ovibos engraved upon it. Both found in the grotto of Marsoulas (Haute-

nind-that their weapons of war and the chase were

' horn, and highly finished, while their implements

extremely rude and calculated chiefly to serve as

making of their bone implements, so that they were

rather than the stone age of civilization. From

lamination of the objects which the cave-man has

Splaying an art faculty, and from the study of the crania

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN.

3»

of the cave people themselves, he argued that they must have pos-
sessed a high capacity for culture in all directions, and must have
been as complete in their whole manhood as living Europeans.
He was disposed to put their age only a few thousand years back.
The cave temples of India are famous and most curious speci-
mens of architecture. They date from near the beginning of the
Christian era. The best-known ones, those of Elephanta, have
been described and pictured over and over again. The great
cave, according to Mr. James Burgess, in The Rock-cut Temples

Fig. 3. — Facade of the Temple of Pandu Lena, near Nassik, India.

by M. Albert Tissandier.)

(From a drawing

of Elephanta or Gharapuri, occupies a space having an extreme
length of two hundred and sixty feet, with a depth into the rock
of a hundred and fifty feet. It has three entrances — one in the
side and one at each end — which are each about fifty-four feet
wide, and divided into three doors by pillars fully three feet in
diameter and sixteen feet high. This subdivision is repeated over
the entire area of the underground temple, which may be described
as consisting of eight parallel rows of such columns about fifteen
feet apart. One of the quadrangular clumps of pillars is built
round and incloses the shrine. Opposite the north entrance is
the Trimusti, or Trinity, one of the most remarkable sculptured
religious relics in the world. It consists of three united half-
length figures, each head being elaborately carved and ornamented,
and is seventeen feet high and twenty-two feet wide. Besides the
great caves there are three others on the island. They consist of a

32

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

central excavation for the shrine, usually about twenty feet square,
with attached cells or apartments for priests, two, four, and six
respectively in number, each about sixteen feet square. The teni-

_2

■4

«

o
1-1
A

'A

6

pies of Pandu Lena, constructed, according to the inscriptions they
bear, about 129 B. c, are remarkable for the profusion and perfec-

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN.

33

tion of their ornamentation, which, like that of the cave temples
generally, seems to be designed to imitate constructions of wood.
Those of A junta consist of four temples and twenty-three monas-
teries, built in the face of an almost perpendicular cliff. They
were begun about 100 B. c, and have remained in the condition in
which they are now seen since the tenth century. They are ex-
cavated en suite in the amygdaloid of the mountain, and are de-
scribed as being of grand aspect, upheld by superb columns with

Fig. 5. — Plan of the Temples of Ktlas.

curiously sculptured capitals and adorned with admirable frescoes
reproducing the ancient Hindu life. The temples of Ellora are
of different construction. Built in a sloping hill, it was neces-
sary, in order to obtain a suitable height for the facade, to make
a considerable preliminary excavation. In the group of these
temples known as the Kylas, according to M. Albert Tissandier, the
excavation has been carried around three sides, so as to isolate in
the center an immense block, in which a temple with annexed
chapels has been cut. The buildings are thus all in the open air,
carved in the form of pagodas. Literally covered with sculptures
composed with consummate art, they form a unique aggregate.
They appear to be placed upon a fantastic sub-base on which all
the gods of the Hindu mythology, with symbolical monsters and

34

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rows of elephants, are sculptured in alto rilievo, forming cary-
atides of strange and mysterious figure, well calculated to strike
the imagination of the ancient Hindu population. The interior
of the central pagoda is adorned with sixteen magnificent col-
umns, which, as well as the side walls, were once covered with
paintings ; and, with the central sanctuary of the idol, is com-
posed with a correct understanding of architectural proportions.
The two exit doors open upon a platform on which are five pago-
das of lesser importance but of architectural merit and artistic
ornamentation corresponding to those of the main building.
Around these isolated temples excavations have been made into
the sides of the mountain, in which are found a cloister adorned
with bas-reliefs representing the principal gods of the Hindu
pantheon ; other halls, likewise sculptured ; and various other

features implying great labor
and refined artistic taste and
skill.

At Bamian, in Afghanistan,
are five colossal statues (prob-
ably Buddhas) seated in niches
which have been dug out in the
cliff, while the rock is pierced
with caves which are supposed
to have been excavated by Bud-
dhist monks during the first
five centuries of the Christian
era. Many of the caves are in-
habited. Some of them are
shown to have been bricked up
in front, and both niches and
caves are adorned with paint-
ings and ornamental devices.
Captain F. de Laessoe has de-
scribed a number of caves which
were excavated for habitation
in the sandstones of the right
bank of the Murghab River,
near Penjdeh, in Afghanistan.
One of them (Fig. 6) consists of a central passage a hundred and
fifty feet long and nine feet broad and high, having on each side
staircases and doors leading to rooms of different sizes. Each room
has attached to it a small chamber, with a well in which possibly
water brought up from the river was stored ; and is also provided
with small niches in the walls on which the lamps were placed and
where marks of soot can still be seen. The entrances from the
main passage to the rooms were shut with folding doors on wooden

Fig. 6. — Yaki Deshik Caves of Afghan-

istan.

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN. 35

hinges, of which the socket-holes of the hinges and holes for the
admission of the arm behind the door to draw back the bolt are
the only traces now to be seen. This structure had an upper
story, but much less extensive than the lower story. Many other
caves, similarly constructed but containing fewer rooms, are found
all along the valley. At one of them the cliff is so well preserved
as to show how access was gained. It was by means of holes cut
in the rock for steps, which could be easily climbed by the aid of
a rope hanging down from above.

Vestiges of cave dwellings are very abundant in America, but
they have not been made the subject of special study to so great
an extent as those of Europe. They are prehistoric, ancient, or
relatively modern, and represent various stages of civilization in
those who inhabited them. Some are found as far north as Alaska,
where, according to Dr. Peet, who has published in the American
Antiquarian excellent illustrated summaries of the results of the
explorations of the cliff and cave dwellings, " they are associated
with shell-heaps ; others in the Mississippi Valley, where they are
closely connected with the mounds; others in the midst of the
canons of Colorado and Arizona, where they are associated with
structures like the Pueblos ; others in the central regions on the
coasts of Lake Managua, in Nicaragua ; and still others in the
valley of the Amazon in South America." According to Mr.
William H. DalL the cave-dwellers of Alaska were neolithic. The
caves in Tennessee are described by Prof. F. W. Putnam as con-
taining tokens of a neolithic character ; but it is uncertain whether
they preceded the mounds or were contemporaneous with them.
Dr. Earl Flint has described caves in Nicaragua which strike him
as being very ancient ; and certain caves in Brazil are supposed
to be palaeolithic.

The most interesting of the American cave dwellings, and
those which have received the most attention, are those which
are associated and almost confounded with the cliff dwellings of
the canons of Arizona and Colorado. So nearly related are the
cliff and cave dwellings of this region, in fact, that it seems to
have been to a considerable extent a question of the shaping of
the rock whether the habitation should be one or the other. Re-
garding the two as a whole, they were very numerous, and indi-
cate the former existence of a large population. Major Powell is
quoted as having expressed surprise at seeing in the region noth-
ing for whole days but cliffs everywhere riddled with human
habitations, which resembled the cells of a honeycomb more
than anything else. Yet it is probable that only a small fraction
of these singular dwellings have been seen, while the number of
those that have been even only superficially explored is much less.

An excellent, finely illustrated description of some of these

36

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

<

■<

CD

3
(3
H
J
-J

W

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN. 37

ancient dwellings in the Rio Verde Valley was given, from his
own personal observations, by Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, in The Popu-
lar Science Monthly for October, 1890. But his attention was de-
voted chiefly to the buildings in exposed situations of the Pueblo
style of architecture'; while he speaks of having seen lines of
black holes emerging upon the narrow ledges, which he was told
were cave dwellings of an extinct race. He mentions also walled
buildings of two kinds — those occupying natural hollows or cavi-
ties in the face of the cliffs, and those built in exposed situations ;
the former, whose walls were protected by sheltering cliffs, being
sometimes found in almost as perfect a state of preservation as
when deserted by the builders, unless the torch has been applied.
" Another and very common form of dwellings," Dr. Mearns con-
tinues, " is the caves which are excavated in the cliffs by means of
stone picks or other instruments. They are found in all suitable
localities that are contiguous to water and good agricultural land,
but are most numerous in the vicinity of large casas grandes"

The cave dwellings are more prominent in other accounts
of the region, and seem to be a very important feature in some
of the canons. The majority of those known are in the valleys of
the Colorado and the Rio Doloroso, Rio San Juan, and Rio Man-
cos, its tributaries. A village, if we might call it that, on the
San Juan, described by Mr. W. H. Holmes, is surmounted by
three estufas or towers, one rectangular and two circular, each
over a different group of cave dwellings. A short distance from
this ruin are the remains of another tower, built on a grander
scale. These structures are supposed by Mr. Holmes to have
been the fortresses, council chambers, and places of worship of
the cliff and cave dwellers.

The great Echo Cave on the San Juan is described by Mr. W.
H. Jackson as situated on a bluff about two hundred feet high,
and as being one hundred feet deep. "The houses occupy the
eastern half of the cave. The first building was a small struct-
ure, sixteen feet long and from three to four feet wide. Next
came an open space, eleven feet long and nine feet deep, probably
a workshop. Four holes were driven into the smooth rock floor,
six feet apart, probably designed to hold the posts for a loom. . . .
There were also grooves worn into the rock where the people had
polished their stone implements. The main building comes next,
forty-eight feet long, twelve feet high, and ten feet wide, divided
into three rooms, with lower and upper story, each story being
five feet high. There were holes for the beams in the walls, and
window-like apertures between the rooms, affording communica-
tion to each room of the second story. There was one window,
twelve inches square, looking out toward the open country." *

* Dr. Stephen D. Peet, in the American Antiquarian.

38

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

There were also holes in the upper rooms, which may have been
used for peep-holes. Beyond these rooms the wall continued one
hundred and thirty feet farther, and the space was divided into
rooms of unequal length. The appearance of the place impressed
Mr. Jackson as indicating that the family were in good circum-
stances. These are single specimens of a class of dwellings of
which there are probably many hundreds. The ages of these
dwellings and the conditions under which they were built and

Fig. 8. — Echo Cave on the Eio San Juan.

occupied are unknown. The climate favors the preservation of
objects, so that they may be of considerable antiquity ; and there
is no reason for supposing they were not inhabited down to a
comparatively recent period. The objects found within the cliff
and cave dwellings, some of which are represented in Dr. Mearns's
article, indicate a considerable degree of civilization.

An account was published by Mr. Theodore Hayes Lewis, in
Appletons' Annual Cyclopsedia for 1889, of some curious drawings
that are found in caves at St. Paul, Winona, and Houston Counties,
Minn., La Crosse County, Wis., and Allamakee County, Iowa.
They include representations of the human form, fish, snakes,
animals, and conventional figures.

Many accounts of travelers go to show that residence in caves
is not rare in modern times, and that it constitutes a feature 'of
life, though not an important one, in some of the most civilized

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN.

39

countries in Europe. Sonie of the most interesting pages in Mrs.
Olivia M. Stone's account of her visit to the Canary Islands (Ten-
eriffe and its Six Satellites) relate to the cave villages, still inhab-
ited by a curious troglodyte population — mostly potters — found
in various places in Gran Canaria. Appositely to an account by
the Rev. H. F. Tozer of certain underground rock-hewn churches
in southern Italy, Mr. J. Hoskyns Abrahall relates that when
visiting Monte Vulture, and while a guest of Signor Bozza, at
Barili, having expressed surprise at learning the number of inhab-
itants in the place, his host told him that the poor lived in caves
hollowed out of the side of the mountain, and took him into one
of the rock-hewn dwellings ; and he accounts for their existence
by the facility with which they are formed.

Fig. 9. — Gh'mrassen, in the Ourghemma, Southern Tunis, with the Rock-cut Dwellings.

The rock-cut village of Gh'mrassen, in the Ourghemma, south-
ern Tunis, consists of rows of snug family dwellings, close to each
other, hollowed out of the side of a cliff, the top of which at an
overhanging point, is crowned by the remains of a small mosque.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of
Madrid, Dr. Bide gave an account of his exploration of a wild
district in the province of Caceres, which he represented as still
inhabited by a strange people, who speak a curious patois, and
live in caves and inaccessible retreats. They have a hairy skin,

4°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

and have hitherto displayed a strong repugnance to mixing with
their Spanish and Portuguese neighbors. Roads have lately been
pushed into the district inhabited by these " Jurdes," and they
are beginning to learn the Castilian language and attend the fairs
and markets.

Some disused rock-hewn dwellings are mentioned in Meyer's
Guide-Book as existing near the ancient Klusberg in the Hartz

Fig. 10. — Cave Dwellings near Langenstein, in the Hartz Mountains.

drawing by E. Krell.)

(From a

Mountains. Herr E. Krell describes in a German periodical a
group of such dwellings, now inhabited, near the village of Lang-
enstein in the same region. There are some twenty of them,
each furnished with a door and a window, and inhabited alto-
gether by about forty persons. The oldest of them was made

about thirty years ago, by a
poor, newly married couple who
found the conditions of life in
the village too hard. It was
gradually enlarged, by patient
excavation in the rock, until it
has been made a comfortable
and convenient dwelling. The
house has a neatly kept en-
trance, with a hallway, a liv-
ing-room on the right, in which
is the only window, a bedroom
on the left of the hall ; in the
rear a spacious store-room on
the left, and a kitchen with a
fireplace on the right; and be-
hind the kitchen another bedroom. The chimney is carried up
through the roof, and where it comes out above the surface of the
ground is well guarded with a wall of stones. Although the back
rooms are not directly lighted from without, they receive sufficient

Fig.

11. — Plan of a Cave Dwelling near
Langenstein.

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN.

4i

light from the front ; the houses, as a whole, are dry, warm in
winter and cool in summer, and do not suffer from lack of venti-
lation ; and their inhabitants, as a rule, are a healthy and vigor-
ous people. Some of the proprietors have whitened the fronts of
their dwellings, and have planted gardens in the ground over
them and in front of them, so as to give their homes a not un-
pleasing air ; and the cave dwellings are much drier and more
healthful than city basements.

Another group of inhabited caves is described in La Nature
by M. Brossard de Corbigny as stretching for the length of a kilo-

Fig. 12.— The Grottoes of Meschers, in the Blfff, Charente-Inferieure, France.
(From a water-color sketch by M. Brossard de Corbigny.)

metre along the right bank of the river Gironde, at Meschers, in the
Charente-Inferieure, France. " They are excavated in a high bluff
of shell-rock, which is crowned above them by a number of wind-
mills, some still active while others are disused, and face the
broad river, commanding a view of the sea and the Cordouan
Tower in the distance. The caves are partly natural and partly
the work of man. They can not be seen from the top of the bluff,
and are accessible by goat-paths descending from the mills — not
very pleasant walking for women and children, especially where
it has been necessary to cut stepping-notches in the rock. Not all
the paths are equally difficult of descent, and some leading to the
stations of the lobster-fishers go down to a kind of ladder that
reaches to the water's edge. Whatever path one follows, he is
sure at about a third of the distance down to come upon an exca-
vation suggesting the nest of some gigantic sea-bird of the olden
time ; but he will soon observe that the bottoms of the caves and
the roofs have been made smooth by the hand of man, while the
great openings looking out upon -the sea bear marks of erosion by

42

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the southwest winds and the rains. Most of these grottoes were
inhabited fifty years ago, but the majority of them have been
abandoned in consequence of the land-slides and the development
of the knowledge and desire of a better way of living. Three of
them are still occupied by persons who boast that they are very
comfortable in them — warm in winter with their southern expos-
ure and complete protection from the north, and enjoying a re-
freshing coolness in the summer. The caves are free from moist-
ure, and cost no rent except a slight fee paid to the proprietor of
the ground above them. The natural opening on the side of the
sea is closed not very tightly with boards or stones, in which one
or two windows admit a sufficient light. The house is usually
composed of two rooms, separated by a partition which was left
in the hollowing out of the cave, and the furnishings are as com-
fortable as those possessed by the majority of the peasants of the

Fig. 13. — Entrance to the Orotto La Femme Nettve, Meschers.

region

Other shallower cavities outside of the main ones serve as
sheds for the wood which is used to cook, in earthen kettles, the
soup and the fish and oysters which are found in abundance at
the foot of the bank. The visitor who expects to find misery or
signs of hard life in these grotto homes will be disappointed ; in-
stead, he will see people as satisfied with their lot as Diogenes was
with his tub.

CAVE DWELLINGS OF MEN.

43

" If we desire to visit these grottoes, we may descend from one
of the windmills by a winding path to the one called Femme
neuve, because it is the newest of the group. We are welcomed
with the best the proprietor has to offer. The women are busy
with their washing. The smoke escapes freely through the loose
planks of the sea-wall. A second chamber serves as a sleeping-

Fig. 14. — Interior View of the Grotto La Femme Neuve, Meschers.

room and is furnished with two beds, a commode, and, opposite
the beds, the fireplace, back to the sea, between two small glass
windows. During high southwest winds the spray leaps up to the
height of the caves, the rain dashes against the planks, the grottoes
are inundated and made uninhabitable, and it becomes necessary
to seek shelter in some of the cottages of the village.

"Another path from the windmills leads to a second grotto,
where lives Father Lavigne, a bright and sprightly man of about
eighty years, who makes a weekly trip to Royau and back in the
same day. He receives his visitor with great courtesy, hat in hand,
and shows him his two rooms, nearly bare, but commanding a fine
view over the gulf and the sea. His furniture is simple but neat ;
and the old gentleman, who has lived here more than forty years,
declares that he is quite happy, for health is left to him. His
cave-life has never given him rheumatism.

" A locksmith and knife-grinder has recently established him-
self in a third cave, and has the love of a hermit for it. His door
and window are open, showing a single room with a bed of straw
on four legs, a wall-table, a few utensils, and a chair, as all the fur-

++

THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MOXTHLY

niture. In one corner are a grindstone and a forge, the arrange-
ment of which shows how much an ingenious man can do with
the most primitive materials. The proprietor has traveled exten-
sively in the exercise of his trade and has seen much of the world.
Now, at forty years of age, he seeks rest, and the embellishment

LA GIRO/MDC

Fig. 15. — Plax of the Grotto La Femme Xecte. Meschers : a, bods and closets ; 6, wash-
tub : c, fireplace ; /', windows ; g, vertical planks forming a partition on the broad side ;

h, rim of vertical rocks twenty metres above the sea ; edge of the floor ; p, door ; r,

ladder ascending to the top of the cliff; t, water-hole.

of his home is his ruling desire. He communicates his plans
enthusiastically to his visitors. He has planted white gilliflowers
under his window, the only kind, he says, that will bear the sea
winds. Next year he will plant a grape-arbor, the vines of which
he will carefully protect against too severe exposures.

Fig. 16. — The Knife-grinder's Cave at Meschers.

" Other grottoes have been acquired by persons in easy circum-
stances, remodeled, partitioned off, and even fancifully papered.
They are simply the pavilions of citizens, and there is no interest
in visiting them." At the foot of the bluff on the eastern side are

EVOLUTION IN FOLK LORE. 45

large regular cavities -which are said to have been the refuge of
Protestants during the religious wars. They were afterward con-
verted into quarries, from which a soft shell stone was obtained.
The places are still to be seen where the barges landed at the en-
trance of the quarries, and the older people of the country remem-
ber when they were worked.

For specimens of modern cave dwellings in the United States
we might turn to the sod-houses of the Western plains, which the
settlers construct for temporary shelter while waiting for a supply
of lumber with which to build a more conventional if not better
house. They can not, however, be classed with the permanent
dwellings which this paper has held in view. As soon as the new
house is done, they are turned over to the cattle and pigs, or aban-
doned and left to the mercy of the elements.

•»«♦

T

EVOLUTION IN FOLK LORE.

AN OLD STORY IN A NEW FORM.

By DAVID DWIGHT WELLS.

0 the historian folk lore is both a blessing and a curse. It
presents an almost insurmountable barrier to scientific in-
vestigation ; for, to separate the kernel of truth from the mass of
superstitious chaff by which it is surrounded, is a task in com-
parison with which the proverbial finding of the needle in the
hay-stack sinks into insignificance. Viewed in another aspect,
however, folk lore is of the greatest importance to the inquirer in
the past, for it forms the connecting link in the evolution of a
tribe, a race, or a nation.

Long after a people has passed away as a unit, its traditions
will survive, and, wherever they may be found, they will point
conclusively to the existence of some portion of that race. The
legend, however, seldom retains much of its original form, and
this is not to be wondered at. Common experience teaches us
daily how a story can grow in the mouths of men, and when it
comes to be a matter of generations and not of days, it naturally
undergoes many marked changes. The legend or folk-lore story
adapts itself also to its surroundings, which, parasite-like, cling
to it so effectually that often it is extremely difficult to distin-
guish the original legend in its corrupted form.

These changes are especially noticeable when the race or tribe
has migrated from one country to another, and a careful study
of the alterations which take place in the typical legends of a
people illuminates the history of the race itself.

It is not my intention to enter into any such elaborate under-

TOL. XLI ±

46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

taking ; but merely to present to the public a curious example
of an evolution of folk lore which has come to my notice, and
trace its passage for a few generations.

This story came to me from a gentleman who was born about
the beginning of this century in Essequibo, British Guiana, South
America. His father was an English planter, and owned estates
and slaves. Brought up, as was the narrator, among these slaves,
he heard from them many of the traditions of their race, which
his excellent memory preserved in their original entirety. Per-
haps the most pleasing of these which his kindly spirit promp-
ted him to relate for the amusement of children, and the only
one of which I have any clear recollection, was —

The Story of the Hunter.— Once upon a time a hunter
lived in a little hut on the edge of a great wood in Africa. He
lived by himself, for his father and mother had died many years
before, leaving him nothing but the hut in which he dwelt, and
three magic arrows, which he was only to use in time of great
danger. This hunter had two very large and fierce dogs — one
called Ya-me-o-ro, and the other Con-ga-mo-ro-to — which fol-
lowed him everywhere he went. In this wood was a great herd
of white cows, which the hunter killed when he had need of
meat, and whose skins he dried and made into clothes. These
cows hated the hunter, and would have torn him in pieces many
times, had it not been for his faithful dogs, that always hunted
with him, and which the cows feared to attack. So the hunter
lived peacefully, and for many a day all went well with him.

One evening about sunset the hunter, while seated in his hut,
heard cries and groans coming from the woods ; and, taking his
dogs, went out to find the cause of them. He had not gone far
when he came upon a fair, strange woman, lying upon the
ground, apparently in great distress. She was tall and slender,
and more beautiful than any one that he had ever seen. When
she saw him she begged for food and shelter, saying that she was
dying of hunger and thirst, and had fallen fainting where he had
found her. The hunter carried her back to his hut, and nursed
her as tenderly as he could until she became well and strong
again. "When she was herself again, she thanked him for his
goodness, and said that on the next day she must set out on the
journey which she was making when she fell sick. Then for the
first time the hunter felt what it was to be lonely ; for as he had
always lived by himself he had never before missed the company
of other people. So he entreated her not to leave him, and the
fair stranger, seeing his loneliness and remembering his kindness,
stayed with him and became his wife.

Not many days after this the hunter started in the morning to
hunt, and called his dogs to go with him ; but the fair stranger

EVOLUTION IN FOLK LOBE. 47

begged that they might be left at home, to guard her from the
white cows. Now, the hunter had never before gone to the woods
without them ; but she begged so hard that he would leave them
with her, that at last he tied them up in the hut, so that they
should not follow him, and went forth to hunt alone.

After he had gone some way he heard behind him a great
noise, and looking back saw all the white cows in the forest, who
had gathered together and were about to tear him to pieces. The
hunter was greatly frightened, and ran like the wind for his
home. But, fast as he ran, the cows followed faster, and he knew
that they would catch him long before he could reach his hut.
Then he remembered his three magic arrows, which he always
carried with him in his belt, and taking one of them, he stuck it
in the ground and put his foot upon the butt. In a moment he
felt himself shooting up through the air, and found he was on
the top of a tall palm tree which had sprung up out of the ground,
and whose smooth trunk no cow could climb.

The fury of the white cows when they saw their victim thus
snatched from their grasp was terrible to see. The woods echoed
with their cries of rage, and with lowered heads they charged the
palm, butting it till it rocked as if in the midst of a tempest.
When they saw that they could not overthrow it in this way,
they all at once rushed into the midst of the woods, but returned
in a few moments bearing sharp axes, with which they began to
cut down the tree. Its trunk, however, was strong and tough;
but the cows flew at it in a great crowd, and when one was tired
another took her place. Great chips flew from the palm, and the
hunter as he sat in the tree-top could hear the song of the axes
as they bit into the hard wood :

£=$-

=1=

«■ -1-4

-*-^7

A - phi -bim-m-gas-co-ma-bam, a- phi-bim-m-gas - cp - ma- bam.

He now became greatly frightened and wished to call his dogs
to his aid, hoping that they might hear him and break away, or
that his wife might loose them ; so he called them loudly by name :

:£=

S>-

Ya - me - 0 - ro Cong - a - mo - ro - to !

But they did not come, and he feared that they could not hear
him. And, while he cried, the cows still swung their axes, which
sang yet louder, as though to drown the hunter's voice :

A-phi-bim — Gas-co-ma-bam ;

A-phi-bim — Gas-co-ma-bam !

48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Now the tree began to shake, as it had been almost cut through,

and the hunter in great terror cried to his dogs at the top of his

voice :

Ya-me-oro, Con-ga-mo-ro-to !

Ya-me-o-ro, Con-ga-mo ro-to !
but all in vain.

Then he took the second of his magic arrows, and, fitting it to
his bow, he shot it down into the ground. At once another palm
sprang up, taller and stronger than the first, to which the hunter
leaped. And he was not a moment too soon ; for the tree he had
left tottered from its base and fell with a great crash to the
ground.

When the white cows saw the second tree, they were very an-
gry, and rushed at it again with their axes, plying stroke on
stroke in their rage and fury, while the hunter kept calling his
dogs by name :

--P-

&-

m

Ya - me - o - ro Cong - a - mo - ro - t3 !
and the axes rang louder and louder :

2t=\

T

*— *-

-*-*

— r -•- -&• •-#-—- —h —r -#- -&- w -#■ -± —r

:£. * 3 :?. * 5:

A - phi - bim-m-gas -co - ma - bam, a - phi-bim-m-gas -co - ma- bam.

Soon the second tree was ready to fall, and the hunter had to
shoot his last arrow into the ground, when a palm taller and
larger than either of the others sprang up into the air. Now he
saw that unless help came quickly his end was near ; for he had
no more arrows, and above the din of the axes he called as loud
as he was able :

Come, Ya-me-o-ro! come, Con-ga-mo ro-to!

Suddenly he saw the fair stranger approaching, and he called
to her to help him, and run back and loose the dogs ; but she
laughed at him, saying that his dogs could not aid him now ; and
as she spoke she changed into a white cow herself, and the hunter
saw that she was the queen of the herd, who had become a woman
only to entrap him. Still the axes kept crying :

A-phi-bim — Gas-co-ma-bam ;

A-phi-bim — Gas-co-ma-bam !

and the tree was almost cut through. For the last time the
hunter called his dogs to come to his help :

Come, Ya-me-o-ro ! come, Con-ga-mo-ro-to !
and as he did so he heard a crashing sound in the bushes, and

EVOLUTION IN FOLK LORE. 49

the dogs, who had at last gnawed their ropes apart, made their
appearance and sprang upon the white cows.

First they attacked the queen and tore her to pieces, and then,
turning upon the rest of the herd, they killed many and put the
others to night, so that the hunter was saved.

Such is the form of the legend as I received it from the gen-
tleman referred to above, whose culture and the position he held
in society warrants me in believing him to be an authority on
this matter.

He was born in 1805, and must have heard the legend at least
as early as 1810. He received it from his negro nurse, a slave,
whom his father had bought direct from the coast of Africa.
Assuming the woman to be of a responsible age, which she must
have been to have had the care of children, it was unquestion-
ably current on the coast of Africa in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, and probably for a long antecedent period.

The most unique feature of this tale, and that which made it
especially attractive to children, was the hunters musical call of
the dogs, and the song of the axes. The narrator sang these, re-
peating them many times in the course of the story to a curious
refrain which I have attempted to reproduce in the music given
above.

This, indeed, was the chief charm of the story, and so well
was it executed that one could almost hear the ring of the axes
as they rebounded from the tree, while the changes of voice
in the cries of the hunter represented his increasing anxiety and
fear as time went on and no aid came to him. It is difficult to
describe the effect thus produced ; to appreciate it, it was neces-
sary to hear it.

Nearly a hundred years later this story was current again in
Georgia, where it was made public by the facile pen of Mr. Joel
Chandler Harris, better known as the author of the Uncle Remus
stories. As will be seen on examination, it has changed consid-
erably, but its principal points remain unaltered. I regret that
I can not reproduce Mr. Harris's story in full, but a copyright
prevents me from doing more than making a few brief quo-
tations.

This story, which Mr. Harris entitles " The Little Boy and his
Dogs," appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal, February 18,
1886, and is somewhat as follows :

A little boy lives with his mother in a hut beside a road. He
is her only child; but Uncle Remus, who tells the story, in-
forms us that the boy once had a little sister, who had been stolen
away — how, it is not related — and whom her brother searches the
woods in vain to find. One day, while engaged in this pursuit,
he meets two ladies wearing long veils, who come to his mother's

VOL. XLI. 5

5o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

house and ask for some water, when the following conversation
occurs :

" Reckly he holler out, ' Mammy, mammy ! what you reckon ?
Dey'er lapping de water ! ' De 'oman she holler back, ' I reckon
dat's de way de quality folks does, honey.' "

Then the ladies ask for some bread and eat it, so as to cause
the little boy to cry :

" Mammy, mammy ! what you reckon ? Dey'er got great long
tushes." De 'oman she holler back, " I reckon all de quality folks
has got 'em, honey."

Then they wash their hands, and again the boy cries :

" Mammy, mammy ! what you reckon ? Dey got little bit er
hairy hans and arms." De 'oman she holler back, " I reckon all
de quality folks has got 'em, honey."

The ladies now request that the little boy show them the way
to the cross-roads, which he refuses to do until admonished by
his mother.

" Now," says Uncle Remus, " dish yer little boy had two mighty
bad dogs. One un urn waz name Minny minny Morack, en de
oter one was name Follerlinsko, en de waz so bad dey hatter
be tied in de yard day an' night, 'cep w'en dey wuzen't a-
huntin'."

Before setting out, however, the boy places a pan of water in
the kitchen, and sticks a willow twig near by in the ground, tell-
ing his mother that when the water turns to blood and the willow
shakes, she is to loose the dogs and send them to hunt for him.
He then proceeds to conduct the ladies to the cross-roads ; but
after he has gone some way perceives, on looking behind him,
that the supposed ladies are walking on all fours. This strikes
him as somewhat suspicious, and he hastens to climb up a big
pine tree near at hand for safety. The ladies try and persuade him
to come down, threatening to tell his mother of his disobedience ;
but in vain ; the little boy prefers to remain where he is. " Den,"
says Uncle Remus, "de quality ladies got mighty mad. Dey
walked 'roun' dat tree en fairly snorted. Dey pulled off der bon-
nets, en der veils, en der dresses, en, lo en behole ! de little boy
seed dey wuz two great big pant'ers. . . . Dey tried to climb de
tree, but dey had done trim der claws so dey could git on gloves,
en dey couldn't clam no mo'.

" Den one un em sot down in de road en made a kuse mark in
de sand, en der great long tails turned to axes, dan de gun to
cut de tree down. . . .

" But wiles the little boy wuz settin' up dar skeered mighty
nigh ter def, hit come inter his min' dat he had some eggs in his
pocket w'at he done brung with 'im fer ter eat w'enever he git
hongry. He tuck out one er de eggs en broke it en say, ' Place

EVOLUTION IN FOLK LORE. 51

fill up,' en bless you soul ! de place fill up slio' miff, en de tree
look des 'zackly like nobody ain't bin a-cuttin' on it."

This occurs three times, when, just at the critical moment, as
his eggs are all exhausted, his mother sees that the water in the
pan has turned to blood and that the willow twig is shaking, so
she releases the dogs. The little boy hears them coming, and
calls out : " Come on, my good dogs ! here, dogs, here ! ';

The dogs come in the nick of time, and kill the panthers, who
are unable to escape, since they have not time to change their
axes back into tails. Here the story wanders off to the finding of
the small boy's sister, who is rescued from the clutches of " Brer
Bar."

There is, I think, no question but that these two stories have
a common origin ; the resemblance is so strong that it hardly
seems necessary to mention it in detail.

The hunter, changed to a little boy in the version of Mr. Har-
ris ; who is possessed of two dogs which he rashly leaves at home ;
who is attacked by wild beasts in human guise who chop with
axes the tree into which he climbs to escape them ; the miracu-
lous restoration of the trees, and the rescue by the dogs, appear in
each narrative.

As I have before stated, nearly a hundred years must have in-
tervened between the telling of the two legends, and the variation
in the second is plainly due to the change of scene and of environ-
ment which befell the people who preserved and told the story.

It is only the artist who can successfully set a narrative in a
scene with which he is not familiar, and make the environment
seem real. Folk lore, however, is no artist's tale ; it is told by a
child of the soil, who unconsciously clothes his narration with
the scenes and incidents with which he is best acquainted. The
gentleman to whom the story was told in the early part of the
century received it from a native African, who had heard it in
her own country ; while Mr. Harris must have obtained his from
a Georgia negro, who had grown up in exile and slavery. The
local coloring was, of course, totally different.

The hero in what, if I may be permitted, I shall call the un-
adulterated version of the story, is a hunter ; and this is very
natural, for hunting must have been one of the chief occupations
among the uncivilized negro tribes of Africa. In Mr. Harris's
version he becomes a little boy ; but this is perhaps the author's
regulation little boy, who figures so often in the "Uncle Remus"
stories. In the same way another change, which at, first would
seem to be due to local environment, can be shown to be produced
by other causes. I refer to the substitution in the later story of
panthers for white cows. In portions of Africa cows can not
exist, and, whether this was the case in the region occupied by

5 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the tribe whose legend this was, I am unable to say ; but it is
certain that at some time or other they must have seen white
cows, otherwise they would not have told about them. The pan-
ther, on the other hand, is a native of Africa ; and, indeed, there
are no panthers in our Southern States, unless the name is erro-
neously applied to the American puma. It is, therefore, quite
likely that in the original legend, as it was currently known in
Africa, both the cows and the panthers might have figured, since
both were known to the people.

A little further examination of the two stories will, however,
illustrate strikingly the changes due to locality.

In the first place, take the ladies into which the animals trans-
formed themselves. In Mr. Harris's version they are spoken of
as " quality folks," but there were no quality people in a civilized
sense in Africa, and in their stead we find a " fair stranger,"
whom one could well imagine would seem a mysterious being to
a lonely African hunter. So, too, we find that the three magic
arrows of the first story have changed to three eggs in the second,
and a palm to a pine tree, which latter change involves for Mr.
Harris an explanation of why the panthers couldn't climb the
tree, which was not needed in the first version. Such are some of
the local changes which the legend has undergone during the
past century. Others could doubtless be found, but I prefer to
pass from these to changes of greater significance. Before doing
so, however, let me say a word in regard to the names of the dogs.
Ya-me-o-ro and Con-ga-mo-ro-to have an Eastern tone that fits
exactly with the African legend ; but where, within the confines
of Georgia, did Mr. Harris unearth such remarkable combinations
of letters as " Minny minny Morack " and " Follerlinsko " ? Uncle
Remus, I am sure, could never have pronounced them, and one is
inclined to believe that they were conjured up by the author's
fertile brain to take the place of the euphonious forgotten titles.

Though change of locality has much to do with the alterations
occurring in folk lore, it is by no means the only factor which
brings about such results. Contact with a foreign predominant
race, and with its customs and legends, has an equally great effect.

In the first quotation which I made from Mr. Harris's version
one of these alterations just noted is to be found. The ladies
are discussed, by the little boy and his mother, in regard to their
manner of drinking, their hands, and their teeth. Now, this inquiry
and thirst after information on the part of the little boy is thor-
oughly English in spirit. The native African would never have
asked such questions, because he was by nature lazy and indiffer-
ent. It also suggests very strongly the story of Red Riding
Hood, which has almost become a classic in the English tongue.
Red Riding Hood, the reader will remember, visits a wolf, dis-

EVOLUTION IN FOLK LORE. 53

guised as her grandmother ; asks him a series of questions some-
what like those just referred to, and beginning, " But what great
eyes you have, grandmother ! " " The better to see you with, my
dear." Indeed, this tendency for inquiry is prominent in most
English legends, and I think there is ground at least for the sur-
mise whether Mr. Harris's negro has not unconsciously trans-
planted into his own legend the characteristics of the legends
belonging to the race which he served.

One other factor of moment remains to be noticed, and this, I
think, is more important than all, and is due to the change in the
national life of the people whose legend it was — i. e., from a state
of freedom to one of slavery. One example will suffice, I think,
to show plainly what I mean. In the first version of the story,
which was originally told by a negro born free, the laws of cause
and effect are carefully observed throughout. The hunter is at-
tacked by the white cows because he destroys them, and in his
death they recognize their safety. Now, in the second version of
the story, which Mr. Harris must have obtained from a Georgia
negro whose ancestors from whom he had received the legend
had been slaves for three or four generations, there is no logical
sequence of events, and an apparent ignorance displayed of the
same law of cause and effect. Here the panthers merely appear,
and attack the little boy, for no assignable reason whatsoever. It
might be argued that their desire for food was a sufficient cause,
but it is not the custom of panthers to disguise themselves for
the purpose of entrapping their prey. According to the unwritten
canons of all legends, these disguises may only be assumed on
important occasions. This, however, does not affect the signifi-
cance of the change. In a free tribe, whose members were de-
pendent on their own unaided efforts for support, the laws of cause
and effect would naturally be clearly understood, and a legend
which disregarded these would be held in contempt: for these
people believed their legends to be true. They must, therefore, of
course, conform to the laws of their existence, so that they might
possess the semblance of truth. When the story comes to be
repeated years after in a state of slavery, and by one who heard
it from slaves, the laws of cause and effect are disregarded, and
very naturally ; for why should the negro trouble himself about
such matters, when food and clothing were provided for him by
his master, and he was looked after in his old age ?

Another alteration due to this change may be noted in the
difference of the persons of the actors already mentioned. In
Africa, it was a national legend, and the hero was accordingly a
man ; in Georgia, the heroic period of the race had passed away,
and the legend had degenerated into a story told to please a child,
and in which a child held the prominent part.

54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

There is one more very curious point in regard to the treat-
ment of the hunter by the woman, which has an ethical signifi-
cance which seems more than national. The woman, after entrap-
ping the hunter by her charms and depriving him of his strength
in the shape of the dogs, surrenders him to his enemies.

Between the Aryan and negro races there is a very great differ-
ence1— the difference between a race that has a written language
and one that has not. It would seem that their religions might
have little or nothing in common ; yet in this legend of the woman
and the hunter have we not a counterpart of the legend of Sam-
son and Delilah, in the Bible, where the woman, having deprived
him of his strength, gives him over to his enemies ?

Thus we see that among all races it has been customarv to in-
corporate cardinal virtues and cardinal vices in legendary form,
and it is only too likely that Delilahs existed on the coast of
Africa as well as elsewhere ; and, alas ! as men daily learn, are
still among us.

Such are some of the changes in an example of folk lore which
a century has wrought : but they are not greater than the changes
which the people whose folk lore it is have undergone, and which,
a- I think I have shown, in no uncertain manner.

The legend, we might almost say. is the gauge of a people,
for it clearly shows the risings and fallings in its social and men-
tal condition. It is interesting to note how the one noted has re-
mained intact in its general outlines, in spite of the disintegration
of the tribe with whom it probably originated. Folk lore is one
of the few immortal possessions of a nation. Its greatness may
fade, and its name be forgotten among men, but while the world
exists its national legends will still remain. Thus, out of the
ignorance of a people, may be built their only monument of last-
in? fame.

- -

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IX EUROPE.

By Peof. FEEDEE1CK STAEB.

A\

^ITH<!>UT visiting either Stockholm, Vienna, or Rome, the
author has recently seen many of the museums of ethnog-
raphy in western Europe. It has seemed to him that a sketch of
the workers and a description of the work in anthropology there
might be of interest to readers of the Monthlv. Hence this
article, which makes no claim to exhaustiveness, but which does
aim to suggest something of the intense interest now shown in
that science in Holland, Germany. Switzerland, Italy, France, and
England. Under the comprehensive word anthropology we com-
prise physical anthropology, ethnography, prehistoric archaeology,
and culture historv.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IX EUROPE.

55

Museums of ethnography are far more common in Europe
than with us. There are, perhaps, no large cities without such an
institution, and many small towns have fine collections. In the
little kingdom of Holland alone there are fully a half-dozen
ethnographic museums of importance, the chief one being at
Leyden. This city is the main educational town of Holland, and
its university, always fa-
mous for its corps of teach-
ers, still holds its rank as a
finely manned institution of
learning. Besides the uni-
versity, the town boasts of
one of the best museums of
antiquities in the world, par-
ticularly rich in Egyptian
and Javanese objects, and
the ethnographic museum,
which in some respects is
unsurpassed. Like many of
the great collections in Eu-
rope, the latter is unfortu-
nate in its housing. The
part usually shown to visit-
ors comprises the wonder-
fully rich collections from
the South seas and the East
Indies. These are in ex-
ceedingly crowded and ill-
lighted cpiarters, and a satisfactory display is impossible in the
present building. The African collections are in a second build-
ing as little suited to display as the first, and the rich series from
Asia are stored in yet a third building. It is much to be de-
sired that this collection might be brought together under one
roof in a building of suitable character and well lighted and
suitably cased. We have already referred to the wonderful series
of objects from the South seas and the Indies. Many of them,
brought home by the early navigators, are old. and represent the
native arts before they were affected by white influence. Espe-
cially fine are the carved work, weapons, armor, and articles of
dress and adornment. Xew Guinea is finely represented by ob-
jects from different parts, well illustrating the local variation in
arts. The specimens from Sumatra. Engano, Xias, Borneo, and
Java illustrate the whole life of the natives. The collection of
k rises, or dirks, is probably the largest in the world, and many
of the specimens are masterpieces of metal-work, and the hilts
and sheaths are crusted with precious stones. Dr. Serrurier, the

Dr. J. D. E. Schitzltz.

56

THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY.

director of the museum, classifies etlmograpliic objects iuto twelve
groups — such as relate to — (1) Food, Drink, etc. ; ('-?) Clothiug ; (3)
House-furnishing ; (4) Fishing and Hunting ; (5) Agriculture ;
(6) Domestication of Animals ; (?) Trading ; (8) Manufactures ;
(9) Weapons and War: (10) Government and Society; (11) Toys,
Music, Theatre, etc. ; (12) Religion, Science, and the like. This
scheme of classification runs through the whole arrangement of
the museum. Dr. Serrurier is fortunate in having associated with
him as conservator Dr. J. D. E. Schmeltz.

There are in the university faculty several men who, without
being professional anthropologists, have more or less directly done
work of importance to anthropological science. Such are the fa-
mous Sanskrit scholar, Prof. Kern ; the Sinologue, Prof. Schlegel,
and Dr. Thiele, of the theological school. The latter has contributed
much to the present scientific study of religions. Prof. Schlegel's
Chinese Dictionary is far more than a " word-book," and is a

treasury of ethnological
material to which all stu-
dents must refer. With
M. Henri Cordier, of Par-
is, Prof. Schlegel is edit-
or of an interesting bi-
monthly journal devoted
to Asiatic subjects — Toung
Pao. The university has a
chair of Ethnology, which
was for several years ably
filled by Prof. George
Wilken, whose death a few
months since was a seri-
ous loss to the institution.
Prof. J. J. M. de Groot
has been appointed to the
position.

Prof. Kern and Prof.
Schlegel, with other
workers in ethnography
in various countries, form
an editorial committee of the Internationales Archiv fur Eth-
nographic, a journal appearing at Leyden under the very capable
direction of Dr. J. D. E. Schmeltz. Dr. Schmeltz is a rare worker.
Born in Hamburg, his first important work in the field of eth-
nography was done upon the famous Godeffroy collection, from,
the South seas. The result of his work was the well-known illus-
trated catalogue of that collection, which is the first work that
the student of the South-sea cultures must know. Dr. Schmeltz

Dr. Rudolf Virchow.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN EUROPE.

57

has been Conservator of the Ethnographic Museum at Leyden
for more than ten years. When the Archiv fur Ethnographie
was established, a little more than four years ago, he was in-
trusted with its management. The journal is a quarto in form,
appearing once in two months, and the articles, which are always
of great value, are in French, Dutch, German, and English.
Every number is illustrated, and many of the plates are hand-
somely colored. We have laid considerable stress upon this jour-
nal because of its great value, and because it is far too little
known in this country.

We have let Leyden stand as the type of work done in Hol-
land, but it is not the only center. Considerable ethnographic
museums, with good workers, are located at Rotterdam, Haarlem,
The Hague, and Amsterdam.

Germany is full of workers in every line of anthropological
study. To describe what is done at Leipsic, Halle, Berlin, Dres-
den, Munich, Heidelberg,
and Freiburg will give
some idea of the aims and
methods of the work. And
first we will consider the
work in physical anthro-
pology. At Leipsic we find
Dr. Emil Schmidt, ex-
traordinary professor at
the university. He offers
in three successive years
three courses of lectures to
the students — general eth-
nology, prehistoric archae-
ology, and physical an-
thropology. Dr. Schmidt
is a critical and careful
worker, and, notwithstand-
ing the profound abyss
separating German and
French workers, he is well
spoken of in France. His

little book, An thropologische Methoden, is the best hand-book
for the student in the laboratory or the field that is accessible.
Although a man past middle life. Dr. Schmidt is an active work-
er, and he has just returned from a trip to India and Ceylon,
where he did extensive field work. In his laboratory he has a
private collection of over a thousand skulls, many of them of
his own gathering. Dr. Schmidt is ingenious in suggesting new
methods of work and study. He is the originator of the cranial

Prof. Johannes Eanke.

5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

modulus. One of the chief objects of study in physical anthro-
pology is the skull, and it is important to have some convenient
means of comparing skulls of different kinds. To compare
measurements taken in one direction only, of course gives no
results of value ; thus, to know that one skull is nine and
another is eight inches long, tells nothing as to shape or rela-
tive capacity. Authors accordingly devised the cranial index,
found by dividing the length of the skull into the breadth and
expressing the result decimally. If skulls had but two dimen-
sions this index would be satisfactory ; as it is, it is not perfect.
A new index was devised which should take account of the height
of the skull ; the height being divided by the length and the re-
sult expressed decimally. By a combination of these two indices
a fair idea of the skull would be given, but in a comparison of
the indices of a number of skulls great difficulty arises. One ex-
pression is what is desired. After much careful study and experi-
mental work, Prof. Schmidt worked out the modulus ; the length,
breadth, and height are measured and their arithmetical mean
is taken.

A veteran worker is Dr. Herman Welcker, Director of the
Anatomical Laboratory of the University of Halle. The build-
ing he occupies is one of the few in Europe that has been built
recently and for scientific purposes. Welcker's work extends
back through many years, and, although all of his suggestions
have not been accepted by other workers, his contributions to
craniology have been numerous and valuable. In the museum
under his charge is a wonderful series of skulls, especially rich in
Papuan, South sea island, and Indian specimens. One notice-
able feature of the museum is the exceedingly large collection of
human monsters, two-headed, cyclopean, etc. — perhaps the largest
in the world.

No physical anthropologist in Europe is more widely known
or more respected than Dr. Rudolph Virchow, of Berlin. He is in
charge of the Pathological Institute of the university, where he
has a vast quantity of valuable material. Among other osteologi-
cal collections are great numbers of skeletons and skulls of the
Negrito pygmies. Virchow's writings have been extensive and
most important. He is at present engaged upon a great work
—a study of crania of American Indians, from both the Northern
and Southern continents. An atlas of plates will form a part of
the work, and every skull will be represented as seen from five
different positions. The matter of fixing a skull in position for
drawing is one of no little importance, and unfortunately there is
no agreement between French and German workers in regard
to what shall be called the horizontal line. The French con-
sider a line drawn from the occipital foramen to a point between

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN EUROPE.

59

the bases of the upper middle incisors as horizontal, while the
Germans make it pass from the middle point of the upper curve
of the auditory meatus to the middle part of the lower curve of the
optic orbit. Virchow claims that the German line is preferable,
as it can easily be taken on the living person, as well as upon the
skull. He adds, usually with a little quiet satisfaction : ' The
French horizontal line throws the head up, while ours throws it
more naturally and downward ; they are more proud, we are mod-
est." For years Dr. Virchow has edited the Zeitschrift fiir Eth-
nologie, the official journal of the Berlin Anthropological Society,
of which he has always been a leading member. Dr. Virchow's
seventieth birthday was celebrated with much of German hearti-
ness last fall, but years tell little on him, and he does a prodigious
amount of work with all the enthusiasm of a young man.

Of the many other workers in physical anthropology in Ger-
many we can mention but
one — Dr. Johannes Ranke,
of the University of Munich.
He is perhaps the only full
and regular Professor of
Physical Anthropology in
Germany. Since 1866 Prof.
Ranke has been editor of
the Archiv fiir Anthropo-
logic, and since 1877 of the
Urgeschichte Bayerns. His
work, Der Mensch, in two
large volumes, is the best
elementary work on descrip-
tive anthropology. His lab-
oratory is well equipped — in
part with instruments of his
own devising. One of the
most important operations
in anthropology is finding
the internal capacity of the
cranium. There are a host

of methods. The difficulty is that no two methods give the same
result, and no single method in the hands of two unskilled ob-
servers gives exact agreement. The thing desired, then, is to
work out a method of " cubage " that shall give invariable results.
Dr. Ranke has attempted this. His students are given a bronze
skull of known capacity. This is filled with millet seed rammed
in tightly with a wooden plug. The filling is afterward turned
out and measured. Every step in the operation is subject to
fixed rules. When a student gains such skill that he succeeds

Prof. Friedrich Ratzel.

6o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

always in getting the capacity of this standard skull exactly,
he is considered competent to measure the capacity of real crania.
In drawing skulls most German workers use an instrument called
a diopter, which produces a drawing of the natural size. Dr.
Ranke has ingeniously attached a pantograph to the diopter in

such a way that a correct
reduced drawing may be
produced at one opera-
tion. His craniophore —
an instrument for sup-
porting a skull in a hori-
zontal position for pur-
poses of study — is the
simplest and best made,
but is, of course, suited
only to the German hori-
zontal.

In German Switzerland,
at Basel, is Dr. Kollman,
best considered here, as he
is of the German school.
Prof. Kollman is a born
teacher, and every speci-
men in his Anatomical Mu-
seum of the university is
considered as instruction
material, and is so mounted
or prepared as to make its teaching value the greatest. The sub-
ject of prehistoric races has taken much of his attention, and a
large case in the museum is devoted to a series of casts or origi-
nals of such skulls. Particularly interesting is the large series of
prehistoric Swiss skulls representing the types described in His
and Rutimeyer's classic work. Dr. Kollman has introduced some
exceedingly long and difficult words into the nomenclature of phys-
ical anthropology — leptoprosopic, chaempeprosopic, etc. They are
descriptive of cranial forms, and are intended as classificatory ; it
is doubtful, however, whether they really express natural types
or simply artificial and arbitrary groupings.

As to ethnography, Germany is permeated with it, Magnifi-
cent collections are numerous, and workers are everywhere. Leip-
sic is a center of work. Here is the collection at which Dr.
Klemm worked so diligently, now in charge of Dr. Obst. Only a
small part of the treasures of this collection are on display. These
are crowded, poorly arranged, and badly lighted ; and a vast
quantity of precious things are stored away, where they must be
deteriorating in value as the months pass. In the university

•

%

-v

^H^^. TraJsi1 ti :*:Mm^# ^^^^^^

Prof. Ad. Bastian.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN EUROPE.

61

is Prof. Friedrich. Ratzel, best known to ns for his Volkerkiinde
— an introduction to ethnography. Dr. Ratzel is now revising
this work, and he has lately issued a yet more valuable treatise
— Anthropogeographie. Ethnography is most interesting to him
in its geography, and he at present lays especial stress upon the
local distribution of customs and arts. Prof. Ratzel is a favorite
teacher, and has sent out many young men imbued with his meth-
ods. Among these, one of the most promising is Dr. Heinrich
Schurtz, privat-docent at the university, whose recent Philosophie
der Tracht is an application of Ratzel's methods to the study of
dress.

Drs. Meyer, Lueders, and Buchner are doing fine work with
the museums at Dresden, Hamburg, and Munich, and deserve
more than a brief reference. But the ethnographic work of Ger-
many and of the world cul-
minates in Berlin. Adolph
Bastian is the director of the
museum, the leader of the
corps of able workers who
carry it on. He is a man
whom years do not make
old ; one who has unquench-
able fire and enthusiasm. He
is decidedly the right man
in the right place. The Gov-
ernment has been liberal to
him, but he continually
needs new funds for more
and greater enterprises. No
one recognizes more clearly
than he the importance of
doing ethnographical work
now ; to-morrow will be too
late. Old tribes are dying
out ; new customs are being
introduced ; native cultures

are being swept away, or rapidly modified by contact with the
civilization of the white man. Illustrations of such cultures
must be saved now or never. " It is a burning house, and the
main purpose is to gather material for the future to use. And
contents are lost while we wait." So his prodigious accumula-
tions are here — for example, Dr. Grunwedel, who has direction
of the India collections, has upward of twenty-four thousand
objects in his charge. Prof. Bastian is a great traveler and a
busy writer. Scarcely a year passes without an important work
from his pen.

Dr. Eduard Seler.

62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The American department of this vast collection is exceedingly
valuable. There is but little from the Indians of the United
States ; from ancient Mexico and Peru, from the modern South
American tribes, and from the Northwest coast the representation
is magnificent. The culture of Eskimos, of Tlingits, Haidas, and
Bilgulas are fully shown. Some very choice Mexican antiquities
collected by Humboldt are here. Here, too, are three of the ex-
ceedingly rare and interesting mosaics from Mexico made by
overlaying forms of wood with bits of turquoise, obsidian, and
shell. Perhaps a score such are known in European museums :
seven are at London, three at Berlin, two at Copenhagen, and five
at Rome. They are among the most curious and interesting Az-
tec objects. There are fine series of pottery from Mexico and
Yucatan. The collection of Peruvian pottery is wonderfully com-
plete, and is no doubt the finest on public display in the world.
Reiss and StubePs great collections, upon which their famous
work, The Necropolis of Ancon, is based, are here, and include
the finest general series of Peruvian antiquities on exhibition —
especially rich in wrapped mummies, fine cloths, and household
goods. As for modern ethnography, there are series of objects
from almost every tribe from the Caribbean Sea to Cape Horn.
All this wealth of materials is under the care of Dr. Edward Seler,
whose special work upon Mexican subjects has made him known
to Americanists.

The men at Berlin are all hard workers. Dr. F. von Luschan,
curator of the African department, exemplifies this. Himself a
specialist in biblical archaeology, and frequently in the field over-
seeing excavation, he allows no opjwrtunity to pass unimproved
for gathering anthropological material of every kind. In addi-
tion to his regular work he has, while in the field, taken photo-
graphs and anthropological measurements of more than three
thousand persons, some of them among barbarous and little-known
tribes — a work which alone would not represent an idle life.

We can refer to but two more of the German workers — Dr.
Richard Andree and Dr. E. Grosse. Richard Andree, of Heidel-
berg, has the heartiest admiration for our American ethnogra-
phers and their work, and it is certain that they reciprocate. His
writings are always clear and direct. His latest work perhaps is
his Ethnographische Parallelen — a good example of his style and
ability. As editor of the geographic journal Globus, Dr. Andree
is known the world around. At the old University of Freiburg,
in the most picturesque part of the Rhine mountain country, is
in progress one of the most hopeful works in anthropology in
Europe. Dr. E. Grosse is there developing a museum and a de-
partment of anthropology. No effort is made to collect a great
mass of material, but carefully selected specimens are arranged

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN EUROPE.

63

so as to show man's progress from the oldest age of stone to the
present time, and so as to present pictures of life in various exist-
ing tribes of savage or barbarous men. Nothing is here done in
physical anthropology, but lectures are given in ethnography and
culture history, and these are exceedingly popular. Dr. Grossed
work is unobtrusive, but it is sure to be far-reaching.

Much of the value of collections is lost by bad arrangement.
Nowhere is there such pains taken in display as at Copenhagen.
The results are beautiful,
although nowhere have
greater disadvantages had
to be overcome. The Eth-
nographical Museum is the
oldest in existence, having
been founded in 1847 In-
spector Steinhauer, now
seventy-five years of age,
has had the arrangement
in charge. Dr. Kristian
Bahnson, a specialist in
American ethnography, is
his assistant. To Inspec-
tor Steinhauer was given
an old palace, with many
small rooms, not at all
adapted to the housing of
a great museum. He has
done wonders ; not an inch
of space is lost, and great
ingenuity is displayed in

making available what must at first have looked like useless wall-
room and passage-ways. The collections are arranged first by
countries or tribes, and the material from any one region is rigidly
classified into groups : (1) Religion; (2) Men ; (3) War; (I) House;
(5) Industry and Art ; (6) Amusement. Within the cases them-
selves the objects are arranged with the greatest care so as to pro-
duce the most pleasing effect possible. In the same building is the
Museum of Northern Antiquities, under charge of Dr. Sophus
Mtiller. Denmark is classic ground for the prehistoric archa?olo-
gist. Scarcely a foot of its surface but what has yielded relics.
Its peat-bogs, kitchen-middens, and tumuli are famous. Here are
found the finest flint-chipping in the world, the most interesting
of bronze implements, the finest gold ornaments of the bronze
age, and vast quantities of specimens illustrating the early age
of iron. No student can afford to neglect this collection. The
Museum of Northern Antiquities is exceedingly popular with the

Dr. Richard Andree.

64

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Danish people, who are very loyal in sending to it specimens they
may find. The Government itself is very wide awake to the im-
portance of such, work as is here done, and has acted vigorously
in the matter of preserving tumuli and other monuments of the
past.

Anthropology is by no means neglected in Switzerland. With
men like Vogt and Kollman in physical anthropology, with mu-
seums of ethnography at Basel, Bern, and Zurich, it is still true
that the department of prehistoric archaeology leads the rest there.
This is quite natural, for every lake has its old village sites and
every town of consequence has its collection of " lake-dwelling "
antiquities. There are more than two score such, of some impor-
tance, in Switzerland. Certainly those at Bern and Zurich may
be taken as good examples. The former, under Dr. van Fellen-
berg, represents very fully all three of the great " ages " of the
archaeologist. The oldest lake-dwelling villages of Europe date
back to the age of stone (the neolithic period) ; many were of the
bronze age ; some were of the early part of the age of iron. Some

of the sites were occupied
continuously from the older
to the later time, while
others represent only a sin-
gle period. At Zurich are
the collections upon which
Dr. Keller's work was based,
and very much valuable
and interesting material
from recent explorations
undertaken quite near the
city. Dr. Heierli, who
teaches prehistoric archae-
ology in the University of
Zurich, has still a largely
unworked field in Lake
Zurich. It is a mistake to
think of the lake-dwelling
sites as " worked out."

Italy is very active in
anthropological work. At
Turin Prof. Guido Cora
conducts a geographical journal which contains much ethno-
graphic matter; in the same city Prof. Lombroso experiments,
writes books, and edits a journal, to which is due much of the
present interest in criminal anthropology. In Florence are
Mantegazza, Giglioli, and Regalia. At Perugia, Belluchi works
away at the stone age of Italy. In Rome is one of the great eth-

Prof. Paolo Mantegazza.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN EUROPE. 65

nographic museums of the world, with Pigorini as director and
Coligni as assistant. Two of these workers occupy unique posi-
tions. Prof. Paolo Mantegazza is President of the Anthropological
Society of Italy, editor of an anthropological journal, Director of
the National Museum of Ethnography and Anthropology, and pro-
fessor in the university. We mention these titles because they
suggest his work. Physical anthropology, man himself, is his
specialty. Mantegazza has traveled much and has written works
of value as a result — such are his monograph upon the Lapps and
his work on India. But the books to which his fame is most due
are of a more general character. Such are his Physiology of
Pleasure, Physiology of Pain, and Physiognomy and Expression.
The latter has been published in America in English, and will give
a good idea of his style. His trilogy on love — Physiology of Love,
Hygiene of Love, and Ethnography of Love — has created a sen-
sation. The German translation of these has sold by tens of thou-
sands ; a similar success has attended the French edition ; and in
Italy they are seen everywhere. Mantegazza's mind is intensely
analytic. This is shown both in his writings and in his museum.
Nowhere else, so far as we know, is analysis applied to anthropo-
logical material. He divides it into groups illustrating: (1) Com-
parative anthropology, (2) biological anthropology, (3) artificial
deformations, (4) pathological anthropology, (5) psychological
anthropology, (6) ethnical anthropology. It must be confessed
that having divided his material in this way he makes no attempt
to arrange it afterward in the cases. In this museum, Prof. Man-
tegazza has upward of four thousand skulls, two thousand of which
are Italian. One of Mantegazza's latest ideas is a psychological
museum, in which, by objects, the workings of the mind are to be
illustrated. This museum has been begun, but it will be long be-
fore the plan can be fully developed. By profession Henry H.
Giglioli is a zoologist. In charge of the department of vertebrate
zoology at the University of Florence, his work in that line speaks
for itself. Interested in ethnography by a voyage he made around
the world, he has gathered a collection of stone implements un-
surpassed perhaps by any other private collection. The idea of
the series is not to illustrate the stone age of any one place or peo-
ple, but by carefully selected specimens from every part of the
world to show all types of stone implements. Prof. Giglioli has
also much interest in the persistence of the use of stone tools into
later culture stages.

Paris epitomizes France, and certainly the character of French
work in anthropology is fairly shown if that of the capital is de-
scribed. Anthropology is more cultivated in Paris than anywhere
else in the world, and every department is there developed. The
ethnographic collections are at the Louvre, the Trocadero, and

VOL. XLI. 6

66

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the Muse'e Guimet. It is a pity that the material from Africa and
the South seas now at the Louvre is not sent to the Trocadero
and incorporated in the collections there under charge of Dr.
Hamy. The Trocadero is a beautiful building, and the collec-
tions it contains are of great importance, but it is not adapted to
their suitable display. Dr. Hamy has made the best of his cir-
cumstances, and his cases
and wall trophies (usually
an abomination in a mu-
seum, but here a necessity)
are true works of art. The
hall devoted to African
specimens is wonderfully
fine, and the collections
from South America, Mexi-
co, and Yucatan are quite
as good as any in Europe.
One feature of this mu-
seum is that it contains a
fair representation of the
ethnography of Europe —
a thing exceedingly rare.
The Muse'e Guimet embod-
ies a brilliant idea, the il-
lustration of the world's
religions. It grew out of
an expedition sent to Asia
to study the religions of
Japan and India. The collections belong to the state and oc-
cupy a building constructed for the purpose and beautifully
arranged. The display halls are erected about a triangular
court, and the two in front are connected by a rotunda. This
contains a valuable library composed entirely of works devoted
to religions. So far only Buddhism is represented with any
degree of fullness. The arrangement is geographical. The re-
ligions of India, southeastern Asia, and China occupy the first
floor of one gallery, while in the upper floor are objects illustrat-
ing the worships of ancient Greece and Rome. In a second wing
are the Japanese series on the first floor and religious objects
from ancient Egypt on the second. The third hall is as yet
largely unoccupied. The chief criticism that one might make
of this museum is, that the specimens are all choice pieces ; there
is little to show the common idols or the mode in which worship
is conducted. On the walls in the galleries and the rotunda
are many paintings by Felix Regamy representing sacred places,
temples, and religious ceremonies.

Prof. Henry H. Giglioli.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN EUROPE.

67

In America no French anthropologist is so well known as A.
-de Quatrefages, whose Human Species and Natural History of
Man are here widely read. Up to the very date of his death,
early in the present year, the old man lived among his books and
kept at work, although he was in his eighty-second year. A
zoologist by training, he was one of the few prominent workers
in that field who held out against Darwinism and other forms of
transforinist doctrine. His writings have been of the greatest
importance. With his assistant naturalist, Dr. Hainy, he wrote
Crania Ethnica, a standard work on the characteristics of race as
shown in skulls. His Migration of the Polynesians, Fossil and
Savage Men, and the Pygmies, are others of his works that are
well known. De Quatrefages was officially connected with the
Museum of Natural History, and under his directorship much of
the material in the Galerie d' Anthropologic was gathered, and
the Laboratory of Anthropology of the museum, perhaps the best
equipped and most convenient in the world, was established.
This laboratory is situated near the house where De Quatrefages
lived (which was, by the
way, the home of Buffon).
It contains office-rooms for
the corps of workers, Doc-
tors Hamy, Verneau, and
Delisle. Two large rooms
are supplied with tables,
instruments, and materials
for the use of students. An
excellent dark room for
photographic work, rooms
for preparation of material,
for modeling and casting
in plaster, are all provided.
A fair library for reference
is also connected with the
laboratory. The Galerie
d'Anthropologie of the mu-
seum contains a vast quan-
tity of varied and interest-
ing material, probably the
greatest collection in the
world. Thirteen rooms are

too small for its suitable display. Over two thousand skulls be-
longing to the collection are packed away for lack of space for
them in the cases. One of the rooms is devoted to fossil men, and
here are many original pieces of great value and world-famous,
such as the Cro-Magnon skulls and the Mentone skeleton.

Prof. G. de Mortillet.

68

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Besides the work at the museum, there is at Paris a very broad
work centering at the School of Medicine. This work is carried
on through three distinct agencies, the society, the school, and
the museum and laboratory. The Societe d} Anthropologic de Paris
was founded May 19, 1859, by Paul Broca and a handful of other

interested men. It is the
oldest existing anthropo-
logical society, and perhaps
the largest. Always ag-
gressive, it has done much
to develop anthropologi-
cal study throughout the
world. During his lifetime
Broca continued to be a
power in its work, and his
influence largely trained a
body of younger men to
take his place. The soci-
ety publishes its Bulletin,
and has accumulated a li-
brary of some eight thou-
sand volumes. The School
of Anthropology is an out-
growth of the society. At
first an individual enter-
prise, it was " recognized
of public utility," March
23, 1889, and now receives support from the Government. This
season lectures were given on various subjects, more or less di-
rectly included under the name anthropology, by twelve profess-
ors. The schedule is here copied :

Monday, 4 p. m., G. de Mortillet: Prehistoric Anthropology.
5 p. m., Mathias Duval : Anthropogeny and Embryology.

Tuesday, 3 p. m., Fr. Schrader: Geographic Anthropology. 4
p. M., Andre Lefevre : Ethnography and Linguistics. 5 P. M.,
Georges Herve : Ethnology.

Wednesday, 4 p. m., J. V. Laborde : Biological Anthropology.
5 p. m.. Mahoudeau : Zoological Anthropology.

Friday, 3 p. M., Fauvelle : Conferences. 4 p. M., Bordier :
Medical Geography. 5 p. m., L. Manouvrier : Physiological An-
thropol ogy.

Saturday, 4 p. m., Ch. Letourneau : Sociology. 5 P. M., A. de
Mortillet : Comparative Ethnography.

All these courses are absolutely free to the public, and an
average attendance of some two hundred persons shows that they
are appreciated. The Museum and Laboratory of Broca is the

Dr. Paul Topinabd.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN EUROPE. 69

third agency of this work at the buildings of the School of Medi-
cine. During his lifetime, under the directorship of Broca him-
self, and since then usually under Dr. Paul Topinard, they are
very largely the work of these two men. The laboratory con-
tains a full series of all instruments that have been made for
anthropological investigation, and the material in the mu-
seum practically illustrates the whole history of such work in
France.

The Professors de Mortillet are father and son, and they have
been connected with all the work on prehistorics that France has
done. Gabriel de Mortillet has brought order out of chaos, sys-
tem out of confusion, by his terminology of prehistoric chro-
nology. His system is accepted very widely throughout western
Europe. It is somewhat the fashion in America to decry it, but
we believe that the nomenclature will become more and more
fixed. It will not probably fit our American conditions, but for
France and its neighbors it apparently expresses facts. G. de
Mortillet's little book, Le Prdhistorique, is a model of compact
statement and sound criticism. The larger work, the Musde Pre"-
historique, is the result of joint labor of father and son, and is
based upon the unrivaled collections from drift gravels and
caverns of France, which they have so beautifully arranged at
the museum at St. Germain. Prof. Adrien de Mortillet is a skill-
ful artist, and his lectures are always illustrated with rapidly
drawn crayon sketches.

A sketch of French work that omitted Dr. Paul Topinard
would be very faulty. An old pupil and friend of Broca, he
has done much to carry out his master's work. No one, save
Broca, has done more to direct French work in anthropology. In
many ways his influence has been felt as teacher in the school,
as Director of the Broca Laboratory, as editor of the Revue
d'Anthropologie in the past, and of L'Anthropologie at present.
Some years ago his little book, L'Anthropologie, an introduc-
tion to physical anthropology, caused a real sensation and gained
deserved recognition. Later, a much larger work, Elements
d'Anthropologie Generale, appeared, a most valuable manual for
the laboratory and for students. Within a few months he has
brought out a new book upon the relation of man to the animal
world.

In England there is considerable work in progress, though not
so much as we might expect when we remember that it was there
that Lubbock's works and the famous books of Tylor, Spencer,
and Maine appeared. The British Museum has some rich collec-
tions in ethnography and prehistoric archaeology. The depart-
ment is in charge of Mr. A. W. Franks and Mr. Charles Reade.
The best cataloguing in Europe is done here. Every specimen is

7°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

numbered. The number, together with a description and history
of the specimen, a carefully made pen-and-ink drawing, and refer-
ences to literature, are all entered upon a large card. These cards
are afterward arranged and cared for as usual in card catalogues.
We can hardly refer even to some of the more interesting speci-
mens. Magnificent series from the South seas, from Australia,
and New Guinea are here. Many objects are of especial interest
as having been collected in Captain Cook's voyages. These are
not simply interesting as mementoes of the great traveler, but
because they present us results of the native industries unaffected
by white contact. It is curious to notice how widely scattered
•Cook's specimens are. Many are here at London, others are at
Berlin, Bern, Florence, Leyden, Oxford, and A ustralia ! Of Ameri-
can objects the British Museum has some of extraordinary in-
terest : seven of the Mexi-
can mosaics ; choice things
from Peru ; a good Central
American and Antillean
series, and a fine lot of old
Eskimo objects. The an-
thropological material at
the Royal College of Sur-
geons is extensive and very
valuable.

In one of the buildings
of the South Kensington
Museum is Mr. Francis
Galton's anthropometric
laboratory. Mr. Gait on is
President of the British
Anthropological Society,
and the author of vari-
ous important works upon
Heredity, African Peoples,
and Human Faculty. He
is extremely ingenious in
devising apparatus and experiments for determining the degree
of development of various faculties. In this laboratory any vis-
itor may be examined and measured free of charge. The exam-
ination includes, besides the regular anthropological measure-
ments, tests of ej^esight, hearing, color-sense, quickness of muscu-
lar blow, etc. The results of the examination are fully recorded
on blanks prepared for the purpose, a copy of the record being
given to the subject. Many thousands of persons have been
measured in this laboratory, and the public has thus been made
acquainted with the subject of anthropometry. Mr. Galton is

Prof. E. B. Tyi.or.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN EUROPE. 71

now much interested in studying means of personal identifica-
tion, and is studying finger-tip impressions as identification ma-
terial. All at present measured in the laboratory leave their
finger-tip marks behind them.

Americans are particularly interested in the little Blackmore
Museum at Salisbury, although at present it cuts no great figure
in anthropological work. There is here a good building with fair
collections of prehistorics and some ethnographical specimens.
The bulk of the collections made by Squier and Davis in their
exploration of American mounds, and described in their famous
work, the Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, is here.
This collection includes a larger number of stone pipes of the
"mound-builder type " than any American collection. There are
also good things from Central America and Peru. In addition to
the specimens, there are in this building a great series of photo-
graphs of American Indians and a wonderful library of Americana.
The story of William Blackmore's life is almost a romance, and
this little American museum in the quaint old English town is
one of the strangest of strange things. Would that funds and
workers might be supplied to make it felt as a power in the
study of American anthropology !

Both of the great universities are at work. Oxford owns the
Pitt Rivers Museum, unique in conception. The collection is due
to the initiative of Colonel Lane Fox (General Pitt Rivers), and
has grown and developed under his guidance and that of Prof. E.
B. Tylor and Mr. Henry Balfour. The objects of the museum are
set forth in the following announcement, which is posted in vari-
ous places :

"The specimens, ethnological and prehistoric, are arranged
with a view to demonstrate either actually or hypothetically the
development and continuity of the material arts from the simpler
to the more complex forms; to explain the conservatism of
lower and barbarous races and the pertinacity with which they
retain their ancient types of art; to show the variations by
means of which progress has been affected and the application of
varieties to distinct uses; to exhibit survivals or vestiges of
ancient forms which have been retained through natural selection
in the more advanced stages of arts and reversions to such types ;
to illustrate the arts of prehistoric times as far as practicable by
those of existing savages in corresponding stages of civilization ;
to assist the question of the monogenesis or poly genesis of certain
arts — whether they are exotic or indigenous in the country where
they are now found ; and, finally, to aid in the solution of the
problem whether man has arisen from the condition of the brutes
or fallen from a high stage of perfection. To these ends objects
of the same class from different countries have been brought to-

72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gether, but in each class the variations from the same locality are
placed side by side, and the geographical distribution of the
various arts is shown by distribution maps. Special finds serving
to illustrate the correlation of the arts or of forms have been kept
together. The collection was begun in the year 1851, and has ac-
cumulated gradually." Only a few of the series displayed can be
mentioned — the gun, from the matchlock up to the present (this
is the series, the working out of which by Colonel Lane Fox led to
the founding of the museum) ; origin of geometrical patterns ; de-
velopment of forms and ornament in pottery ; from the parry-stick
to the shield ; dress development ; fire-making devices ; etc. The
museum has grown to large proportions, and Mr. Balfour, the able
curator, is now overhauling and rearranging the whole. Prof.
Edward B. Tylor, who reads courses of lectures upon the His-
tory of Culture to Oxford students each year, has exerted a
vast influence upon anthropology, not only in Great Britain and
America, but also throughout Europe. His great works, Early
History of Mankind and Primitive Culture, and his remarkable
little Anthropology, have been to many workers their first in-
spiration.

At Cambridge anthropological work is more recent than at
Oxford, but it is now on a good basis and must prosper under
Baron Anatole von Hiigel. The collections are in part prehistoric,
in part ethnographic. There is a very good local series of pre-
historics, some of the latest additions coming from excavations in
the immediate neighborhood of Cambridge — almost on the very
grounds of the university. The chief ethnographic treasures are
the collections from Fiji, gathered by Baron von Hiigel himself,
which are unequaled.

"We have aimed in this brief sketch to show where work in our
subject is done in Europe, to mention a few of the workers, and
to point out something of their methods and plans.

Tiie Canadian Government is trying experiments on an extensive scale in the
cultivation of trees. At the Central Farm, near Ottawa, the seeds of Rocky
Mountain and European conifers have been liberally sown ; and in 1891 one hun-
dred and seventy-five thousand seedlings were transplanted from the beds, to be
distributed later on to branch farms and private experimenters, who are to send
in careful reports of progress. The Government also distributed one hundred
thousand forest-tree seedlings among one thousand applicants in the Northwest,
with instructions for planting and subsequent treatment. Twenty-five gardens
along the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway have been supplied from the
experimental farms. Speaking of the need of the application of forestry in the old
provinces, Mr. J. C. Chapais mentions whole regions as known to him which were
cleared by settlers who had to desert the land soon afterward because it was
worth nothing. Such districts, he adds, would have been so many inexhaustible
wood-reserves for future generations, but are to-day useless.

WHY WE SHOULD TEACH GEOLOGY. 73

WHY WE SHOULD TEACH GEOLOGY.

By Pbof. ALPHEUS S. PACKARD.

APROPOS of a recent article in The Popular Science Monthly,
entitled " Do we teach Geology ? " it may be said that,
while the science may be taught in some high schools and smaller
colleges in the one-sided and perfunctory manner stated, the state-
ments under this head seem somewhat sweeping, as is also the
writer's condemnation of all of our text-books ; those of Dana, of
Le Conte, or Geikie, being comprehensive and excellent. The sub-
ject should be taught in our universities and larger colleges, so
as to train good teachers in the best field and laboratory methods,
who should follow such methods when called to teach in the high
schools and smaller colleges. Undoubtedly the best way to teach
geology is by lectures, supplemented by text-book study, and the
collateral reading of monographs, but especially by required field
work, and, when mineralogy and lithology are included, by labo-
ratory work. The teacher should have traveled widely, and seen
for himself volcanoes and geysers ; should have climbed mount-
ain-peaks, visited canons, and examined the effects of erosion,
and the every-day work of streams, of waves, tides, and ocean
currents. He should show his class by what agencies the scenery
at home has been produced, how certain mountains have been
carved out of blocks of sedimentary rocks, and, if he lives in a
region of fossiliferous rocks, the student should be taught to
collect and identify fossils.

All this is done with more or less thoroughness in our better
equipped colleges, and where it is possible there are chairs of
mineralogy and lithology, apart from geology proper, with well-
appointed laboratories and collections, as well as special instruc-
tion in paleontology, given by experts ; while trained assistants
in dynamical geology take classes out for field observation.

But, however the work of instruction be performed, the grand
outlines of the study should be impressed on the mind of the
student, and the teacher should have a philosophic grasp of the
subject ; and it is on account of the philosophic and general bear-
ings of geology that it should form a conspicuous element in any
liberal curriculum.

Geology, then, in its broadest scope should be taught in our
schools and colleges, and for at least twelve good reasons.

At the outset we would claim that it holds equal rank with
astronomy or biology. The former science tells us of the exist-
ence of other worlds than ours, and gives us some conception of
the immensity of space. The study of plants and animals car-

TOL. XLI. Y

74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ries an impressive lesson as to the unity prevailing amid all the
diversity of Nature, besides affording the hope that we may at
some time discover the origin of life, since it has already opened
the way to an explanation of the origin of the existing forms
of life ; while the grand outcome of geological study is that it
brings vividly before the mind the immensity of time, enabling
us to realize that time is only less than eternity. It also teaches
us that our earth has had a history, that our own race has had
a high antiquity ; and thus the contemplation of past geological
ages, reckoned by millions of years, the fact that our earth is
coeval with the sun in age — all these considerations tend to im-
measurably expand our mental horizon, and thus to react in a
way to broaden the mind.

Geology is also the complement of biology. As soon as one
has mastered the rudiments of botany and zoology, and of the
distribution of life-forms in space, the range of his thoughts
should be extended to take in the orderly succession of life in
past ages, and the evolution of modern specialized plants and
animals from the earlier, generalized types. No liberally edu-
cated person can, then, afford to ignore the study, and it seems to
us that it should be taken up for the following, among many
other considerations :

1. Our first reason is that geology throws light on the origin
of our earth and of the solar system in general ; the facts and
speculations which culminated in the modern nebular hypothesis
give some idea of the steps by which our planet assumed its
present form and became adapted for the maintenance of life.

2. After the earth cooled down and assumed its present shape
and size ; in some way unknown to us, monads and bacteria, to-
gether with infusoria, one-celled plants and animals, began to
exist, and geology hints that the period when all this became
possible may have been the early Laurentian, or at least at the
dawn of what, for a better name, we call archsean time.

3. We now feel quite sure that the diversity of life of the
Cambrian period must have been in some way the result of
great changes in the physical geography of that time, and cor-
related with the inequalities of the sea-bottom, with regions of
shallows and of abysses, with landlocked areas, islands, and in-
cipient continents, rising from submarine plateaus bearing mount-
ain-chains. Geology describes the birth of continents, the rise
of mountain-chains, and discusses the results of the action of
heat in transforming the physical features of our globe, and
thus, in part at least, explains the origin of volcanoes, the causes
of earthquakes, and the processes of mountain-carving, through
the agency of brooks and rivers.

4. Over immense tracts of mountainous regions, rocks, origi-

WHY WE SHOULD TEACH GEOLOGY. 75

nally stratified, and packed with, the remains of living beings,
have been transformed into slates, schists, and other crystalline
rocks, and the inquiry, how this has been done, can only be an-
swered by the geologist.

5. During the process of mountain-building the earth's crust
has been uplifted, shattered, or dislocated, and finally permeated
by hot springs, and the cracks and rents extending to the sur-
face filled with the precious minerals. Certainly there is good
reason why we should know how the ores thus came to be
brought up from the bowels of the earth and almost laid at our
doors. Theoretical geology gives us the probable explanation.

6. Our North American continent has had a beginning, has
passed through a period of infancy, youth, and maturity; the
mountain-ranges bounding it are of different ages; its varying
climates have become gradually established, and at different
epochs it was fitted for the maintenance of quite different as-
semblages of plants and animals. The intimate relationship be-
tween these successive plant and animal worlds and the ground
on which they were born, flourished, and died is now tolerably
well understood by our geologists.

7. Coal and coal-oils are geological products. Geologists can
now give a satisfactory account of just how coal-beds have been
formed from vast peat swamps ; why great beds of iron ore are
interstratified with the coal. We have only had our attention
drawn to coal-oils since 1860, but already our geologists feel
confident that they are due to the immense profusion of marine
animals or vegetables, or both, during the times before and since
the great Coal period ; and chemical geologists nearly all agree
in believing that petroleum is due to the storage in the earth of
the chemical products derived from the tissues and oily matters
once forming part of the bodies of myriads of living beings.

8. It is interesting to know, and history-classes learn, the mode
of origin of the people of Greece, of Rome, of the making of
Great Britain, the mode of origin of the French or German peo-
ples, and the successive steps in the history of our own nation.
It is equally important to know when the worms, ascidians,
early vertebrates, and fishes made their appearance ; when it be-
came possible for air-breathing vertebrates to exist, and when the
forerunners of mammals and man, the amphibians, were evolved
from the ganoids. Paleontology throws light on these points, if
intelligently studied and properly taught.

9. Much time is given in our schools to the memorizing of the
dates of the birth and death of kings and of dynasties. Why
should not the pupil also learn the geological date of the first
known appearance of mollusks, star-fishes, worms, insects, fishes,
reptiles, birds, and beasts ? There are a great many isolated

76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

facts and dry details in the study of fossils; but the leading
conclusions, particularly those treating of the elaboration of the
lines of forms resulting in the modern horse, the ox, the camel,
and our other domestic animals, can be made interesting, and in-
deed juicy and palatable, to the bright boy or girl of fifteen, or
to the college student.

10. The discovery of a single ammonite enabled the geologist
to determine the geological age of the gold-bearing rocks of Cali-
fornia. How indispensable fossils are as time-marks, character-
izing the different formations, and the immediate practical use
of such facts to the mining prospector, always interest a geologi-
cal class.

11. If, as is not improbable, man was evolved from some lemur-
like form, and pursued a line of development parallel to, but im-
mensely surpassing, that followed by the lines culminating in
the monkeys and apes, it is a matter of deep interest to learn the
probable time when vertebrate animals in which the fore legs
were used for climbing appeared ; when such was the struggle for
existence that the ordinary mammalian equipment did not suffice,
and the brain was called upon to act more immediately, the limbs
and skull being remolded, in a way before unknown, to answer
the behests of growing intellectual powers, until man as man ap-
peared. Paleontology again must be invoked, and who knows
how soon, when we learn more of the later Tertiaries of Africa
and Madagascar, light may flash forth and illuminate this dark
problem !

12. One of the triumphs of modern geology is that it has es-
tablished the fact of the high antiquity of man; that it has
brought forth out of caves and gravel-beds the man of Neander-
thal, the man of Spy, the inhabitants of the caves and shelters of
central France and of southern England ; and told us what man-
ner of men they were, what weapons they used, the nature of
their dwellings, of their clothing, their art instincts, their cuisine,
and something of their religious aspirations, as shown in the
burial of their dead. It is those antiquarians and geologists who
began with the study of zoology and of geology who have
founded anthropology, the youngest of the sciences. It is thus
due to the geologist that the old science of ethnology has been
rehabilitated — in fact, rejuvenated.

It is owing to the combined labors of geologists and anthro-
pologists that an entirely different view is now taken of the
origin of man. It is almost a matter of scientific truth that primi-
tive man was inferior to the lowest of existing savages ; that
our present Australian and negro races are physically and intel-
lectually, perhaps, on a higher plane than the race of Neander-
thal and of Spy ; and that there has been a geological succession

THE LIMITATIONS OF THE HEALING ART. 77

of human types, leading up to races of which our existing sav-
ages are the descendants. Physically, man of the present time is a
most composite being, the result of crossings which began to take
place long before the dawn of history. And, finally, it has been
left for the geologists and archaeologists, of whom Lyell, Lartet,
Mortillet, and others, are types, to point out the overlapping of
prehistoric upon historic times, and thus to bring to light the
lost ages, filling up the abyss in our knowledge formerly existing
between the dawn of human history and the close of geological
history.

Such is the light which geology has already thrown upon the
origin of man, and of the world in which he lives. Who can
deny the utility and importance of a study which bears such
fruits? How can a person be regarded as liberally educated
who has not been brought in contact with these facts? And
yet there are still hundreds and thousands of our college grad-
uates who have neither had careful training in the principles, nor
have been brought into contact with the grand results of modern
geology ; whose minds have not felt the inspiration and mental
tension resulting from contact with these wonderful discoveries
and conclusions. Is there not every reason why geology should
be taught, provided the facts and principles be imparted in a way
to stimulate, quicken, and expand the mind?
Brown University.

THE LIMITATIONS OF THE HEALING ART.

Br Prof. Dr. HERRMANN NOTHNAGEL, of Vienna.*

rpHE fact is very evident that the practical art of healing has
-L made great advances during the past century, especially
during the last half of it. The progress of dermatology, the
brilliant career of ophthalmology, the new creation of laryngology,
the wonderful development of operative surgery and gynaecology,
and, in the line of internal curatives, the introduction of a series
of effective remedial substances and physical methods of healing,
and, further, the greater importance attached to physiological,
dietetical, and hygienic factors of the most diversified sorts— have
all taken place during this period, and in part in the very pres-
ence of our contemporaries. And when we add to Lister's anti-
septic process Pasteur's discovery of the antidote for rabies, and
Koch's communication of a cure for consumption, which was
received a year ago with such unbounded enthusiasm, the ques-
tion may well force itself upon us, Where are the limits of the

* From an address before the Association of German Naturalists and Physicians at
Halle.

78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

healing art ? It is indeed humanly proper to hope for a still wider
extension of its scope, and it is a duty to try to obtain it. But it
is becoming to the scientific man to look without prepossessions
only at the facts, and with calm consideration to take account,
not of what has been obtained only, but of what is attainable.

" Being ill is life under changed conditions." What, then, is it
to heal ? To influence pathological processes in the organism in
such a way that they shall be brought to a halt, that the deranged
tissues and disturbed functions shall be restored to the normal,
and the interrupted interchanges between individual tissues and
functions and the whole system shall be brought back to health-
ful relations ; that is what we call healing.

Healing, in the sense that the physician's art can control or-
ganic processes in full activity, has not been advanced by the
practical progress that has been made through antisepsis. For a
tumor or an abscess can no more be made to go backward at this
time than formerly. The exsection and opening of them are not
synonymous with a real cure. And as with superficial lesions and
those arising from external causes, so it is with those in the inte-
rior organism, out of whatever causes they may have originated.
In an ulceration of the bowels, a cure may be speeded by a series
of appropriate measures to the extent that further injuries may
be prevented, but the restoration of the injured parts will not be
accomplished by them. On the bursting of a blood-vessel and
the lesion of the brain-substance, it is necessary to apply suitable
preventives to limit the congestion of the brain ; but no measure
of the surgeon hastens the coagulation of the blood or the adhe-
sion of the divided nerve-substance.

Inflammations constitute another class of clinical affections,
either acute or chronic, which, appearing in different organs, are
grouped under that single designation. As we know from daily
experience, the acute forms of inflammation are often cured, the
chronic more rarely. There is, however, no internal medicament
of demonstrated direct application for acute inflammations. Such
remedies can only act indirectly in special cases — as, for instance,
most means in acute catarrhs — as supporting applications.

The therapeutic potentiality of the physician's art is its most
ancient possession, grossly overapplied through centuries, then
abruptly abandoned in part, and now wavering in uncertainty.
Quiet, cold, and local bloodletting are the basis of a treatment
which is, under well-defined conditions, very helpful in acute in-
flammations. But it is sometimes fruitless, sometimes inapplica-
ble. Deep inflammations, skin eruptions, and processes that set
in with great activity, are regarded quite apart from specific
forms like tuberculosis ; and still it is far from being proved that
the therapeutic treatment, even when the symptoms have sub-

THE LIMITATIONS OF THE HEALING ART. 79

sided under its application, have had a direct effect on the prog-
ress of the inflammation. Although it may appear to be so, it
is no way demonstrated. It is the same also with chronic inflam-
matory processes. The subsidence of single favorably localized
forms may perhaps be promoted by such measures as massage,
gymnastics, electricity, special baths, etc. ; but of them all it can
only be said that they promote absorption; but no immediate
influence on the organism, no cure of the processes, is worked by
them. It may be all the same to the patient whether massage
controls the restorative process directly or indirectly, so that it
makes him well. In many other instances the application of simi-
lar methods in favorable cases may overcome individual symp-
toms, and remove the products of the disease, without yet having
any essential influence upon its progress. The various diseases
of the blood, metabolic derangements, and the inexhaustible multi-
tude of disorders of the nervous system, to this time have fur-
nished no more opportunities for a real cure than the soil of
Alaska for the successful cultivation of the date palm. Among
infectious diseases we admit only that in typhus, scarlet fever,
measles, dysentery, cholera, and the long, dangerous host of such
contracting diseases, medical art can contribute much to a favor-
able outcome by counteracting dangerous symptoms, and through
general hygienic measures and a judicious direction of nourish-
ment. But in only two, perhaps three, of these diseases can medi-
cine induce a cure by direct influence upon the pathological
processes — viz., on malaria, syphilis, and acuta rheumatism.
Of the last, we only know that the salicylic treatment allays
the fever and the joint affection, but is without influence on the
dangerous endocarditis, with its following of disordered heart-
rhythm. And all other infections, when they have become out-
broken and developed illness, can not to this day be cured in the
sense in which science uses that word. Whichever way one turns
he will everywhere strike limits. In fact, a diseased condition is
susceptible of cure only so long as it is attacked while still ad-
vancing; as soon as it has reached a definite culmination, no
more ; there then remain deformations, atrophies, hypertrophies,
and other resultants of most various kinds. In most cases these
are out of the reach of therapeutic influence and restorative pro-
cess, except occasionally through a mechanical measure or the
knife of the surgeon. An acute pleurisy is curable, but not its
residues. The metabolic anomalies which lead to the formation
of calculus in the kidneys can be influenced in the beginning,
but the stone when it is formed can be removed only by the
surgeon. The possibility of therapeutic effect is in many cases
determined by the locality of the process, and, further, by the
circumstance whether the cause of disease accrued suddenly or

80 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gradually, or set in with greater or less intensity. A quantity
of arsenic which ordinarily would kill at once, is borne by the
habitual arsenic-eater. Of two similarly constituted persons,
cholera will take one away at once, while another will escape
with a light attack. A disease is also incurable when its causes
work on without interruption. Malaria induces an incurably
chronic condition if the infected person does not leave the
impregnated marsh-land of his residence. A bronchial catarrh
continues stationary, and at last draws the lungs into sympathy
with it, if the person attacked by it remains constantly exposed
to a dusty atmosphere. "With like suddenness and energy of
the causes of disease, with like continuance of the local pro-
cesses, the individual's power of resistance, the vigor of his consti-
tution are important factors in determining the outcome. A
vigorous thirty-year-old man will overcome an inflammation of
the lungs which would be fatal to an old man, to a drinker, or to
a man weakened by luxury or a life of dissipation or suffering.
Finally, crimen non est artis, sed cegroti — the fault is not of the
art, but of the patient — is the phrase that may be applied to those
cases in which the most correct measures taken under favorable
circumstances fail to accomplish their purpose, because the patient
himself does not or can not co-operate with them. No treatment
can relieve the smoker from his throat-catarrh, so long as he per-
sists in his habit. This aspect of the case is especially pertinent
to the nervous disorders which are one of the growing scourges
of our age ; incapacity and vacillation, the force of outer influ-
ences, or the pressure of business too often intervene to interrupt
a cure which was otherwise fairly possible.

Gloomy as are the prospects which we have before us here,
we still recognize that all diseases which do not fall under one of
these mentioned categories are curable, or that their curability is
only a question of time. Strange as it may sound in the present
state of medicine, we believe that the possibility of in time curing
malignant tumors is not yet closed.

Real healing, the restoration to their normal state of functions
and tissues that have been changed by disease, is brought about
in its essentials only through the life-processes in the organism.
Therefore the answer to the question to what degree the healing
art is or may be in a condition to influence these processes will be
decisive as to whether it shall enlarge the boundaries of its
knowledge. And if it results that this can not be, or can be
only within a small compass, then will arise the further question
whether the object shall be hopelessly given up, or whether still
other possibilities are open for medicine to strive after its high
aim. It will never be possible to re-form lost cells or to cause
separated ones to grow together again; never immediately to

THE LIMITATIONS OF THE HEALING ART. 81

affect the processes which play in hallucinations their wild pranks
in the ganglion-cells and associative paths.

We can certainly by the application of certain substances
cause changes in particular cells which are expressed, albeit in
some unknown way, by physiological effects. Thus many alka-
loids, alcohol, ether, chloroform, bromine, curare, digitalis, etc.,
operate directly on particular cell-groups, and bundles of nerves
and muscles ; pilocarpine, arsenic, and iodine on certain glands ;
phosphorus on growth processes in the bones. When the cases at
present known are analyzed, it is found that bromine restrains
the paroxysms of epilepsy for a short time, but does not remove
the processes in the central nervous system from which they
originate. Alcohol in moderate doses temporarily excites the
brain and heart to activity, but does not cure a single pathological
condition the presence of which made the administration of alco-
hol necessary. Morphine alleviates the pains of neuralgia, but
does not effect any fundamental change in the disease. Some-
times effects appear like those of iodine in certain diseases corre-
sponding with a real cure brought about by the means itself ; but
it is still the last experience of medical art that the restoration
from the diseased condition, in the true sense of the word, must
come to pass through the organism itself. Whether an order of
thoughts like that which Robert Koch developed in his studies of
tuberculin will lead to this end must be learned by clinical ex-
periment. It may be that the healing art will make its advance
in this way. For the present we must learn, the more impress-
ively as medical knowledge becomes more perfect, that the doctor
is only the servant of Nature, not its master.

Although the expectation and the possibility of controlling
the fundamentals of pathological processes are so limited, the
healing art is nevertheless not doomed to vain contemplation and
inactive dallying. While art can not master Nature, it can follow
it with diligent observation. The truth of this remark covers a
genuine progress, and furnishes the key to the secret of the suc-
cess of really great physicians. To investigate the exact origin
of pathological changes, to ascertain by what methods and under
what conditions disturbances of the organism are most easily
overcome or counterbalanced, deliberately to support and imitate
these methods if possible, and before everything to do no harm,
is the way by which the healing art can accomplish something
important and good. History proves incontestably that practical
efficiency at the sick-bed goes in an exactly parallel line with the
cultivation of scientific methods. Medicine to-day, without yet
being able directly to cure the pathological condition, reaches,
simply by following the principles here laid down, incomparably
more favorable results than formerly. It has learned, first of all,

VOL. XLI. 8

82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not to interfere so as to destroy the course of natural compensa-
tions ; but seeks — by dietetical, hygienic, and climatic influences,
here by the removal of excitants, there by methodical stimula-
tion of the matter-changes of the nervous system — to put the
organism into a condition to overcome the pathological disturb-
ances. To use such measures, carefully adapted on principles of
scientific observation and enlarged knowledge of the course of
disease to the most diverse conditions, continually to furnish a
closer support to the natural compensations and adaptations —
that is one of the ways to which the healing art must turn in or-
der to enlarge its scope.

Since we know that already developed pathological processes
can be only imperfectly or not at all affected by art, it should be
our more inflexible purpose to guard against their beginning, to
recognize the causes of disease, and render them harmless. But
this purpose must be comprehended in its widest sense ; it should
not be confined to the prevention of infectious diseases alone, or to
mere measures of sanitary policy, but should also include specific
means of cure. Thus, the treatment of malarious disease with qui-
nine is to all appearance etiological. The changes that have already
taken place in the blood-cells and the spleen are not reversed by
quinine, but the plasmodia of malaria are in some way destroyed,
and then the disease may be cured.

The hope is not unjustified that in a nearer or further future
we shall learn to nullify by specific means the promoters of dis-
ease in many other infections. After nullifying the irritating
causes, the processes of Nature may be relied upon to complete the
cure. It is possible that this advance will be perfected incident-
ally, as has happened with quinine and malarious disease, and
with salicylic acid and rheumatism. There is also good ground
here for the hope that methodical research will be rich in re-
sults. The fruitful investigations of numerous contemporary
laborers permit much to be expected. And though the conflict of
opinions sways hither and thither, and although the knowledge
that has been gained relates only to diseases of animals, there is
no vital reason for supposing that the same results will not also
be reached for man.

The efforts of the present are turned in three directions: to
cure bacterial diseases that have already become clinically visi-
ble ; to make infections harmless while in their incubatory stages ;
and especially to ward off infection. The last-named object is
the farthest-reaching one. It can be attained in two ways: by
sanitary protective measures against epidemics, and by confer-
ring immunity on the individual organism, of which vaccination
for small-pox is a typical example. Securing artificial immunity
by inoculation, and its scientific basis, are now in the full flow

THE LIMITATIONS OF THE HEALING ART. 83

of investigation. However favorable results may be reached in
it, it seems practically clear that preventive immunity, even when
we have gained sufficient experience in it, will be conferred only
against those infections to which many men are likely to be ex-
posed— such as small-pox, measles, possibly scarlet fever, whoop-
ing-cough, inflammation of the lungs, diphtheria, and enteric
fever ; in the time of approaching epidemics, as cholera, influenza,
and typhus and relapsing fever. On the other hand, it is ex-
tremely improbable that preventive measures of immunity will be
adopted against rabies, anthrax, and tetanus. The problem of
warding off and removing the causes evidently exists in the great-
est possible comprehensiveness, and in the most diverse other
conditions, but its working is not so strikingly manifested in them
as it is against bacterial infections.

While art is limited, in the curing of pathological processes,
by the impossibility of changing the course of life at pleasure ;
while it also reaches limitations in warding off disease, yet its
function is not exhausted ; there still remains to it the extraordi-
narily important work of treating symptoms. An inconceivable
number of pharmaceutical preparations look directly to this pur-
pose. In numerous cases, also, the application of burning and
bath-cures, of electricity, and many other therapeutic helps, is
made for the same end. The importance of this part of the art
is not underrated. It is often indifferent to the patient whether
these or those anatomical and functional changes take place ; he
will have no perception of them, will not be disturbed by them in
his capacity or have his life shortened by them. But symptom-
atic treatment often makes natural cure possible ; it bridges over
dangerous episodes in the course of the disease. And no person
to whom intelligent management by a physician has preserved a
dear one will think little of the treatment of symptoms.

In this the healing art is not only capable of extraordinary
progress, but is actually advancing in an encouraging degree.
Since Griesinger lamented, thirty years ago, that the doctor was
helpless in the heat of fever, we can now, by the cold-water treat-
ment and a number of strong antipyretics, keep a typhus patient
almost continuously at the normal temperature. Recent years
have furnished numerous soporifics and antiseptics, pilocarpine
and cocaine and others, and the present is equally fruitful in the
introduction of symptomatic methods. Everywhere active life,
fresh labors ; and, amid all of it, every human existence which
comes to a premature end, every person who is hampered in his
career by chronic disease, admonishes us that here are the limits
of medical art. Some of these barriers it will never raise ; at best,
it will be able only to push them further on. — Translated for The
Popular Science Monthly from the Pharmaceutische Rundschau.

84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

DENDRITES.

By M. STANISLAS MEUNIER.

THERE is a universal tendency to seek and sometimes to see in
the forms of objects around us representations of the human
figure or of animals and plants. Many interesting examples have
been recorded and pictured in La Nature of rocks and mountains
presenting resemblances to animated forms. We are quite ready
to discern in the clouds all sorts of personages ; and at periods
when superstition has been active, apparitions have been described,
the whole existence of which consisted of misinterpreted simple
resemblances. Stones have usually been considered especially
worthy of attention in this category ; in tubercles of sandstone
and nodules of flint it is easy to find features analogous with the
most various objects. A block of sandstone is exhibited in the
forest of Fontainebleau on which one willing to see it may recog-
nize a petrified knight on his horse, all of the natural size. A
nodule of sandstone was once brought to me in the geological
laboratory of the museum, on which the owner saw the portrait
of our Lord on the cross. Some persons are specially ingenious
in finding resemblances in flints ; and Boucher de Perthes admit-
ted into his Atlas of Celtic and Antediluvian Antiquities a whole
series of figures of imitative forms of that mineral.

There is no limit to this line of curiosities. All sorts of sub-
jects may be found — calves' heads, which are quite common, and
eyes, birds, fishes, detached hands, feet, and ears, and human pro-
files. A large flint was kept for a long time at Meudon, on which
everybody recognized the bust of Louis XIV. To such accidents
M. J. B. Robinet, in 1778, devoted a part of his ingenious Consid-
erations on the Efforts of Nature in trying to make Man (Con-
siderations sur les essais de la Nature qui apprend a faire
Vhomme). As we turn the leaves of this curious work we see
described, in distinct paragraphs, anthropocardites, representing
the heart of man ; encephalites, or brains ; crano'ides, or skulls ;
otites, or ear-stones ; leucophtlialmos, or white eyes ; chirites, or
hands ; stones representing a muscle, and even the olfactory
nerve, etc.

The drawing of the distinction between fortuitous resemblances
and true fossils was protracted and made difficult by the fact that
the two forms are often mingled, sometimes associated in the
same specimen or originating in beds having the most essential
characteristics in common.

Sometimes, for instance, fossils are reduced to the condition of
impressions squeezed between two beds of rock or between two
laminae of a schistose stone. Fishes and insects are found in this

DENDRITES.

85

condition, and plants in prodigious abundance. Accidental cases
of color or structure externally resembling these may be found
under similar conditions — more or less complicated figures in
which it will be often easy to find such resemblances as clouds or
the arabesques of a tap-
estry give us. Fig. 1
represents an example
of this kind, from the
Saxonia Subterranea of
Mylius (Leipsic, 1709) ;
it is the picture of a
stone the fracture of
which exhibits spots
making oux the figure
of a fowl with her plu-
mage, comb, and the
scutels of the tarsi.
A class of accidents

Of a different Character Fia. 1.-StoNE the fracture of which presents the appear-

ance of a feathered fowl. (After Mylius.)

is especially fruitful of

surprises of the kind under consideration. These are the den-
drites, which are very frequent in joints of rocks of all ages, and
of which Fig. 2 gives a very exact idea. At Romainville and

Fig. 2. — Dendrite, composed of small crystals of ferriferous oxide of manganese — the acer-
desis of mineralogists ; found in the Assures of a lithographic limestone. (Specimen from
the Museum of Natural History ; half the natural size.)

Argenteuil, near Paris, we may see in the plaster quarries that all
the fissures crossing the beds of marl, whatever their color, white,

86

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Fig. 3. — Arborized Agate ; that is, agate in-
closing a dendrite deep in its mass. (Speci-
men from the Museum of Natural History ;
halt' the natural size.)

green, or gray, with which the gypsum is cut up, are darkened
with dendrites of various dimensions and sometimes very elegant.
These dendrites are likewise found in limestones, chalk, building-
stones, lithographic stones, and compact marbles ; in sandstones,
granite, and various other crystalline rocks. They are not always

black ; some are the color of
rust ; some are metallic, and
consist of common pyrites be-
tween sheets of slate, or copper,
or native silver, or gold. Final-
ly, besides superficial dendrites,
deep ones are known, which are
developed across the mass of the
stones. The best-known speci-
mens of this kind are those
which make appropriate the
special designation of arborized
agate (Fig. 3).

This name, like that of den-
drites, shows that a vegetable
origin was at first attributed
to these accidents. Sometimes
fancy went further ; and Fig. 4 represents, from Mylius, whom
we have already quoted, the figure of a dendrite in which the
author saw a landscape — a plain traversed by a river and bordered
by a chain of wooded hills, and pierced with caves. It is easy to
discover that dendrites have none of the characteristics of the
vegetable ramifications with which we are at first inclined to com-
pare them, and, when we study them under a sufficient magnifying
power, the crystalline
structure of most of
them appears distinct-
ly. This is especially
the case with the black
dendrites, which are
most, abundant, and is
shown in the originals
< »f Figs. 2 and 4, which I
have particularly stud-
ied, and have been able
to produce artificially.
It is evident that
these dendrites, which consist of a hydrated oxide of manganese
— the acerdesis of mineralogists — are the result of a precipitating
action exercised by calcareous rocks on water containing traces
of metallic salts. Hence we might expect to obtain an imitation

Fig. 4.

-Schist, exhibiting dendrites, in which the repre-
sentation of a landscape may be imagined.

ENERGY AS A FACTOR IN AGRICULTURE. 87

of them by placing pieces of marble or lithographic stone in a
dilute solution of chloride or sulphate of manganese. The hope
of success is all the more legitimate because carbonate of lime
has already permitted the imitation in this way of several natural
minerals, particularly of limonite, an iron mineral, and bauxite,
or the mineral of aluminum. But the experiment has not been
successful, and, instead of the desired black deposit, we get only
chocolate-brown flakes having no resemblance to the substance
of the dendrites.

Seeking for the causes of this want of success, I have found,
by analysis, that the dendrites said to be of manganese contain
oxide of iron, in minute proportions it is true, but in proportions
that seem to be sufficient. And the addition of traces of ferric
salts to the solution of manganese salt has really determined the
deposit on the limestone surface of a perfectly black compound,
presenting in many cases the exact form of the dendrites of
Nature. I have in the museum specimens that leave no doubt
on the subject, the inferiority of which to the models which I
sought to copy is most probably due to the inferior slowness of
the process of producing them. — Translated for The Popular Sci-
ence Monthly from La Nature.

ENERGY AS A FACTOR IN AGRICULTURE.*

By Dr. MANLY MILES.

THE rapid development of science and its numerous applica-
tions in the industrial arts are leading to a general recogni-
tion of its importance as a factor in the material and intellectual
progress of the age. The aid of science is now invoked in every
department of human activity, and, judging from what has already
been accomplished, we can not perceive any indications of a limit
to its useful applications in the industries.

While the general outlook encourages optimistic views in re-
gard to the present and prospective advantages that may be real-
ized from the applications of science, we should not overlook the
shadows involved in its progress, which seriously interfere with
its own advancement, and at the same time increase the difficulties
attending original investigations relating to many industrial prob-
lems.

The scope and extended range of modern science, that necessi-
tate a subdivision of its lines of research into numerous branches,

* An abstract of this paper was read at the Washington meeting of the American
Association of Science, and also before the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural
Science.

88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

each of which requires a lifetime of diligent study for its mas-
tery, are serious obstacles in the investigation of a certain class
of problems that can only be solved by contributions from the
entire circle of the sciences.

Prof. Huxley has sounded a note of warning which should be
heeded, especially by those who are engaged in conducting experi-
ments for the advancement of agricultural science. In his retir-
ing address as President of the Royal Society he says : " Of late
years it has struck me with constantly increasing force that those
who have toiled for the advancement of science are in a fair way
of being overwhelmed by the realization of their own wishes.
We are in the case of Tarpeia, who opened the gates of the Roman
citadel to the Sabines, and was crushed under the weight of the
reward bestowed upon her. It has become impossible for any man
to keep pace with the progress of the whole of any important
branch of science. If he were to attempt to do so his mental fac-
ulties would be crushed by the multitude of journals and volu-
minous monographs which a too fertile press casts upon him.
This was not the case in my young days. A diligent reader might
then keep fairly informed of all that was going on without de-
moralizing his faculties by the accumulation of unassimilated in-
formation. It looks as if the scientific, like other revolutions,
meant to devour its own children ; as if the growth of science
tended to overwhelm its votaries ; as if the man of science of the
future were condemned to diminish into a narrower and narrower
specialist as time goes on.

'' I am happy to say that I do not think any such catastrophe
a necessary consequence of the growth of science ; but I do think
it is a tendency to be feared, and an evil to be most carefully
provided against. The man who works away at one corner of
Nature, shutting his eyes to all the rest, diminishes his chances of
seeing what is to be seen in that corner ; for, as I need hardly re-
mind my present hearers, that which the investigator perceives
depends much more on that which lies behind his sense-organs
than on the object in front of them.

" It appears to me that the only defense against this tendency
to the degeneration of scientific workers lies in the organization
and extension of scientific education in such a manner as to secure
breadth of culture without superficiality ; and, on the other hand,
depth and precision of knowledge without narrowness."

From the exceeding complexity of many of the problems in
agricultural science, and the number of factors that require con-
sideration in attempts to solve them, there is especial need of
guarding against the dangers attending the exclusive prosecution
of special lines of research, which are so forcibly stated by Prof.
Hnxley with reference to the general advancement of science.

ENERGY AS A FACTOR IN AGRICULTURE. 89

In almost every problem in agriculture the complex phe-
nomena of life are directly concerned, under various forms and
activities, which can not be expressed or formulated in chemical
terms, from the self-evident truth that the part can not contain
the whole. The significance and interdependent relations of the
biological factors in agriculture are unavoidably obscured by the
exclusive consideration of specific details "which, with the ad-
vance of knowledge, may prove to be but incidents in the mani-
festations of general laws.

The solution of these Protean problems can only be secured by
abstract researches to determine the relations of the several fac-
tors to each other, and to the general laws of which they are the
expression. The principles of science that are admitted to be of
general application are the only safe guides in developing an
improved and rational system of agriculture, while the purely
empirical lines of research that aim to discover specific rules
of practice, and thus gain immediate practical results, retard the
march of progress by the delusive importance assigned to non-
essential details.

The truth of these statements may be illustrated by the re-
markable progress of the physical sciences in the past quarter of
a century, and the rapid development of the industrial arts
through the recognition and applications of the principle of the
conservation of energy, which Faraday looked upon as " the high-
est law in physical science which our faculties permit us to per-
ceive," and Huxley refers to, in connection with evolution, as
" the greatest of all of the generalizations of science."

The principle of the conservation of energy, which is now gen-
erally admitted to be a prime factor in Nature's operations, has not
received adequate attention in agricultural science. It is true
that in general terms it has been incidentally referred to as a fac-
tor in biology, more particularly with reference to mechanical
work, but the dominance of purely chemical considerations has
prevented its real significance in all organic processes from being
fully recognized.

More than twenty-five years ago, Dr. William B. Carpenter
pointed out to physiologists the " distinction between the dynami-
cal and the material conditions ; the former supplying the power
which does the work, while the latter affords the instrumental
means through which that power operates."

The material conditions have, however, continued to receive a
predominant, and almost exclusive, share of attention, and the
manifestations of energy in the processes of vegetable and animal
nutrition have practically been ignored.

In the applications of science to agriculture, and especially in
planning and conducting experiments, the transformations of

TOL. XLI. — 9

90 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

matter have been looked upon as the sole factors requiring atten-
tion, and a simplicity in organic processes has been assumed that
is not warranted by our present knowledge of the conditions that
have a decided influence on the nutrition and well-being of plants
and animals.

An approximate quantitative estimate of the expenditure of
energy in certain processes of Nature involved in growing a field
crop will serve to illustrate its importance in biological science
and farm economy, and a preliminary review of some of the
salient points in the economy of plants will simplify the problem
we have to deal with.

A growing crop, in common with other living organisms, re-
quires certain conditions of environment for the healthy and vig-
orous exercise of its vital activities, among which may be enu-
merated as essential, a suitable temperature, a certain supply of
moisture, and a sufficient food-supply; and to these must be
added soil conditions that promote an extended root development
and distribution.

Plants differ as to the temperature required for active growth,
but there is for each a minimum, below which growth ceases ; a
maximum, above which life is destroyed ; and between these an
optimum temperature which is most favorable for the activity of
the processes of nutrition. The temperature of the atmosphere,
which is an incident of seasons, need not be noticed here, but it
may be remarked that it is of less practical importance than soil
temperatures, which depend on conditions that, to some extent,
may be controlled.

Plants obtain their supply of water from the diffused moisture
of the soil, which is retained by capillary attraction. In fertile
soils this capillary water is kept in constant circulation by the
drafts made upon it by growing plants, and by the evaporation
which takes place from the surface soil, and an equilibrium is
thus maintained in the distribution of soluble soil constituents,
and in the processes of soil metabolism.*

To say nothing of other important considerations, it is evident
that soil conditions favorable for the extended distribution of the
roots of plants are necessary to enable them to obtain their needed
supplies of water from the comparatively limited amount present
in the soil. As the water evaporated from the surface soil is re-
placed from below by capillary attraction, its influence on soil
metabolism and the transportation of soluble soil constituents to-
ward the surface strata should receive attention as a factor in the

* The series of chemical, physical, and biological changes taking place in the soil, or in
the processes of vegetable and animal nutrition, are conveniently expressed by the general
term metabolism, and they are frequently designated as metabolic processes.

ENERGY AS A FACTOR IN AGRICULTURE. 91

economy of plant growth that is closely related to that presented
"by the water absorbed by the roots of plants and exhaled by their
leaves.

Energy has been defined as " the power of doing work, or over-
coming resistance/' and its varied transformations into heat,
motion, electricity, etc., without gain or loss, are expressed by the
general term conservation of energy. In the nutrition and growth
of plants an expenditure of energy is evidently required in the
work involved in a number of distinct, but correlated, processes,
the most important of which are — constructive metabolism, or the
building of organic substance; the exhalation of water by the
leaves, which is constantly taking place in their processes of nu-
trition ; the evaporation of water from the surface soil ; and the
warming of the soil to provide optimum conditions of tempera-
ture.

The energy expended in constructive metabolism, or tissue-
building, is stored up as potential energy, and reappears as heat
when the plant is decomposed by any process, as, for example,
when it is burned. The mechanical force exhibited by growing
plants is a phase of the constructive process that has often been
noticed. President Clark's squash raised a weight of 4,120 pounds
in its processes of growth. Sprouts from the roots of a tree push-
ing their way through an asphalt pavement have been observed
by myself, and many similar exhibitions of the force exerted by
growing plants are often seen.

These obvious manifestations of energy in constructive metab-
olism are, however, so familiar that they require but a passing
notice, and we will proceed to consider the much larger expendi-
tures of energy involved in vaporizing the water exhaled by the
leaves of plants and evaporated from the surface soil, as these un-
obtrusive and incidental processes, as they might be termed, are
quite as significant factors in plant growth as the direct work of
building organic substance, to which the attention of physiologists
is more particularly directed. In field experiments the results
obtained with manures must largely depend on the expenditure of
energy, under the prescribed conditions, in the work of exhalation
by the plants and the evaporation of water from the surface soil.
The supply of plant food in the manure may, in fact, be a matter
of secondary importance to the growing crop.

Experiments at Rothamsted, England, and on the continent
by Hellriegel, on the exhalation of water by a variety of farm
crops, including wheat, oats, peas, beans, and clover, show that
about three hundred pounds of water are exhaled by the leaves for
each pound of dry organic substance formed by the plants. It
was estimated by Lawes and Gilbert that the average annual ex-
halation from the wheat grown on some of the experimental plots

92

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

at Rothamsted was at the rate of 1,680,000 pounds of water per
acre, or the equivalent of 7'4 inches of rainfall ; and on the same
"basis the exhalation from a crop of Indian corn, of 60 bushels
per acre, would be equivalent to about 8*5 inches of rainfall.

So far as the expenditure of energy is concerned, it matters not
whether water is changed to vapor in the process of exhalation
by the crop or in evaporation from the soil, and the same stand-
ard of measurement will, therefore, be applicable in both cases.

Energy is measured in heat-units, and work is expressed in
foot-pounds or in kilogramme-metres.* For convenience of illus-
tration we will make use of another standard adoj)ted by engineers,
which, although not as definite, is sufficiently accurate for our
purpose.

From experimental data it has been found that, under favor-
able conditions, one pound of coal will evaporate from 6'60 to 8'66
pounds of water from an initial temperature of 32° Fahr., according
to the quality of the coal used. If we assume that one pound of
coal will evaporate 8*5 pounds of water under the conditions pre-
sented in crop-growing, our standard will be considerably above
what is realized in ordinary steam-engines.

The energy required to vaporize the water exhaled by one
acre of corn in its processes of growth, with a yield as above es-
timated, would, therefore, be represented by the heat produced in
burning 226,500 pounds of coal, or over 113 tons. This may be
expressed in another form, which will, perhaps, be more readily
understood. We are told that " a good condensing engine of
large size, supplied with good boilers, consumes two pounds of
coal per horse-power per hour." The work involved in the pro-
cess of exhalation from one acre of corn would, therefore, be
equivalent to the work of more than twenty-five horses day and
night, without cessation, for six months.

The same standards of measurement applied to the energy
expended in evaporating water from the soil will give quite as
striking results. With a sufficient rainfall to supply the require-
ments of a crop, the amount of water evaporated from the soil
will vary, within certain comparatively narrow limits, with the
amount and distribution of the rainfall, the capacity of the soil
for heat, and the atmospheric conditions that influence evapora-
tion, as temperature, humidity, and the character of the prevail-
ing winds.

From the best evidence I can obtain, which need not here be

* The English heat-unit is the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water
1° Fahr. in temperature, and the French heat-unit, or calorie, is the amount of heat re-
quired to raise one kilogramme of water 1° C. in temperature.

A foot-pound = one pound raised one foot.

A kilogramme-metre = one kilogramme (2-2 pounds) raised one metre (3-28 feet).

ENERGY AS A FACTOR IN AGRICULTURE. 93

discussed in detail, it appears safe to estimate the soil evaporation
in the Middle States at approximately twice the amount exhaled
by a growing crop of fair luxuriance. Of an annual rainfall of
thirty-two inches, or over, fairly distributed, we may then as-
sume, with apparent good reason, that about sixteen inches will
be disposed of by evaporation from a fertile, well-drained soil, and
about eight inches by exhalation from a growing crop, or an aggre-
gate of about twenty-four inches will be disposed of in the form
of vapor from soil and crop, involving an expenditure of energy
represented by the heat produced by burning 320 tons of coal per
acre, or the equivalent of the work of seventy-three horses, day
and night, without intermission, for six months. If to this is
added the energy expended in constructive metabolism and in
warming the soil, which we will not now estimate in specific
terms, the sum would represent the normal demands for energy
in growing a crop of one acre.

This enormous expenditure of energy appears to be quite as
essential to the well-being of the crop as the supply of food con-
stituents, to which attention has been too exclusively directed,
and any conditions that tend to materially increase or diminish
it must be looked upon as injurious.

From this standpoint the principle of the conservation of
energy furnishes most satisfactory data for discussing the philos-
ophy of farm drainage. On undrained, retentive soils, the rain
that falls in excess of the normal requirements of the crop and
soil metabolism must be removed by evaporation, and this calls
for a very considerable expenditure of energy that on drained
land might be made available in useful work, to say nothing of
the influence of removing surplus water by evaporation on the
physical and biological characteristics of the soil.

For each inch of surplus rainfall removed from the soil by
evaporation, the energy expended would be represented by 26,600
pounds of coal per acre. With an annual rainfall of forty inches,
which is not unusual in the Middle States, and is considerably
exceeded in some localities, there would be sixteen inches of water
in excess of the normal demands of an ordinary farm crop, and
to remove this by evaporation would require the equivalent
of about 213 tons of coal per acre, representing the continuous
work of forty-eight horses, day and night, for six months. The
removal of this surplus water by drainage would obviate the ne-
cessity for this enormous expenditure of energy, besides other
incidental advantages which we need not notice here.

In the economy of animals the manifestations of the law of
the conservation of energy are quite as striking and significant.
The potential energy of their food is the sole source of the energy
expended in work, and in their processes of nutrition and growth.

94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Animals have been looked upon as machines for converting the
vegetable products of the farm into animal products of greater
value, and this in the light of the law of the conservation of
energy may be interpreted as the conversion of the potential
energy of field crops into the useful work of an animal machine.
Considered as machines for the manufacture of definite products,
the efficiency of animals must depend upon the amount of work
performed for a given supply of energy in their food.

An ordinary steam-engine formerly converted less than one
tenth of the potential energy of the fuel consumed into useful
work, and the attention of engineers has been directed to improve-
ments in construction to secure greater economy and efficiency in
the work performed, by a more complete utilization of the poten-
tial energy supplied in the form of coal or other fuel. The re-
markable industrial development of the past few years, resulting
in a material reduction of the cost of production and transporta-
tion, is largely owing to improvements in the steam-engine
which have been brought about by a more intelligent application
of the principle of the conservation of energy.

There are good reasons for the belief that the animal machine
works with greater economy than the steam-engine, even in its
improved form, but, according to the most favorable estimates,
only a small proportion of the potential energy of foods is utilized
in useful work, and there is a broad margin for improvement,
even in what we call our improved breeds, to secure a more
efficient expenditure of energy.

The problem of paramount interest in animal husbandry is
essentially the same the mechanical engineer has been dealing
with in his efforts to improve the steam-engine. It is simply to
obtain the largest net returns in useful work from the potential
energy of the food consumed. It is evident that improvements in
the animal machine itself must be the leading object to receive
attention, and the breeders of pure-bred stock must recognize this
principle in their efforts for improvement. The form and pro-
portions in which the chemical constituents of food are provided
are of far less importance than the inherited capacity and capa-
bilities of the animal machine to utilize and economize energy in
the work involved in the manufacture of animal products.

When speaking of foods we should bear in mind the fact that
there is but a limited demand in the animal economy for the
so-called nutritive constituents, aside from their agency in the
transformations of energy involved in the metabolism of the
system. But a small proportion of the chemical constituents of
foods are stored up in the body, even during the period of growth,
when the demands for new materials in constructive metabolism
are most active, while an abundant supply of energy in an avail-

ENERGY AS A FACTOR IN AGRICULTURE. 95

able form must be provided as an essential condition of the mani-
festations of life. It must not, on the other hand, be assumed that
the potential energy of foods may be considered as a reliable in-
dex of their physiological value. Biological processes are exceed-
ingly complex, and, in calling attention to energy as a dominant
factor in vital activities, we do not lose sight of other important
considerations which can not here be noticed.

Protean transformations of energy are constantly carried on
in all the metabolic tissues. The energy expended in building
organic substance in animals, as in plants, is stored up in the
form of potential energy as an essential condition of its constitu-
tion, and it is again liberated in the form of heat in the correla-
tive processes of destructive metabolism which are taking place
without cessation in the work performed in every operation of
the system.

Dr. Foster tells us that what is really meant by the phrase,
" living substance, is not a thing, or body, of a particular chemical
composition, but matter undergoing a series of changes." These
metabolic changes are brought about, in the main, at the expense
of energy, and they represent in fact successive transformations
of energy from the active to the potential form, and a final recon-
version to heat, which leaves the body in various ways.

The animal machine is in effect a heat-engine that is con-
stantly being worn out by the work performed, and as constantly
repaired by its own processes of nutrition, and the heat leaving
the body (animal heat) represents the energy that has been used
in internal work, and finally liberated through the agency of de-
structive metabolism.

We must not, however, carry the analogy of the heat-engine
so far as to assume that the food consumed by animals is disposed
of by a process of combustion, like the fuel burned under a steam-
boiler. There is no evidence that anything like a combustive
oxidation of the food constituents, or of the tissues, takes place
in the animal economy. The building of organic substance and
storing of potential energy (constructive metabolism) is accom-
panied by parallel processes of disintegration (destructive metab-
olism), in which the stored potential energy is changed to heat ;
and these alternate, or possibly simultaneous, transformations of
energy which take place in living tissues must be regarded as
manifestations of vital activities that differ widely in their char-
acteristic features from the processes of combustive oxidation
that take place in non-living matter.

From what is now known in regard to animal physics it will
be safe to assume that from four fifths to five sixths of the poten-
tial energy of the food consumed and digested by working
animals is expended in vaporizing the water thrown off by the

96 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.

skin and lungs, and in the internal work performed by the
metabolic tissues in their constructive processes of nutrition, and
the energy used in this internal work finally leaves the body as
animal heat, a very large proportion of which is the result of
muscular and glandular metabolism.

The work performed in twenty-four hours by the heart alone
of a man weighing 150 pounds is estimated at 75,000 kilo-
gramme-metres, an expenditure of energy sufficient to raise his
own weight to a height of 3,600 feet, and the work performed by
other internal organs, and in vaporizing the water thrown off by
the skin and lungs, is quite as significant.

The energy expended in some of the unobtrusive operations of
Nature that are likely to escape attention may exceed in amount
the more obvious expenditures in mechanical work. We readily
recognize the demands for energy by an animal moving a heavy
load when working eight or ten hours a day, while we fail to
notice that from two to three times as much energy is expended
by the same animal in the course of twenty-four hours in vapor-
izing the water thrown off by the lungs and skin. As this energy
is all derived from the food consumed, it must be taken into the
account as a significant factor in discussing the physiology of
nutrition.

Another important fact should not be overlooked. In the re-
constructive processes that are carried on without intermission in
the living tissues of the animal machine, a supply of energy, as
we have seen, must be constantly provided to replace that which
is thrown off from the system in the form of heat, or expended in
vaporizing water and in external work ; but new materials are
not required to replace all the disintegrated constituents of the
tissues, as there is a rearrangement, to a certain extent, in the
processes of repair of the elements of which they are composed.
This is especially the case with muscle, which constitutes so large
a proportion of the proteid substance of the body. The work per-
formed by muscle is not at the expense of its nitrogenous sub-
stance, and its energy is, to a great extent, if not exclusively, de-
rived from the carbohydrate elements of the food. The demands
of the proteid substance of muscle for nitrogen are, therefore,
limited, and the available supplies of energy in the various ele-
ments of the food determine the efficient activity of the animal
machinery.

Energy as a factor in animal physics seems to be entirely
overlooked in the application of the popular theory of nutritive
ratios. There is a wide difference in the potential energy of feed-
ing rations that have been formulated for the same specific pur-
pose, with practically the same nutritive ratio. On the same
page of a popular agricultural paper I find two rations for milk-

BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. 97

production, the one having a ratio of 1 to 5, and the other of 1 to
5*1, but there is a difference in potential energy in the two rations
equivalent to over 2,411,000 kilogramrne-metres of work, or one
and a quarter horse-power in the day's rations.

In two other rations for milk-production with nutritive ratios
of 1 to 5 and 1 to 5*1, the difference in potential energy would be
represented by 3,112,000 kilogramme-metres, or 1*6 horse-power
for the day's feed.

There are likewise rations with exactly the same nutritive
ratio (1 to 5), prescribed for Jersey cows giving milk, in which
the difference in potential energy is equivalent to 1,123,600 kilo-
gramme-metres, or more than one half of a horse-power for the
day's feed. There are also rations for horses, with nutritive ratios
1 to 6, and 1 to 6"4, which have a difference in energy of 2,834,000
kilogramme-metres, or the equivalent of over one and a quarter
horse-power for the day.

It is unnecessary to cite further instances of the obvious fal-
lacies in rations that have been formulated in accordance with a
theory which ignores the significance of energy in animal nutri-
tion. The facts already presented must be sufficient to show that
the law of the conservation of energy should be recognized as an
important factor in the nutrition and growth of both plants and
animals, and that it should receive due attention in planning and
conducting experiments for the promotion of agricultural science,
and in interpreting their results. In the development of a rational
system of farm economy the applications of this general law must
have a dominant influence in determining the most profitable and
consistent methods of practice.

•♦»»

BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH.

Br HAEOLD WAGER and AUBEEON HEEBEET.
\_Conclu ded.~\

EXERCISE, as well as pure air, helps us in our constant strug-
gle against the poisons that we manufacture within ourselves.
It does this by driving the blood charged with oxygen, by means
of the pressure of the muscles called into play, more thoroughly
through the tissue (Foster, page 219) ; and thus it would quicken
the breaking down of dead tissue into its safe and final waste
products (water, carbonic acid, and urea), and shorten the pe-
riod during which the dead tissue was passing through various
dangerous forms which it temporarily assumes. From this fact
we may infer that the man of sedentary life, above all others,
requires pure air.

In truth, pure air and exercise are equal forces acting in the

VOL. XLI. — 10

98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

same direction. They both get rid of waste, and with it of the
poisons in the system, which are depressing various organs. We
need not, therefore, be surprised when we are told by Sir D. Gal-
ton that after barracks were better ventilated the rations of the
men had to be increased ; or by " the pathetic story " of certain
seamstresses whose work-room was ventilated, and who then
begged that the old state of things might be restored, as their
appetites had increased beyond their earnings. Sir D. Galton
gives another experience, illustrating the depressive effect of
these poisons upon the functions of life. A New York medical
man rather cruelly shut up some flies without food, some in foul
air, others in pure air ; the pure air being constantly changed.
To his surprise, the flies in the pure air died first, these dying
from simple starvation ; while the flies in the foul air died from
poison, and with the tissue of their bodies unexhausted, indicat-
ing how the functions of life were carried on to the last where
oxygen was available, but had been slowed and depressed by
the presence of the poison, so that life was actually maintained
longer in the foul than in the pure air. To take one more ex-
ample. Parkes tells us (page 159) that it was found in the case of
miners that they required six thousand cubits of air introduced
per man per hour (this included the air necessary for horses and
lights) to be able to work at their best. When this quantity was
reduced to one third or one half, there was a great reduction in
their working energy. In other words, the poison within their
system being imperfectly oxidized, impaired their faculties.*

We could wish that it were possible to write the whole of the
noble story of oxygen from a physiological point of view. It is a
double service that it performs for us. It not only, as we have
seen, neutralizes the deadly poisons resulting from waste, but it
provides the heat and energy, by the oxidizing or burning up of
this waste. All through animal life the consumption of oxygen,
serving this double purpose, is the measure of activity. Just as
reptiles and cold-blooded creatures consume small amounts of oxy-
gen and develop little activity, so birds and insects consume im-

* We may also take the case of races living in hot and cold climates. In hot climates
we breathe a smaller quantity of oxygen (owing to the expansion of gases) than in cold
climates. Thus, taking two climates, one of 32° F. and the other of 80° F., we should in-
hale about 2,164 grains of oxygen per hour in the one climate (the cold), and only 1,971
in the other climate (the warm), or a difference of about nine per cent (Galton, Our
Ilomes, p. 498). This would in part account for the difference of energy that exists in
the races of hot and cold climates ; just as our own energy varies considerably on hot
days and keen frosty days, though we think some allowance ought to be made for the more
open-air life that would be led in the warm climate. The bearing of these facts upon
crowded rooms should be perceived. As the room gets hotter, not only are we breathing
more poison, but less oxygen, which is the only remedy for the poison. We are therefore
doubling the causes of evil.

BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. 99

mense quantities of oxygen and develop immense activity. Each
animal has, as Prof. Foster believes (page 812), its own peculiar
quantity, its coefficient, so to speak, of oxygen, which it consumes—
an amount which, judging from the few instances he gives, seems
to vary with intelligence ; thus the dog consumes more than the
rabbit per pound of its weight, and a man more than a dog. In
the same way, a waking man consumes more oxygen than a
sleeping man, a man at work than a sedentary man, a young man
than an old man, a young child more than the young man. The
restless activity of children marks both their great consumption
of oxygen and their pressing need for it by being allowed to
breathe abundance of pure air. Rapid and extensive waste is
going on in every child's body. Tissue of every kind, including
bone, is being constantly broken down in order that it may be built
up anew on a larger scale, and it is therefore the greatest cruelty
in their case not to provide them in fullest measure with the
purest air. Unhappily, very little thought is given to this mat-
ter ; and with quite young children— whose need is the greatest
of all— our nurseries are only too often mere slaughter-houses.
Mothers of all classes should try to see the meaning of the fact *
that out of four deaths of infants one takes place from lung col-
lapse, a state that often follows bronchial inflammation (see R. D.
Powell, Lungs; Quain,page 861), and probably of ten indicates the
source of the mischief. Dr. Douglas Powell significantly says,
" All causes that interfere with respiratory efficiency favor the
occurrence of the condition named."

It is now right for us to look at the subject of these waste-
poisons in special reference to the skin. Without referring here
to the different calculations made on this subject, it is enough to
say that much less carbonic acid escapes from the skin than from
the lungs; more water (if we are to follow Prof. Foster — who
differs from other authorities, who again differ among them-
selves— we may say roughly, 1*5 pound from lungs, and 2'5 pounds
from the skin per day), and a larger amount of solid matter The
solid matter is put at one or two per cent of the whole 2*5 pounds
and two thirds of this one or two per cent is organic matter con-
taining the poisons in question. \ We can see the importance of
the skin, as an organ of excretion, in various ways. In the first
place, the provision of an enormous number of sweat-glands un-

* So it has been stated. It is also interesting to quote the statement from the Regis-
trar-General's Report for 1889, that there were in that year 71,056 deaths of male infants
(not over twelve months) in England, and out of this number, 13,805 (roughly speaking,
about one in five) died of diseases connected with the respiratory system. It is right to
add that lung collapse may follow many different kinds of illness.

f Thus we should have from 118-3 to 236'6 grains of organic matter excreted by the
skin in twenty-four hours.

ioo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

der the skin, supposed by Krause (Baker's Kirk, page 427) to be
between two and three millions in number — in the parts where
they are least abundant they are over four hundred to the square
inch — offers evidence of a physiological character on the point,
even if, as is stated, some small part of skin perspiration takes
place independently of these glands. Then we have the evidence
of the disagreeable odor from the skin and clothes where cleanli-
ness is not observed ; again, we have the curious facts of death
having both actually and nearly occurred in cases where the body
has been covered (the mouth having been left free) with gold-leaf
or plaster of Paris. Various explanations have been given,
but Prof. Foster seems to think (page 697) that the retention
of poisonous matters — " constituents of sweat, or the products of
some abnormal metabolism " (change) — which would have been
discharged through the sweat-glands, is largely concerned in the
matter. We venture to believe — quite independently of certain
experiments — that this conclusion can not be avoided.

We have also a most remarkable case recorded by Sir D. Gal-
ton. Some men in the horse artillery had left their bedding rolled
up for two months, without its being opened to the air. When
first used again, man after man who had slept on this bedding
came into hospital with " a suspicious fever." It would be diffi-
cult to find a case that more vividly illustrates both the poisonous
character of the emanations of the body and the necessity of free
ventilation in order to render them harmless. Again, when se-
rious consequences result from a chill — owing to the constriction
of the blood-vessels of the skin and interference with the sweat-
glands — such as a dangerous affection of the kidneys (Richardson,
page 283), or a congestion of the spleen (Richardson, page 307), or
the inflammation of bone and periosteum (Richardson, page 323), it
seems probable that the cause of mischief in all these cases is
either the retention of normal poisons that ought to have escaped
through the skin, or the formation of abnormal poisons during the
inaction of the skin. [We think it is Dr. Richardson who makes
this suggestion.] Again, the fetid exhalations from lungs and
skin in starvation seem to show that the breaking down of tissue,
which is very rapid in these cases, is resulting in a larger dis-
charge than usual, through skin and lungs, of putrescent matter.

From what has been already said, we ought not to feel surprised
that those who live in foul air are not only lowering their health,
but are carefully preparing themselves both for lung and bron-
chial affections, and for such diseases as scarlet fever, typhoid,
small-pox, dipththeria, dysentery, cholera, etc. As regards cholera,
we extract the following interesting account given by Dr. Car-
penter. He states (page 360) that in the fatal autumn of 1849 there
was at Taunton an exceedingly badly ventilated workhouse. In

BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. 101

the school-rooms there were only sixty-eight cubic feet or less per
head. The fatality of the cholera attack — thus carefully prepared
for — -was awful. Within forty-eight hours after the first attack,
nineteen deaths and forty-two seizures had taken place. In the
course of a week sixty, or twenty -two per cent of the whole num-
ber, died, almost all the others suffering badly. Fewer boys died
as compared with girls, because, as it was stated, having even less
air than the girls, they used to break the windows. In the jail
of the same town, where each prisoner had over 800, and in some
cases over 900 cubic feet, and where a system of ventilation kept
renewing the air, there was not " the slightest indication of the
epidemic influence." In August, 1849, the cholera raged severely
in London, the mortality having increased from nearly 1 per 1,000
in June and July to 4| in August and September. It happened
that at this moment a large number of male prisoners were trans-
ferred from Millbank Prison — which was in one of the bad dis-
tricts— to another part of the country, the numbers being thus
reduced from over 1,000 to close upon 400 ; while at the same time
the female prisoners were slightly increased in number in Mill-
bank Prison, from 120 to 131. The consequences were remarkable.
The mortality of the female prisoners went up from a little over
eight to a little over fifty-four per cent (which was considerably
above the rate of increase in the outside districts), while the mor-
tality of the men fell from slightly over 23 per 1,000 to nearly 10
(the June and July rate of mortality). Carpenter gives other in-
teresting examples, and also remarks upon the fact that the special
centers of cholera existed before the invasion of that disease as
fever nests ; and that cholera followed the footsteps of other dis-
eases, not only in the same district, but in the same streets and
houses, and even rooms.*

As with cholera, so with other causes of death. At Secun-
derabad, in India, in old days, the barrack accommodation for the
line was unusally deficient, and the average annual mortality of
the men was nearly double the average of the presidency. At
the same station, both the officers, who were well quartered, and
the detachment of artillery, who had roomier barracks "at no
great distance," did not share in the heightened mortality (Car-
penter, page 363). Barrackpore furnished an even worse exam-

* Of course it would be unfair to put all these cases simply and exclusively down to
the effects of vitiated air, as we might, perhaps, in the case of the prison quoted above ;
since overcrowding in towns occurs among the poorest part of the people, living on the
worst food, badly clothed, and therefore for these reasons exposed to attacks of disease ;
but with all such deductions the evidence is of a striking character. Dr. Richardson writes
to the same effect. Speaking of relapsing fever, he says, "The disease (1847) followed
where the habitation was most crowded " (Our Homes, p. V); and, again, " Certain it is
that homes which are charged with impure atmosphere are the places in which septic
diseases are most likely to be intensified and most likely to spread " (Our Homes, p. 21).

io2 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pie as regards troops ; but the worst of all was to be found in the
Indian jails, where, in some instances, 70 cubic feet only of air was
the average allowed; in no cases did it exceed 300 cubic feet.
The mortality was, as might be expected, one in four. It was a
humble imitation of the Black Hole of Calcutta. So at the end
of the last century, in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, the mortality
from trismus of the children was one in every six born ; by better
conditions of ventilation, it was reduced to one in nineteen and a
half (Carpenter, page 985) ; and this number of deaths was again
reduced. So in the London workhouses of the last century, twenty-
three out of twenty-four children died in their first year. By re-
forms, especially by improved ventilation, the number of deaths
was reduced from between 2,000 and 3,000 to between 400 and 500
(Carpenter, page 365). So with our soldiers. When barracks
improved, especially in the matter of ventilation, deaths from
zymotic diseases fell from 4*1 per 1,000 to 0"96 per 1,000 (Galton).
So in the case of our sailors on board the Kattlesnake, a case
which came under the notice of Prof. Huxley. The crew (Car-
penter, page 25G) had acquired by confinement (this seems to have
been the special cause, though not the only cause) a predisposition
to disease. No malady appeared, however, until one of them
slightly wounded his hand: then typhoid resulted, and ran
through the whole ship's company. They had carefully prepared
themselves for disease with the poisons of impure air.

"We suspect that no class of human beings suffers so much
from the poison of foul air as infants. Older children and grown-
up persons are seldom so much shut up, and the diseases by which
so many infants die, infantile diarrhoea, convulsions, and infantile
pneumonia,* strongly suggest the irritation likely to be pro-
duced by breathing these waste-poisons; though improper food
must also bear a large share of the blame. Of all the evil conse-
quences, however, of foul air none can be traced more surely than
phthisis or pulmonary consumption. Wherever men are crowded
together without care and proper means to supply them with
fresh air, there pulmonary disease shows itself. Parkes, Dr. A.
Ransome, Sir D. Galton, and others have collected many interest-
ing examples bearing on this matter. \ Sir D. Galton tells us
(page 502) that after our barracks were improved — ventilation
being one of the leading improvements — chest and tubercular dis-
ease, which had been fatal to 101 per 1,000 soldiers, was only

* These make up a very large proportion. See lectures by Sutton. Health Lectures,
1879-'80, p. 130.

f " Experiments have recently been made in Berlin, in a room closely shut up after the
death of a consumptive patient. Six weeks after the death living microbes of phthisis
were found on the mirror, walls, and picture-frames, and these introduced into the body of
a guinea-pig produced the disease." — (L. P.)

BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. 103

fatal to 4*2, and in the same way that, with proper ventilation
(and other improvements) of the stables of the horses, coughs
and catarrhs disappeared. He also quotes Dr. Leeds, of New
York, to show that the supposed cure of sending a consumptive
patient to a cow-stable was in reality the cure of sending him
into somewhat purer air than that of his own room (page 502).
Dr. Richardson quotes a case where no less than nine members of
a family following the occupation of Cheap Jack were in succes-
sion the victims of consumption from sleeping in a traveling van,
their life in the open air during the day being insufficient to
counteract the poison breathed in the night (Our Homes, page
11). Parkes also tells us (page 152) that in the royal navy and in
the mercantile navy bad ventilation and phthisis, occasionally
amounting to a veritable epidemic, have accompanied each other ;
and he quotes many authorities insisting upon the close relation
between foul air and pulmonary consumption. On the same
point — the slaughter produced by unventilated barracks — Dr.
Richardson tells us the mortality in the army before Sebastopol
was during twenty-two weeks ending May 31, 1856, at the rate of
12*5 per 1,000 as against 20*4 of the Guards quartered in England
(Our Homes, page 13). Dr. A. Ransome reports (Health Lect-
ures, 1875-76, page 149) a case as late as 1861, where fearful lung
disease broke out in some of the ships of the royal navy. The
arrangements were actually such that only fourteen inches space
was allowed to each hammock, and the air above the hammock
was 8° to 10° hotter than below.*

The same evidence comes from the sedentary trades, some of
which "afford experimental conditions for the development of
disease"; from the cases of phthisis, or destructive lung disease,
among cows in unventilated sheds (Parkes, page 162) ; from the
higher rate of consumption in town as against village, and city
as against town (Hirsch, page 213)— in each case the dearer lodg-
ing implying more overcrowding; from the outdoor treatments
now recommended for consumptive patients; and from other
sources, f

When we come to pneumonia, it is still the same poisons, we
believe, which indirectly are at work. As in pulmonary con-

* The violence of so-called Russian influenza in America is probably to some extent
the result of the breathing of highly impure air, which is so common in that country.
We suspect that this disease is just one of the many forms of trouble which appear where
people live in constant disregard of the purity of the air of their living-rooms. The subject
demands attention from this point of view.

f There are many interesting points — such as the discussion as regards the effect of
dampness of soil, and Hirsch's theory as regards the high Mexican plateaus— which have
to be considered, but they do not seem to shake the main fact that impure air is the great
ally of pulmonary consumption.

io4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sumption the bacillus finds its food prepared for it in the unhealthy
state of the blood and tissues — altered by the poisons that have
been rebreathed from foul air — so also must it be in pneumonia ;
if we are to accept the statements made about the bacterium of
pneumonia (Crookshank, page 273). Secondary pneumonia, which
is a lung attack resulting from the poison in the system from
such a fever as typhoid, throws some light upon this matter, and
seems exactly to explain the origin of ordinary pneumonia. In
ordinary pneumonia we believe that it would be found that the
person attacked had been living in rooms where the air was
tainted, had breathed consequently, again and again, the exhaled
poisons, until these poisons had so altered the tissue as to allow
the bacterium to form its lodgment ; in other words, that he was
as much " poisoned " as the person suffering from secondary pneu-
monia. Of course a slight chill, by arresting the action of the
skin and thus increasing the poison in the system, is likely enough
to be the immediate precursor of the attack by rendering the con-
ditions still more favorable for the germ. Again, latent pneu-
monia in quite young children is sometimes masked (Quain, page
880) by the signs of the nervous disorder which precedes it. This
nervous disorder tells the story. It is caused by the poisons
which are acting on the system, and which at last produce the at-
tack of pneumonia.*

It might, however, be urged that a person leading a healthy
outdoor life might, after severe exposure, be attacked by pneu-
monia. Certainly, and in his case the attack would mean poison-
ing (that is, predisposing for the germ by poisoning) through the
skin ; just as in the case of the man living in bad air it would
mean poisoning through the air taken into the lungs.

Now, granting that this is a true explanation, that pneumonia,
or even common cold, is a case of poisoning, and only a case of
cold in a secondary sense, it is worth noticing that the effect of
these poisons must be felt in the throat and bronchial passages
and lungs much more than in other organs. These poisons would
cling to the sides of the throat and bronchial (and nasal) passages,
and would often enter the lungs. In the case of persons living in
foul air, these organs, being more exposed and in intimate contact
with the poison, would probably be saturated with it, and there-
fore would be always prepared for disease. We can then under-

* If on the other hand it is believed that pneumonia can arise without the intervention
of the bacterium, we must regard it as a case of direct instead of indirect poisoning. That
there is such direct poisoning we know from those attacks of the liver and kidneys which
follow a severe chill, and throw back the poisons, which should have been excreted by the
skin, on to those organs. Parkes (p. 164) strongly believed that bronchitic affections are
often produced from the breathing of foul air. He does not, however, as far as we are
aware, enter into explanations.

BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. 105

stand at once why the leading symptoms of a cold are violent
flow from the nose, sneezing, coughing, with the accumulation of
phlegm, and painful soreness in the throat.* These symptoms
"become intelligible at once from the point of view of local poison-
ing, and we see in all the circumstances of a cold the " protective
efforts" which Nature makes to eject the poison — of whatever
kind it may be — from the parts which are specially attacked, just
as we often see in diarrhoea the effort to get rid of an irritant,
or' in fever, with its rapid disintegration of tissue, of the poison
that has attacked the system. Of course, as in pneumonia, some
slight chill often immediately precedes the attack of cold — the
chill, by its arrest of skin action, throwing more poison into the
blood, which is sufficient to determine the attack in the predis-
posed part.

We believe, therefore, that few healthy persons would be sub-
ject to cold, unless they lived in impure air. With an old person,
or a person in lowered health, it is different. A defective ma-
chinery for the circulation of the blood or for respiration might
readily result in the waste-poisons being imperfectly separated
from the blood, and thus such persons would live in the same state
of blood-poisoning and preparation for attack as a young and
healthy person does who constantly breathes bad air. Where we
have cases of liver or kidney attack following upon a severe chill,
we may suppose either that the poisons retained (or formed) near
the surface of the body pass into the blood, and then act through
the nervous centers upon those organs which happen to be spe-
cially susceptible ; or that the poisons, imperfectly breathed out at
the lungs, are carried directly to those organs.

We wish that it were possible to follow the subject further, but
we have already overstepped the limits which the kindness of the
editor has allowed. We can only say, in conclusion, that we are
convinced that very grave issues are dependent upon the question
of pure air in our houses. We suspect that not only liability to
cold, but to gout, rheumatism, lumbago, neuralgia, some forms of
headache, and many forms of nervous irritation are to be con-
quered by constantly giving lungs and skin a fair chance of get-
ting rid of these poisons ; we feel sure that the irritable temper
that so often accompanies severe literary work, and at last
ends in the " break down/' must largely be put to the account
of the impure air breathed through long hours ; and we suspect

* The fact that the air that we breathe is delayed for some little time in the bronchia
passages before reaching the lungs probably increases the local poisoning, and therefore
the predisposition for attack by the germ of the parts when we breathe bad air. In this
way perhaps the lungs are protected at the expense of the bronchial passages ; and a cold
is the violent occasional expurgation of those parts which are specially exposed to the
poison.

io6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that much of the intemperate drinking in towns results from
the depressed feeling which follows work done under similar
conditions. We think a great society should be formed to arouse
the interest of all classes in this subject, and that inquiries
should be made — the answers being published — as to the pro-
vision for fresh air existing in hotels, concert-rooms, theatres,
schools, churches, etc. We are, both of us, opposed to action
being taken through state inspectors. The present evil will
never be really overcome until individual interest is aroused;
and the state inspector does not develop individual interest.
We shall be glad to communicate with any persons anxious
to take steps in the matter, and shall hope to draw up a short !
paper containing a few practical suggestions of a simple nature.
Meanwhile, without discussing systems of artificial ventilation,
we say to everybody : " Live as much as you can with open win-
dows, wearing whatever extra clothes are necessary. In this way
you will turn the hours of your work to physical profit instead of
to physical loss. If you can not bear an open window, even with
an extra coat, and a rug over your knees, when you are sitting in
a room, do the next best thing, which is, to throw the windows
wide open — not a poor six inches — whenever you leave it, and
thus get rid of the taint of the many dead bodies that we have
breathed out from ourselves, and that hang like ghosts about
our rooms. Smuts, as we confess, may be bad, but they are
white as snow compared with impure air. Pay special atten-
tion to the constant exposure to pure air both of clothes and
of bedding. Avoid chill, that is one form of poisoning. Avoid
impure air, that is another and much more insidious form of
poisoning."

Our present addresses are : Harold Wager, Yorkshire College,
Leeds ; and Auberon Herbert, Larichban, Cladich, Argyllshire.

Several gentlemen have been kind enough to read the forego-
ing paper, and to express the following opinions upon it. Sir
Lyon Playf air writes :

I return your proof with only a few suggestions. The paper is a good expo-
sition of air in its relations to public health, and. is likely to he very useful. You
ought to follow it up with another paper on water, and conclude with one on
cleanliness. Pure air, pure water, and cleanliness, personal and objective, are the
three great factors of public health, provided that people are adequately fed. Na-
poleon, reciting his long personal experiences at St. Flelena, made a wise remark:
" Life is a fortress which neither you nor I know anything about. "Why throw
obstacles in the way of its defense? Water, air, and cleanliness are the chief arti-
cles in my pharmacopoeia." You and Mr. Wager have made an excellent begin-
ning with air. Follow it up with essays on water and cleanliness, and then, as
a veteran sanitary reformer, I will begin to think that my time for preaching is
ended. T write this, withholding my judgment on certain special theories yon
have advanced.

BAD AIR AND BAD HEALTH. ^07

Prof. Huxley writes :

When you insist upon the importance of fresh air — especially in combination
with exercise — I go heartily with you. I have long been convinced (and to a great
extent by personal experience) that what people are pleased to call " overwork" in
a large proportion of cases means under-oxygenation and consequent accumulation
of waste-matter, which operates as a poison. The " depression " of overworked
nervous organization is very commonly the " oppression " of some physiological
candle-snuff not properly burned.

Furthermore, it is highly probable that the decaying organic matter given off
from the whole free surface of animal bodies, taken in conjunction with its micro-
bial contents, is a source of danger, but whether directly or indirectly is a point
about which I sbould not like to speak confidently.

The fact is, while the virtues of fresh air and the wisdom of physical purity
as a prophylactic may be very confidently justified by experience, the theory of
the subject is full of difficulties, and the present views of physiologists must be
regarded as merely tentative hypotheses. I should not feel justified in putting
the theoretical points you advance as safely established truths before the public.
I began to mark some paragraphs I thought specially open to objection; but I
can not go into the matter, as I am myself struggling out of the influenza poison,
which afflicts one's brain with mere muddiness.

Dr. Clifford Allbutt writes :

Whether there be room for question in parts of your argument or not, it is in
the main true, and your practical conclusions are as solidly true at they are im-
pressive.

If any one doubt, let him try the marvelous recreation of a few nights camped
out sub dio and be converted.

Moreover, the marvelous effects of an open-air life in the cure of such mala-
dies as consumption are known of all men. But is it kind to tell us these dread-
ful things when we'are helpless to amend them?

Your home solution of the problem is known to your friends, and is excellent
in your circumstances, but is impossible in towns, where every inch of window
means an inch of grime on walls, ceilings, and furniture. Not only so, but our
big common dwelling-halls are gone, our high-backed chairs and settles are gone,
our tapestry is gone, and air supplied in modern fashion by slits or pipes means
"drafts."

Now, " drafts " will kill some of us as quickly as ptomaines and far more
painfully.

Please write another paper to tell us what is to be done !

Dr. W. B. Cheadle writes :

I am sure that you are doing a valuable sanitary service in calling attention to
the chronic poisoning by foul air which goes on ?o constantly without being real-
ized in the homes of both rich and poor, and in business offices and in workshops.

The poor suffer from the small, ill -ventilated cubic space available for either
sitting-rooms or bedrooms and the crowding of work-rooms ; the better classes
partly from the close offices in which some of them work, but chiefly from de-
fective bedroom space and ventilation. Few people, I imagine, realize the fact
that about one third of their whole lives is spent in their bedrooms, and that they
pass this third part of their existence in an atmosphere so poisoned by organic

io8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

matter that it would not be tolerated in a sitting-room for a moment. The amount
of space allowed in bedrooms and dormitories is frequently altogether insufficient.
Doors and windows are tightly closed, and there is practically little ventilation
going on for six or eight hours of sleeping time, whereas in sitting-rooms the ad-
mission of air is promoted by persons passing in and out.

This steady nightly poisoning goes on in many public institutions, I am afraid,
in the "houses" of some public schools, and the dormitories of charitable institu-
tions. They are well ventilated during the day, closed at night, and the allow-
ance of cubic space is quite insufficient to supply fresh air enough with the very
small influx which can take place.

Night nurseries, again, especially in large towns, are liable to be grossly over-
crowded. I have seen a small, low room in the attics of a London mansion used
as a sleeping apartment for five or six children and a nurse which had not space
or ventilation enough for two persons.

Without indorsing the whole of the pathology suggested in your excellent
paper, I am sure you are right in attributing a large proportion of ill health, con-
tagious disease, and especially the increased virulence of this, to air fouled by
organic matter.

Prof. W. H. Flower writes :

I am not sufficiently acquainted with modern physiology to know whether all
the scientific details of the paper are correct, but I quite agree with you in the
very great importance of the subjeot being pressed home upon all classes. How,
for instance, could people travel in a railway carriage with perhaps six or more
companions shut up together for several hours, and insisting on keeping all the
windows closed, as they often do, if they were made to realize that the air which
they are breathing must necessarily be passing in and out of the lungs, not only
of themselves, but of all their fellow-travelers as well, over and over again in the
course of the journey, and each time becoming more and more contaminated ?

I have always thought, though I have not medical experience enough to prove
it, that the greater prevalence of tuberculosis and other lung disease in cold over
•warm climates is owing, not so much to difference of temperature, as to the fact
that in the former there is a greater tendency to breathe impure air for the pur-
pose of warmth. My theories on the subject are, however, rather staggered by
the thought of rabbits, sand-martin, etc., passing a considerable part of their lives
at the bottom of burrows, where anything like ventilation seems absolutely im-
possible, and yet remaining perfectly healthy.

Mr. Lawson Tait writes :

What can I add to an article, so lucidly written, save that I agree generally
with it, and hope that it may be productive of great good, as it well may?

— Contemporary Review.

Dr. Junker expresses, in the narrative of his travels in Africa, a somewhat
favorable opinion of the intellectual qualities of the negroes among whom he trav-
eled, and pronounces them capable of higher moral development. He everywhere
found the upper classes, princes and nobles, the most highly endowed with intel-
lectual qualities. This he attributes to the fact that the negro ruler is compelled
to think and act in his capacity of judge, lawgiver, and captain. He notices, too,
the wonderful fluency of speech acquired from the custom of making long ora-
tions, embellished with simile and metaphor, in their public assemblies.

A DESERT FRUIT. 109

A DESERT FRUIT.

By GRANT ALLEN.

WHO knows tlie Mediterranean, knows the prickly pear. Not
that that quaint and uncanny-looking cactus, with its yel-
low blossoms and bristling fruits that seem to grow paradoxically
out of the edge of thick, fleshy leaves is really a native of Italy,
Spain, and North Africa, where it now abounds on every sun-
smitten hillside. Like Mr. Henry James and Mr. Marion Craw-
ford, the Barbary fig, as the French call it, is, in point of fact, an
American citizen, domiciled and half naturalized on this side of
the Atlantic, but redolent still at heart of its Columbian origin.
Nothing is more common, indeed, than to see classical pictures of
the Alma-Tadema school — not, of course, from the brush of the
master himself, who is impeccable in such details, but fair works
of decent imitators — in which Caia or Marcia leans gracefully in
her white stole on one pensive elbow against a marble lintel,
beside a court-yard decorated with a Pompeiian basin, and over-
grown with prickly pear or " American aloes." I need hardly say
that, as a matter of plain historical fact, neither cactuses nor agaves
were known in Europe till long after Christopher Columbus had
steered his wandering bark to the sandy shores of Cat's Island in
the Bahamas. (I have seen Cat's Island with these very eyes, and
can honestly assure you that its shores are sandy.) But this is
only one among the many pardonable little inaccuracies of paint-
ers, who thrust scarlet geraniums from the Cape of Good Hope
into the fingers of Aspasia, or supply King Solomon in all his
glory with Japanese lilies of the most recent introduction.

At the present day, it is true, both the prickly-pear cactus and
the American agave (which the world at large insists upon con-
founding with the aloe, a member of a totally distinct family)
have spread themselves in an apparently wild condition over all
the rocky coasts both of southern Europe and of northern Africa.
The alien desert weeds have fixed their roots firmly in the sun-
baked clefts of Ligurian Apennines ; the tall candelabrum of the
"Western agave has reared its great spike of branching blossoms
(which flower, not once in a century, as legend avers, but once in
some fifteen years or so) on all the basking hillsides of the Mau-
ritanian Atlas. But for the origin, and therefore for the evolu-
tionary history, of either plant, we must look away from the shore
of the inland sea to the arid expanse of the Mexican desert. It
was there, among the sweltering rocks of the Tierras Calientes,
that these ungainly cactuses first learned to clothe themselves in
prickly mail, to store in their loose tissues an abundant supply of
sticky moisture, and to set at defiance the persistent attacks of all

no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

external enemies. The prickly pear, in fact, is a typical instance
of a desert plant, as the camel is a typical instance of a desert
animal. Each lays itself out to endure the long droughts of its
almost rainless habitat by drinking as much as it can when oppor-
tunity offers, hoarding up the superfluous water for future use,
and economizing evaporation by every means in its power.

If you ask that convenient fiction, the Man in the Street, what
sort of plant a cactus is, he will probably tell you it is all leaf and
no stem, and each of the leaves grows out of the last one. When-
ever we set up the Man in the Street, however, you must have
noticed we do it in order to knock him down again like a nine-pin
next moment : and this particular instance is no exception to the
rule ; for the truth is that a cactus is practically all stem and no
leaves, what looks like a leaf being really a branch sticking out
at an angle. The true leaves, if there are any, are reduced to
mere spines or prickles on the surface, while the branches, in the
prickly -pear and many of the ornamental hot-house cactuses, are
flattened out like a leaf to perform foliar functions. In most
plants, to put it simply, the leaves are the mouths and stomachs
of the organism ; their thin and flattened blades are spread out
horizontally in a wide expanse, covered with tiny throats and lips
which suck in carbonic acid from the surrounding air, and disin-
tegrate it in their own cells under the influence of sunlight. In
the prickly pears, on the contrary, it is the flattened stem and
branches which undertake this essential operation in the life of
the plant — the sucking-in of carbon and giving-out of oxygen,
which is to the vegetable exactly what the eating and digesting
of food is to the animal organism. In their old age, however,
the stems of the prickly pear display their true character by be-
coming woody in texture and losing their articulated leaf-like
appearance.

Everything on this earth can best be understood by investi-
gating the history of its origin and development, and in order to
understand this curious reversal of the ordinary rule in the cactus
tribe we must look at the circumstances under which the race was
evolved in the howling waste of American deserts. (All deserts
have a prescriptive right to howl, and I wouldn't for worlds de-
prive them of the privilege.) Some familiar analogies will help
us to see the utility of this arrangement. Everybody knows our
common English stone-crops — or if he doesn't he ought to, for
they are pretty and ubiquitous. Now, stone-crops grow for the
most part in chinks of the rock or thirsty, sandy soil ; they are es-
sentially plants of very dry positions. Hence they have thick and
succulent little stems and leaves, which merge into one another
by imperceptible gradations. All parts of the plant alike are
stumpy, green, and cylindrical. If you squash them with your

A DESERT FRUIT. in

finger and thumb you find that, though the outer skin or epider-
mis is thick and firm, the, inside is sticky, moist, and jelly-like.
The reason for all this is plain : the stone-crops drink greedily by
their roots whenever they get a chance, and store up the water so
obtained to keep them from withering under the hot and pitiless
sun that beats down upon them for hours in the baked clefts of
their granite matrix. It's the camel trick over again. So leaves
and stems grow thick and round and juicy within ; but outside
they are inclosed in a stout layer of epidermis, which consists of
empty glassy cells, and which can be peeled off or flayed with a
knife like the skin of an animal. This outer layer prevents evapo-
ration, and is a marked feature of all succulent plants which grow
exposed to the sun on arid rocks or in sandy deserts.

The tendency to produce rounded stems and leaves, little dis-
tinguishable from one another, is equally noticeable in many sea-
side plants which frequent the strip of thirsty sand beyond the
reach of the tides. That belt of dry beach that stretches between
high-water mark and the zone of vegetable mold is to all intents
and purposes a miniature desert. True, it is watered by rain from
time to time ; but the drops sink in so fast that in half an hour,
as we know, the entire strip is as dry as Sahara again. Now, there
are many shore weeds of this intermediate sand-belt which mimic
to a surprising degree the chief external features of the cactuses.
One such weed, the common salicornia, which grows in sandy
bottoms or hollows of the beach, has a jointed stem, branched
and succulent, after the true cactus pattern, and entirely without
leaves or their equivalents in any way. Still more cactus-like in
general effect is another familiar English seaside weed, the kali
or glasswort, so called because it was formerly burned to extract
the soda. The glasswort has leaves, it is true, but they are thick
and fleshy, continuous with the stem, and each one terminating
in a sharp, needle-like spine, which effectually protects the weed
against all browsing aggressors.

Now, wherever you get very dry and sandy conditions of soil,
you get this same type of cactus-like vegetation— plantes grasses,
as the French well call them. The species which exhibit it are
not necessarily related to one another in any way ; often they be-
long to most widely distinct families ; it is an adaptive resem-
blance alone, due to similarity of external circumstances only.
The plants have to fight against the same difficulties, and they
adopt for the most part the same tactics to fight them with. In
other words, any plant, of whatever family, which wishes to thrive
in desert conditions, must almost as a matter of course become
thick and succulent, so as to store up water, and must be protect-
ed by a stout epidermis to prevent its evaporation under the fierce
heat of the sunlight. They do not necessarily lose their leaves in

112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the process ; but the jointed stem usually answers the purpose of
leaves under such conditions far better than any thin and exposed
blade could do in the arid air of a baking desert. And therefore,
as a rule, desert plants are leafless.

In India, for example, there are no cactuses. But I wouldn't
advise you to dispute the point with a peppery, fire-eating Anglo-
Indian colonel. I did so once, myself, at the risk of my life, at a
table d'hote on the Continent; and the wonder is that I'm still
alive to tell the story. I had nothing but facts on my side, while
the colonel had fists, and probably pistols. And when I say no
cactuses, I mean, of course, no indigenous species ; for prickly
pears and epiphyllums may naturally be planted by the hand of
man anywhere. But what people take for thickets of cactus in
the Indian jungle are really thickets of cactus-like spurges. In
the dry soil of India, many spurges grow thick and succulent,
learn to suppress their leaves, and assume the bizarre forms and
quaint jointed appearance of the true cactuses. In flower and
fruit, however, they are euphorbias to the end ; it is only in the
thick and fleshy stem that they resemble their nobler and more
beautiful Western rivals. No true cactus grows truly wild any-
where on earth except in America. The family was developed
there, and, till man transplanted it, never succeeded in gaining a
foothold elsewhere. Essentially tropical in type, it was provided
with no means of dispersing its seeds across the enormous expanse
of intervening ocean which separated its habitat from the sister
continents.

But why are cactuses so almost universally prickly ? From
the grotesque little melon-cactuses of our English hot-houses to
the huge and ungainly monsters which form miles of hedgerows on
Jamaican hillsides, the members of this desert family are mostly
distinguished by their abundant spines and thorns, or by the irri-
tating hairs which break off in your skin if you happen to brush
incautiously against them. Cactuses are the hedgehogs of the
vegetable world ; their motto is Nemo me impune lacessit. Many
a time in the West Indies I have pushed my hand for a second
into a bit of tangled " bush," as the negroes call it, to seize some
rare flower or some beautiful insect, and been punished for twenty-
four hours afterward by the stings of the almost invisible and
glass-like little cactus-needles. When you rub them they only
break in pieces, and every piece inflicts a fresh wound on the
flesh where it rankles. Some of the species have large, stout
prickles ; some have clusters of irritating hairs at measured dis-
tances ; and some rejoice in both means of defense at once, scat-
tered impartially over their entire surface. In the prickly pear,
the bundles of prickles are arranged geometrically with great
regularity in a perfect quincunx. But that is a small consolation

A DESERT FRUIT. 113

indeed to the reflective mind when you've stung yourself badly
with them.

The reason for this bellicose disposition on the part of the cac-
tuses is a tolerably easy one to guess. Fodder is rare in the desert.
The starving herbivores that find themselves from time to time
belated on the confines of such thirsty regions would seize with
avidity upon any succulent plant which offered them food and
drink at once in their last extremity. Fancy the joy with which
a lost caravan, dying of hunger and thirst in the byways of Sa-
hara, would hail a great bed of melons, cucumbers, and lettuces !
Needless to say, however, under such circumstances melon, cucum-
ber, and lettuce would soon be exterminated ; they would be
promptly eaten up at discretion without leaving a descendant to
represent them in the second generation. In the ceaseless war
between herbivore and plant, which is waged every day and all
day long the whole world over with far greater persistence than
the war between carnivore and prey, only those species of plant
can survive in such exposed situations which happen to develop
spines, thorns, or prickles as a means of defense against the mouths
of hungry and desperate assailants.

Nor is this so difficult a bit of evolution as it looks at first sight.
Almost all plants are more or less covered with hairs, and it needs
but a slight thickening at the base, a slight woody deposit at the
point, to turn them forthwith into the stout prickles of the rose
or the bramble. Most leaves are more or less pointed at the end
or at the summits of the lobes ; and it needs but a slight intensi-
fication of this pointed tendency to produce forthwith the sharp
defensive foliage of gorse, thistles, and holly. Often one can see
all the intermediate stages still surviving under one's very eyes.
The thistles themselves, for example, vary from soft and unarmed
species which haunt out-of-the-way spots beyond the reach of
browsing herbivores, to such trebly-mailed types as that enemy
of the agricultural interest, the creeping thistle, in which the
leaves continue themselves as prickly wings down every side of
the stem, so that the whole plant is amply clad from head to foot
in a defensive coat of fierce and bristling spear-heads. There is
a common little English meadow weed, the rest-harrow, which in
rich and uncropped fields produces no defensive armor of any
sort ; but on the much-browsed-over suburban commons and in
similar exposed spots, where only gorse and blackthorn stand a
chance for their lives against the cows and donkeys, it has devel-
oped a protected variety in which some of the branches grow
abortive, and end abruptly in stout spines like a hawthorn's.
Only those rest-harrows have there survived in the sharp strug-
gle for existence which happened most to baffle their relentless
pursuers.

VOL. XII.— 11

n4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Desert plants naturally carry this tendency to its highest
point of development. Nowhere else is the struggle for life so
fierce ; nowhere else is the enemy so goaded by hunger and thirst
to desperate measures. It is a place for internecine warfare.
Hence, all desert plants are quite absurdly prickly. The starving
herbivores will attack and devour under such circumstances even
thorny weeds, which tear or sting their tender tongues and pal-
ates, but which supply them at least with a little food and moist-
ure : so the plants are compelled in turn to take almost extravagant
precautions. Sometimes the leaves end in a stout dagger-like
point, as with the agave, or so-called American aloe ; sometimes
they are reduced to mere prickles or bundles of needle-like spikes ;
sometimes they are suppressed altogether, and the work of defense
is undertaken in their stead by irritating hairs intermixed with
caltrops of spines pointing outward from a common center in
every direction. When one remembers how delicately sensitive
are the tender noses of most browsing herbivores, one can realize
what an excellent mode of defense these irritating hairs must
naturally constitute. I have seen cows in Jamaica almost mad-
dened by their stings, and even savage bulls will think twice in
their rage before they attempt to make their way through the ser-
ried spears of a dense cactus hedge. To put it briefly, plants have
survived under very arid or sandy conditions precisely in propor-
tion as they displayed this tendency toward the production of
thorns, spines, bristles, and prickles.

It is a marked characteristic of the cactus tribe to be very
tenacious of life, and, when hacked to pieces, to spring afresh in
full vigor from every scrap or fragment. True vegetable hydras,
when you cut down one, ten spring in its place ; every separate
morsel of the thick and succulent stem has the power of growing
anew into a separate cactus. Surprising as this peculiarity seems
at first sight, it is only a special desert modification of a faculty
possessed in a less degree by almost all plants and by many ani-
mals. If you cut off the end of a rose branch and stick it in the
ground under suitable conditions, it grows into a rose tree. If
you take cuttings of scarlet geraniums or common verbenas, and
pot them in moist soil, they bud out apace into new plants like
their parents. Certain special types can even be propagated from
fragments of the leaf ; for example, there is a particularly viva-
cious begonia off which you may snap a corner of one blade, and
hang it up by a string from a peg or the ceiling, when, hi presto !
little begonia plants begin to bud out incontinently on every side
from its edges. A certain German professor went even further
than that: he chopped up a liverwort very fine into vegetable
mincemeat, which he then spread thin over a saucerful of moist
sand, and lo ! in a few days the whole surface of the mess was cov-

A DESERT FRUIT. 115

ered with a perfect forest of sprouting little liverworts. Roughly
speaking, one may say that every fragment of every organism has
in it the power to rebuild in its entirety another organism like
the one of which it once formed a component element.

Similarly with animals. Cut off a lizard's tail, and straight-
way a new tail grows in its place with surprising promptitude.
Cut off a lobster's claw, and in a very few weeks that lobster is
walking about airily on his native rocks, with two claws as usual.
True, in these cases the tail and the claw don't bud out in turn
into a new lizard or a new lobster. But that is a penalty the
higher organisms have to pay for their extreme complexity.
They have lost that plasticity, that freedom of growth, which
characterizes the simpler and more primitive forms of life; in
their case the power of producing fresh organisms entire from a
single fragment, once diffused equally over the whole body, is
now confined to certain specialized cells which, in their developed
form, we know as seeds or eggs. Yet, even among animals, at a
low stage of development, this original power of reproducing the
whole from a single part remains inherent in the organism ; for
you may chop up a fresh-water hydra into a hundred little bits,
and every bit will be capable of growing afresh into a complete
hydra.

Now, desert plants would naturally retain this primitive tend-
ency in a very high degree ; for they are specially organized to
resist drought — being the survivors of generations of drought-
proof ancestors — and, like the camel, they have often to struggle
on through long periods of time without a drop of water. Ex-
actly the same thing happens at home to many of our pretty little
European stone-crops. I have a rockery near my house over-
grown with the little white sedum of our gardens. The birds
often pick off a tiny leaf or branch ; it drops on the dry soil, and
remains there for days without giving a sign of life. But its
thick epidermis effectually saves it from withering ; and as soon
as rain falls, wee white rootlets sprout out from the under side of
the fragment as it lies, and it grows before long into a fresh small
sedum plant. Thus, what seem like destructive agencies them-
selves, are turned in the end by mere tenacity of life into a sec-
ondary means of propagation.

That is why the prickly pear is so common in all countries
where the climate suits it, and where it has once managed to gain
a foothold, The more you cut it down, the thicker it springs ;
each murdered bit becomes the parent in due time of a numerous
offspring. Man, however, with his usual ingenuity, has managed
to best the plant, on this its own ground, and turn it into a useful
fodder for his beasts of burden. The prickly pear is planted
abundantly on bare rocks in Algeria, where nothing else would

n6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

grow, and is cut down when adult, divested of its thorns by a
rough process of hacking, and used as food for camels and cattle.
It thus provides fresh moist fodder in the African summer when
the grass is dried up and all other pasture crops have failed en-
tirely.

The flowers of the prickly pear, as of many other cactuses,
grow apparently on the edge of the leaves, which alone might
give the observant mind a hint as to the true nature of those
thick and flattened expansions. For, whenever what look like
leaves bear flowers or fruit on their edge or midrib, as in the
familiar instance of butcher's broom, you may be sure at a glance
they are really branches in disguise masquerading as foliage.
The blossoms in the prickly pear are large, handsome, and yellow;
at least, they would be handsome if one could ever see them, but
they're generally covered so thick in dust that it's difficult prop-
erly to appreciate their beauty. They have a great many petals
in numerous rows, and a great many stamens in a rosette in the
center ; and to the best of my knowledge and belief, as lawyers
put it, they are fertilized for the most part by tropical butterflies ;
but on this point, having observed them but little in their native
habitats, I speak under correction.

The fruit itself, to which the plant owes its popular name, is
botanically a berry, though a very big one, and it exhibits in a
highly specialized degree the general tactics of all its family. As
far as their leaf -like stems go, the main object in life of the cac-
tuses is — not to get eaten. But when it comes to the fruit, this
object in life is exactly reversed ; the plant desires its fruit to be
devoured by some friendly bird or adapted animal, in order that
the hard little seeds buried in the pulp within may be dispersed
for germination under suitable conditions. At the same time,
true to its central idea, it covers even the pear itself with deter-
rent and prickly hairs, meant to act as a defense against useless
thieves or petty depredators, who would eat the soft pulp on the
plant as it stands (much as wasps do peaches) without benefiting
the species in return by dispersing its seedlings. This practice is
fully in accordance with the general habit of tropical or subtropi-
cal fruits, which lay themselves out to deserve the kind offices of
monkeys, parrots, toucans, hornbills, and other such large and
powerful fruit-feeders. Fruits which arrange themselves for a
clientele of this character have usually thick or nauseous rinds,
prickly husks, or other deterrent integuments ; but they are full
within of juicy pulp, imbedding stony or nutlike seeds, which
pass undigested through the gizzards of their swallowers.

For a similar reason, the actual prickly pears themselves are
attractively colored. I need hardly point out, I suppose, at the
present time of day, that such tints in the vegetable world act

SKETCH OF ALESSANDRO VOLT A. 117

like the gaudy posters of our London advertisers. Fruits and
flowers which desire to attract the attention of beasts, birds, or
insects, are tricked out in flaunting hues of crimson, purple, blue,
and yellow ; fruits and flowers which could only be injured by
the notice of animals are small and green, or dingy and incon-
spicuous.— Longman's Magazine.

SKETCH OF ALESSANDRO VOLTA.

YOLTA'S title to be remembered rests chiefly upon his appli-
cation of the discovery of the production of electricity by
contact, which has been fruitful and continues to be fruitful of
results of the greatest importance in the progress of research in
the domains of physical forces and of the constitution of matter,
and is one of the most potent instruments in the hands of students
for enlarging the boundaries of their knowledge of the material
world.

Alessandeo Volta was born at Como, Italy, February 19, 1745,
and died in the same place March 5, 1827. He began his studies
in the public school of his native town, where he distinguished
himself among his fellow-pupils by his capability and his as-
siduity at work. A passage in his first scientific paper shows
that when he was eighteen years old he had been engaged in a
correspondence with the Abbe" Nollet on subjects relating to elec-
tricity. At nineteen years of age he composed a poem, in Latin,
which has never been published, in which some of the more
important discoveries of the time were described. In 1774 he
was appointed to the chair of Physics in the Royal School at
Como, for which his first two scientific papers — on the Attractive
Force of the Electric Fire, and on the Method of constructing
the New Electrical Machine — seem to have been among his
strongest recommendations. He went out of Italy for the first
time in 1777, to make a visit of several weeks in Switzerland,
where he met Haller at Berne, Voltaire at Ferney, and Benjamin
de Saussure at Geneva. The story of this excursion was related
in a book* which was published at Milan in 1827. In 1779
Volta was made a professor in the University of Pavia, where
his instructions were attended by throngs of interested youths
from all countries, proud to be his pupils, and where he con-
tinued till 1819, when he retired to spend the rest of his days
in his native town. In 1782 he made what appears to have been
the longest journey of his life, in company with the surgeon
Scarpa, and visited the capitals of Germany, Holland, England,

* Relatione del Prof. Volta di un suo Viaggio lelterario nel Swizzera.

u8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and France, making the acquaintance of the most distinguished
men of science in those countries. Volta's first scientific paper,
on the Attractive Force of the Electric Fire {De Vi attractiva
Ignis electrici), which "was addressed in 1769 to P. Beccaria, is
described by M. Biot as giving only an imperfect explanation of
electric phenomena, and as illustrating the characteristic trait
of his mind, which led him rather to sure deductions from
facts which he could experimentally follow out than to the
formation of sound general theories. That part of the paper
in which he showed the application of his theory to the gen-
eration of electricity is mentioned by Prof. Arthur Schuster as
being of historical importance, because in it can be traced the
germ of many future discoveries. He supposed that all bodies in
the natural state contain electricity in such proportions that they
are in electrical equilibrium, and that this was shown in the ex-
perimental results obtained by rubbing one metal with another.
But when bodies are brought into close contact, as in friction, he
considered that the attractions of electricity and matter might
alter, according to Boscovich's theory that attraction and re-
pulsion alternate at short distances, and that a new equilibrium
would establish itself. He expressed a belief that a disturbance
of electrical equilibrium takes place during the progress of chemi-
cal action, in which the particles of matter change their position ;
attributed the want of proof of the fact to experimental difficul-
ties ; and hoped that he would succeed in obtaining evidence of it ;
and he thought that atmospheric electricity might be accounted
for in accordance with these views.

In his second paper he attempted to explain electrical insula-
tion by the supposition of a repulsion between the insulating
matter and electricity. His experiments, made in 1775, on the in-
sulating property which wood acquires when impregnated with
oil, led to the construction of the electrophorus, an apparatus
which acts as a permanent and inexhaustible source whence elec-
tricity can be drawn at will. A letter of Volta's to Priestley is
preserved, dated June 10, 1775, announcing the construction of
this instrument, and asking the English chemist, as the historian
of electricity, how far the discovery was new. Volta's experi-
ments on the electrostatic capacity of conductors, described in a
letter to De Saussure in 1778, were in advance of anything that
had been published up to that time, although Cavendish had al-
ready experimented on the subject ; but Cavendish's results were
not published for a long time afterward. Volta's ingenious
efforts, pursued continuously, to improve the electrophorus, led
up to the discovery of the electric condenser, the description of
which, and the account of its applications to the study of electri-
cal phenomena, were published in the Philosophical Transactions

SKETCH OF ALESSANDRO VOLT A. 119

of 1782. By means of this apparatus, according to M. Biot, the
smallest quantities of electricity, emanating from a source that
can reproduce them constantly as they are taken away, were fixed
and accumulated in a conductive plate by virtue of the mo-
mentary attraction of electricity of a different denomination,
from which they were withdrawn when it was desired to make
them perceptible and to subject them to observation. During
this time Volta was still trying to find signs of electricity during
the processes of evaporation and boiling and changes of tempera-
ture ; and he finally thought he had discovered electrical effects
during the evaporation of water — in the phenomena which are
now attributed to the friction of the vapor. These results sug-
gested the closer examination of the phenomena of atmospheric
electricity, concerning which — Meteorologia Elettrica — he wrote a
number of letters to Lichtenberg. Two of his letters related to
electrical measurements and the straw electrometer, in which the
angle of divergence of two electrified straws was measured. He
also, according to Prof. Schuster, constructed the first absolute
electrometer, and compared his other instruments with it, so that
it would be possible now to refer all his measurements to absolute
units. His electrometer consisted of a balance, one pane of which
was a flat round disk. Below this disk was placed a large parallel
plate, conducted away to earth, while stops were arranged so that
the disk could not approach nearer than within two inches of the
plate. In the unelectrified state the balance was in a condition of
equilibrium. When the disk was electrified, it was attracted
toward the plate, but kept at its proper distance by the stops;
weights were then added in the other plate of the balance until
the disk was pulled away from the stops. The letters also con-
tain discussions on the action of points and flames in discharging
electricity. To Volta are further owing the invention of the elec-
tric eudiometer and of the inflammable air or hydrogen lamp.
Prof. Schuster regards as worthy of mention also Volta's investi-
gations on gas analysis and his paper on the expansion of gases
by heat. He showed the causes which had led different experi-
menters to inconsistent results, and established independently
what is now known as the law of Charles.

Volta's crowning discovery of the voltaic pile grew out of
researches which were suggested by Galvani's famous experiment
with the frog. Galvani attributed the phenomena which he
observed in the frog's muscle to a new kind of electricity, which
he called animal electricity. Volta, following up his experi-
ments with more accurate instruments and by a more careful
method, came to a different conclusion. He noticed that the con-
vulsions of the frog's muscle were very rarely produced when a
single metal was used, and then only under conditions of extreme

120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

irritability ; but that they occurred with certainty and continued
for some time when he had a circuit of two heterogeneous metals.
From this he concluded that the exciting principle resided in the
metals ; and as this principle was evidently electric, since its trans-
mission was interrupted by all the substances that intercept the
electric current, that the mere contact of heterogeneous metals
would develop a quantity of electricity which, though weak,
would be competent when transmitted through the organs of
the frog, completing the chain, to produce the convulsions. He
demonstrated the verity of his induction by positive and direct
experiments through which this weak electricity was accumu-
lated in his condenser and made perceptible. He further found
that this mode of development of electricity by simple contact
was applicable, not to metallic bodies only, but to all heterogene-
ous bodies, although with different degrees of intensity according
to their several natures ; and having discovered the general prin-
ciple, which had not been suspected before, he applied it to the
construction of a new apparatus which was capable of producing
infinitely augmented effects. In order to increase the intensity of
his contact electricity, he enlarged the number of the metallic
disks or plates he employed to produce it. His efforts were for
some time unfruitful. He remarked that when he placed a disk
of copper between two disks of zinc, or a disk of zinc between
two disks of copper, the electrization was neutralized. He then
thought to separate the disks by a conducting body, and found
that by placing moistened paper between two double metallic
disks the electric intensity was doubled. It was after that easy,
by increasing the number of disks and separating them by moist-
ened cloth, to obtain an electric intensity corresponding with the
number of pairs. Concerning this series of experiments, he wrote
in a letter to a French philosopher, M. La Metherie, which was
published in the Journal de Physique in 1801: "Having found
what degree of electricity I obtained with one of these metallic
couples, by the aid of the condenser I use, I proceed to show that
with two, three, or four couples, properly arranged — that is, all
turned in the same direction and communicating with one another
by as many moist layers (which are required, as I have shown, to
prevent actions in the contrary direction) — we have double, triple,
quadruple, etc. ; so that if with a single couple we succeed in elec-
trifying the condenser to the point of its causing the electrometer
to indicate, for example, three degrees, with two couples we will
get six, with three nine, and with four twelve degrees, if not ex-
actly, nearly so."

Although opinions may differ as to the interpretation of some
of the experiments, Prof. Schuster remarks, in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, that there is not much in Volta's writings on the sub-

SKETCH OF ALESSANDRO VOLT A. 121

ject which, could be called incorrect, even at the present day. His
first communication concerning his researches on the develop-
ment of electricity by contact was addressed to the Royal Society
of England in 1792. In his account of the pile, addressed to Sir
J. Banks, and read before the Royal Society in June, 1800, Volta
described some of the experimental results obtained with it, and
showed that all the effects produced were the same as those which
could be obtained from electrical machines, and that therefore
galvanism and electricity were identical.

Volta received the Copley medal of the Royal Society in 1791
or 1792. In 1801 he visited Paris, upon the invitation of the First
Consul, and there repeated his experiments on the development
of electricity by contact before a commission of the Institute.
According to M. Arago's story of the meeting, the First Consul
desired to attend in person the session at which the commission-
ers were to present a detailed account of the grand phenomena.
Hardly had their conclusions been read, when he proposed to de-
cree a gold medal to Volta as a testimonial of the appreciation in
which he was held by French men of science. Custom and the
academical regulations hardly permitted compliance with this de-
mand ; but the regulations were made for ordinary conditions,
and the professor from Pavia had placed himself beyond their
line. The medal was voted by acclamation ; and on the same day
Volta was given, by order of Napoleon, the sum of two thousand
francs from the state funds toward the expenses of his journey.
In 1808 he was made one of the eight foreign associates designated
by the Institute. He was also decorated with the crosses of the
Legion of Honor and of the Iron Crown ; was named a member
of the Council of Lyon ; and in 1810 was raised to the dignity of
a senator of the kingdom of Italy, with the title of count. When,
in 1804, he desired to retire from the university, the Emperor said
he could not consent to such a step. " If Volta's functions as a
professor are fatiguing to him, let them be reduced. Let him, if
he will, have to give only one lesson a year ; but the University
of Pavia would be struck to the heart on the day that I should
permit so illustrious a name to disappear from the list of its
members. Besides," he added, " a good general ought to die on
the field of battle." So Volta continued to attract young men to
his lectures. In 1815 the Emperor of Austria made Volta Director
of the Philosophical Faculty of Padua.

Sir Humphry Davy, who visited Volta at Milan in 1814, when
he was sixty-nine years old, found him a man well advanced in
age and in poor health. "His conversation was not brilliant;
his views were narrow, but marked by considerable ingenuity.
His manners were of perfect simplicity. He had not the air of a
courtier, or even that of a man who had lived in the world. In

122 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

general, Italian men of science are without affectation in their
manners, although they lack grace and dignity." Arago draws a
somewhat more favorable portrait of him, saying, "Volta was
tall, and had noble and regular features like those of an ancient
statue; a broad forehead, which laborious thought had deeply
furrowed, a face on which were painted alike calmness of soul and
a penetrating intellect. . . . His manners always retained traces
of rustic habits contracted during his youth. Many persons
recollect having seen Volta, when in Paris, going daily to the
bake-shop, and afterward eating in the streets the bread he had
bought there, without imagining that he was an object of re-
mark. . . . Strong and quick intelligence, large and just ideas,
and an affectionate and sincere character were his dominant
qualities. Ambition, the thirst for gold, the spirit of rivalry, dic-
tated none of his actions. With him the love of learning, the
only passion which he had experienced, continued free from all
worldly alliance."

A collection of Volta's writings, drawn from the journals and
periodical transactions in which they first appeared, was pub-
lished at Florence in 1816, in five volumes. It is pronounced
valuable by M. Biot, on account of the fidelity with which we
may trace in it the succession of his ideas on the most important
subjects in which he was interested during his long career.

There are still natives in the Melanesian Islands, Dr. Codrington relates in his
studies of their anthropology and folk lore, who remember when a white man
was first seen and what he was taken to be. When Bishop Patteson landed at
Mota, for instance, he entered an empty house, the owner of which had lately
died. This settled the question : he was the ghost of the late householder. The
visitor, especially if he is a whaler, is soon discovered by his behavior not to be a
ghost, but he can not be a living man, for in that case he would be black ; he is,
therefore, probably a mischievous spirit, bringing disease and disaster. Shooting
at these spirits could not do them much harm, they not being men, but might
drive them away. Consequently, in this belief, the Santa Cruz people shot at
Bishop Patteson's party in 1864.

Mr. Jones's report in the British Association on the Elbolton Cave, near Skip-
ton, was of unusual interest. Long-headed human skulls were found with burned
bones and charcoal in the upper stratum, associated with domestic animals and
pottery ornamented with diamond and herring-bone patterns ; while at a much
lower level — from thirteen to fifteen feet below the floor — there were round
skulls, much more decayed, in connection with ruder and thicker pottery than
has been found in any other part of the cave. No flints or metal have been found,
and bone pins and other worked bone are the only human implements hitherto
discovered. The remains of bear and hare have been found in cave-earth below
this level.

COBBESP ONDENCE.

'23

CORRESPONDENCE.

SURVIVAL OF ANCESTRAL TRAITS.

Editor Popular Science Monthly :

SIR : Being greatly interested in the sub-
ject treated by Dr. Louis Robinson in
the March Popular Science Monthly, and
having had some opportunity to study in-
fant life, I would like to call attention to
some observations which I have made in
that line and which may interest others.

The toes of the new-born babe are pro-
portionately longer and more flexible than
are those of the adult, and instinctively close
around the finger or any object not cold
enough to repel them which may be placed
under them, thus approaching somewhat the
type of a probable tree-climbing ancestor.

Still earlier ancestry is strikingly sug-
gested by the nails of the young infant.
The long, tapered, and curved finger-nails,
so commonly considered refined, at this age
exhibit a degree of elegance leaving nothing
to be desired. Should the transformation in
this feature after birth proceed at the same
rate that it now does, but in the inverse di-
rection, the results might startle those who
pursue nail culture as a fine art. It is not
uncommon to see the growth of nail beyond
the new babe's finger so long and so sharply
curved that the lateral edges almost meet,
showing a decided resemblance to a claw.
This is most particularly the case with the
little finger, which maintains the same de-
gree of difference from the others as may
be observed on the hand of the adult. I
have never seen an exception in persons of
any age but that the nail of the little finger
— the least used of all the fingers — most
nearly approaches (probably retains through
neglect) the proportions of a claw. The
third finger (not counting the thumb) com-
monly shows an intermediate degree of form
and service.

As the consciousness of the outside world
and of their relations to it dawns upon the
youngsters, there is something in their man-
ner akin to alertness. I have often seen
babies four or five months old, while mak-
ing animated efforts toward the acquaint-
ance of some simple object, such as a drawer-
knob, spindle of a bedstead, or the like, sud-
denly turn from it with a frightened look as
if some slight sound or sensation which they
had associated with it had transformed it
iuto an enemy. Another baby propensity
which can not be accounted for in its indi-
vidual training is the disposition, on being
startled (not greatly agitated), to press the
body against the nurse, drop the face against
her, and for an instant remain perfectly
quiet, not breathing apparently, the quiet
being followed by a deep-drawn breath.

When we need not go back of the age of
man to find these instincts operating as im-
portant preservative factors, it is not unrea-
sonable to read therein relationship to the
lower orders in which they operate yet more
prominently, as illustrated by the case of the
calf and colt in Dr. Robinson's article.

Fear is the first and for some time the
only emotion whose workings I perceive in
the infant mind. Anger comes next.

There are some indications that the sense
of smell is at birth more strongly developed
than are the senses which come to be vastly
more important to the man — e. g., a certain
odorous remedy which had been constantly
used on the inflamed breast of a mother
was found to be a sure reminder to the babe
(then under five weeks old) that it was din-
ner-time. A drop of it placed on the babe's
upper lip would immediately start her to
reaching and nestling for her food. I have
never tried but the one case.

What in ancestral habit or condition (or
is there anything now in animal life anal-
ogous to it ?) will account for the position of
the infant thumb, which is so peculiar to
this age and so persistent, the thumb being
much bent at the first joint and lying close
to the palm of the hand ? Apparently it is
the last of the five fingers to yield to the
will of the babe in grasping things, acting
rather as an obstruction than a help for six,
seven, or eight months. L. H. C.

Minneapolis, Minn., March 5, 1892.

SAVAGE SUPERSTITIONS.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

Sir: In the November issue of the
Monthly (vol. xl, page 103) some facts are
cited as proving that "the savage is con-
vinced that an injury done to the image is
inflicted upon the original." This reminds
me of an observation I read some years ago
in Biard's Viaje al Brasil (La Vuelta al
Mundo, 1863, page 212). This traveler re-
lates that some of his Indian models would
run away as soon as he tried to make their
portraits. It was discovered that an Indian
servant of his had told them that in the
land of the white men there were many indi-
viduals without a head, and that the traveler
was charged with collecting as many heads
as he could, so that the imprudent Indian
who would serve him as a model would after
some time find that his head abandoned him
and went to place itself upon the shoulders
of the white man for whom it was destined.
Respectfully yours,

A. Roiz Cadalso.

Havana, Citba, March 1, 1892.

124

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

MEANS OF INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.

THE question of the just distribution
of material wealth is one which
to-day is engaging many minds, and
which in some quarters is being dis-
cussed with no small amount of passion.
"We are not aware, however, that there
is any theory now before the world in
the light of which any material change
could hopefully be made in the existing
structure of society. The only theory
or doctrine, so far as we can see, that is
at all hopeful is that which proclaims
that governments should not, by arbi-
trary interferences with the course of
trade, do anything to promote inequali-
ties of fortune. It seems to us possi-
ble, however, and not only possible but
probable, that if we would concern our-
selves more than we do with the ques-
tion of a better distribution of culture
or intellectual wealth, some of the diffi-
culties that beset the other question
might be sensibly diminished. If culture
means anything, it means adequate
knowledge and orderly thought, and it
is difficult to see how, if there were a
marked improvement in the general in-
tellectual condition of a community —
a raising of the level of its culture —
there should not also be an improve-
ment in its economic condition. An in-
crease in culture of the right sort would
mean an abatement of the feverish thirst
for wealth which is a characteristic of our
time, and a more or less general adop-
tion of more rational modes of life. It
would mean the development of a high-
er public opinion and the purification
of political methods and principles. It
would mean an elevation of social man-
ners, and would call into existence a
finer individual self-respect. It would
make people intolerant of abuses that
admitted of remedy and more sensitive
to every form of social injustice. In a

word, as the inner man was renewed
from day to day, so he would renew his
environment, justifying anew the words
of the poet Spenser :

" For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form aud doth the body make."

"What are the means of culture at our
disposal at the present day? "We have
first of all the public schools. Of these
as instruments of culture in any high
sense it is impossible to speak enthusi-
astically. It is not because they deal
only with the elements of knowledge,
because much of true culture could be
imparted in connection with " the three
r's." It is simply because they are not
to any wide extent dominated by the
spirit of culture, but on the whole tend
rather to antagonize culture by attach-
ing vulgar ideas of mere personal gain
to the acquisition of knowledge. In say-
ing this we are fully prepared to make
all needful exceptions. Here and there,
no doubt, teachers are to be found who,
with high aims, throw their whole soul
into their work, and thus confer a ben-
efit on the community which, in most
cases, is far from being adequately rec-
ognized or compensated.

Then we have our high schools, col-
leges, and universities. Here, no doubt,
much excellent work is done, along with
much that is altogether inferior and
inefficient. The result of the Boston
Herald's prize essay competition of a
couple of years ago is probably still in
the recollection of some of our readers.
Two hundred and twenty youths of
both sexes taken from the graduating
classes of New England grammar
schools competed for two prizes, one of
six hundred dollars and one of four hun-
dred dollars, and with what result?
Let the judges who examined and pro-
nounced upon the compositions an-
swer :

EDITOR'S TABLE.

125

" Two hundred and twenty com-
positions of all sorts and sizes, the work
presumably of the best boys and girls
of the schools of literary New England !
What anticipations the first sight
aroused ! What originality, what fresh
sincerity of thought and expression
must lie in all this new work of new
minds, unconfined by any narrow limi-
tation of subject! Yet the end was
almost absolute disappointment. The
faults are greater than of mere im-
maturity. There is a painful con-
straint, a self-consciousness almost in-
variably present. There is an effect
of insincerity, an inability or disincli-
nation to write out real thought, that
gives to the whole work a wearisome,
perfunctory appearance. It may fairly
be claimed that these compositions are
typical. This, then, the best work that
the best scholars of our schools can ac-
complish fails so completely of its ob-
ject that the fault must be essential
either to system or subject."

The general result was that, of the
two hundred and twenty who com-
peted, the vast majority simply made
themselves ridiculous. What, then, may
we infer of those who did not com-
pete—the remaining members of the
graduating classes, whose number must
have been to that of the competitors as
at least ten to one ? We can only sup-
pose that their average condition of
culture would be markedly below that
of the competitors. It is evident, then,
that our grammar schools, indispensable
as their work is, are not adequately
providing for the culture even of the
comparatively limited class attending
them. It would indeed be making an
altogether excessive demand upon them
to require that they should. As to our
universities, they are all doing useful
and many of them excellent work, and
if we looked only at the ever-extending
recognition which our scholars and
savants are receiving in the centers of
learning of the Old World, we should
have every reason to be satisfied with

the intellectual progress of our country.
More than this is wanted, however, for
the object we have now in view — the
spread of true culture throughout the
mass of the community. As lately
noticed in these columns, a hopeful at-
tempt in this direction is being made by
the university-extension system, which
we can not doubt has a great and useful
future before it ; but, in view of the
very recent articles we have published
on this subject, we need not dwell
specially on it to-day.

Another agency for the spread of
culture is the public library, an institu-
tion existing in nearly every town of
any size, and which might be turned to
very good account. A generation ago
the lecture system was in full activity,
and was an important agent of popular
education. In the present day it has
been to a large extent supplanted by
the newspaper and magazine press, the
extraordinary development of which is
one of the marvels of the age. The
lecture had, however, one advantage
which the magazine or newspaper does
not possess, and that is that it drew
people together and gave them a com-
mon interest in the subjects treated.
This we consider to be a more hopeful
foundation for culture, as far as it goes,
than individual reading of books and
papers ; and here we are brought to the
main point we desire to make on the
present occasion which is that culture
can only become general by being so-
cially pursued. Every educated man
and woman who has a living interest
in the things of the intellect might and
should carry on a kind of university-
extension work in a quiet way among
his or her own friends. Let little in-
formal societies be formed for mutual
help — let us say, in the understanding
and appreciation of works of literature,
or in the comprehension of social ques-
tions, or in intellectual effort of any
kind — and let it be understood that the
ulterior object is to promote in some
small measure the great end of right and

126

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

rational living, and we are persuaded
that much good will be done and much
social enjoyment obtained. Of course,
there is a good deal of this kind of
thing going on in different places, but
there might be a great deal more. Too
many " cultured " people think of their
culture mainly, if not wholly, as a
valuable personal possession, and an
enviable mark of distinction from the
crowd. That is a wrong and selfish
view to take of it. The world is full of
people who are starving for the bread
of intellectual life. They may not know
they are starving, but they are, all the
same. Their lives are poor, empty,
frivolous, and wholly unideal. Yet the
sources of intellectual wealth are at
their doors, and those who could open
up these sources to them are among
their acquaintance. Such at least is
often the case, and what we are anxious
to do is to rouse the possessors of cult-
ure to a sense of their responsibility in
the matter. Freely they have received,
why should they not freely give ? Why
should they not institute a propaganda of
culture, and strive to redeem here and
there a mind from the slavery of igno-
rance and commonplace?

"We take this opportunity of making
a long-delayed apology to a correspond-
ent who wrote to us some four or five
years ago, suggesting that a portion
of each Sunday should be devoted to
purposes of intellectual improvement
in a social way. His letter was an in-
teresting one, and we had ordered it
for publication, when an accident de-
stroyed both the manuscript of the let-
ter and the writer's name and address,
a circumstance which we much regretted
at the time and should have referred to
in these columns. We are aware of
cases in which what our correspondent
recommended has been done with very
good results. Friends have met on
Sunday evenings at one another's houses
for profitable discourse, sometimes of a
spontaneous and sometimes of a pre-
arranged character. In one group with

which we are acquainted, each person
is supposed to read during the week
as much as he or she has opportunity for
and to bring to the meeting an extract
of from one hundred to two hundred
words taken from some favorite author.
In this way the little society gathers an
anthology of its own of more or less
memorable passages. Other readings
are given in prose or poetry, and the
various topics or thoughts presented are
freely discussed. In this way a com-
mon proprietorship is created in ideas
which would else have remained isolated
in particular minds, and it is needless to
say that much correction of individual
errors is at the same time made pos-
sible.

Now, what is wanted for the popu-
larization of culture is a great extension
of work, if work it can be called where
so much pleasure is involved, of pre-
cisely this kind. Where university-
extension classes are established, small
social gatherings such as we have de-
scribed would carry on their work
admirably, and, where they are not
established, would to some extent take
their place. The signs are abundant
that our people need more culture, and
if those who possess culture were only
animated with a little of the missionary
spirit which very uncultivated people
sometimes possess, they might turn
their gifts and accomplishments to much
better purpose than, speaking generally,
they now do. What is wanted to vivi-
fy culture is a social aim — an aim of
social usefulness: give it that, and it
will become a power for the regenera-
tion of the world.

An Index to Volumes I to XL of The
Popular Science Monthly is well ad-
vanced in preparation, and will be pub-
lished probably in the course of the com-
ing summer. In the new Index the con-
tents of the whole forty volumes will be
entered both by author and by subject in
one alphabetical list. It will possess all

LITERARY NOTICES.

127

the best features of the most recent in-
dexes, and will be a thoroughly practical
guide to the store of information which
the volumes of the magazine contain.
The compiler is Mr. Frederik A. Fernald,
of the editorial staff of the Monthly.

LITERARY NOTICES.

New Fragments. By John Tyndall, F. R. S.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 500.
Price, $2.

The contents of this volume consist of
essays and addresses prepared for various
occasions and embracing a considerable
range of topics. Among those dealing with
natural science are a review of Goethe's
Farbenlchre, a magazine article on Atoms,
Molecules, and Ether Waves, another with
the title About Common Water, and a paper
on the Origin, Propagation, and Prevention
of Phthisis. Tyndall's well-known power of
making scientific subjects luminous and fas.
cinating is abundantly shown throughout this
volume. Take this passage from About
Common Water:

The most striking' example of the color of water
is probably that furnished by the Blue Grotto of
Capri, in the Bay of Naples. Capri is one of the isl-
ands of the bay. At the bottom of one of its sea-
cliffs there is a small arch, barely sufficient to admit
a boat in fine weather, and through this arch you
pass into a spacious cavern, the walls and water of
which shimmer forth a magical blue light. This
light has caught its color from the water through
which it has passed. The entrance, as just stated, is
very small, so that the illumination of the cave is al-
most entirely due to light which has plunged to the
bottom of the sea, and returned thence to the cave.
Hence the exquisite azure. The white body of a
diver who plunges into the water for the amusement
of visitors is also strikingly affected by the colored
liquid through which he moves.

The wonderful style above illustrated con-
tributes a great part to the effectiveness of
Prof. Tyndall's teachings in science. Many
a student, using one of Tyndall's treatises on
Heat, Light, or Electricity as a text-book,
has found himself drawn on to read far be-
yond the limits set for the next lesson. Ob-
viously the books that get themselves read
are the ones that produce results ; hence it is
probably safe to say that no book has done
more to spread an understanding of the na-
ture and behavior of one of the great forces
of Nature than his Heat as a Mode of Motion.

Tyndall is still more fascinating and be-
comes even inspiring when he discourses of
his favorite recreation, climbing the Alps.
There are two essays dealing with Alpine
experiences in this collection, and many of
the phenomena of glaciers, snow-fields, and
mountain mists are introduced into the
scientific papers. The following is a de-
scription of the sort with which his Alpine
chapters abound :

At half past one o'clock on the morning of the
11th we started from the Wengern Alp. No trace
of cloud was visible in the heavens, which were sown
broadcast with stars. Those low down twinkled
with extraordinary vivacity, many of them flashing,
in quick succession, lights of different colors. . . .
Over the summit of the Wetterhorn the Pleiades
hung like a diadem, while at intervals a solitary
meteor shot across the sky. We passed along the
Alp, and then over the balled snow and broken ice
shot down from the end of a glacier which fronted us.
Here the ascent began ; we passed by turns from
snow to rock and from rock to snow. The steepness
for a time was moderate, the only thing requiring
caution being the thin crusts of ice upon the rocks
over which water had trickled the previous day*
The east gradually brightened, the stars became
paler and disappeared, and at length the crown of
the adjacent Jungfrau rose out of the twilight into
the purple of the rising sun. The bloom crept grad-
ually downward over the snows, until the whole
mountain world partook of the color. It is not in
the night nor in the day — it is not in any statical
condition of the atmosphere — that the mountains
look most sublime. It is during the few minutes of
transition from twilight to full day through the
splendors of the dawn.

Among the New Fragments are several
biographical sketches, and these are fully as
vivid as the essays already mentioned. The
power of expression that can so greatly en-
liven inanimate objects is naturally no less
potent in dealing with subjects that have
lived. It is well for science that Tyndall's
bent was turned so strongly toward scien-
tific matters, for otherwise biography would
long since have monopolized him. In read-
ing his sketch of Count Rumford one is
made to feel that the investigator of a cent-
ury ago was also a man, and, moreover, what
manner of man he was. The same applies
to the account of Thomas Young; and when
our author speaks of one whom he has known
in the flesh, as in his Personal Recollections
of Thomas Carlyle, and his address on un-
veiling the statue of Carlyle, the image of
his subject stands out with marvelous dis-
tinctness.

Among the miscellaneous papers in this

128

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

volume should be mentioned an address on
the Sabbath, in which a strict and dismal
mode of observing the day is deprecated ;
and an address delivered at the Birkbeck In-
stitution, which tells much of Tyndall's own
student-life. Persons who have read the
Fragments of Science by Tyndall will find
the present volume no less interesting.

A Treatise on the Ligation of the Great
Arteries in Continuity, with Obser-
vations on the Nature, Progress, and
Treatment of Aneurism. By Charles
A. Ballance, F. R. C. S., and Walter
Edmunds, F. R. C. S. London and New
York : Macmillian & Co. Pp. 568.
Price, $10.

This elegant volume embodies the results
of extended researches and of many experi-
ments upon the lower animals undertaken
with the view of lessening the liability to
haemorrhage after the ligation of an artery.
After two brief introductory chapters the
nature of arteries and the processes of physi-
ological occlusion and pathological oblitera-
tion are described. Then the conduct and
fate of the corpuscles, the clot, the coats,
and the ligature are successively discussed.
The phenomena of suppuration and haemor-
rhage are next examined, and a chapter on
the conduct and fate of the aneurism follows.
Taking up the surgery of the arteries in de-
tail, the authors give the views and practice
of the earlier and later surgeons, and discuss
the choice of the operation, the ligature, the
knot, and the force. A concluding chapter
treats of the conduct of the operation and
the fate of the patient. The work is printed
in large type, with wide margins, and is il-
lustrated with ten plates, including a front-
ispiece portrait of Scarpa, and 232 figures.

The Genesis of Genesis. A Study of the
Documentary Sources of the First Book
of Moses, in Accordance with the Results
of Critical Science, illustrating the Pres-
ence of Bibles within the Bible. By
Benjamin Wisner Bacon. Hartford :
The Student Publishing Company. Pp.
352. Price, $2.50.

In preparing this book, the author has
assumed that the reading public are entitled
to judge for themselves concerning the value
of what is called the higher criticism. For
this end they require, not controversial argu-
ment, but explanation ; and he does not con-

sider it necessary that the presentation of
the case should be made from the point of
view of hostility to the new theory, or even
from one of indifference. An introduction
by Prof. George F. Moore, of Andover The-
ological Seminary, gives the history of the
higher criticism, or of questions of the au-
thorship of Genesis from the time it was
started by Aben Ezra, in the twelfth century.
The introductory part of the work proper
contains chapters on Higher Criticism and
the Science of Documentary Analysis, The
Science of Biblical Criticism, and The Docu-
mentary Theory of To-day. In Part II is
shown the text of Genesis according to the
Revised Version, in varieties of type to ex-
hibit the constituent sources and method of
their compilation according to the general
consensus of critical analysis, with notes ex-
planatory of the phenomena of reduction.
Part III presents the separate documents
designated as J, E, and P, conjecturally re-
stored, with revised translation according to
emended text and conjectural readings of
good authority. In the appendix are given
" the great flood interpolation and connected
passages, placed in juxtaposition with a
translation of their cuneiform parallels."

A Text-Book of Bacteriology. By Carl
Fraenkel, M. D., Professor of Hygiene,
University of Kbnigsberg. Translated
and edited from the third German edi-
tion by J. H. Linsley, M. D., Professor of
Pathology and Bacteriology in the Uni-
versity of Vermont. New York : Will-
iam Wood & Co. Pp. 380. Price, $3.75.

Systematic study of the bacteria is in-
cluded at present not only in the curriculum
of medical schools, but also forms part of a
biological course in many of our universities.
Its interpretation of the causes of disease
has led to a sense of its value, and the meth-
ods of German and French investigators are
followed with increasing eagerness by stu-
dents. A considerable number of volumes
consisting of translations and original lect-
ures upon the subject is already accessible in
English, but no one of these is perhaps an
adequate text-book. Dr. Linsley has there-
fore translated and adapted to use Fraenkel's
Orundriss der Bakterienkunde, a manual
whose worth is attested by its rendering into
six different languages.

In this work little space is allowed for

LITERARY NOTICES.

129

argument. The bacteria are classified at
once as " the lowest members of the vegeta-
ble kingdom, closely related to the algse."
Separate species are found among them, dif-
ferentiated by growth and shape. Accord-
ing to their forms they are divided into the
globular bacteria or micrococci, the rod-
shaped or bacilli, and the screw-like or spi-
rilla. Their structure, multiplication, con-
ditions necessary for growth, and resultant
phenomena are next considered.

The benefits of oil immersion and of the
Abbe illuminating apparatus are unfolded in
Methods of Investigation, and the learner is
instructed in the handling of the microscope
and making of stains. Even the common
errors of beginners are outlined for the stu-
dent, and he is warned not to mistake the
broken nuclei of white blood-cells for ba-
cilli, when the glasses have been too hastily
pulled apart, or to fancy he has discovered a
colony of micrococci when some plasma-cells
betray idiosyncrasies in absorbing aniline
colors.

Full directions are given for the various
processes involved in successful breeding,
sterilization, and the preparation of liquid
and solid food media.

The noxious character of pathogenic bac-
teria is shown to consist not in the mechani-
cal effect of their presence, nor in the hospi-
tality they may exact from their host, but in
the alkaloidal poisons they generate. Fraen-
kel inclines to the belief that the organ-
ism resists through a germ-killing power
which resides in the living albumin of the
serum, and that victory over invading ba-
cilli is a chemical one and not the pitched
battle of the phagocytes. Some of the inter-
esting experiments of Metschnikoff in de-
fense of his theory are not quoted, but his
views are fairly represented. The author ad-
mits as pathogenic bacteria only those which
comply with three conditions : first, that they
are invariably present with the morbid affec-
tion ; second, that they can be cultivated
outside of the organism ; thirdly, when the
same pathological effects follow inoculation
of the artificial culture. Petri's method of
finding the number of bacteria in a given
quantity of air is preferred. Only three to
five germs in a litre is the average amount
computed for an ordinary dwelling. Bacte-
riological examination of the soil is compli-

VOL. XLI. — 12

cated and of little use, but that of water is
extremely important, although the determi-
nation of species is difficult. " Water may
be harmless and contain five thousand germs
of the hay bacillus to the cubic centimetre,
but ten germs among which are two cholera
vibrios and two typhoid bacilli render it dan-
gerous."

The principal mold and yeast fungi are
briefly noticed in the appendix. The book
is indexed, but lacks illustrations. Minute
descriptions atone for this ; however, the
student is expected to illustrate for himself
in the best way — by observation of the liv-
ing object.

The Electric Railway in Theory and Prac-
tice. By Oscar T. Crosby and Louis
Bell, Ph. D. New York : W. J. John-
ston Co., Limited. Pp. 400. Illustrated.
Price, $2.50.

Although electric traction in the United
States only dates from 1884, its development
has been so rapid that for public transit in
towns and cities it would seem that the days
of the horse are numbered. Of electric loco-
motion as a science and art this book is a
clear and thorough presentation. Beginning
with an outline of electrical theory, the au-
thors proceed at once to practical details.
The considerations which should determine
the placing of a station are first discussed,
as also the economical adaptation of plant to
a specific volume of traffic and frequency of
service. Steam-engines and water-wheels of
the best models are described and their mer-
its carefully discriminated. Motors and car
equipment are then canvassed, and the vari-
ous approved methods of building lines and
track are illustrated. The trolley, under-
ground conduit, and storage-battery systems
are next compared, with a complete array of
evidence pro and con.

Mr. Crosby, one of the authors, has con-
ducted the only series of experiments ever
undertaken with intent to double railroad
speeds. In one of the most interesting chap-
ters in the book he gives all the facts in the
case, with cautiously deduced estimates. His
conclusion is, that with electric motors of
the highest efficiency, there is an advantage
over the locomotive at all speeds. This ad-
vantage is fifteen per cent at twenty miles
an hour, and steadily increases as the rate
is quickened. Where motors are liable to a

13°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

loss of one fifth in efficiency they are on an
equality with locomatives at sixty miles an
hour ; below that speed the locomotive is to
be preferred ; beyond it, the motor is the
cheaper servant.

While this work shows evidence on every
page of the scientific mastery of its subject,
the authors are plainly men desirous of meet-
ing the practical difficulties which the opera-
tion of electric railways presents every day.
They are also fully aware that the investor
is less interested in the analysis of electrical
machinery than in the simple question, Will
it pay ? Commercial considerations receive
full and sensible treatment. Others than
superintendents and investors can read this
work with profit. It is as good an example
as American literature contains of scientific
principles applied to the solution of practical
problems — problems, too, as important in
their social as in their commercial bearings.
Progress in electric traction means the relief
of congested cities, the expansion of whole-
some suburbs, on a scale impossible to the
steam locomotive. In long-distance service
it stands for an advance second only to that
due to George Stephenson.

Scientific Correspondence of Joseph
Priestley. Edited, with Copious Notes,
by Henry Carrington Bolton. New
York : privately printed. Pp. 240.
Price, $2.50. E. F. Brown, 180 Warren
Street, Brooklyn, Agent.

The " Father of Pneumatic Chemistry "
expected to be remembered chiefly for the
theological views which he put forth, having
been in early life a Unitarian minister, and a
writer on theological subjects throughout his
career. Hence his modest autobiography,
which was expanded into two volumes, with
the addition of several hundred letters, by
his son and J. T. Rutt, contains almost noth-
ing about his scientific investigations. To
supply the lack of material relating to his
work in the latter field, Dr. Bolton has col-
lected ninety-seven letters, nearly all written
by Priestley, his correspondents being Josiah
Wedgwood, Captain James Keir, Sir Joseph
Banks, and others in England, and Dr. Ben-
jamin Rush and others in America after he
came to this country. They contain many
interesting details concerning the progress of
his researches on the gases, several of the
most important of which were discovered by

him. The letters are supplemented by many
biographical, bibliographical, and explana-
tory notes by the editor, and the volume con-
tains a portrait of Priestley and one of Jo-
siah Wedgwood. There is also a synopsis
of correspondence of Dr. Priestley, consist-
ing chiefly of letters from him to his brother-
in-law, Mr. Wilkinson, from 1790 to 1802.
An appendix contains a descriptive list of
the likenesses of Joseph Priestley in oil, ink,
marble, and metal, embracing ninety-three
items ; an account of the Lunar Society, in
Birmingham, founded by Matthew Boulton,
Erasmus Darwin, and others, and of which
Priestley was a member ; and an inventory
of Dr. Priestley's laboratory, which was
sacked by rioters in 1791.

Diphtheria: its Natural History and Pre-
tention. By R. Thorne Thorne, F. R. S.
London and New York : Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 266. Price, $2.

Statistics show that the death-rate from
diphtheria in England and Wales has been
increasing during the last twenty years, and
more rapidly in the cities than in the coun-
try. This disease thus presents a contrast
to the majority of zymotic diseases, the death-
rate from which has been lessened as physi-
cians have gained more knowledge of their
nature and as sanitary conditions have been
improved. In view of its fatal and little un-
derstood character, the author has under-
taken to collect what is known in regard to
diphtheria. It appears that the broad geo-
logical features of a district have no influ-
ence on the development or diffusion of the
disease. A chart prepared by Dr. G. B.
Longstaff shows that the death-rate has been
high in some counties and low in others on
the same geological formation. Yet the au-
thor is convinced that a surface soil which
retains wetness and organic refuse, together
with an aspect exposed to cold wet winds,
tend to the fatality of diphtheria. He fur-
ther discusses' the general nature of the dis-
ease, its relation to scarlet fever and to croup,
the influence of schools in spreading the in-
fection, and milk as a vehicle in which it may
be carried. The measures of prevention
which are suggested by his study of the sub-
ject are stated in detail, and his general con-
clusions as to the natural history of diph-
theria are also given. The volume contains

LITERARY NOTICES.

131

three folded plates illustrating the relation
of diphtheria to geology and topography.

Direct Legislation by the Citizenship
through the initiative and referen-
DUM. By J. W. Sullivan. New York :
Twentieth Century Co. Pp. 120. Price,
cloth, 75 cents ; paper, 25 cents.

When an American learns that Switzer-
land is far in the lead of her sister republics
in the practice of democratic government,
many questions arise in his mind. This lit-
tle book is designed to answer them. Mr.
Sullivan concisely recounts the progress of
Switzerland in direct legislation during the
past sixty years, and shows the remarkable
influence of this legislation on the institu-
tions of the country. The statistics he cites
prove a very notable diffusion of prosperity.
He next shows that to a considerable length
direct legislation is practiced in the United
States in township, county, and State gov-
ernments, as well as in the national trades
and labor organizations. In his concluding
chapter Mr. Sullivan, although a strenuous
individualist, argues that in direct legislation
lies an open way to a peaceful political and
economic revolution. To the Swiss referen-
dum it is often objected that many legisla-
tive questions are above the ordinary voter's
comprehension, and demand the specially
trained mind of his representative. But
would not this check of comprehensibility
keep law-making within legitimate bounds,
and abolish the antagonism which so often
exists between the interests of the people
and those of their legislators ?

Elementary Text-Book of Zoology. By
Dr. C. Claus. Translated and edited by
Prof. Adam Sedgwick. Second edition.
London and New York : Macmillan & Co.
Two vols. Price, $8.

Among the German scientific text-books
that have won high favor among American
instructors is this work on zoology by
Dr. Claus. It is in two volumes, the first
comprising the General Part and the first
Special Part — Protozoa to Insecta ; the sec-
ond volume containing the other Special
Part — Mollusca to Man. In the General
Part a bird's-eye view of the organization
and development of animals in general is
given, and this is followed by a brief histori-
cal review of the science of zoology, an ex-

planation of the classification of the present
day, and a statement of the evidence in favor
of Darwin's theory of descent. In the spe-
cial chapters which constitute the rest of the
work, types of the several families are de-
scribed with considerable detail. The text
is illustrated with seven hundred and six
woodcuts in Volume I and two hundred and
five in the smaller Volume II.

Besides the list of towns and cities hav-
ing water- works, and accounts of their works,
The Manual of American Water - Works con-
tains summaries and statistical information
of great value to persons who are concerned
in this subject. From it we learn that there
were 2,037 water-works in operation on July
1, 1891, supplying 2,187 cities, towns, and
villages ; while in Canada there are 95
works, supplying 102 towns. Tables are
given showing the distribution of this supply
in the several States and provinces and
groups of the same; towns having more
than one plant; summaries of populations
supplied ; miles of mains, etc., also by States
and groups. The last tables show that 22,-
814,061, or about 36 per cent of the inhab-
itants of the United States, live in towns
having public water-works, and that only a
few towns having 8,000 or more inhabitants
are without works. The reported cost of
1,802 of the water-works in the United
States and Canada aggregates $504,035,492.
Other tables represent growth by number of
works and populations supplied ; dates of
construction by groups of States and half
decades ; like summaries of works com-
pleted or under construction since 1880, and
of works projected ; information respecting
the management of public water-works and
tenure of office of governing bodies; con-
sumption of water and use of metres ; own-
ership, whether by the public or by private
companies; franchises of water-works com-
panies ; and other facts of related character.
The main part of the book comprises the list
of water-works, given by States according to
their geographical arrangement and by towns
alphabetically, and comprising the items of
history, source of supply, mechanism, finan-
cial condition, and managing boards.

A Preliminary Report on the Coal De-
posits of Missouri has been prepared by the
State Geologist, Arthur Winslow, in order

132

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that something may be at hand to meet im-
mediate calls upon the survey for information
concerning the coal deposits of the State. It
embodies part of the results of such obser-
vations in the coal-fields as the author was
able personally to make in 1890 and 1891.
While the descriptions of the details of sec-
tions, the correlation of the different coal-
beds, the definition of the individual areas
of the coal-beds, and the adaptabilities of
the coals for steaming purposes are reserved
for future reports or only briefly touched
upon, and the report is not exhaustive or
elaborate, it is comprehensive. It aims to
present, in general terms, an outline of the
conditions of occurrence and distribution of
coal in the entire State, and contains a de-
scriptive reference to every county in which
coal is known to exist. Special effort has
been made to obtain and include all infor-
mation and results particularly relating to
coal that were not obtainable at the time
the earlier surveys of the State were in op-
eration. Of especial value are the records
of the various deep shafts and drill-holes
which are included in the report. The well-
executed sectional diagrams of the several
coal mines described contribute much to the
satisfactory impression made by the re-
port.

The principles of sound physical develop-
ment, graceful carriage, and easy posture
are taught in the little manual on Dclsarkan
Physical Culture, which has been prepared
for seminaries, classes, private teachers, and
individuals by Carrica Le Favre, and is pub-
lished by the Fowler & Wells Company. The
rules and exercises prescribed are simple
and plain, and such as, with patience and
attention, are easily carried out.

In The Modern Cook-book (Mast, Crowell
& Kirkpatrick, Springfield, Ohio) an accept-
able addition has been made to this class
of books by Mrs. T. J. Kirkpatrick. The
recipes are numerous, various, and simple,
and are classified. The author has found
that all the cook-books that have come under
her observation lack something of complete-
ness, and has endeavored to fill the want so
far as she could by presenting a book con-
taining a moderate number of recipes, all
practical and working. The recipes are tabu-
lated wherever it is possible ; the bills of
fare are not for state occasions, but for

plain, every-day cooking ; and the directions
are full, minute, and systematic.

In the series of catalogues compiled by
W. M. Griswold (Cambridge, Mass.), we no-
tice the Descriptive List of Romantic N. vels,
the object of which is to direct readers, who
would enjoy books of this kind, to a num-
ber of novels, easily obtainable, but which,
in many cases, have been forgotten within a
year or two after publication. The purpose
has been to include only such works as are
well written, interesting, and free from sen-
sationalism, sentimentality, and pretense.
The list is alphabetical, by titles, and is sup-
plemented by an alphabetical index of au-
thors.

A pamphlet on Roads Improvement, pub-
lished by the League of American Wheelmen,
contains three papers enforcing the impor-
tance of good roads, and showing by citations
of what has been accomplished abroad what
can be done toward making them. The
papers are : The Common Roads of Europe
and America, by Isaac B. Potter ; Highways
and National Prosperity, by Edward P.
North ; and The Importance of Good Wagon-
roads, by Prof. Lewis M. Haupt. The argu-
ments of these papers are re-enforced in the
most striking style by contrasted photo-
graphic views of scenes on the common
roads of the United States, even near large
cities, and the finished highways, even in
rural districts, of England, Ireland, and Brit-
tany.

A summary of Recent Advances in Elec-
tricity, Electric Lighting, Magnetism, Telegra-
phy, Telephony, etc., edited by Henry Greer
and published at the New York Agent College
of Electrical Engineering, contains articles on
The Storage of Electricity ; The Brush Stor-
age System ; other notices of storage bat-
teries, accumulators, etc. ; Telegraphing from
a Moving Railway Train (Phelps's system) ;
Navigable Trains of Air-ships (electricity
being the motive power) ; and Edison's paper
on his Pyromagnetic Dynamo, or machine
for producing electricity directly from fuel,
Price, $1.

A second series of Papers in Penology,
compiled by the Editor of the Summary, and
published at the New York State Reforma-
tory at Elmira, contains papers on The Pris-
ons of Great Britain, by Jay S. Butler; Mod-
ern Prison Science, by Prof. Charles A. Col-

LITERARY NOTICES.

133

lin; The Philosophy of Crime, by William
T. Harris ; Criminal Anthropology, by Ham-
ilton D. Wey ; New York's Prison Laws, by
Eugene Smith ; Prison Labor Systems ; and
The Elmira Reformatory of To-day. The
mechanical work upon the publication, in-
cluding the etching of the cover, has been
done by inmates of the reformatory.

The Report on the Coal Measures of the
Plateau Region of Alabama, made to the
State Geologist by Mr. Henry McCalley,
treats of all the coal measures of the plateau
region, except those that were included in
the Report of the Warrior Coal-field, pub-
lished in 1886 ; and also speaks of the coal
measures of St. Clair and Shelby Counties,
whose measures are principally of plateau
strata, and have not been considered as a
whole in any previous report. A general
description of the plateau region is given in
the introduction ; and notes and a short re-
port by General A. M. Gibson are added on
the Coal Measures of Blount and Berry
Mountains. Some parts of this plateau re-
gion are likely to prove important coal areas.
A map of the coal-fields and two geological
sections are inserted in the volume.

The Report of S. P. Lane/leg, Secretary
of the Smithsonian Institution, for the year
ending with June, 1891, includes the work
placed under its charge by Congress in the
National Museum, the Bureau of Ethnology,
the International Exchanges, the National
Zoological Park, and the Astro-Physical Ob-
servatory. By saving in other quarters, the
Institution has been able to revert in some
measure to an early practice of offering aid
in original research. It has made grants
for work on a universal standard of meas-
ure, founded on the wave-length of light ;
for determinations of the densities of oxy-
gen and hydrogen ; for photographs of the
moon ; and for investigations upon chemical
compounds. In the Bureau of Ethnology
efforts are made to secure records of Indian
languages before they pass away.

A Catalogue of Prehistoric Works East
of the Rocky Mountains, preliminary to a
complete and thorough catalogue to be made
as soon as the work can be accomplished,
has been prepared by Dr. Cyrus Thomas,
and is published by the Bureau of Eth-
nology. It contains lists of all the works
. within the territory described, of which

mention has been found in any books or
reports, as accurately located and described
as the accounts given in the original or
other best authorities will permit. The no-
tices are perhaps often indefinite and fre-
quently incorrect, on account of defects in
these original authorities ; but it is hoped
that their appearance in the present shape
will lead to more careful examination and
to the preparation of the complete catalogue
which it is hoped to make. The list is ac-
companied by a map of the distribution of
mounds in the United States, and by State
maps showing the location of prehistoric
works.

The Report of the Botanical Department
of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment
Station, by Byron D. Halsted, botanist, is
one of the most valuable publications that
have yet issued from the experiment sta-
tions. A considerable part of the report is
devoted to the record of the study of fungus
forms injurious to crops, made during a
season in which fungoid growths were very
prevalent — including cranberry scald, sweet-
potato rots, etc. The causes of the failure
of the peach crop in 1890 are investigated.
Considerable space is devoted to the account
of the work done on the weeds of the State,
including a listing of them with botanical
and local names, estimates by different ob-
servers of their relative degrees of noxious-
ness, and twenty-four page plates of the
worst weeds.

In a Doctor's Thesis on The Right of the
State to Be, an attempt is made by Prof. F.
M. Taylor to determine the ultimate human
prerogative on which government rests.
The author assumes that most previous
efforts to answer the question presented in
the title have referred to incidentals and have
not been sufficiently directed to the main
question. He seeks the solution of this.
First, he maintains the reality of the prob-
lem and defines its nature ; next he reviews
previous theories, and points out their de-
fects ; and, finally, he explains and defends
his own theory. This theory bases the right
on the prerogative which is assumed to be-
long to every person as such to rule, or to
interfere coercively with the liberty of other
persons in order to maintain his version of
the jural ideal. Government then becomes
the collective exercise by the community of

134

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

their individual prerogatives combined into
a single authority.

The third edition of Prof. Simon Henry
Gage's manual of The Microscope and His-
tology has been entirely rewritten, enlarged,
and more fully illustrated; and, while ele-
mentary matters have received fuller treat-
ment than in previous editions, special effort
has been made in this to give more adequate
accounts of certain apparatus which are
coming to be used more and more in the
higher fields of investigation in pure science
and in practical medicine. In order to en-
courage students to do their own work, exer-
cises illustrating the principles of the micro-
scope and the methods of employing it have
been made an integral part of the treatise.
To this branch of the subject the volume
now before us, constituting Part I of the
work — The Microscope and Microscopical
Methods — is largely devoted. (Printed and
for sale by Andrus & Church, Ithaca, N. Y.
Price $1.)

In the report of Mr. Tlieodore B. Corn-
stock, On the Geology and Mineral Resources
of the Central Mineral Region of Texas for
1890, about a thousand miles are added to
the area given in the previous report as that
of the pre-carboniferous rocks comprising
the regions described, Silurian and Cambrian
strata having been discovered in fields that
were supposed to be covered by the Creta-
ceous. In order to give special prominence
to economical results, the outline of the
stratigraphy introduced is prepared with the
primary object of affording a kind of key to
those whose practical needs preclude the task
of selecting from the mass of technical de-
scription the particular details which apply
to individual cases. For the benefit of the
same class of persons a most useful series of
directions are given for finding in the re-
port at once the information concerning the
reader's particular locality, by the aid of
which he may judge what method of develop-
ment may be most economical and profitable.

Part II of the fourth volume of The
Journal of the College of Science, Imperial
University, Japan, contains seven papers,
five of which are by Japanese authors, while
one is a joint production. They are On some
Fossil Plants from the Coal-bearing Series
of Nagato, and On some Cretaceous Fossils
from Shikoku, by Matajiro Yokoyama ; Com-

parison of Earthquake Measurements made
in a Pit and on the Surface Ground, by
Prof. S. Sekiya ; Laboratory Notes, by Prof.
C. G. Knott ; Diffraction Phenomena pro-
duced by an Aperture on a Curved Surface,
and Effect of Magnetization on the Perma-
nent Twist of Nickel Wire, by H. Nagaoka ;
•and On Certain Thermo-electric Effects of
Stress in Iron, by Prof. Knott and S. Kimura.

Edward Fliigel's study of Thomas Car-
lyWs Moral and Religious Development is
published in a translation by Jessica Gilbert
Tyler, by M. L. Holbrook & Co. The main
object of the book is defined by the author
to be to consider Carlyle as a moral force.
Before turning attention, however, to his
moral and religious views, a brief considera-
tion is given to the history of his inner life,
especially with reference to its moral and
religious side. In this sense chapters are
given among the others to Carlyle's Belief,
his Relation to Christianity, his Position with
Reference to Science, and especially to Phi-
losophy, to Poetry, and Art, his Attitude to-
ward History, and his Ethics.

A series of articles upon the trees of
Salem, Mass., and its neighborhood, pre-
pared by Mr. John Robinson, in 1890 and
1891, for one of the newspapers of that city,
have been published by the Essex Institution
in book form under the title of Our Trees.
They give a popular account of the trees in
the streets and gardens of the city and of the
native trees of Essex County, with the loca-
tion of the trees and historical and botanical
notes. They were written wholly with an
eye to popular entertainment and instruction,
but prepared with considerable care and a
regard to scientific accuracy. In them we
have accounts of the character of the mag-
nolias, tulip tree, lindens, tamarix, sumachs,
horse - chestnuts, maples, locusts, apples,
pears, cherries, dogwoods, tupelo, witch-
hazel, ashes, catalpa, sassafras, elms, box-
tree, mulberries, buttonwood, walnuts, hick-
ories, birches, hornbeams, chestnut, beech,
oaks, willows, poplars, pines, spruces, fir,
hemlock, larches, cedar, gingko, and yew.
One hundred and fifteen species grow in the
region, of which fifty-six are natives of Essex
County.

A collection of papers on the Quaternary
Geology of the Hudson River Valley is in-
tended as a preliminary contribution by Mr.

LITERARY NOTICES.

135

Frederick J. H. Merrill to that subject.
The papers relate to the historic and eco-
nomic geology of the field. The first paper,
on the Post-Glacial History of the Valley, is
the result of several seasons' study by the
author. The papers on Brick Clays and the
Manufacture of Brick were prepared under
the author's direction by Mr. Heinrich Ries,
after a detailed investigation of the region
between Croton and Albany.

A study of the Evolution of the Myth
of Satan is presented by Mr. William Henry
Hudson in a paper which was originally de-
livered as a Sunday evening lecture, on The
Satan of Theology and how we came by
him. The author finds that the Satan of
the Book of Job bears no resemblance to
the spirit of evil in our modern theology,
while the tempter, or serpent in the garden
of Eden, was not identified with Satan till
Persian influence had begun to operate.
The real origin of the theological devil is
then sought in the dualistic conception of
the Zoroastrian religion, which was trans-
planted into Judaism and has been built
upon till it has grown into the^ present ac-
cepted figure.

Of two Addresses on Anatomy, reprinted
by the author, Dr. Harrison Allen, of the
University of Pennsylvania, for more con-
venience in reading, the first, On Compara-
tive Anatomy as a Part of the Medical Cur-
riculum, was delivered before the American
Association for the Advancement of Science,
at its Boston meeting, in 1880; and the
second, On the Teaching of Anatomy to Ad-
vanced Students, before the Association of
American Anatomists, at Washington, in
1S91. The second address outlines a plan
for a thorough fundamental course of in-
struction in the science, representing the
idea which the author has long cherished for
having medical biologists as systematically
trained as those who elect the more general
field of natural history.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Agriaultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins and
Reports. Iowa : Sugar Beets, etc. Pp. 9G. — Ne-
braska: Farm Notes. Pp. 12. and Sugar Beets.
Pp. 44. — Annual Report of Cornell University Station.
Pp. 400.

American Society of Naturalists, Records of.
Vol. I, Part IX. Pp. 26.

Armstrong and Norton. Laboratory Manual of
Chemistry. New York: American Book Company.
Pp. 144. 50 cents.

Au'.de, John. The Pocket Pharmacy. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 204. $2.

Buckley, A. B. Moral Teaching of Science. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp.122. 75 cents.

Burnstein, M. J. Ideality of Medical Science.
Reprint. Pp. 14.

Carus, Paul. Monism : Its Scope and Import.
Chicago : Open Court Publishing Co. Pp. 44.

Colbert, E. Humanity in its Origin and Early
Growth. Chicago : Open Court Publishing Co. Pp.
409. $150.

Cowperthwait, J. H. Money, Silver, and Finance.
New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 292. $1.25.

Crookes and Fischer. Wagner's Manual of
Chemical Technology. New York : D. Appleton &
Co. Pp. 90S. $7.50.

Denning, D. The Art and Craft of Cabinet-mak-
ing. London : Whittaker & Co. Pp. 320. $1.50.

Dewey, F. P. Catalogue of the Collections in
Economic Geology and Metallurgy in the United
States National Museum. Smithsonian Institution.
Pp. 256.

Dominion Illustrated Monthly. Pp. 64. Mon-
treal : Sabiston Publishing Co. $1.50 a year.

Dorsey, J. O. The Cegiha Language. Contribu-
tions to North American Ethnology. Vol. VI. Pp.
794. Washington: Government Printing-Offlce,1890.

Dorsey, J. O. Omaha and Ponka Letters.
Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 127.

Drummond, A. T. Temperatures in the Great
Lakes and St. Lawrence. Pp. 9. And Some Lake
and River Temperatures. Pp. 7. Reprints.

Du Bois, W. B. Fiat Money Lunatics. New
York: Twentieth Century Publishing Co. Pp. 16.

Evans, T. American Citizenship. Tribune
Print. Oakland, Cal. Pp. 210.

Flick, T. The Three Circuits. A Study of the
Primary Forces. The Author: Washington, D. C.
Pp. 263. $1.50.

Frank, Henry. The Evolution of the Devil. H.
L. Green, Buffalo, N. Y. Pp. 66. 25 cents.

Gilbert, C.H. Fishes collected among the Santa
Barbara Islands and in the Gulf of California. Smith-
sonian Institution. Pp. 26.

Goode, G. Browne. Writings of Dr. Charles
Girard. Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 141.

Hale, E. M. Ilex Cassene. Government Print-
ing-Office. Pp. 22.

Howard. L. O. Hymenopterous Insects of the
Family Chalcididte. Smithsonian Institution.
Pp. 21.

Ingersoll, R. G. Address before the Unitarian
Club, New York. H. L. Green, Buffalo, N. Y. Pp.
12. 6 cents.

James, Joseph F. The Genus Scolithus.
Reprint.

Journal of Physiology, February, 1892.
bridge Engraving'Co., Cambridge, England.

Journal of the United States Artillery.
No. 1. January, 1892. Artillery School Press, Fort
Monroe, Va. Pp. 80. Quarterly. $2.50 a year.

Knowles, E. R. The Supremacy of the Spiritual.
Pp. 7. Reprint.

Leland Stanford, Jr., University. Circular of In-
formation, No. 6. Palo Alto, Cal. Pp. 62.

Litchworth, William P. Memorial to the New
York Legislature in behalf of the Non-criminal
Insane. Pp. 12.

Levett and Davison. Plane Trigonometry. New
York : Macmillan & Co., 1892. Pp. 520. $1.60.

Logan, Celia. How to reduce your Weight or
increase it. New York : W. A. Kellogg. Pp. 147.
50 cents.

Longman's New School Atlas. Edited by G. G.
Chisholm and C. H. Leete. New York : Longmans,
Green & Co. $1.50.

Macdonald, G. Diseases of the Nose. New
York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 331. $2.50.

Pp.44.
Cam-

Vol. I.

136

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Massachusetts Agricultural College. Twenty-
ninth Annual Report. Boston : Wright & Potter.
Pp. 100.

Mays, T. J. Observation and Experiment iu
Phthisis. Pp. 9. Reprint

Merz, C. H. A Possible Source of Contagion.
Pp. 8. Reprint.

Meyer, Lothar. Outlines of Theoretical Chem-
istry. New York : Longmans, Green & Co. Pp.
220. $2.50.

Miller, Emory. The Evolution of Love. Chicago :
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Natural Science. Monthly Review of Scientific
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14 shillings.

Parker, F. W. Paper on the Necessity for a
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Phillips, R. J. Living Larvae in the Conjunc-
tival Sac. Pp. 3. Reprint.

Proceedings of the Society of Psychical Research.
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Pp. 145.

Proceedings Rochester Academy of Science. Vol.
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Public Reservations. First Annual Report of
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Remondino, P. O. Climatology of Southern Cali-
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Report of the Commissioner of Education for
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Stollcop, J. C. Of Matter. The Author; Tacoma,
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POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Origin of Greenland Aregetation. — Some
interesting conclusions are drawn by Mr.
Clement Reid from a comparison of the
views of Prof. Warming and Prof. Nathorst
concerning the origin of the flora of Green-
land. Prof. Warming fixes the boundary
between the European and American prov-
inces of the arctic flora as in Denmark
Strait, and not in Davis Strait, as botanists
have generally placed it. The flowering
plants of Greenland include three hundred
and eighty-six species, none of which are
confined to that country. Of these, exclud-
ing the circumpolar forms, Prof. Warming
finds in the list thirty-six characteristic
Western against forty-two Eastern species ;
but suggests that as the flora of arctic Ameri-
ca is better known, the balance will prob-
ably be in favor of the Western forms. He,
however, includes among the Eastern plants
only those now living in Europe, while he
classes the Asiatic-American species as
Western. Prof. Nathorst reviews these con-
clusions on the basis of a map of the local
distribution of Eastern and Western forms in
Greenland. He thus finds that the coast
nearest to Iceland contains European forms
alone, the southern coast contains European
forms in a majority, and that part of the west
coast nearest to America yields principally
Western species ; but taking Greenland as a
whole the flora is more European than
American. He also finds that the Ameri-
can element of the flora of Greenland is not
entirely cut off by the Denmark Strait, but
extends eastward as far as Iceland. Prof.
Warming believes that the nucleus of the
present flora of Greenland represents part
of the original flora which was able to live
through the Glacial epoch on the non-glaci-
ated areas ; but Prof. Nathorst shows that
the few non-glaciated mountain-tops must
have been far too high for any phanerogams
to exist on them, and all the lowlands were
then covered with ice and snow. Both the
Eastern and Western elements of the present
flora of Greenland must, therefore, be sup-
posed to have entered the country in post-
glacial times. The tables of distribution
show at what points a large number of the
plants entered ; they came from the nearest
land, whether European or American. The

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

*37

ice-foot, which collects in winter beneath
the sea-cliffs, is placed in the best possible
position to receive any seeds or masses of
soil which may fall during the winter. This
shore-ice is drifted away in the spring, and
may easily discharge its burden on some far-
distant shore uninjured, and with the seeds
just ready to germinate. Winds, migrating
birds, and migrating mammals, would all
help to transport seeds across the straits.

Early Title-pages. — In the earliest print-
ed books and in manuscripts any information
on the workmanship of the book was written
at the end, in what is called the colophon.
It was not till 1470, according to Mr. A. W.
Follard, in his History of the Title-page, that
a title-page was introduced, and in England
not till shortly before 1490, when W. de
Machline issued one to his little book on the
pestilence. Caxton never used them, but
Wynkyn de Worde employed them in nearly
all his books. At the beginning of the next
century are found the most interesting, if
not the most artistic, titles. Popular de-
mand then required a large woodcut on the
front page, whatever was the subject of the
book. Even school-books were adorned with
representations of masters and scholars, the
most striking object in the cut being a for-
midably large birch. The nature of most of
the religious books required a frontispiece
containing devils. The little books of poetry
and romance which issued from the press by
hundreds contain the best specimens of this
kind of art. Looking at these title-pages
from the artistic side alone, England makes
but a poor show against France and Italy.
Nothing could be finer than the title-pages of
the Parisian books in the early part of the
sixteenth century. After this time the deca-
dence began, and the printers finally became
" dreadfully utilitarian and unromantic."

The Primary Color of Leaves. — Having
concluded, as has already been mentioned in
the Monthly, that the primary color of flow-
ers is white, from which the characteristic
hue is developed as a secondary color, E.
Williams Hervey asks, in Garden and For-
est, What is the primary color of the green
parts of the plant? Leaves do not gener-
ally have a different color at the base from
the usual one, as has been shown to be

the case with flowers ; and they rarely, ex-
cept in the purplish leaves of vigorous sap-
lings and a few cultivated plants, have any
other color than green. But the leaves of
some cultivated plants are spotted, striped,
or bordered with white ; bleached celery
stalks are white, and the inner leaves of
cabbages are white. From these instances
'" we get pretty strong hints that green is
derived from white. There remains one
more clew. Every botanist knows that the
seed contains a miniature and rudimentary
plant; that generally the most prominent
parts of the seed are the cotyledons or seed-
leaves, and these are, of course, the first
leaves of every species of plants. Now, if
we ascertain the color of these seed-leaves,
we find the original color of all leaves.
This color is uniformly white ; ... of course,
we do not refer to the colored integument of
the seed, which, as in the case of garden
leaves, may be white, red, yellow, blue, black,
or of mixed colors, but to the kernel, or
meat. There are a very few instances only
where the green color has impressed, some-
what, that characteristic upon the seed, as
in peas, nasturtiums, and maples, which pre-
sent a pale-green color in the pod or shell.
In some instances these cotyledons appear
above the surface of the ground, changing
from white to green ; while in others they
remain below." We learn from this study
of color, therefore, the author adds, " that
white is the primary color of root, stem, and
flower, and the foundation of all color."

A New Electric Light. — A vast improve-
ment in artificial illumination is promised in
the light which Mr. Tesla, " the able lieuten-
ant of Mr. Edison," has been exhibiting in
London. An experiment performed by him
before the Royal Institution consists, accord"
ing to the Spectator's account, in joining two
sheets of tin- foil, one over the lecturer's head,
the other on the table, to the poles of the
generator. The space between these two
sheets immediately became electrified, and a
long vacuum-tube waved about in it, without
attachment to any conductor, glowed in the
darkness like a flaming sword. The experi-
ment was intended to illustrate the possibili-
ty of rendering an entire room so electric,
by plates in the ceiling or under the floor,
that vacuum-bulbs placed anywhere within it

i38

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

would yield a light. Thus we shall be able
to fill our rooms with the potentiality of
light, and then, by the simple introduction
of vacuum-tubes, to obtain any quantity of
it. Those who want a daylight without heat
will be able to run a vacuum-tube round the
whole length of the cornice, and so obtain a
diffused illumination of almost any brilliancy.
The fact is noticed, in connection with the
experiments, that the lecturer stood in an
" electrostatic field " capable of illuminating
a lamp without wires, and felt nothing.
More, he held a vacuum-tube in one hand and
touched a " terminal " with the other, a pro-
cess which made him " the channel for a
current of something like fifty thousand
volts," and yet did not receive any injury.

Venerable Trees. — A very interesting
work is in course of publication by M. Ga-
deau de Kerville, on the ancient trees of Nor-
mandy. The most remarkable trees so far
described are the two yews of La Haye de
Koutot, in the department of the Eure. They
are respectively 9^ and 8y metres in circum-
ference at the base of the trunk, and 17£
and 14£ metres high. Their ages are esti-
mated by the author to be not less than
fifteen hundred years. A chapel has been
constructed in the hollow trunk of one of
these yews, three metres high and two me-
tres deep. Before it was transformed into
a chapel the hollow would hold forty per-
sons, and eight musicians have played in it
in concert. The beech of Montigny, esti-
mated by the author to be between six hun-
dred and nine hundred years old, is 18 me-
tres high and 8-20 metres in circumference
at the base. There are oaks from two hun-
dred to nine hundred years old, one of which
is nearly forty metres high.

Curions Effects of an Earthqnake. —

Some striking features are described by
Prof. John Milne as marking the recent de-
structive earthquake in Japan, by which
nearly 8,000 persons were killed and at
least 41,000 houses were leveled. The move-
ments of the wave were horizontal, and a
defect of the seismograph was noticed in its
failure to record anything of them except
the " dip." In many places so-called " for-
eign" buildings of brick and stone fell in
heaps of ruin ^between Japanese buildings

yet standing. " Cotton-mills have fallen in,
while their tall brick chimneys have been
whipped off at about half their height.
Huge cast-iron columns, which, unlike chim-
neys, are uniform in section, acting as piers
for railway bridges, have been cut in two
near their base. In some instances these
have been snapped into pieces much as we
might snap a carrot, and the fragments
thrown down upon the shingle beaches of
the rivers. The greatest efforts appear to
have been exerted where masonry piers
carrying two - hundred - foot girders over
lengths of eighteen hundred feet have been
cut in two, and then danced and twisted over
their solid foundations to a considerable dis-
tance from their true positions. These piers
have a sectional area of twenty-six by ten
feet, and are from thirty to fifty feet in
height. Embankments have been spread
outward or shot away, brick arches have
fallen between their abutments, while the
railway line itself has been bent into a
series of snakelike folds and hummocked
into waves. . . . Here and there a temple
has escaped destruction, partly perhaps on
account of the quality of materials employed
in its construction, but also in consequence
of the multiplicity of joints which come be-
tween the roof and the supporting columns.
At these joints there has been a basket-like
yielding, and the interstice of the roof has
not, therefore, acted with its whole force in
tending to rupture its supports."

Meteorology Five Centuries ago. — "What is
probably the oldest journal of the weather in
existence has recently been recovered, printed
in photographic transcript, and translated.
It was kept by the Rev. William Merle, rec-
tor of Driby, Lincolnshire, England, from
1337 to 1344, or during seven years of the
earlier part of the reign of Edward III.
The author was evidently a keen observer,
and recorded his facts succinctly and intel-
ligently, so as to give a graphic, even pict-
uresque description of the weather by the
week or month ; and a reference in one of
his notes to a feature of the season of 1331
shows that he had been watching the changes
of the seasons for a longer time than was
covered by his journal. Some of the entries
are suggestive of the conditions and ways
of thinking of the times. The frequent men-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

139

tion of weather conditions and phenomena
in other parts of the kingdom indicates that
there were other observers in England who
corresponded with Merle. A comet was
seen in the second week of September, 1343,
appearing about sunset. Our author called
it " ardens draco,'1'' or burning dragon, but
did not seem terrified by it. He merely re-
marked that it was a sign of dry weather.
In the same year, on the 28th of March, is
entered a notice of an earthquake so violent
that the stones of the chimneys in certain
parts of Lindsey were thrown down. The
motion lasted while one might say the an-
gelic salutation, which was about half as long
then as it is now. The mention of stones
falling in the stone chimneys — " lapides
in caminis lapideis " — is interesting, as it
proves the fallacy of the belief that chimneys
are a late invention, and that the English
of those times were so barbarous that the
smoke was got rid of by means of a hole in
the roof. The recovery of the journal is due
to a mention of it by Dr. Plot, of the Royal
Society, in 1685, as being in the Bodleian
Library. It was looked for and found.

Drops of Fog. — Advantage was taken by
Mr. John Aitken, during a visit to the Righi,
of the opportunities that were afforded there
for investigating the water particles in
clouds. With an instrument the author has
invented those particles were distinctly seen
showering down, and the number falling on
the micrometer was easily counted. The
number was observed to vary greatly from
time to time. The greatest rate actually
counted was sixty drops per square milli-
metre in thirty seconds, but for a few sec-
onds the rate was much quicker. The maxi-
mum rate named gives twelve thousand drops
per square centimetre per minute, or sev-
enty-seven thousand four hundred drops per
square inch per minute. The drops are so
extremely small that they rapidly evaporate,
more than two or three being seldom visi-
ble at the same time on one square of the
micrometer. The denser the cloud the quick-
er was the rate of fall, and as the cloud
thinned away the drops fell at longer inter-
vals, and they diminished in size at the
same time. It was frequently observed
when the mountain-top was in clouds, par-
ticularly if they were not very dense over-

head, that the surfaces of all exposed ob-
jects were dry — not only the stones on the
ground, which might have received heat from
the earth, but also wooden seats, posts, etc.
— and if wetted they soon dried. And while
everything was dry, the fog-counter showed
that fine rain-drops were falling in immense
numbers, and the air, on testing, was found
to be saturated. A few observations were
therefore made to explain the apparent con-
tradiction of surfaces remaining dry while
exposed to a continued shower of fine rain
and surrounded by saturated air. The ex-
planation was found to be, simply, radiant
heat. A considerable amount of heat, as
also of light, was found to penetrate the
clouds, notwithstanding their density. This
radiant heat is absorbed by all exposed sur-
faces and heats them, while they in turn
heat the air in contact with them, and the
fine drops of water are either evaporated in
this hot layer of air or after they come in
contact with the heated surfaces. Other
observations made on Mount Pilatus pointed
to the same conclusion. All large objects,
such as seats, posts, etc., were dry in cloud
when there was any radiation ; while small
objects, such as pins, fine threads, etc., were
covered with beads of water. The large sur-
faces being more heated by radiation than
small ones, when surrounded by air, these
surfaces evaporate the drops falling on
them, while the small ones, being kept cool
by the passing air, are unable to keep them-
selves free. The observations made with
the fog-counter point to the conclusion that
the density or thickness of a cloud depends
more on the number of water particles than
on the number of dust particles in it.

Mortality and Morbidity by Professions.

— M. Jacques Bertillon recently communi-
cated to the French Society of Public Medi-
cine a table of mortality by professions,
compiled from official documents of the city
of Paris from 1885 to 1889. This is the
first table of the kind that has been made
in France. Other tables have been made in
England by Mr. William Farr and by Mr.
Ogle, compiled from the returns of census
years, and in Switzerland by M. Kummer
for the years 1879 to 1882. On a comparison
of the results of these four tables, made with
special reference to the relative number for

14°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

each profession, and taking the general aver-
age of each country observed, the author has
found that the same professions give nearly
the same results in the three countries. When,
however, we compare these results with the
tables of morbidity or liability to disease by
professions, drawn up by M. Bodio, from
the observations of the Italian societies of
mutual aid, we find them at times apparent-
ly contradictory. LThis confirms the prin-
ciple that in the existing condition of things
a table of morbidity is not of as much value
as a table of mortality as a means of deter-
mining the sanitary condition of a popula-
tion. This arises from the fact that it is a
very delicate matter to distinguish a disease
from a simple indisposition, as well as to
distinguish an acute from a chronic disease,
and the latter, again, from an infirmity.

Meteoric Iron. — Native meteoric nickel
iron, according to Prof. Ledebur, of Frei-
berg, is too costly to be available for prac-
tical use. The market prices are about 6c?.
per gramme for ordinary qualities, and from
Is. 6c?. to 2s. 6c?. per gramme for the rarer
qualities, and from 17s. to 26s. per gramme
for iron the fall of which has been observed.
Still it is not extremely rare, at least not in
museums. The museum at Vienna has 1,033
kilogrammes of it, of specimens that were
found in 145 different places ; the collection of
the University of Berlin is rich in specimens ;
the Natural History Museum at Paris has a
considerable quantity of it ; and the British
Museum has 3,600 kilogrammes in a single
block. The largest piece in any collection is
one weighing 5,000 kilogrammes, from Bem-
dego, Bahia, in the museum at Rio de Ja-
neiro. It is believed to be a fragment of a
meteor of 9,000 kilogrammes which was dis-
covered in 1784. A mass described by Hum-
boldt was estimated to weigh from 15,000 to
20,000 kilogrammes. Evidence is adduced
by Herr Otto Vogel, of Dusseldorf, to show
that meteoric or nickel iron is found over
most of the world, and has been worked to
the most recent times ; and that it was also
worked and used in the middle ages and in
a remote antiquity. The negroes on the
Senegal River were found working it by
Buchner ; the Namaquas of South Africa
made weapons from it ; and the Indians of
Islahuaca manufactured agricultural imple-

ments and other tools from it as early as
1784. Captain Ross, in 1819, found the
Eskimos of Greenland using meteoric iron
in making lines and other tools ; and there
is a knife-blade of this iron in the Natural
History Museum at Vienna, where is also
preserved an arrow-head of it from Mada-
gascar. The author suggests that it may
easily be assumed that the first iron that
was ever wrought was cosmic iron — that is
to say, an iron derived from another world.
" On such foundlings," says Mehrtens, " the
uncultured inhabitants of our earth may
first have tried their skill out of curiosity,
and perhaps by chance have discovered the
properties of iron."

The Power of Assertion. — A political
article in a recent number of The Spectator
is prefaced by some general remarks on the
power that mere assertion exerts. The ma-
jority of persons, whether of high or low
degree, have little inclination or opportunity
for verifying statements. Hence an asser-
tion that is made strongly and circumstan-
tially enough passes with these persons for
solid fact. The task of exposing and rebut-
ting a misstatement is almost a waste of
labor. In political affairs, especially, there
is very little to lose and a great deal to gain
in making reckless statements. Even if clear-
ly disproved, no damaging blame attaches
to the politician who makes them. He, if
adroit (and the politician who is not has
missed his calling), will not be found to
have perpetrated an absolute falsehood.
There are always plenty of political rumors
afloat, and one of these can be easily dressed
up and given out as " a matter of common
knowledge," or "what everybody is saying,
you know." The success of such devices
shows that mankind has not yet outgrown
its pristine credulity.

Instinctive Criminality. — In a paper on
instinctive criminality, Dr. S. A. K. Strahan
holds that the criminal belongs to a decaying
race, and is only found in families whose
other members show signs of degradation ;
in fact, it is only one of the many signs of
family decay. Besides being hereditary,
criminality is interchangeable with other
degenerate conditions, such as idiocy, epi-
lepsy, suicide, insanity, scrofula, etc. ; and it

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

141

is a chance whether the insanity or drunken-
ness, say, of the parent, will appear as such
in the child or be transmuted in transmission
to one or other of the alternate degenerate
conditions. The present system of treatment
has proved a disastrous failure ; short pe-
riods of punishment can have no effect,
either curative or deterrent. Everything
points in the direction of prolonged or in-
definite confinement in industrial peniten-
tiaries.

Oscillations in Latitude. — At the recent
anniversary meeting of the Royal Society, the
president, Sir William Thomson, spoke of the
investigation of oscillations of latitude which
has been instituted under the auspices of the
International Geodetic Union. Comparative
observations have been begun at Berlin, and
at Honolulu, which is very near the opposite
meridian to Berlin. The first several hun-
dred determinations of latitude made at
Honolulu during three months of a proposed
year of observations, compared with the
corresponding results at Berlin, showed that
the latitude during that time had increased
in Berlin and decreased at Honolulu by
about one third of a second. " Thus we
have decisive demonstration that motion,
relatively to the earth, of the earth's in-
stantaneous axis of rotation, is the cause of
variations of latitude which have been ob-
served at Berlin, Greenwich, and other ob-
servatories, and which can not be wholly at-
tributed to errors of observation." This, Prof.
Foerster remarks, gives observationalproof of
a conclusion which the author had expressed
in 1876, to the effect that irregular move-
ments of the earth's axis to the extent of half
a second may be produced by the temporary
changes of sea-level due to meteorological
causes. It is proposed that four permanent
stations for regular and continued observa-
tion of latitude at places of approximately
equal latitude and on meridians approxi-
mately 90° apart, be established under the
auspices of the International Geodetic Union.
The reason for this arrangement is, that a
change in the instantaneous axis of rotation
in the direction perpendicular to the merid-
ain of any one place would not alter its
latitude, but would alter the latitude of a
place 90° from it hx longitude by an amount
equal to the angular change of the position

of the axis. Thus two stations in meridians
differing by 90° would theoretically suffice,
by observations of latitude, to determine the
changes in the position of the instantaneous
axis ; but differential results, such as those
already obtained between Berlin and Hono-
lulu, differing by approximately 180° in lon-
gitude, are necessary for eliminating errors
of observation sufficiently to give satisfactory
and useful results.

Swedish Wood and Iron. — According to
our minister in Stockholm, the two great
products of Sweden after agriculture are
wood and iron. The Norland is still covered
for the most part with an extensive black
forest, consisting largely of pine and spruce.
Upon the great water-shed called the fjdd
or Kblen (the keel of the country likened to
a boat turned bottom upward) stand the
chief timber forests ; and extensive lumber-
ing operations are carried on along the nu-
merous rivers and their tributaries that flow
thence. At the mouths of most of the rivers
are towns which take their names as well
as their business and prosperity from the
streams where are large saw-mills. Lumber
operations are also conducted south of Stock-
holm on both coasts, and there is a consid-
erable export from Gothenburg; but the
great bulk of the timber is cut and sawn in
Norland, and eighty-five per cent of the lum-
ber exports come from the north of Stock-
holm. The Swedish lumber trade has as-
sumed its present importance only within
the present century, and in fact during the
past thirty years. More than one quarter of
the wooded area of Sweden, or 14,300,000
acres, belongs to the crown. The forests are
supervised with great care, and all Sweden
is divided into forest districts, and these, in
turn, into revirs. Each district is under the
supervision of a chief forest inspector, and
each revir is guarded by a forest ranger and
a number of under-keepers. Our minister
thinks that the vast forests of Sweden will
be preserved and maintained substantially
as they stand to-day, and that Sweden's lum-
ber export — her greatest source of reve-
nue— will be maintained and kept good for
ages to come. The Swedish iron, celebrated
throughout the world, is soft and ductile,
and preserves great pliability and strength.
It still furnishes the raw material for the

142

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

best tools and weapons, the finest springs
and drawn wire, and the best kind of nails
for riveting and clinching. Its excellence
depends partly on its being free from phos-
phorus and sulphur, and partly on the supe-
rior manner of the smelting, which is done
with charcoal. The supply of ore is practi-
cally inexhaustible. It is found all over the
country ; it occurs in the thick strata of the
rock and forms the bulk of great mountains
in various parts of the kingdom. The largest
of these iron mountains is Gellivare, situ-
ated in Swedish Lapland, beyond the Arctic
Circle. The ore occurs here chiefly in four
gigantic strata, and covers so large an area
that it is estimated that, if only one metre
in depth is taken out a year, the yield would
be 943,600 tons, nearly equal to the amount
now produced by all the mines in Sweden.
The ore contains seventy per cent of iron.
Much of it, however, contains apatite, and
in such large quantities that the question of
turning to account the phosphoric acid held
in that mineral is entertained. Iron is chiefly
mined in central Sweden, but the best iron
comes from the Dannemora mines, a little
east of the chief area. Besides making the
rougher forms of iron, the Swedes build iron
steamships of fine quality, and are very skill-
ful in the manufacture of cutlery, for which
they have a dozen factories.

Suspended Matter in Flame.— In a com-
munication to the Royal Society of Edin-
burgh, Mr. G. C. Stokes announces that he
has secured an optical proof of the exist-
ence of suspended matter in flames. Pass-
ing a beam of sunlight, condensed by a
lens, through the flame of a candle, he no-
ticed that where the cone of rays cut the
luminous envelope there were two patches
of light brighter than the general flame,
which were evidently due to sunlight scat-
tered by matter in the envelope which was
in a state of suspension. The patches cor-
responded in area to the intersection of the
double cone by the envelope, and their thick-
ness was insensibly small. Within the en-
velope, as well as outside, there was none of
this scattering. When the beam was passed
through the blue base of the flame, there
was no scattered light. A luminous gas-
flame showed the patches indicating scat-
tered light like the flame of a candle, but

less copiously. They were not seen in a
Bunsen flame or in the flame of alcohol, but
were well seen in the luminous flame of
ether. The phenomenon shows the separa-
tion of carbon, associated, it may be, with
some hydrogen, in the flame, and the ex-
treme thinness of the layer which this forms.
It shows, too, the mode of separation of the
carbon — namely, that it is due to the action
of heat on the volatile hydrocarbon or vapor
of ether, as the case may be. At the base,
where there is a plentiful supply of oxygen,
the molecules are burned at once. Higher
up, the heated products of combustion have
time to decompose the combustible vapor
before it gets oxygen enough to burn it.
Since making his communication, Prof. Stokes
has found that he was anticipated in part of
his observation in a paper published a few
years ago by Mr. Busch.

The Ylachs of Turkey.— The Vlachs of
Turkey are described by Mrs. L. M. J. Gar-
nett, in her Women of Turkey and their
Folk Lore, as a nomadic people, shepherds or
traders, who leave a great deal of responsi-
bility to their wives. The women, besides
managing their households, have to cultivate
the vineyard and garden, herd the sheep,
shear the wool, weave the cloth, and gen-
erally perform every variety of labor, " not
the least arduous part of which is the assid-
uous attention required by their lords and
masters when they return from their wan-
derings for a spell of domestic repose."
The customs of this people are a mixture of
Greek and Roman tradition. They belong
to the Orthodox Church, and their cere-
monies at birth and baptism are essentially
similar to those of the Greeks. The marriage
forms (save the sacred rite) are more like
the Roman. These ceremonies are very mi-
nute and protracted ; and " it must require
a liberal education to master all the details
of a Ylach or Greek wedding: to find the
five-twigged branch and decorate it with an
apple and tufts of red wool and fix it on the
top of the bride's house; to prepare the
ring-cake and then engage in a hot struggle
for it. . . . The unfortunate Vlach must be
perpetually trying to remember what func-
tion he or she has to perform each week.
On New Year'3 day come the children with
olive branches ; on the morrow every visitor

NOTES.

H3

must throw salt on the fire, and then put an
egg in the hen-house in prayerful hope that
a considerate fowl may sit on it ; in Febru-
ary all the dogs must be thoroughly beaten
as a precaution against hydrophobia — in-
deed, there is always some ceremony to the
fore, generally accompanied by songs and
ballads." To the Greek, too, every accident
has its interpretation. To drop oil is un-
lucky, but wine may be spilt with advan-
tage ; a rainbow over a cemetery means a
coming epidemic ; and the recipe concerning
" the hair of the dog that bit you " is prac-
tically enforced by inserting tufts of the
dog's hair in the wound made by his teeth.

India-rubber Trees. — India-rubber trees,
according to W. R. Fisher, in Nature, are
extensively cultivated in flourishing planta-
tions in the Charduar forest, at the foot of
the Himalaya Mountains, in Assam. The
climate of the place is essentially damp.
The forest contains a great number of woody
species, both evergreen and deciduous, with
a few enormous old rubber trees dissemi-
nated through it. Trees have been measured
here 129 feet high, with a girth around the
principal aerial roots of 138 feet, while the
girth of the crown was 611 feet. As rubber
trees can not stand shade, and the seeds
damp off unless fully exposed to light and well
drained, the natural reproduction of Ficus
elastica generally takes place in the forks of
stag-headed or lightly foliaged trees high up
in the crown, where the seeds are left by
birds ; and from such a site the aerial roots
in process of time descend to the ground
and develop into a vast hollow cylinder
around the foster-stem, and it is speedily in-
closed and killed by the vigorous crown of
the epiphyte, which eventually replaces it
in the forest. In its epiphytic growth the
aerial roots of Fiats elastica may take sev-
eral years to reach the ground, but, once
well rooted, nothing can probably surpass it
in its native habitat for rapidity of growth
and vigor. At first attempts were made to
propagate by cuttings, which struck easily ;
but it was soon discovered that rubber seed
germinates freely on well-drained beds cov-
ered with powdered charcoal or brick-dust,
and that the seedlings, though at first as
small as cress, grew rapidly, and became
about two feet high in twelve months, and

were much hardier against drought than
plants produced from cuttings. The base
of the stem of the seedlings swells out like
a carrot, and this probably enables them to
tide through the dry season in safety.

Tin Production of Cornwall. — A review,
by Mr. J. H. Collins, of the tin production
of Cornwall during seven centuries shows
how rapidly it has grown. An extensive com-
merce in the metal was already carried on
in extremely ancient times. In the thirteenth
century of our era, 486 tons of tin were
taken annually from the mines ; in the four-
teenth century, 828 tons ; in the fifteenth
century, 732 tons ; in the sixteenth century,
802 tons ; in the seventeenth century, 1,300
tons ; in the eighteenth century, 3,93S tons ;
and in the nineteenth century (ninety years),
8,795 tons. The total quantity raised is not
less than 1,938,800 tons. The mean aver-
age for the fifty years ending in 1849 was
6,008 tons per year, and for the fifty years
ending in 18S9, 12,278 tons per year. This
remarkable increase during the last forty
years has been in the face of extensive pro-
duction in the Strait of Malacca and Aus-
tralia. Of sudden advances in production,
the most noticeable, in the latter part of
the fourteenth century, was probably occa-
sioned by the great demand for bell-metal.
The second period of rapid advance was in
the latter part of the eighteenth century,
when bronze was commonly used for can-
non. The third period is that of the general
use of tinned metals.

NOTES.

Involuntary Movements. — The article
on Involuntary Movements, by Prof. Jas-
trow, published in the April number, will
appear in a more extended form in the forth-
coming issue of the American Journal of
Psychology.

A promising account is given of the cop-
per mines of French Congo. They lie in the
district around the source of the Ludima-
Niadi, about two days south of Stephanie-
ville. The ore, a malachite, is brought to
the surface by about three hundred and fifty
negroes, whose methods of work are ex-
tremely simple. They reach the mineral by
digging out, with implements of hard wood,
holes or shafts three feet wide and twice
as deep. The malachite is broken on the
ground, and afterward when pulverized is
put into a furnace on a tray with charcoal,

144

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

on which bellows arc made to play. In due
time the tray is removed by means of pieces
of bamboo and the metal is poured into sand
molds. The entire distiict is said to be rich
in copper, and masses of malachite are fre-
quently found in the Ludima.

It has been shown by Mr. Aitken that
the presence of dust, affording a free surface
on which vapor may condense, is essential to
the production of fog. The specific action
of the dust varies considerably according to
its composition and to the size and abun-
dance of the particles present. Sulphur
burned in the air is an active fog-producer ;
so are salt and hygroscopic bodies generally.
Non-hygroscopic bodies also produce it, es-
pecially if they are good radiators of heat.
The exceedingly minute amount of matter
capable of inducing fog is a noticeable feat-
ure in the investigation. The condensation
of moisture upon dust offers an effective
process for removing all kinds of impurities
from the air, for the floaticles are weighted
by the moisture settling upon them.

OBITUARY NOTES,
Sir Andrew Crombie Ramsay, an emi-
nent British geologist of the last generation,
died December 9, 1891, at the age of about
seventy-six years. He was first brought into
notice by a geological model of the isle of
Arran, constructed from his own survey,
which he exhibited at the Glasgow meeting
of the British Association in 1840. He was
afterward appointed, through the influence
of Sir Roderick I. Murchison, on the Geo-
logical Survey, with which he labored in
"Wales. His monograph on the geology of
North "Wales presented the results of his
labors in this field. Between 1848 and 1851
he was Professor of Geology in University Col-
lege, London; in 1851 he was chosen one of
the professors of the newly founded School
of Mines. As a geological lecturer, the Athe-
nffium says, he probably never had an equal.
He retired from active life about ten years
ago.

Herr J. W. Ewald, a well-known Ger-
man geologist, died in Berlin in December,
1891, aged eighty-one years. He was the
traveling companion of Leopold von Buch
in his scientific expedition ; succeeded him
as a member of the Berlin Academy of Sci-
ences ; and issued, in conjunction with Roth
and Eck, a collected edition of his works.

Mr. Henry "YV. Bates, an English natu-
ralist, died February 27th, in the sixty-eighth
year of his age. In 1848 he went with Al-
fred Russel Wallace on a natural-history ex-
ploration of the Amazons, where he remained
for several years after Mr. Wallace returned
home. On his return he published a paper
on "mimetic resemblance" in animals, re-
cording some of the first observations made
on that subject. After 1864 he was As-
sistant Secretary of the Royal Geographical

Society, and editor of its journal and pro-
ceedings. He was the author of the books,
The Naturalist on the River Amazon, Illus-
trated Travels, The German Arctic Expedi-
tion of 1869-'70, and Central America, West
Indies, and South America.

The death is announced from St. Peters-
burg of the African traveler and naturalist,
Dr. Wilhelm Junker. He made several valu-
able explorations in central Africa, in the
country west of the Nile, and between the
Bahr-el-Gazel and the equator; among the
Niam Niams ; and of the course of the river
Welle.

Prof. "William Guy Peck, of Columbia
College, died suddenly, February 7th, in the
seventy-third year of his age. Besides sev-
eral text-books in mathematics, he published
The Elements of Mechanics in 1859, an edi-
tion of Ganot's Physics in 1860, and was
joint editor with Charles Davies of the
Mathematical Dictionary and Cyclopaedia of
the Mathematical Sciences.

John Francis Williams, Professor of
Geology and Mineralogy in Cornell Universi-
ty, who died last November, was only twenty-
nine years old ; yet he had, after taking his
degree at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Insti-
tute, studied three years at Gottingen, acted
as assistant to Dr. Klein in Berlin, served
as curator of the mineralogical and geologi-
cal collection of Pratt Institute, participated
in an important part of the State survey of
Arkansas, collecting minerals for a complete
report on the mineralogy and petrography
of the State, and published several impor-
tant papers and two (including one in press)
large works on subjects within the sphere of
his specialty.

Prof. Sereno Watson, Curator of the
Harvard Herbarium, died in Cambridge,
Mass., March 9th, in the seventy-second year
of his age. He was graduated from Yale Col-
lege in 1847 ; served as a tutor in Iowa Uni-
versity; studied medicine and practiced it
for two years ; was engaged in business in
Alabama, where he also paid some attention
to botany ; afterward co-operated in literary
work with Dr. Henry Barnard at Hartford,
Ccnn. ; was botanist of the surveying expe-
dition of the fortieth parallel, or Clarence
King Expedition; and after 1870 passed
most of his time at Cambridge in the study
of the North American flora. He published
an Index to North American Botany; in
conjunction with Prof. Gray and Prof. Brewer,
the Botany of California; completed the
work of Lesquereux and James on Ameri-
can Mosses; and after Prof. Gray's death
became curator of the university herbarium,
and continued the editing of the Synoptical
Flora of North America. He was botanical
editor of the earlier volumes of the Century
Dictionary, and published many papers in
the Proceedings of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences.

WILLIAM HUGGINS.

-tofRuttiTiLE Libra1" ■■

NEW YORK.
THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JUNE, 1892.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.

XVI. THE KETREAT OF THEOLOGY IN THE GALILEO CASE.
By ANDREW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L. H. D.,

EX-PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

ANY history of the victory of astronomical science over the-
- ology would be incomplete without some account of the
retreat made by the Church from all its former positions in the
Galileo case.

The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult. A
little skillful warping of Scripture, and a little skillful use of that
time-honored phrase attributed to Cardinal Baronius, that the
Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go, but how men
go to heaven, sufficed.

But in the older Church it was far less easy. The retreat of
the sacro-scientific army of Church apologists lasted through two
centuries.

In spite of all that has been said by these apologists, there no
longer remains the shadow of a doubt that the papal infallibility
was committed fully and irrevocably against the double revolu-
tion of the earth. As the documents of Galileo's trial now pub-
lished show, Paul V pushed on with all his might the condemna-
tion of Galileo in 1616, and the condemnation in that same year
of the works of Copernicus and all others teaching the motion of
the earth around its own axis and around the sun. So, too, in the
condemnation of Galileo in 1633, and in all the proceedings which
led up to it and which followed it, Urban VIII was the central
figure. Without his sanction no action could have been taken.

True, the Pope did not formally sign the degree against the
Copernican theory then; but this came later: in 1664 Alexander
VII prefixed to the Index containing the condemnations of the

VOL. XLI. — 13

146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

works of Copernicus and Galileo and " all books which affirm the
motion of the earth/' a papal bull signed by himself, binding the
contents of the Index upon the consciences of the faithful. This
bull confirmed and approved in express terms, finally, deci-
sively, and infallibly, the condemnation of " all books teaching
the movement of the earth and the stability of the sun." *

The position of the mother Church, then, was especially diffi-
cult. The first important move in retreat by the apologists was
the statement that Galileo was condemned, not because he affirmed
the motion of the earth, but because he supported it from Script-
ure. There was a slight appearance of truth in this. Undoubt-
edly, Galileo's letters to Castelli and the grand duchess, in which
he attempted to show that his astronomical doctrines were not
opposed to Scripture, gave a new stir to religious bigotry. For
a considerable time, then, this quibble served its purpose ; even a
hundred and fifty years after Galileo's condemnation it was re-
newed by the Protestant, Mallet du Pan, in his wish to gain favor
from the older Church.

But nothing can be more absurd, in the light of the original
documents recently brought out of the Vatican archives, than to
make this contention now. The letters of Galileo to Castelli and
the grand duchess were not published until after the condemna-
tion ; and, although the Archbishop of Pisa had endeavored to
use them against him, they were but casually mentioned in 1616,
and entirely left out of view in 1633. What was condemned in
1616 by the Sacred Congregation held in the presence of Pope
Paul V, as " absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because abso-
lutely contrary to Holy Scripture," was the proposition that " the
sun is the center about which the earth revolves" ; and what was
condemned as " absurd, false in philosophy , and from a theologic
point of view, at least, opposed to the true faith," was the propo-
sition that " the earth is not the center of the universe and immov-
able, but has a diurnal motion."

And again, what Galileo was made, by express order of Pope
Urban, and by the action of the Inquisition under threat of torture,
to abjure in 1633 was " the error and heresy of the movement of
the earth."

What the Index condemned under sanction of the bull issued
by Alexander VII in 1664 was, " all boohs teaching the movement
of the earth and the stability of the sun."

* See Rev. William W. Roberts, The Pontifical Decrees against the Doctrine of the
Earth's Movement, London, 1885, p. 94; and for the text of the papal bull, Speculators
domus Israel, pp. 132, 133. See also St. George Mivart's article in the Nineteenth Century
for July, 1885. For the authentic publication of the bull, see preface to the Index of 1664,
where the bull appears, signed by the Pope. The Rev. Mr. Roberts and Mr. St. George
Mivart are Roman Catholics, and both acknowledge that the papal sanction was fully given.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 147

"What the Index, prefaced by papal bulls, binding its contents
upon the consciences of the faithful, for two hundred years stead-
ily condemned, was "all books which affirm the motion of the
earth."

Not one of these condemnations was directed against Galileo
" for reconciling his ideas with Scripture." *

Having been dislodged from this point, the Church apologists
sought cover under the statement that Galileo was condemned, not
for heresy, but for contumacy, and for wanting in respect to the
Pope.

There was a slight chance, also, for this quibble: no doubt
Urban VIII, one of the haughtiest of pontiffs, was induced by
Galileo's enemies to think that he had been treated with some
lack of proper etiquette : first, by Galileo's adhesion to his own
doctrines after his condemnation in 1616 ; and, next, by his sup-
posed reference in the Dialogue of 1632 to the arguments which
the Pope had used against him.

But it would seem to be a very poor service rendered to the
doctrine of papal infallibility to claim that a decision, so immense
in its consequences, could be influenced by the personal resent-
ment of the reigning pontiff.

Again, as to the first point, the very language of the various
sentences shows the folly of this assertion ; these sentences speak
steadily of " heresy," and never of " contumacy." As to the last
point, the display of the original documents settled that forever.
They show Galileo from first to last as most submissive toward
the Pope, and patient under the papal arguments and exactions.
He had, indeed, expressed his anger at times against his traducers ;
but to hold this the cause of the judgment against him is to de-
grade the whole proceedings, and to convict Paul V, Urban VIII,
Bellarmin, the other theologians, and the Inquisition, of direct
falsehood, since they assigned entirely different reasons for their
conduct. From this position, therefore, the assailants retreated, f

The next rally was made about the statement that the perse-
cution of Galileo was the result of a quarrel between Aristotelian
professors on one side and professors favoring the experimental

* See the original trial documents, copied carefully from the Vatican manuscripts ; see
the Roman Catholic authority, L'Epinois, especially p. 35, where the principal document is
given in its original Latin ; see, also, Gebler, Die Acten des Galilei'schen Processes, for
still more complete copies of the same documents. For minute information regarding these
documents and their publication, see Favaro, Miscellanea Galileana Inedita, forming vol.
xxii, part iii, of the Memoirs of the Venetian Institute for 1887, and especially pp. 891
and following.

f The invention of the " contumacy " quibble seems due to Monsignor Marini, who ap-
pears also to have manipulated the original documents to prove it. Even Whewell appears
to have been somewhat misled by him, but Whewell wrote before L'Epinois had shown all
the documents, and under the supposition that Marini was an honest man.

148 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

method on the other. But this position was attacked and car-
ried hy a very simple statement. If the divine guidance of the
Church is such that it can he dragged into a professorial squabble,
and made the tool of a faction in bringing about a most disas-
trous condemnation of a proved truth, how did the Church at that
time differ from any human organization sunk into decrepitude,
managed nominally by simpletons, but really by schemers ? If
that argument be true, the condition of the Church was worse
than its enemies have declared it : amid the jeers of an unfeeling
world the apologists sought new shelter.

The next point at which a stand was made was the assertion
that the condemnation of Galileo was "provisory"; but this
proved a more treacherous shelter than the other. When doctrines
have been solemnly declared, as those of Galileo were solemnly
declared by the highest authority in the Church, " contrary to the
sacred Scriptures/' " opposed to the true faith," and " false and
absurd in theology and philosophy ; " — to say that such declara-
tions are " provisory," is to say that the truth held by the Church
is not immutable; from this, then, the apologists retreated.*

Still another contention was made — in some respects more
curious than any other ; — it was, mainly, that Galileo " was no
more a victim of Catholics than of Protestants ; for they more
than the Catholic theologians impelled the Pope to the action
taken." \

But if Protestantism could force the papal hand in a matter of
this magnitude — involving vast questions of belief and far-reach-
ing questions of policy — what becomes of " inerrancy," of special
protection and guidance of the papal authority in matters of faith ?

While this retreat from position to position was going on,
there was a constant discharge of small-arms, in the shape of
innuendoes, hints, and sophistries : every effort was made to
blacken Galileo's private character ; the irregularities of his early
life were dragged forth, and stress even was laid upon breaches
of etiquette ; but this succeeded so poorly that even as far back
as 1850 it was thought necessary to cover this retreat by some
more careful strategy.

This strategy is instructive. The original documents of the
Galileo trial had been brought during the Napoleonic conquests
to Paris ; but in 1846 they were returned to Rome by the French
Government, on the express pledge by the papal authorities that

* This argument also seems to have been foisted upon the world by the wily Monsignor
Harini.

f See the Rev. A. M. Kirsch on Professor Huxley and Evolution, in The American
Catholic Quarterly, October, 1877. The article is, as a whole, remarkably fair-minded, and
in the main just, as to the Protestant attitude, and as to the causes underlying the whole
action against Galileo.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 149

they should be published. In 1850, after various delays on vari-
ous pretexts, the long-expected publication appeared. The per-
sonage charged with presenting them to the world was Monsignor
Marini. This ecclesiastic was of a kind which has too often
afflicted both the Church and the world at large. Despite the
solemn promise of the papal court, the wily Marini became the
instrument of the Roman authorities in evading the promise. By
suppressing a document here, and interpolating a statement there,
he managed to give plausible standing-ground for nearly every
important sophistry ever broached to save the infallibility of the
Church and destroy the reputation of Galileo. He it was who
supported the idea that Galileo was " condemned, not for heresy,
but for contumacy," and various other assertions as groundless.

The first effect of Monsignor Marini's book seemed useful in
covering the retreat of the Church apologists. Aided by him,
such vigorous writers as Ward were able to throw up temporary
intrenchments between the Roman authorities and the indigna-
tion of the world.

But some time later came an investigator very different from
Monsignor Marini. This was a Frenchman, M. L'Epinois. Like
Marini, L'Epinois was devoted to the Church ; but, unlike Marini,
he could not lie. Havrhg obtained access in 1867 to the Galileo
documents at the Vatican, he published fully several of the most
important, without suppression or piously-fraudulent manipula-
tion. This made all the intrenchments based upon Marini's
statements untenable. Another retreat had to be made.

And now came the most desperate effort of all. The apolo-
getic army, reviving an idea which the popes and Church had
spurned for centuries, declared that the popes as popes had never
condemned the doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo ; that they
had condemned them as men simply ; that therefore the Church
had never been committed to them ; that the condemnation was
made by the cardinals of the Inquisition and Index ; and that the
Pope had evidently been restrained by interposition of Providence
from signing their condemnation. Nothing could show the des-
peration of the retreating party better than jugglery like this.
The facts are, that in the official account of the condemnation by
Bellarmin, in 1616, he declares distinctly that he makes this con-
demnation " in the name of his Holiness the Pope." *

Again, from Pope Urban downward, among the Church au-
thorities of the seventeenth century, the decision was always
acknowledged to be made by the Pope and the Church. Urban
VIII spoke of that of 1616 as made by Pope Paul V and the
Church, and of that of 1633 as made by himself and the Church.

* See the citation from the Vatican manuscript given in Gebler, p. T8.

i5o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Pope Alexander VII in 1G64, in his bull " Speculatores," solemnly
sanctioned the condemnation of all books affirming the earth's
movement.*

When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the decision
against Copernicus and Galileo was not sanctioned by the Church
as such, an eminent theological authority, Father Lecazre, rector
of the College of Dijon, publicly contradicted him, and declared
that it " was not certain cardinals, but the supreme authority of
the Church," that had condemned Galileo ; and to this statement
the Pope and other Church authorities gave consent either openly
or by silence. When Descartes and others attempted to raise the
same point, they were treated with contempt. Father Castelli,
who had devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his cost just
what the condemnation meant and who made it, takes it for
granted in his letter to the papal authorities that it was made by
the Church. Cardinal Querenghi, in his letters ; the ambassador
Guicciardini, in his dispatches ; Polacco, in his refutation ; the
historian Yiviani, in his biography of Galileo — all writing under
Church inspection and approval at the time, took the view that
the Pope and Church condemned Galileo, and this was never
denied at Rome. The Inquisition itself, backed by the greatest
theologian of the time, Bellarmin, took the same view. Not only
does he declare that he makes the condemnation " in the name of
his Holiness the Pope," but we have the Roman Index, contain-
ing the condemnation for nearly two hundred years, prefaced by
a solemn bull of the reigning Pope binding this condemnation on
the consciences of the whole Church, and declaring year after
year that " all books which affirm the motion of the earth " are
damnable. To attempt to face all this, added to the fact that
Galileo was required to abjure " the heresy of the movement of
the earth " by written order of the Pope, was soon seen to be im-
possible. Against the assertion that the Pope was not responsi-
ble we have all this mass of testimony, and the bull of Alexander
VII in 1664. f

This contention, then, was at last utterly given up by honest

* For references by Urban VIII to the condemnation as made by Pope Paul V, see pp.
136, 144, and elsewhere in Martin, who much against his will is forced to allow this. See
also Roberts, Pontifical Decrees against the Earth's Movement, and St. George Mivart's
article, as above quoted ; also Reusch, Der Index verbotenen Biicher, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii,
pp. 29 et seq.

•j- For Lecazre's answer to Gassendi, see Martin, pp. 146, 147. For the attempt to
make the crime of Galileo a breach of etiquette, see Dublin Review, as above. Whewell,
vol. i, p. 283. Citation from Marini : " Galileo was punished for trifling with the authori-
ties, to which he refused to submit, and was punished for obstinate contumacy, not heresy."
The sufficient answer to all this is that the words of the inflexible sentence designating the
condemned books are " Libri omnes qui affirmant telluris motum." See Bertrand, p. 59.
As to the idea that " Galileo was punished, not for his opinion, but for basing it on Script-

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 151

Catholics themselves. In 1870 a Roman Catholic clergyman in
England, the Rev. Mr. Roberts, evidently thinking that the time
had come to tell the truth, published a book entitled The Pontifi-
cal Decrees against the Earth's Movement. In this were exhib-
ited the incontrovertible evidences that the papacy had committed
itself and its infallibility fully against the movement of the earth.
The Rev. Mr. Roberts showed from the original record that Pope
Paul V, in 1G1G, had presided over the tribunal condemning the
doctrine of the earth's movement, and ordering Galileo to give up
the opinion. He showed that Pope Urban VIII, in 1633, pressed
on, directed, and promulgated the final condemnation, making
himself in all these ways responsible for it. And, finally, he
showed that Pope Alexander VII, in 1664, by his bull, — Specula-
tores domus Israel, — attached to the Index, condemning " all books
which affirm the motion of the earth," had absolutely pledged the
papal infallibility against the earth's movement. He also con-
fessed that under the rules laid down by the highest authorities
in the Church, and especially by Sixtus V and Pius IX, there was
no escape from this conclusion.

Various theologians attempted to evade the force of the argu-
ment. Some, like Dr. Ward and Bouix, took refuge in verbal
niceties ; some, like Dr. Jeremiah Murphy, comforted themselves
with declamation. The only result was, that in 1885 came an-
other edition of the Rev. Mr. Roberts's work, even more cogent
than the first ; and, besides this, an essay by that eminent Catholic,
St. George Mivart, acknowledging the Rev. Mr. Roberts's position
to be impregnable, and declaring virtually that the Almighty
allowed Pope and Church to fall into complete error regarding
the Copernican theory, in order to teach them that science lies
outside their province, and that the true priesthood of scientific
truth rests with scientific investigators alone.*

In spite, then, of all casuistry and special pleading, this sturdy
honesty ended the controversy among Catholics themselves, so
far as fair-minded men are concerned.

ure," the answer may be found in the Roman Index of 1704, in which are noted for con-
demnation "Libri omnes docentes mobilitatem terra? et immobilitatem solis." For the
way in which, when it was found convenient in argument, Church apologists insisted that
it was " the Supreme Chief of the Church by a pontifical decree and not certain cardinals "
who condemned Galileo and his doctrine, see Father Lecazre's letter to Gassendi, in Flam-
marion, Pluralit6 des Mondes, p. 427, and Urban VIII's own declarations as given by
Martin. For the way in which, when necessary, Church apologists asserted the very con-
trary of this, declaring that " it was issued in a doctrinal decree of the Congregation of the
Index, and not as the Holy Father's teaching," see Dublin Review, September, 1865.

* For this crushing answer, and by two eminent Roman Catholics, to the sophistries
cited — an answer which does infinitely more credit to the older Church than all the per-
verted ingenuity used in concealing the truth or breaking the force of it — see Roberts and
St. George Mivart, as already cited.

152 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In recalling it at this day there stand out from its later phases
two efforts at compromise especially instructive, as showing the
embarrassment of militant theology in the nineteenth century.

The first of these was made by John Henry Newman in the
days when he was hovering between the Anglican and Roman
Churches. In one of his sermons before the University of Oxford
he spoke as follows :

" Scripture says that the sun moves and the earth is stationary,
and science that the earth moves and the sun is comparatively at
rest. How can we determine which of these opposite statements
is the very truth till we know what motion is ? If our idea of
motion is but an accidental result of our present senses, neither
proposition is true and both are true : neither true philosophi-
cally ; both true for certain practical purposes in the system in
which they are respectively found."

In all anti-theological literature there is no utterance more
hopelessly skeptical. And for what were the youth of Oxford
led into such bottomless depths of disbelief as to any real exist-
ence of truth or any real foundation for it ? Simply to save an
outworn system of interpretation into which the gifted preacher
happened to be born.

The other utterance was suggested by De Bonald and devel-
oped in the Dublin Review, as is understood, by one of Newman's
associates. This argument was nothing less than an attempt to
retreat under the charge of deception against the Almighty him-
self. It is as follows : " But it may well be doubted whether the
Church did retard the progress of scientific truth. What re-
tarded it was the circumstance that God has thought fit to ex-
press many texts of Scripture in words which have every appear-
ance of denying the earth's motion. But it is God who did this,
not the Church ; and, moreover, since he saw fit so to act as to re-
tard the progress of scientific truth, it would be little to her dis-
credit, even if it were true, that she had followed his example."

This argument, like Mr. Gosse's famous attempt to reconcile
geology to Genesis — by supposing that for some inscrutable pur-
pose God deliberately deceived the thinking world by giving to
the earth all the appearances of development through long periods
of time, while really creating it in six days, each of an evening
and a morning — seems only to have awakened the amazed pity of
thinking men. This, like the argument of Newman, was the last
desperate effort of Anglican and Roman divines to save some-
thing from the wreckage of theology.*

* For the quotation from Newman, see his Sermons on the Theory of Religious Belief,
sermon xiv, cited by Bishop Goodwin in Contemporary Review for January, 1892. For the
attempt to take the blame off the shoulders of both Pope and cardinals, and place it upon
the Almighty, see the article above cited, in the Dublin Review, September, 1865, p. 419,

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 153

All these well-meaning defenders of the faith have but wrought
into the hearts of great numbers of thinking men the idea that
there is a necessary antagonism between science and religion.
Like the landsman who lashes himself to the anchor of the sink-
ing ship, they have attached Christianity by the strongest cords
of logic which they could spin to these mistaken ideas in science,
and, could they have had their way, the advance of knowledge
would have ingulfed both together.

On the other hand, what has science done for religion ?
Simply this: Copernicus, escaping persecution only by death;
Giordano Bruno, burned alive as a monster of impiety ; Galileo,
imprisoned and humiliated as the worst of misbelievers ; Kepler,
hunted alike by Protestant and Catholic — gave to religion new
foundations, new and more ennobling conceptions.

Under the old system, that princely astronomer, Alphonso of
Castile, seeing the inadequacy of the Ptolemaic theory, yet know-
ing no other, startled Europe with the blasphemy that, if he had
been present at creation, he could have suggested a better order
of the heavenly bodies. Under the new system, Kepler, filled with
a religious spirit, exclaimed, " I do think the thoughts of God."
The difference in religious spirit between these two men marks
the conquest made in this long struggle by Science for Religion.*

Nothing is more unjust than to cast especial blame for all this
resistance to science upon the Roman Church. The Protestant
Church, though rarely able to be so severe, has been more blame-
worthy. The persecution of Galileo and his compeers by the
older Church was mainly at the beginning of the seventeenth
century ; the persecution of Robertson Smith, and Winchell, and
Woodrow, and Toy, and the young professors at Beyrout, by
various Protestant authorities, was near the end of the nineteenth
century. Those earlier persecutions by Catholicism were strictly
in accordance with principles held at that time by all religionists,
Catholic and Protestant, throughout the world ; these later per-
secutions by Protestants were in defiance of principles which all
Christendom to-day holds or pretends to hold, and none make
louder claim to hold them than the very sects which persecuted
these eminent Christian men of our day, whose crime was that
they were intelligent enough to accept the science of their time,
and honest enough to acknowledge it.

and July, 1871, pp. 157 et seq. For a good summary of the various attempts, and for
replies to them in a spirit of judicial fairness, see Th. Martin, Vie de Galilee, though there
is some special pleading to save the infallibility of Pope and Church. The bibliography at
the close is very valuable. For details of Mr. Gosse's theory, as developed in his Om-
phalos, see my chapter on Geology.

* As a pendant to this ejaculation of Kepler may be cited the words of Linnaeus :
" Deum omnipotentem a tergo transeuntem vidi et obstupui."

i54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Nor can Protestantism rightly taunt Catholicism for excluding
knowledge of astronomical truths from European Catholic uni-
versities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while real
knowledge of geological and biological and anthropological truth
is denied or pitifully diluted in so many American Protestant
colleges and universities in the nineteenth century.

Nor has Protestantism the right to point with scorn to the
Catholic " Index/' and call attention to the fact that nearly every
really important book in the last three centuries has been for-
bidden by it, so long as young men in so many American Protest-
ant universities and colleges, and university extension schemes,
and " approved courses of reading/' are filled with " ecclesiastical
pap " rather than with real thought, and directed to the works of
" solemnly constituted impostors," while they are studiously kept
away from such leaders in modern thought as Darwin, Spencer,
Huxley, Draper, and Lecky.

It may indeed be justly claimed by Protestantism that some of
the former strongholds of her bigotry have become liberalized ;
but, on the other hand, Catholicism can point to the fact that
Pope Leo XIII, now happily reigning, has made a noble change
as regards open dealing with documents. The days of Monsignor
Marini, it may be hoped, are gone. The Vatican Library, with its
masses of historical material, has been thrown open to Protestant
and Catholic scholars alike, and this privilege has been freely
used by men representing all shades of religious thought.

As to the older errors, the whole civilized world was at fault —
Protestant as well as Catholic. It was not the fault of religion ;
it was the fault of that short-sighted linking of theological dogmas
to scriptural texts which, in utter defiance of the words and works
of the Blessed Founder of Christianity, narrow-minded, loud-
voiced men are ever prone to substitute for religion. Justly is it
said by one of the most eminent among contemporary Anglican
divines that " it is because they have mistaken the dawn for a
conflagration that theologians have so often been foes of light." *

* For an exceedingly striking statement, by a Roman Catholic historian of genius, as to
the pojndar demand for persecution and the pressure of the lower strata in ecclesiastical or-
ganizations for cruel measures, see Balmes's Le Protestantisme compare au Catholicisme,
etc., fourth edition, Paris, 1855, vol. ii. Archbishop Spaulding has something of the same
sort in his Miscellanies. L'Epinois, Galilee, pp. 22 et seq., stretches this as far as possible
to save the reputation of the Church in the Galileo matter. As to the various branches of
the Protestant Church in England and the United States, it is a matter of notoriety that
the smug, well-to-do laymen, whether elders, deacons, or vestrymen, are, as a rule, far
more prone to heresy-hunting than are their better-educated pastors. As to the cases of
Messrs. Winchell, Woodrow, Toy, and the professors at Beyrout, with details, see the
chapter in this series on The Fall of Man and Anthropology. Among Protestant histori-
ans who have been recently allowed full and free examination of the treasures in the
Vatican Library, and even those involving questions between Catholicism and Protestant-

FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 155
FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS.

By GEOEGE L. KILMER.

AFTER observing for thirty years the questions of the curi-
ous on the subject of battle-field experiences, I should say
that nine times out of ten the one first asked by a layman, old or
young, relates to the sensations of a soldier when wounded.
Even though the questioner has been maimed in a railway
smash-up, or torn or fractured or bruised in some peaceful and
therefore safe (?) occupation, the interest is the same, on the sup-
position, doubtless, that to be hurt by one of the engines of
destruction in war is productive of unique sensations.

First of all, generalizations will not cover this intricate and
expansive subject. An infantry soldier at Gaines's Mill, who
was hit in the knee by a bullet and ultimately died of the wound,
said that he thought he had run against a standing thistle ; and
the fact that he marched on, until his comrades drew his attention
to blood flowing down his leg, indicates that he did not make too
light of the first sensation. An officer, whose ankle was shattered
by a bullet as he stood upon a pile of fence-rails to reconnoitre,
thought that a rail had turned under his weight and sprained the
joint. He felt only a slight burning sensation, although the
wound proved a mortal one in the end. On the other hand, a
strapping, coarse-grained fellow, whom I knew well, and often
remarked making light of the very idea of pain and suffering,
quickly collapsed under a wound that he survived. And well he
might. He was hit by a section of mortar-shell weighing three
or four pounds that cut edgewise through his thigh, bone and
all. He happened to be resting with his thighs across a small
log that served as a block to the jagged cleaver. I was look-
ing into his face, about to speak to him, at the very moment the
missile struck, and, despite his callous fiber and almost brutal
stoicism, he winced as though he felt — exactly as a human being
might be supposed to feel under such a blow — all " broken up "
by the calamity.

"Wounds that almost kill on the spot seem to be the least felt
at the outset. Slight ones often produce enough disturbance to
suggest the work of a dozen death-hurts. A spent missile that
only raises a lump will make the victim feel as though an arsenal
full of balls had struck him ; and often soldiers with ghastly mor-

ism, are Von Sybel, of Berlin, and Philip Schaff, of New York. And it should be added
that the latter went with commendatory letters from eminent prelates of the Catholic
Church in Europe and America. For the closing citation, see Canon Farrar, History of
Interpretation, p. 432.

156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tal wounds insist that nothing serious is the matter, and act up to
the idea until death or nervous exhaustion lays them low.

This much, however, may be said in a general way : When
felt at all, bullets through the flesh usually produce a burning
sensation more or less acute. "When bones are broken, stinging
accompanies the burning. When bones are hit but not broken,
there is a numbing sensation in the whole region involved in the
shock, followed very soon by severe and sometimes intense pain.
When muscles and tendons are involved, there is a tugging sen-
sation, sometimes very slight, and shell-wounds produce feelings
similar to those by bullets, more or less exaggerated, according to
the size of the missile and the degree of velocity. Bayonet-
wounds I never saw except upon corpses — for I was not a hospital
attendant — and as for cannon-balls, they do not, as a rule, leave
anything behind to exhibit feelings.*

Again, a soldier may receive two or even more hits so close
together as to produce counter-sensations. I once saw my com-
manding officer prostrated by a piece of shell that shattered his
thigh-bone. While he was falling, pieces of another shell hit
him in the arm and hand, and a piece of a third shell quickly fol-
lowing grazed the crown of his head. He has always believed
that he felt three ways at once during those few seconds, and he
is very positive that he felt badly hurt, and cordially wished to be
out of it.

Not infrequently, too, when a victim has been spared the
smallest amount of vitality after the impulse of anger is cut
short by a slashing wound, he feels very much as did an enthusi-
astic tar upon a trying occasion. In an affair now memorable in
history, a certain war-vessel's crew was compelled by the eti-
quette of the service to stand by and see their country's flag
hauled down in contempt, without being given a chance to strike
in its defense. " It was the saddest hour of my whole life," said
one of them, " and for quite a spell I alternated between a desire
either to cry like a baby or swear like a pirate."

All this preliminary to a paper the scope of which is only
partially suggested by the title. Poets and orators, who take a
wholly sentimental point of view, ask the world to accept the
notion that it is a glorious fortune for the individual man to
suffer punishment in honorable warfare ; but between the wound
and the sequence, whether death or the hospital and the scalpel,

* Experts affirm that a cannon-ball having velocity to keep it in the air will make a
clean cut of flesh, bones, and ligaments, and not simply tear them, or push them aside as
with a punch ; and that a ball slowing up and rolling along the ground at the rate at which
a man moves in rapid walking will crush the bones of a foot or leg that resists it. In
the civil war spherical and elongated shells usually served the stead of solid cannon-
balls.

FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 157

what are the symptoms, what the actions, ahove all, what the
conscious feelings of the victim himself, or, as poetical fancy in-
sists he shall be named, the hero ? How wide or how narrow to
his vision is the interval between the hard reality and the senti-
mental ideal ? Flesh and bone of themselves can not be expected
to rise to the height of the strained occasion. Torn and broken,
glory never heals the one or sets the other ; and so men's bodies
will not forever remain insensible to the claims of Nature, even
though in the excitement of war the mind may be superior to
every consideration less than heroic. Yes, there must be a time
when the will of the soldier is at odds with the forces that nor-
mally rule the sinews and tendons of his frame — a time, dear
poet, when the hero proves to be only a man — a creature inspired
after the flesh as well as after the spirit.

And now, looking at the soldier as a warring machine, does a
missile fired into the delicate apparatus bring the whole engine
quickly to a dead halt ? The world hears so much about the
Light Brigade at Balaklava that it should be familiar with the
tragic story of the most noted victim of that affair, Captain No-
lan. Nolan, as aide-de-camp of the division general, assumed
to guide the Light Brigade in its awful charge, and, with frantic
exclamation and vehement gestures with his uplifted sword, he
rode to the right oblique beyond the head of the reckless column,
in order to draw the six hundred out of the valley of death,
which lay directly in their course, off toward a line of flanking
redoubts which they had been ordered to attack, and where vic-
tory and not disaster doubtless awaited them. When he was a
few paces to the right of the leading ranks a piece of shell struck
him on the chest, tearing into the heart.

" The sword dropped from his hand," says the minute chroni-
cle of Kinglake, " but the arm with which he was waving it the
moment before still remained high uplifted in the air, and the
grip of the practiced horseman, remaining as yet unrelaxed, still
held him firm in his saddle. Missing the perfect hand of his
master, and finding the accustomed governance now succeeded by
the dangling reins, the horse all at once wheeled about and began
to gallop back upon the front of the advancing brigade. Then,
from what had been Nolan — and his form was still erect in the
saddle, his sword-arm still high in the air — there burst forth a
cry so strange and appalling that the hearer who rode nearest
him called it unearthly. And in truth, I imagine/' continues
the historian, "the sound resulted from no human will, but
rather from those spasmodic forces which may act upon the
bodily frame when life as a power has ceased. The firm-seated
rider, with arm uplifted and stiff, could hardly be ranked with
the living. The shriek men heard rending the air was scarce

i58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

other than the shriek of a corpse. The dead horseman rode on
till he passed through the interval of the Twelfth Light Dra-
goons. Then at last he dropped out of the saddle/'

The line between Nolan living and Nolan dead was very nar-
row, yet the uplifted arm * and the battle-shout ending in an un-
earthly yell would indicate that the soul of the warrior domi-
nated every element of activity so long as any activity remained.
Had Nolan been trotting along in the ranks of the six hundred
with no other thought than that of keeping in line and getting
ahead, he would doubtless have gone to the ground like a bolt
under that blow.

An experience of the same nature, but at the other extreme,
was that of General Joseph Hooker at Antietam. On the morn-
ing of the 17th of September, being in the presence of the enemy
with his corps, he began a movement to seize high ground on his
front, and was compelled to pass lengthwise of the Confederate
line within range of hostile batteries. Soon a strong body of the
enemy showed itself in his pathway, and in the excitement of
making new dispositions, and routing and pursuing the Confed-
erates, the general, to use his own language, " was lifted to the
skies." " The whole morning has been one of unusual animation
with me," he wrote also. Yet at the end of the successful attack
he was removed from his saddle just as he was in the act of falling
from it, weakened by the loss of blood from a wound of which
he had not been conscious at all. A musket-ball had passed di-
rectly through the foot between the arch and the muscles of the
sole, the seat, as every one knows, of very sensitive nerves. Had
the general been in a state of moderate repose, as, for instance,
quietly watching the execution of some movement, the blow
would have unmanned him, for the moment at least. Intensely
preoccupied as he was — and he had good reason to be, at that
stage of the battle — he did not notice the blow or the sensations
that accompanied and followed it. He may have carried the
wound an hour or more before succumbing to the faintness.

My attention was first drawn to this subject by a strange per-
sonal experience — suspended animation in the body combined with
partial mental clearness. The facts were of a kind that could be
recorded with accuracy, and I am able to state them in detail.
We were in front of the enemy at Fredericksburg Heights, May
3, 1863, and were lying under the shelter of a low ridge, ex-
pecting to charge or to repel a charge. The term of service of
our regiment would expire the day following, and the troops

* External pressure — the weight of the sword and the pulling of the horse at the bit —
would cause relaxation of grip in both sword and bridle hand, and collapse of the chest-
walls the strange expiratory cry.

FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 159

be sent home to disband, and with others I speculated not a little
on the chances of escape in the impending fight. There had been
times in my career as a soldier when I was "too anxious for
wounds and scars/' as General Grant once remarked of Ned
Buntline, and even at the eleventh hour, with the prospect, as I
believed, of a speedy return home, I consoled myself with the
thought that if wounded I would carry a glorious badge on the
homeward march. But I went into action that day, convinced on
the whole, that the fellows across the line would not pay special
attention to me, for I held that I was an indifferent mark for
good ammunition — a lad of seventeen years, small inches, and
light weight.

It turned out that our position, though supposed to be well
sheltered, was closely inspected by a number of Confederate sharp-
shooters, but, as it was very important that we remain at that
point, we had to make the best of it. I was near the head of the
line of the regiment, and, as we lay strung along on the slope of
the ridge, I could see every man in the command. One after an-
other the sharpshooters' bullets began to tell. I noticed a lieu-
tenant in one of the companies moving about on some official
errand and making a splendid target, and, while I was thinking
how cool he was, something struck him and twisted his body
around so that I detected the break in his locomotion. He did not
halt, but went on calmly and freely for some paces, and in a few
minutes, having delivered some orders and exchanged words with
some of his men, he went to the rear with a decided limp. Be-
tween the moment of his wounding and the accomplishment of his
purpose he did not limp at all, and probably did not know that he
was hit (it was a flesh-wound in the thigh) until told of it. Then,
when he knew what had happened, he yielded to new mental pro-
cesses and acted as wounded men are supposed to do. When the
lieutenant had disappeared from view, I turned my face to the
front, bolstering my trembling hopes with the thought that this
last victim was a shining mark, as I certainly was not. Besides,
I believed that the sharpshooters could not get the range on our
end of the line. Then followed a " thud " close to me, and my
next sensation was that I was prostrate on the ground, pierced
through my left arm, heart, and spine with a rod, and pinned to
the earth. This was the physical sensation, but, of course, was
not the fact. Then through my brain there flitted quickly a vision
such as the thought of a battle most commonly brings to mind —
masses of warring men struggling individually for the mastery.
I seemed to be in the midst of the melee, and with all the indigna-
tion I could express was shouting to the men in gray, " There,
you have hit me ! " Next I was being lifted and supported by
some one, and a voice said, " He isn't hit, but something is the

160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

matter/' " Yes/' said another voice sternly, " he is hit, and as
good as dead. Take him to the rear." I had so far recovered as
to comprehend these remarks, and instantly concluded that I was
the subject of a practical joke. In another moment I was seized
with the keenest pain I have ever experienced in my life, in the
region where it had seemed in my swoon that I was run through
with a rod. Now, what had happened was this : I had been in a
sitting posture, resting partly on the ground, partly upon my legs
doubled beneath me, the left hand holding my weapon, the arm
well braced across my chest so that the middle of the upper bone
pressed against the heart. On my arm were two shirt sleeves, a
jacket sleeve, an overcoat sleeve, and the overcoat cape ; and a
musket-ball moving in the direction of my heart and spine — that
is, obliquely to the front of my person — had ticked the limb of a
bush a few feet away, keeled over, and struck flatwise on the arm,
imbedding itself in the flannel and the flesh. The bone, protected
by the clothing, had been the resistant, and the shock, carried to
the heart and spine, had rendered my body senseless for a time ;
but the brain, depleted by the ^sudden stoppage of circulation, had
been abnormally active. The man who exclaimed that I was as
good as dead had reason to think so. He was on the slope above,
and was looking at me at the time. He heard the bullet, and saw
me go down under it " like an ox hit on the head with an axe," as
he expressed it. He also said that my face changed colors rapidly
from ghastly white to deep purple, and that I lay on the ground
so still that he believed for the moment that I was dead. It is
evident that the fancies of the brain immediately following the
wound were closely connected with the previous thoughts, for the
burden of them was surprise and disappointment that, after all, I
had been hit. It was somewhat singular that in my delirium I
located my hurt correctly, and had the physical sensation of being
pinned to the earth by a rod running through the very spot where
the shock of the blow was keenest.*

An experience, similar in many respects, befell one of my com-
panions in arms, Captain W. R. Helms, (Fourteenth New York
Heavy Artillery, and Sixteenth New York Volunteers) at the battle
of Gaines's Mill. Helms was a lieutenant at the time, and while
the regiment was charging to recapture a battery that the Confed-
erates had just taken and were about to open upon its late owners
he was hit and went down. He heard his captain give the com-
mand, " Take his body to the rear," and saw men leave the ranks

* Statistics on this point have not been widely gathered, but numerous instances have
been noted where severely wounded men who retained consciousness did not know the loca-
tion of the hurt until sight or touch revealed it. Physiology accounts for the phenomenon
in many ways. In my case an unusual area of skin and bone surface received pressure and
the sensations were unusually strong.

FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 161

to respond. He thought that his head only was lifted from the
ground, and tried to speak, but could not. He recognized a fellow-
officer who passed at the moment, and remarked upon the accident.
Then he concluded that the battery had been fired, and that his
head had been shot off. This puzzled him, and he began to specu-
late upon the phenomenon of a head carrying on reasoning pro-
cesses while separated from the body. Was it not a mistake, after
all, to believe that the soul is located in the body ? Was not the
experience he was passing through proof that the seat of all con-
sciousness, will, and reason, and every spiritual attribute was in
the head ? (Helms was orthodox, and a remark from a skeptical
physician, some time before, to the effect that dissection revealed
no such an organ as the soul, had left a strong impression upon
his young mind. He was yet in his teens.) Metaphysical thoughts
were at length interrupted by a pricking and stinging sensation
in the neck, and gradually full consciousness and motor power
returned. He had been lifted and carried out of the reach of
balls, head and all intact. A bullet had hit the leather straps of
his haversack and canteen where they crossed his shoulders, cut-
ting two and stopping at the third, as they lay close to the neck.
(The flying ends of the severed straps caught his eye the moment
it was done.) The collar-bone was broken, and the large muscles
and tendons of the neck were badly bruised. Evidently there was
temporary paralysis caused by injury of certain nerves at the
neck, with but slight derangement of the functions of the organs
in the head, while the sensory functions of the body were cut off
from participation in sensations registered at the brain.*

In contrast with Captain Helms's counterfeit is a case of
actual decapitation, noted vividly and vividly recalled by com-
rades of my regiment, particularly by one who was a careful and
sensitive observer, Captain A. H. De Graff, now an engineering ex-
pert. On the 17th of June, in the charge of the Ninth Corps on
the Confederate works east of Petersburg, a sergeant of the
Fifty-seventh Massachusetts leaped upon the parapet, and, with
his cap in his left hand and his musket in his right, stood cheer-
ing and gesturing with his arms to incite his comrades to come
on. Suddenly a shell took his head off as completely as a knife
could have done, but the tall form continued erect for some
seconds, the arms still waving frantically, but with ever-lessening
sweep and power, until the forces of the body collapsed, when the
headless trunk toppled over to the ground. f

* Physiology assumes that complete separation may take place at the Deck and the
functions of the divided parts go on for a space. A head freshly guillotined gave back
mocking gestures of the mouth and eyes when a bystander made faces at it.

f A swift bullet will pass through a pane of glass and not jar it enough to crack it.
The shell did its work without upsetting the body by the force of the blow. Dr. S. G,

VOL. XLI. 14

i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Virtual subordination of the physical or material senses to the
nervous centers controlling the intellectual or spiritual faculties,
and for an appreciable length of time, seems to be quite common
in wounded men, even in the severest cases. It is easily conceiv-
able that a thoroughly mad man might ignore an ordinary wound
until his anger cooled a little ; but that men wounded to the
death should, even while actually dying, persist in their purposes
as though nothing had happened, at first staggers belief. Yet
such things do unquestionably occur. Every veteran of the field
will recall instances, and history in one way or another records a
great many. In the attack on the Ninth Corps lines at Peters-
burg, known as the battle of Fort Steadman, I noticed a mounted
Confederate officer leading a body of men in a charge upon a can-
non near which I stood. The last view I had of him — and that
was across the sight of a Springfield rifle — showed him riding
boldly forward,' sword on high. Others saw him later and nearer,
and his fearless action in riding a white horse under a storm of
bullets, grape, and shells attracted much notice. Suddenly man
and horse disappeared, and after the fight we found the bold
rider lying dead about sixty to eighty yards from our parapet.*
His form was prostrate, his sword-arm outstretched and grasping
the weapon firmly, with its point toward the cannon he had aimed
to capture. His face was partially upturned, as though he had
struggled at the very last to see something or to speak. The
horse had wheeled about and gone to the rear some distance, then
had leaped at a breastwork and fallen dead across it. Whether
this was after his rider had been hit or before couldn't be deter-
mined. In any case the Georgia major breathed his last with
his face to the foe, evidently warlike and defiant in death. His
wound was in the head.

An instance similar to the last was that of General Elon J.
Farns worth, at Gettysburg. At a crisis in a charge, Farnsworth
raised his saber and rode toward the ranks of the Fifteenth

Cook, now President of the Board of Police Surgeons in New York city, witnessed a simi-
lar instance in the Atlanta campaign, where he served as surgeon in the One Hundred and
Fiftieth New York Volunteers. The doctor, with other officers of the medical corps, was
riding rapidly across the range of a Confederate battery, which was shelling a column on
the march. Hearing a " thud " behind, as a shell passed near him, he turned around and
to his amazement saw that one of his companions, Surgeon H. S. Potter, of the One Hun-
dred and Fifth Illinois, had been decapitated, and his horse was galloping on with a head-
loss rider sitting perfectly erect and natural in the saddle. With a little steadying the
body remained upright until shelter was reached, the pace being all the while a gallop.

* From conversation with the late Henry W. Grady, respecting his father, who lost his
life in this attack, I believe this officer to have been Major Grady, of Georgia. I did not
shoot him. After drawing bead on him perhaps half a dozen times, admiration for his un-
exampled daring got the better of me, and I lowered the weapon with the exclamation,
" He is too brave — I can't do it."

FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 163

Alabama Infantry, meeting a volley of balls. Shortly afterward
his riderless horse dashed through the regimental lines. The
general had fallen, with five mortal wounds, and when found
still clutched his outstretched saber, and bore the appearance of
having been unhorsed when dead or dying, much as in the case of
Captain Nolan.

In the excitement of such actions as those where the Georgia
major and Farnsworth fell, it is not possible for any observer to
note the symptoms minutely. The fact that a man is down and
out of the fight is about all that friend or foe can take account of
for the time being. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that
some deaths are instantaneous, the men being literally killed in
action. One such case I had an opportunity to study with un-
usual care at Fort Haskell, in the Fort Steadman battle at Peters-
burg. The action there was defensive on our part, the scene very
small, and the fight prolonged, hence many things were observed
that would escape notice on an open field. At one time, just in
front of me as I looked toward the enemy, there was a soldier of
our garrison firing his musket from a gun-staging that raised his
head and shoulders above the parapet. He was the oldest man I
ever saw in battle, and for that reason doubtless I observed him
closely. His hair was white, and his form had reached the stage
of unsteadiness. He fired very slowly, and after each shot would
scan the enemy's lines, as though watching the results of his last
ball or spying out a target for the next. Finally, when I had my
attention almost wholly on him, he half turned to reload, and I
saw his cap fly off smartly without any visible help, and the large
and bony frame shrink together and sink down into a heap.
There was no spasm, no agitation whatever. It seemed to me
that he simply sat down slowly until he rested on his legs, bent
under the body, his head going down to his knee, or to the trail
of the cannon. A little stream of blood ran from his forehead
and made a pool on the plank, and this blood reached the plank
about the time that his frame settled itself down motionless.
From the time that his cap flew off until the blood appeared on
the staging, and the motionless body led me to say, " He is dead,"
could not have been more than thirty seconds, and was probably
about twenty. The fatal ball had penetrated the left temple or
near it. This was the only case where I noted all the external
manifestations of a soldier killed " so quickly that he never knew
what hit him," as the saying is.

All that are found dead on the battle-field figure in the lists as
" killed in action." Of these quite a percentage may meet with
instantaneous death, but the majority show proof that both
body and mind were at work after the fatal blow was received.
One of the most convincing cases of the kind, and at the same

164 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

time the most terrible, that came to my personal knowledge was
at Antietam, where General Hooker conducted the fight when he
received his wound. The Confederates were massed in a field of
tall corn, and Hooker ordered his batteries to open on them with
canister. In his report he says that the shot cut every stalk of
corn in the greater part of the field close to the ground as neatly as
though done with a knife. Of course, the men in that field did not
escape the biting hail. Neither did they stand like lambs and
accept their doom. After the first cannon volley the survivors
started toward Hooker's batteries, mounting a rail fence that
barred their progress, and just in front of and along this fence
several hundred lay dead after the action. The regiment in which
I served took position at one end of the fence some hours after-
ward, and as this field was between the lines the bodies had not
been disturbed. About sundown there was a sort of truce to re-
move some of the wounded, and with others I passed along the
fence to see the line of the dead. Some of the poor fellows had
passed over the fence and begun creeping forward, gun in hand ;
some had gained the top of the fence, and death had left them
balancing across the rails ; others, in the act of climbing, had
died leaning against it or dangling from it head foremost, having
passed partly over and been caught by the feet. Generally the
sword or musket was held in firm grip, the eyeballs turned for-
ward, and every muscle and organ bearing evidence of having
been strained to get at the batteries that were making such dread-
ful havoc. When I returned to the end of the line and glanced
back again at the prostrate column, I said to my comrades who
had not gone out to get a close view : " Boys, it is just as it looks
from here. Those men were caught at it, and were struck down
in the act." It is not to be wondered at that General Hooker
was too much absorbed at the time of this fighting to notice
his wound. He wrote of the action that the "slain (Confederate)
lay in rows precisely as they had stood in the ranks a few
moments before." *

Very, very few of these dead bore the look of having passed
away composedly. Yet, on the ordinary battle-field, where the
killed outright number but two or three to every hundred of
combatants, the exceptions are those who do not die in a quiet-
state of mind or body. Men who are cut down in a charge,
while the tide of heated action sweeps on, leaving them alone,
bend their thoughts at once to themselves, and, if death is felt
approaching, turn their faces up to the quiet skies, compose their

* The scene here described was visible from two o'clock p. m. until sundown from
the northern edge of the East Wood along the fence running from the East Wood westerly
to the Sharpsburg pike, and separating a corn-field from the elevated cleared field lying
south of the Miller farmstead.

FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 165

souls, and so breathe their last. It will be only in some such
struggle as at Antietam, or before the stone wall at Fredericksburg,
or in Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, and the front line at that,
that men will die retaining full intensity of battle ardor so long
as breath holds out. There we may expect to find men dead with
their weapons poised and their colors held firm in the death-grip.*
The manner in which men fall depends also upon the nature
of the action in which they are engaged. Nearly every one is
familiar with the traditional stage fall, where the victim of a
supposed death-shot strikes an attitude, clasps his hand to his
heart, stiffens every joint and muscle, breathes hysterically, and
goes down like a log toppled over from the end. Another popular
yet erroneous notion is that men shot through the vitals leap
into the air and go down in a dramatic attitude. Sometimes men
are found on the field in striking positions, but often an examina-
tion shows that the position was taken after the fall. As a rule,
a man who is hit above the hips goes down.f The slighter the
wound the more commotion, for the body instinctively resists,
just as it does when one slips or is pushed or collides with some
object. But a wound in a vital spot weakens the resistance, and
men sink at once, or reel and tumble with very little self-control.
One reason why men are found dead in a variety of positions is
that so long as consciousness remains they strive to help them-
selves. The wound and the fall together create a temporary
panic. Any one who knows the sensation of being temporarily
arrested, when at a high rate of speed, by some accident, may
imagine the general state of mind of a soldier when hit in action.
Something has happened ; he is the victim ; how serious is it ?
A man's first thought is of the rear of the column, and this not
from fear, but because he expects surgical aid from that direction.
So long as he can move he goes toward the place of help. When
no longer able to move he makes himself as comfortable as he can
and waits. In this waiting many die, and it is a question whether
many do not die from over-anxiety — that is, add to their hurt by
fretting and struggling. There are soldiers of the civil war
living to-day who received wounds as serious at the time as some
who died on the field. Either their temperaments were more
hopeful or their circumstances more favorable.

* Physiological science recognizes, and in a measure accounts for, rigor mortis in cases
of the kind cited.

f There is an apparent, but, I think, not a real contradiction of thjs statement in the
statistics collected by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, in the United States Army Hospital at Phila,
delphia, during the war. Out of fifty-six wounds involving the arm system of nerves,
twenty-seven fell. But he had excluded all cases accompanied by " early and severe
haemorrhage," and was not considering the dead and mortally wounded, nor those cases too
severe for long-distance transportation.

166 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Returning to the question of persistent aggressiveness in se-
verely "wounded men, two instances remarkable in a special way
are worthy of note. There was no warlike anger, but simply
sudden excitement, for a cause. In one instance two soldiers
were practicing at bayonet exercise and became very much
warmed up, as men do in a boxing match. Finally, when one of
them made a lunge at the breast of the other, the muzzle was
knocked down slightly by the opposing piece and a discharge
followed, the bullet going through the groin. With this fright-
ful wound, given at a couple of feet at most, the unfortunate
victim kept a tight grip on his piece, staggered forward, and
made fitful lunges at his opponent, who dropped his gun and ran,
terrified by the unearthly stare and grimace and the frenzied ac-
tions of the other. It was supposed that the balls had been
drawn, and the man whose piece went off did not know at once
that the charge was fatal. The injured man gave chase for a
few paces and then fell dead.* A case where there was even less
external incitement to extraordinary endurance is recorded by
Captain J. F. J. Caldwell, in a history of Gregg and McGowan's
South Carolina Brigade. During the engagement at Sutherland's
Station, below Petersburg, April 22, 1865, Captain Caldwell, while
riding over the field on staff duty, met two Union soldiers who
had broken through the Confederate lines with a charging col-
umn that had been repulsed, and become separated from their
comrades. Resistance was useless, and they dropped their guns
and followed the captain toward the Confederate rear. One of
the prisoners lagged on the march, and, on being told to step
lively, he held up one arm and showed such a bloody and dis-
tressing wound that the captain allowed him his own gait. All
the time both prisoners chatted briskly about the Union tactics,
and boasted that the tables would soon be turned upon the Con-
federates. When the party came to a fence the wounded man
helped to let down rails for the captain's horse, and in every way
showed good spirits and fair condition. At the first medical
bivouac Captain Caldwell turned his charge over to a surgeon,
who found a second wound in the patient's breast, and in a few
minutes after halting death ended his captivity. The man had
borne up under a mortal wound, with the spur of personal enthu-
siasm and expectation. He had hoped for a recapture by the ad-
vance of the Union lines.

The conduct of wounded men after an interval I do not pur-
pose to describe. So soon as the mind gets settled down to the

*Pare, the French surgeon, recorded the case of a duelist who received a sword-thrust
through the heart, large enough to admit a finger, and who followed up his fleeing antago-
nist, thrusting repeatedly, for two hundred yards before he fell.

FIRST ACTIONS OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS. 167

new order of things, individual temperament resumes entire con-
trol. The phenomena of severely wounded soldiers continuing
in action is correctly ascribed to abnormal mental excitement.
Analogies are seen in every-day life. Contusions, incisions, and
even fractures are sustained during excitement and no immediate
impression is carried to the intellect. Yet how keen the suffering
experienced under slighter hurts made by the surgeon's scalpel,
forceps, or drill, when all is known beforehand! A soldier's life
predisposes to intensity in either direction. He will stoically ig-
nore or morbidly welcome injury. His mind, first of all, is made
up not to notice danger or to be unmanned by wounds. So long
as he can keep in action — that is, so long as he may personally
direct some expenditure of muscular energy — his stoical purpose
will hold out. As a matter of course, when he changes from a
personality to a mere machine, manipulated by higher minds,
fighting when told to, and again standing or lying still to receive
blows and injuries with no chance to retaliate, he changes from a
Stoic to a morbidly sensitive being. Familiar with deep and dis-
tressing injuries to others, in hugging the hope that he will be
spared the worst, he invites fears for the worst at the moment he
receives a blow, and fears strike the mind as soon as the bullet hits
the body. This may account for frequent aberrations of conduct
that follow ordinary wounds. The bravest may be unmanned by
them, and doubtless death-fright actually takes place with gal-
lant souls ; or, if neither death nor delirium follow, then extrava-
gant notions of pain, and violent wailing over trifles.

Numberless cases might be cited showing that excellent sol-
diers are thrown into sudden mental and physical panic by war
wounds, just as civilians are by injuries and surgical operations.
Exaggerated sensations of suffering and often quick delirium are
reported from the battle-field, such as can not be the direct and
necessary sequence of the actual injury, but take rise in the
emotions.

As a rule, reported war cases are confined almost wholly to
injuries not necessarily fatal. Fatal ones rarely get on record,
because the cool and observant surgeon does not study the symp-
toms of the actual field of fighting.* Of those who are struck
insensible and subsequently revive and survive, there are known
to be many ; but of the number rendered insensible who revive
and resume action and then die, there can only be conjecture. In
this class must be placed many whose attitudes in death are ab-
normal. But taking into account the symptoms of the wounded
who have lived to report them, and of the dead whose cases have

* In the civil war the proportion of deaths to the surviving injured was a tiifle more
than one to three.

168 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

been recorded by spectators, there is a general agreement that
symptoms do not at all correspond in kind or severity to the
injury.* Hence phenomena appearing at first thought remarkable
may be accepted as not uncommon, considering the unrecorded
instances.

I class as remarkable the cases of Nolan, Hooker, Farnsworth,
the Georgia major, the beheaded sergeant, the wounded prisoner,
and the man skylarking in bayonet practice, and will add that of
General Albert Sidney Johnston, killed at Shiloh ; and it is proper
to state that this collection sprang originally from an effort to
bring together the same order of phenomena without reference to
antecedent causes. Further investigation proved that, of these
cases, Nolan, Hooker, Farnsworth, the Georgia major, and John-
ston certainly, and presumably the Massachusetts sergeant, had
the highest order of emotional stimulation at work before closing
into the heat of action.

It was Nolan's first chance in real war. He had served on rou-
tine headquarters duty until that day, and being sent to the front
in a crisis, he galloped his horse down a rocky steep where no hoof
had ever before trodden. On delivering an order to the division
commander, words ensued as to its meaning, and Nolan's excite-
ment was increased. When at last the Light Brigade started and
went wrong, he kept the intended course alone, saying, with all
the powers of voice and gesture he could command : " This way,
this way ! For Heaven's sake, not that way ! " While so engaged
he was hit in the most vital spot in the body, yet warlike action
was persistent to an almost supranatural extent.

Hooker had just received command of a corps; there was
rivalry between him and others ; he was honored with the lead in
the most important attack ; the enemy's resistance was unexpect-
edly stubborn, the carnage frightful above all experience on any
American battle-field, and on him rested the responsibility of
success that would glorify the whole army and the nation.

Farnsworth, on being asked to lead a cavalry charge over a
field strewed with bowlders and swept with cannon, demurred, and
his chief said to him tauntingly, " If you will not lead your bri-
gade in, I will." " Where my brigade goes, I will lead," was the
answer, and he sounded the charge. He found a slaughter-pen as
he had expected, was hemmed in, and with fifty followers started
to cut his way through a double line of Confederate infantry.

* The small missiles which inflict the majority of war wounds strike fewer nerves of
pain than do the instruments of injury in ordinary collisions, where large areas of skin
surface are bruised or lacerated ; their execution is also more rapid. The instantaneous
collapse following violent symptoms of warlike vigor is also a peculiarity of battle-field
life. Violent mental and muscular actions have swiftly depleted the reserve forces, and,
where collapse would be slow under normal strains, it is swift in abnormal cases.

FIRST ACTIONS OF Y/OUNDED SOLDIERS. 169

Possibly his five mortal hurts were received simultaneously, hut
probably he carried two or three of them while persisting in his
fight.

The Georgia major had been selected or had volunteered to
lead a forlorn hope upon which the salvation of an enterprise de-
pended, and he was called upon to pass eighty rods under cross-
fire of cannon and muskets. That feat he essayed, conspicuously
mounted upon a white horse.

The attack in which the Massachusetts sergeant engaged was
the third day of fierce and progressive onslaughts, and was di-
rected against the last but one of Lee's interior lines around
Petersburg. The stubbornness of the Confederate resistance had
aroused the spirits of the assailants to the supremest pitch.

General A. S. Johnston at Shiloh was engaged in a campaign
for the recovery of territory valuable to the Confederacy ; he had
been transferred from the East to supersede other generals ; his
fame was at stake ; he had engaged upon one of the most daring
and delicate enterprises known in warfare, a surprise of his enemy,
to end in a wholesale slaughter or capture of the routed hosts on
the banks of a bridgeless river. The movement carried well up
to a point ; there, a Union division showed what Johnston pro-
nounced stubbornness ; his men hesitated, and he went personally
with one brigade in a charge ; the charge succeeded, and he drew
back to bring up another brigade, when a musket-ball severed an
artery in his leg. He made no sign, but kept on giving orders and
watching events until spectators saw that he was pale. He was
asked if he was wounded, and, as if acknowledging it to himself
for the first time, said : " Yes ! And I fear seriously." He was
then on the point of death from haemorrhage.

Under normal conditions the symptoms in each of the cases in
this recapitulation, except that of the headless man, should have
been trembling, tottering, pallor, faintness, nausea, with expres-
sion of anxiety and distress, the whole frame being instinctively
sympathetic with the injured part. But the several nerve-cen-
ters were not in a condition to perform normal functions. The
mental excitement acting in the nature of a stimulant upon the
center of the brain, monopolized the capacity for keen sensation,
and centers that should have registered the hurt suspended their
functions. So there was no concentrated shock, as ordinarily hap-
pens. The shock was distributed and showed itself, when finally
potent, in an instantaneous collapse. This is the theory generally
accepted by science — the theory of a law that two nerve-centers
can not be excited at one and the same time. Is there not
confirmation of it in the complicated case of the wounded pris-
oner reported by Captain Caldwell ? The man doubtless suffered
laceration in the arm and the cutting of an internal artery, by

i7o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the same ball in the order named. His arm-wound would register
its shock first upon the intellect, and it would be of a kind that a
soldier in his situation would speedily resolve to " grin and bear " ;
and the second, though mortal, would be overlooked, and suffered
to do its quiet and fatal work. His first wound increased the ex-
isting excitement at the chief nerve-center, and aided to suspend
the functions of the center mosff vitally involved in the wounding.
The case of the beheaded man is again anomalous. Spasmodic
action or discharge of the motor-forces stored in the nerve-centers
of the trunk may have produced the phenomena.

Incidentally there arise from the consideration of the fore-
going these two questions : First, could the expenditure of stored-
up nerve force, either in sound or injured parts, or in both com-
bined, generate all these erratic manifestations, or do impulses
issue direct from the brain so long as life holds out ? Second,
is there a battle frenzy peculiar to certain natures, and in cer-
tain conditions to average men as well, that may lend them ab-
normal powers of nervous vigor and endurance ? But, what-
ever the efficient cause, at least one compensating thought follows
a study of these phenomena, and the poet and orator may extract
some comfort from it, cold and speculative though it may appear.
The soldier in war bears up under a severer hurt than the same
man could endure in every-day life, and collapses under a lesser
one than would ordinarily be required to disable him. He bears
up longer and collapses more quickly. Therefore, the provision
of Nature that renders him insensible of wounds in heated action
may be a twofold blessing, in that it spares him pain and terror
at the moment of his hurt, and while doing this service rapidly
exhausts in his system those reserve forces which might other-
wise tide him over the inevitable prostration succeeding wounds
and warlike ardor, and embitter him with a sense of his vulner-
ability and weakness. How many noble fellows, missing the
lethal stroke, have besought their comrades, their captors, and
their medical officers to put them out of misery, annalists of the
field would shudder to make known. So the hero's impulse, be it
patriotism, fanaticism, or frenzy, in spurring him on, saves his
high-strung soul from the rack of physical torture, and brings
death in a moment of rapturous exaltation, weaving about his
last deeds the halo of that glory which is the soldier's most
coveted reward. Not alone soldiers, but men of action every-
where, long for a death that shall be but a pause— no, that could
be perceptible — a lightning leap between a fiery fullness of being
on earth and the dazzling dawn of new life beyond the veil.

THE YUCCA MOTH AND YUCCA POLLINATION. 171
THE YUCCA MOTH AND YUCCA POLLINATION.*

By C. V. RILEY, Ph. D.

THE common belief, based upon the theological assumption
that all things upon this terrestrial sphere are for man's espe-
cial benefit, was, and perhaps yet is, that flowers were endowed
with beauty and fragrance for our particular pleasure. Let us
look somewhat more closely into this matter, and see what mod-
ern science has to say about it. Ever since Linnseus used the
sexual characteristics of flowers in classification, and Erasmus
Darwin sang of the loves of the plants, the philosophy of fertili-
zation in the plant kingdom has been fairly apprehended. It has
long been recognized that plants are divisible into homomorphic
or self-fertilizable, and heteromorphic or cross-fertilizable species.
All diclinous plants, or those having separate male and female
flowers, belong to the latter category, which is further classifiable
according to the means by which cross-fertilization is effected.
One class (termed anemojiliilcz) depend almost entirely on the
wind, and in these, of which our pines and other conifers, our
poplars, willows, grasses, etc., are examples, the pollen or male
element obtains in enormous quantities, is easily detached, and is
generally produced early in spring, when winds prevail, and fre-
quently before the development of the leaves, which would tend
to impede its dispersion. The flower is inconspicuous and the
stigma or female organ generally branched or hairy, so as to in-
crease the chance of catching the wind-borne pollen. "Water is an
agency in the fertilization of a few plants, of which the singular
Vallisneria is a striking illustration ; while a few are aided by
birds and higher animals; but by far the greater number are fer-
tilized, or, more strictly speaking, pollinized, by insects.

The most casual observer of Nature must have appreciated,
years ago, the fact that flowers are very important to insects, fur-
nishing the essentials of life to those of several orders, and espe-
cially to the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, etc.) and Lepidoptera
(butterflies and moths) in the form either of pollen or nectar.
But that insects could be of any especial benefit to plants has
only come to be acknowledged and fully appreciated of late years.
Toward the close of the last century Christian Konrad Sprengel
published an important work — Das entdeckte Geheimniss der
Natur — in which he maintained that the color, form, odor, secre-
tions, and the general structure of flowers had reference to insects
which are essential as pollinizers. The importance of insects as

* Adapted from advance sheets of the Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical Garden
for 1891.

172

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

agents in cross-fertilization was scarcely appreciated, however,
until the late Charles Darwin published the results of his re-
searches on Primula, Linum, Lythrum, etc., and his elaborate
work on the fertilization of orchids. The publication of these
works gave to flowers a new significance and to their study al-
most as great an impulse as did his immortal Origin of Species
to the general study of biology. Hooker, Bennett, Axell, Del-

Fig. 1. — Flower of Yucca aloifolia, showing stouter pistil and shorter style as compared

with filamentosa.

pino, Hildebrand, Hermann Muller, and others abroad, and Dr.
Gray and Prof. William Trelease in this country, have followed
up this subject ; and no one can familiarize himself with the results
of their studies without a keen sense — if not a conviction — that in
the vast number of cases Sprengel's early statement holds strictly
true. By these deeper insights into the significances of the floral
world, and their harmonies with the insect world, we learn to
understand why night-blooming flowers are usually white, even
where their day-blooming allies are brightly colored, as in the
case of Lychnis vespertina and L. diurna ; or why the calyx,
which is usually hidden and green, becomes bright when exposed,
as in the berberry and larkspur. Many flowers are known to
close or " sleep," and while most of them follow the animal world
in taking this rest at night, yet there are marked exceptions. The
dandelion goes to rest at 5 P. M. and wakes at 7 a. M ., while the popu-
lar names of "four o'clock" and " John-go-to-bed-at-noon" suf-
ficiently indicate the sleeping hours of Mirabilis and Tragopogon.
Sir John Lubbock tritely asks, " What is the meaning of sleep in
flowers, if it is not in reference to insects ? " The closing during
those hours when the particular insects needed for pollination

THE YUCCA MOTH AND YUCCA POLLINATION. 173

are at rest, would protect the flower from spoliation by useless
raiders. This belief is also strengthened by the fact that ane-
mophilous flowers, or those fertilized by the wind, never sleep,
and that flowers which attract insects by smell emit their odor at
particular hours.

But the most interesting fact not commonly understood, that
has now been very fully established by the most thorough re-
searches, is, that a very large number of plants, even where the
sexes are united in the same flower, absolutely depend on insect
aid for pollination, and that the contrivances to induce cross-fer-
tilization are infinite in diversity, while the modifications in struct-
ure which these insects have undergone the better to fit them to
perform this service, are equally remarkable. Yet in most cases
we have adaptation of the plant only, and except in a few in-
stances, as, for instance, in that Madagascar orchid, Angrcecum
sesquipedale, where the nectary is so deep that its nectar can be
reached only by a moth (like Macrosila cluentius) with a very
long tongue, our orchids are not dependent for pollination on any
one Lepidopterous species, but may be aided by many which have
tongues of sufficient length.

There are, in fact, few plants which are dependent on a single
species for pollination. So far as I know, the yuccas furnish the
only instance of this kind, for they
actually depend on some particular
species of little white moths belong-
ing to the Tineina and to the genus
Pronuba. The yuccas are a very in-
teresting genus of lily-like plants, so
familiar to every one in our public
and private gardens that I need not
say very much about them (Fig. 1).
There are numerous species and even
sub-genera, but they are all character-
ized by anthers not reaching any-
where near the stigma, so that fertili-
zation unaided can take place only by
the merest accident. In other words,
the stigmatic tube is nowhere within
reach of the stamens, and the pollen either remains attached to
the open and withered anthers or falls and remains in different-
sized lumps on the inside of the perianth, and can not be intro-
duced into the stigmatic tube without artificial aid.

Our commoner garden yuccas, forms of ftlamentosa, depend on
the commoner yucca moth, Pronuba yuccasella (Fig. 2, b, c), and
so do all the different species found east of the Rocky Mountains,
so far as we yet know. During the daytime we may, by knowing

Fig. 2. — Pronuba yuccasella : a, lar-
va ; b, ? moth with closed wing ;
c, $ moth with wings expanded —
natural sue ; d, side view of larval
joint ; e, head of larva, beneath ; ,/",
head of larva, above ; g, thoracic
leg of same ; A, maxilla; *', mandi-
ble ; y, spinneret and labial palpi ;
k, antenna — enlarged.

174

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

what and where to seek, often find this moth, either singly or in

pairs, resting with folded wings within the half-closed flowers.

It is then not only hidden from ordinary view, but well protected

by the imitative color of the front wings with that of the flower,

so that close scrutiny is necessary for its detection. If we visit

the plant after

"... the garish day

Has sped on his wheels of light away,"

and when, with full-blown perianth, the yucca stands in all her
queenly beauty, and sends forth her perfume more strongly upon
the night air, we shall, with a little patience, meet with this same
moth, flitting swiftly from flower to flower and from plant to

plant — the dusky nature
of the hind wings and of
the under surface of the
front wings almost com-
pletely offsetting and neu-
tralizing, when in motion,
the upper silvery white-
ness of the latter, and
thus still rendering the
insect a little difficult of
detection. It is principal-
ly the male which we thus
see flying and, by the aid
of a " bull's-eye," we shall
find the female for the
most part busily at work
in the flowers. He, with
relatively stronger wing-
power, can afford to spend
in the most pleasurable way the few brief days allotted to him ;
but she is charged with a double duty, and loses little time in its
performance. As a part of the maternal task of continuing her
race, she must act as foster-mother to the plant in order to insure
a proper supply of food to her larva?, which, as we shall presently
see, feed on its seeds.

As preliminary to a better understanding of the habits of the
female, it will be well to draw attention to those structural pecul-
iarities which distinguish her from all other species of her order,
and which so admirably fit her for the work she has to do. Fig.
3 gives some details of the head (a), and an important structure
which more particularly characterizes her and interests us is the
maxillary tentacle, shown with its palpus at b. She has a pair of
these organs, which are prehensile and spinous, and it is chiefly
by means of these that she is able to collect and hold a relatively

Fig. 3. — Generic Characters of Pronuba yuccasella :
a, side-view of head and neck of female denuded,
showing how the collected load of pollen (1) is held
by the tentacles (2) ; b, maxillary tentacle and pal-
pus; c, an enlarged spine; d, palpus separated; e,
scale from front wing ; /, front leg ; ff, labial palpus ;
A, i, front and hind wings denuded ; j, anal joint of
female with ovipositor — all enlarged.

THE YUCCA MOTH AND YUCCA POLLINATION. 175

large load of pollen for the purpose of pollination. Another or-
gan which is characteristic is the ovipositor (Fig. 4, b, d), which
is delicate and ex- , .

tensile, being a com-
bination of lance
and saw, and admi-
rably adapted for
cleaving through
the young fruit and
then running the
long
filiform, into
the ovarian cavity.
Though all the

egg, which is
and

Fig. 4. — Genital Characters of Pronuba yuccasella : a, tip
of <j> abdomen rendered somewhat transparent; b, basal
joint of ovipositor ; c, its sculpture ; d, terminal joint of
same ; e, tip still more enlarged ; f, genitalia $ from side ;
<7, genitalia $ from above ; h, undeveloped egg from ovary
— enlarged.

acts of the female
are nocturnal, it is
not at all difficult
to follow them with
a la,ntern, for, albeit
ordinarily shy, she may be closely approached when she is about
to oviposit. Her activity begins soon after dark, but consists at
first in assiduously collecting a load of pollen. She may be seen
running up to the top of one of the stamens, and bending her head
down over the anther, stretching the maxillary tentacles, so won-
derfully modified for the purpose, to their fullest extent, the tongue
uncoiled and reaching to the opposite side of the stamen (Fig. 6).
In this manner she is able to obtain a firm hold of the same
while the head is kept close to the anthers and moved peculiarly
back and forth, something as in the motion of
the head of a caterpillar when feeding. The
maxillary palpi are Used in this act very much
as the ordinary mandibles are used in other in-
sects, removing or scraping the pollen from the
anthers toward the tentacles. After thus gath-
ering the pollen, she raises her head and com-
mences to shape it into a little mass or pellet by
using her front legs very much as a cat does
when cleansing her mouth, sometimes using only
one leg, at another time both, smoothing and
pressing the gathered pollen, the tentacles mean-
while stretching and curving. After collecting
all the pollen from one anther, she proceeds to another and re-
peats the operation, then to a third and fourth, after which, with
her relatively large load — often thrice as large as the head — held
firmly against the neck and front trochanters, she usually runs
about or flies to another plant : for I have often noticed that ovi-

Fig. 5. — Pronuba yuc-
casella : I, male ;
77i, female chrysalis
— hair-line showing
natural size.

176

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

,- M.

*-■ 'P^> /Zl '*->

position, as «*i rule, is accomplished in some other flower than that
from which the pollen was gathered, and that cross-fertilization
is thus secured.

Once fully equipped with this important commodity, she may
be seen either crawling over or resting within the flower, gener-
ally with the head toward the base. From
time to time she makes a sudden dart and
deftly runs around the stamens, and anon
takes a position with the body between and
the legs straddling two of them, her head
being usually turned toward the stigma. As
the terminal halves of the stamens are al-
ways more or less recurved, she generally
has to retreat between two of them until the
tip of her abdomen can reach the pistil (Fig.
7). As soon as a favorable point is reached
— generally just below the middle — she rests
motionless for a short time, when the abdo-
men is slightly raised and the lance-like ovi-
positor is thrust into the soft tissue, held
there the best part of a minute, while the
egg is conducted to its destination, and then
withdrawn by a series of up-and-down mo-
tions. Fig. 8 is a transverse section of the
young fruit at this stage of the growth, in-
dicating the manner in which it is punct-
ured at a, <x, and how the egg is conveyed
into the ovarian cell at b, while Fig. 9 shows
a longitudinal section of the pistil at a, the
puncture of the ovipositor at b, and the
egg within the ovarian cell at c.

The stigmatic liquor is not nectarian, and the flower secretes
but a small amount of nectar at the base of the petals ; and while
these facts serve to disprove any positive value of their nectar in
the pollination of the yucca flowers, they add to the importance
of Pronuba by showing that the acts of collecting pollen and
transferring it to the stigma do not result in any food compensa-
tion, as I was at first inclined to suppose. In other words, there
is no nectar to allure other nectar-loving insects and cause them
to go to the stigma ; but, on the contrary, those which are drawn
to the plant by the slight amount of nectar are led in the very
opposite direction, viz., to the base of the style or of the flower.
It is also an interesting fact that I have never noticed Pronuba
feeding, as contradistinguished from pollinizing, for the motions
of the tongue of Lepidoptera when feeding are quite character-
istic and easily recognized. Indeed, the two pieces which form

Fig. 6. — Pronuba tdccasel-
la, female, in the act of
gathering pollen from the
anthers ; five times en-
larged.

THE YUCCA MOTH AND YUCCA POLLINATION. 177

the tongue are so often separated at tip, and so weakly joined
throughout, as to raise the question, in connection with a some-
what imperfect alimentary canal, as to whether the moth feeds at
all, and to suggest that the rather strong tongue, otherwise, as-
sists pollination.

No sooner is the ovipositor withdrawn into the abdomen than
the moth runs up to the top of the pistil, thrusts the pollen into
the stigmatic opening, and works her head rapidly — the motion

Y\a. 7. — Flowek of Yucca, with near petals removed to show normal position of Pronuba in

ovipositing.

being mostly up and down and lasting several seconds. She
works with a vigor that would indicate combined pleasure and
purpose, and makes every effort to force the pollen into the tube,
thrusting it ordinarily from the base of one of the three primary
clefts of the style. After the more vigorous motions of thrusting
the pollen into the tube, she frequently rests in comparative
quiet, working her tongue in the tube sometimes for four or five
minutes together, but ordinarily the act of pollination ceases with
the few vigorous thrusts already described. The importance of
this act will be better appreciated when I state that numerous ex-
periments in artificial or brush pollination have shown that effect-
ive fertilization in Yucca filamentosa is by no means an easy
matter, and that it rarely takes place as effectively as through
the actions of Pronuba.

This carrying of the pollen to the stigma generally follows
every act of oviposition, so that where ten or a dozen eggs are
consigned to a single pistil, the stigma will be so many times be-
pollened.

The egg of Pronuba is an extremely delicate, thread-like
structure, averaging 1*5 millimetre in length and less than O'l
millimetre (Fig. 9, c) in diameter, tapering at the base and en-
voi-. XLI. 15

i78

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

larging slightly toward the capitate end, which has also a slightly
indurated point. It is impossible to follow it with the unaided
eye, or in fact with an ordinary lens, even if the pistil be at once
plucked and dissected; but, by means of careful microscopical
sections, we may trace its course, as shown in Figs. 8 and 9.

The larva hatches in about a week and will be found at a point
from eight to ten ovules above or below the external puncture,
according as the egg was thrust above or below it. It has no
pro-legs, but has well-developed thoracic legs. It matures with
the ripening of the seeds, which differs in time in the different
species of yucca, and also in the same species, but occupies on an
average about a month in the ordinary Yucca filamentosa. The
number of seeds destroyed is rarely more than a dozen and more
frequently less, and I have recorded the fact of having found as

8. — Transverse Section of Pistil, about middle, one day after oviposition, showing
(a, a) puncture of ovipositor, and (b, b) position of egg.

many as twenty-one larvae in a single pod. Just about the time
the pods are hardening and ready to dehisce and the seeds have
already colored, the full-grown larva bores its way out of the pod
and makes its way to the ground. It remains as a larva within its
cocoon during the fall, winter, and spring months, and only trans-
forms to the chrysalis state a few days before the blooming of the
yuccas. The chrysalis (Fig. 4), as shown in the figure, is armed
with an acute spine on the head and with singular spatulate

THE YUCCA MOTE AND YUCCA POLLINATION. 179

spines on the back, which are well fitted to enable it to work its
way to the surface from its underground retreat.

The effect of the puncture of the female moth in oviposition is
at once noticeable on the young fruit by a darker green discolora-
tion externally. In time this becomes a depression, and the irregu-
larities of the pods (Fig. 9, d, e ; Fig. 10, 6, c) which have been con-
sidered characteristic of the fruit of the genus are chiefly due to
these punctures, which, ordinarily occurring just below the mid-
dle of the pod, produce a more or less marked constriction there.

Vii

*l

Fig. 9. — a, longitudinal section of pistil of Yucca Jilamentosa, showing (5, b) punctures of Pro-
nuba, and (c, c) the normal position of her eggs in the ovarian cell ; d, section of a punct-
ured carpel seven days after oviposition, showing the egg yet unhatched and the manner
in which the ovules in the neighborhood of puncture have been arrested in development
so as to cause the constriction ; e, section of an older carpel, showing the larva above the
original puncture ; /, a seed thirteen days from oviposition, showing young larva at funic-
ular base.

This I have often proved by artificially pollinizing the flowers
and protecting them from Pronuba, when the pods will develop
in a regular, parallel-sided manner (Fig. 10, a).

It is noticeable that all the pods do not contain Pronuba
larva3, though we rarely find any on the filamentose species that
do not show the marks of puncture, which indicates that a great
many punctures are fruitless in result, owing either to the diffi-
culty of the operation of oviposition, or to the fact that the eggs,
having been once consigned to the pistil, have failed to hatch, for
one reason or another ; or again, that the larva has, for one reason
or another, perished. A similar mortality is connected with the

i8o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

similarly difficult and complicated oviposition of the Cynipidce, as
Adler has shown. In dissecting the young fruits of the filamen-
tose yuccas, with a view to critical examination, I have found
that about half of them, on the average, contain nothing; but the
proportion varies greatly in different localities and according to
circumstances, and I may say that, as a result of my numerous
examinations, fully two thirds of the mature pods are found to
contain the larvae of Pronuba. All the experiments which I have
so far made, or have known to be made, prove conclusively that
the capsular species never set fruit without her aid.

Pronuba yuccasella is found in all parts of the country east of
the Rocky Mountains where the filamentose yuccas normally
range ; but has not extended to all sections where they are culti-
vated. The time of its appearance is strikingly coetaneous, east

Fig. 10. — Mature Pods of Yucca angustifolia : a, artificially pollinized and protected from
Pronuba ; b, normal pod, showing constrictions resulting from Pronuba puncture and exit-
holes of larva: c, one of the lobes cut open, showing larva within.

of the Mississippi, with the blooming of filamentosa j while other
cultivated species which bloom either earlier or later, and which,
therefore, do not receive the visits of the moth, I have, as already
stated, never known to bear seed. On the Western plains, where
Y. angustifolia is native, the moth's season of appearance is
adapted to the flowering of this particular yucca. In California,
Yucca whipplei is pollinized by Pronuba maculata, an invariably
maculate species ; while, on the Mojave Desert, Yucca brevifolia is
pollinized by Pronuba syntlietica, a species still more abnormal
than yuccasella and modified to fit it to the peculiarities of that
particular species of yucca. In the Gulf States the typical yuc-
casella occurs, and fertilizes not only the filamentose yuccas, but

THE YUCCA MOTH AND YUCCA POLLINATION. 181

those individuals of the larger, fleshy-fruited species like aloifolia
which happen to bloom about the same time of the year.

Thus we find that some species of Pronuba is connected with
all the yuccas so far studied in this connection, and I have no
doubt that this will be found to be generally true, so far as the
indigenous species are concerned, and that in the native home of
any of the species we shall find that pollination depends upon
some species of Pronuba. This is rendered certain by the fact
that, wherever I have been able to examine the mature or partially
mature fruit of other yuccas in herbaria, I have in almost every
instance observed the constriction and in most instances seen
traces of the puncture and the work of the larva.

We have, in the structures and functions which are so charac-
teristic of this yucca moth, admirable adaptations of means to an
end, whether for pollinizing the plant or providing for a future
generation. The Pronuba larva rarely destroys more than a dozen
of the seeds, so that several may develop within a single pod and
yet leave many perfect seeds, while, for the reasons already stated,
we occasionally have pods without a trace of the insect.

There is between Pronuba and its food-plant a mutual inter-
dependence which excites our wonder, and is fraught with inter-
esting suggestions to those who are in the habit of reasoning
from effect to cause. Whether we believe, as I certainly do, that
this perfect adaptation and adjustment have been brought about
by slow degrees through the long course of ages, or whether we
believe that they were always so from the beginning, they are
equally suggestive. The peculiar structure of the flower which
prevents self-fertilization, though on a superficial view it strike
one as a disadvantage, is, in reality, of benefit, as the value of
cross-fertilization has been fully established ; while the maxillary
tentacles of the female moth are very plainly an advantage to her
species in the " struggle for life " ; and it is quite easy to conceive,
on Darwinian grounds, how both these characteristics have been
produced in the course of time from archetypal forms which pos-
sessed neither, and in reality we get a good insight into the pro-
cess in studying the characteristics of other species of the family
ProdoxidcB. These peculiarities are, moreover, mutually and re-
ciprocally beneficial, so that the plant and the animal are each in-
fluenced and modified by the other, and the same laws which pro-
duced the beneficial specialization of parts will maintain them by
the elimination of all tendencies to depart from them.

The pollen grains would not adhere by chance to the rolled-up
tentacles, and we have seen how full of apparent purpose and de-
liberation Pronuba's actions are, It may be that all her actions
are the result merely of " blind instinct," by which term proud
man has been wont to designate the doings of inferior animals ;

i8z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

but no one can watch her operations without feeling that there is
in all of them as much of purpose as there is in those of the
female Pelopa3us who so assiduously collects, paralyzes, and stores
away in her mud-dabs the spiders which are to nourish her
young; or in the many other curious provisions which insects
make for their progeny, which, in the majority of instances, they
are destined never to behold. Nor can I see any good reason for
denying these lowly creatures a degree of consciousness of what
they are about, or even of what will result from their labors.
They have an object in view, and whether we attribute their per-
formances to instinct or to reason depends altogether on the
meaning we give to those words. Define instinct as " congenital
habit " or " inherited association " or, as I prefer to characterize it,
as the inevitable outcome of organization, and most of the doings
of the lower animals may justly be called instinctive ; but instinct
and intelligence are both present, in most animals, in varying
proportion, the last being called into play more especially by
unusual and exceptional circumstances, and the power which
guides the female Pronuba in her actions differs only in degree
from that which directs a bird in the building of its nest, or
which governs many of the actions of rational men.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNFIT.

By HENRY DWIGHT CHAPIN, M. D.

rS modern civilization advancing along satisfactory lines toward
-L a higher development ? We hope and believe so, but there
are not a few who consider such a question an open one. Both
the pessimist and optimist can have much to say on either side of
this problem. The forces at work in society are diverse and com-
plex, acting like the ceaseless operation of a complicated engine
that is constantly pushing on, throwing some up and some down,
and leaving many a wreck behind. It is of pregnant interest to
study the destructive factors at work in society that not only
produce the unfit, but also tend to their survival. This question
derives its principal significance from the apparently hopeless
task of dealing with the unfit. Science and theology, from widely
divergent poles, appear to reach much the same conclusion with
regard to delinquents. Darwinism and Calvinism present about
an equally hopeful consideration for the unfortunates of our race.
One says heredity and environment; the other, predestination
and foreordination. Both suggest the witty aphorism of Dr.
Holmes, that the proper time to begin the treatment of some
diseases is a hundred years before birth.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNFIT.

183

A glance at some statistics, published in the United States
census reports will "be interesting in this connection. The fol
lowing figures are taken from a table showing the number of
insane, idiotic, blind, and deaf-mutes in the United States, in the
years named, respectively, according to the census :

1880.

1870.

1860.

1850.

Defectives

251,698
50,155,783

98,484
38,558,371

68,451
31,443,321

50,994

Total population

23,191,876

According to these figures, the population a little more than
doubled in thirty years, while the number of defective persons
returned was nearly five times as great as it had been thirty
years before. During the decade from 1870-'S0 the increase in
population was 30 per cent ; during the same interval of time the
apparent increase in the defective classes was a little more than
155 per cent. There is much talk about the increase of insanity
in our day, and statistics appear to bear witness to the truth of
such reports. The following shows the ratio of insane popu-
lation to the entire population for the whole country in different
years : *

1860 1 to 1,310.

1870 1 to 1,100.

1880 1 to 570.

The latest report of the Census Bureau states that the total
number of insane persons treated in both public and private insti-
tutions during the year 1889 was 97,535, while during the year
1881 there were 56,205 treated; showing an increase in the nine
years of 41,330, or 73"53 per cent. This percentage of increase,
when compared with the percentage of increase of population in
the last decade, namely, 24'86, does not necessarily indicate an
increase in the proportion of insane persons to population, but
rather a great increase in the amount of asylum accommodation
provided, and a willingness on the part of the public to make full
use of all the facilities thus offered. The bulletin states that
the figures for the actual number of insane in the United States
can not be determined until the work of eliminating all duplicate
reports of cases has been completed.

The ratio of insane in public and private institutions of the
United States is to the entire population as 1"56 to 1,000. f As
these figures represent only institutions to which large numbers
of the mildly insane are never sent, they point to an increase in
insanity. Objections may be made to figures tending to show a

* Dr. C. L. Dana, in Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, April, 1882.
Census Bulletin, No. 62, May 9, 1891.

184 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

relative increase of the defective classes, on the ground that
statistics are now much, more carefully collected than formerly,
which is certainly true. It may be said, however, that errors in
the returns of the defectives were not confined to this class, but
were more or less distributed among the different elements of
population. The accurate collation of defectives is a task of
great difficulty. While their number is now relatively better
known than formerly, their absolute number will never be as ac-
curately tabulated as other parts of the community, but a study
of statistics shows that they tend to increase.

With regard to paupers, the recent census shows the total
number in almshouses to be 73,045.* The number reported in
1880 was 66,203. The ratio of almshouse paupers to the total
population at that time was 1 to 758; the ratio in 1890 was 1 to
857, showing a decrease. This decline in the ratio is attributed
to the very muck smaller number of paupers cared for in the
almshouses in the North Atlantic division. It is interesting to
note that the foreign population of this country contributes,
directly or indirectly, very nearly three fifths of all the paupers
supported in almshouses. There is no way of learning the num-
ber of outdoor poor — which is large — as they are supported,
partly or in whole, by private charity. Mrs. Lowell estimates
that the number of paupers in the public and private institu-
tions of New York city, totally supported at any one time, is about
28,000. The cost of maintaining them during 1890 was $3,794,972.
She further states that, if we go back forty years, we find that the
increase of contributions of public funds to private persons for
the support of private paupers has been from $9,863 in 1850 to
$1,845,872 in 1890, and that the amount is nearly two hundred
times what it was forty years ago. The increase of expenditure
for public paupers, through the hands of public officials, has been
at a much less ratio, increasing from $421,882 to $1,949,100 during
the same interval of time.f

What is society to do with its horde of defectives ? Unfor-
tunately, it does practically nothing to check their production.
The sources of the muddy stream are left untouched, while larger
and larger reservoirs are being constantly built to collect and
conserve the contaminated flow. One can not help noticing how
this humanitarian age is abundantly equipped with asylums,
almshouses, reformatories, and hospitals of all kinds. If the
good accomplished by such agencies could be measured solely by
relief of suffering and cure of disease, the results would be noth-
ing but gratifying. A collateral danger is in keeping alive

* Census Bulletin, No. 90, July 8, 1891.
f Christian Union, August 25, 1891.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNFIT. 185

sickly and defective classes, who are often as prolific as they are
inefficient. In our civilization these institutions have become a
necessity, but their abuse should be carefully guarded against.
What is urgently needed are homes or retreats where poor con-
valescent patients can recuperate after their discharge from the
hospital. As it is, such people, in a weakened condition, have no
place to seek the needed rest, and either fall victims again to a
former disease, or become chronic invalids. Here would seem to
be a more fruitful field for philanthropy than the building of
additional hospitals. Above all, more of an effort should be made
to get at the roots of the cause than to temporize so with the effect.
Municipal governments annually devote large sums of money for
the care of the sick, the criminal, and the insane, but devote no
energy to investigating and striving to prevent the factors that
are constantly at work in producing these classes. Here, if ever,
an ounce of prevention is equal to many pounds of cure. The
Department of Public Charities and Correction of New York
city, with its 15,000 wards, received $2,166,237 in 1891, and re-
quests an appropriation of $2,877,245 for 1892. If a part of the
money that is annually devoted to keeping alive the helpless and
suffering could in some way be diverted toward remedying un-
healthy domiciles, relieving overcrowded tenements, dissipating
polluted air and foul gases, supplying the best food at cheap
rates, educating the masses in the simple principles of hygienic
living, closing the saloons, and in many like ways checking the
sources of disease and degeneration, this knotty problem would
find its best solution. The way we can cure is by prevent-
ing. We permit factors to exist that degenerate men physi-
cally, mentally, and morally, and then bring up a clumsy,
mechanical, outside philanthropy to try and reform by patch-
work.

Probably one of the greatest dangers to organized society is
found in the criminal classes. The laws of the production and
confirmation of criminals, with their treatment, should be among
the most thoughtfully studied branches of political science. The
number of convicts in penitentiaries in 1880 was 35,538, while in
1890 it was 45,233, an increase in ten years of 9,695, or 27'28 per
cent, and during this interval the total population increased only
at the rate of 24'86 per cent.* Again, the total number of prison-
ers in county jails in 1880 was 12,691 ; in 1890, 19,538, an increase
in ten years of 6,847, or at the rate of 53'95 per cent.f Coming to
the inmates of juvenile reformatories, we find the number re-
ported in 1880 was 11,468 ; in 1890, 14,846, an increase of 3,378, or

* Census Bulletin, No. 31, February 14, 1891.
f Census Bulletin, No. 95, July 14, 1891.

186 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

29'4G per cent.* It is thus shown by recent statistics that the
various grades of criminal population are increasing more rap-
idly than the population at large. The same results have been
shown by previous census reports. It must also be remembered
that a large number of actual criminals are not under confine-
ment, and are hence not included in the figures showing their
increase. It has evidently become a vitally important question
for decision by society as to the best plan to pursue toward the
criminal. In dealing with this problem too much stress is popu-
larly laid upon merely punishing the malefactor. Popular con-
ceptions of the nature of punishment have varied widely with
the age. The earliest enactments of penalty were, in form, vin-
dictive ; next retributive ; and, finally, as the highest conception,
reformatory. While the State, uninfluenced either by vindictive
feeling or pity, deprives criminals of liberty for a time as a
measure of self-protection, it must adopt some mode of treatment
during incarceration. The old plan consists in getting a certain
amount of work out of them to aid in their support, but without
making any effort at reform. The unexpressed idea appears first
to get even with them, and then kick them out upon society, usu-
ally to begin depredations again. An abnormal mental and moral
atmosphere is diffused in such a prison, and the large congre-
gation of criminals is a school for confirming the vicious. The
reformatory plan aims at the prisoner's rehabilitation, so that
there may be some hope of right behavior after release. This
result is sought by means of physical renovation, industrial and
intellectual education, and general moral impression. In order
to satisfactorily apply these agencies the science of penology has
shown an indefinite sentence with a conditional discharge, in-
cluding partial oversight after discharge, to be necessary. It is a
fact proved by statistics that a large percentage of criminals are
defective either physically or mentally, and have had an unfavor-
able heredity and environment.! Under the general system in this
country no attempt is made to rehabilitate them during confine-
ment. Criminals are first made to a certain extent by unfor-
tunate heredity and unfavorable social conditions, and then
confirmed by imprisonment. "Weak character and environment
bring out the unfittest elements, and society by its treatment
hastens to provide for their survival. When we see that, accord-

* Census Bulletin, No. 72, May 27, 1891.

f Of 552 convicts received at the State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Penn-
sylvania in 1886, 263 were found in a condition of impaired health, and 174 were in an
unsound mental condition, as follows : Insane, 12 ; epileptics, 7 ; mentally undeveloped, 61 ;
weak intellect, 77; idiotic, 17: 159 were inclined to grave diseases of the neurotic type,
which tend to modify the moral, mental, and physical condition from inheritance of bad
formation.

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 187

ing to past census reports, crime has more than doubled every
ten years for the past half-century, the importance of this subject
becomes manifest. The most practical and successful trial of the
advanced method in this country is seen at the Elmira Reforma-
tory. Here the prisoner goes to school and receives the needed
bodily and mental training, by which it is endeavored to form a
stable base for moral improvement.

In conclusion, we must repeat that, in our consideration of
the defective and delinquent classes, more attention should be
given to 'prevention. Let our greatest energies be devoted to com-
bating the conditions that are at work in society producing the
unfit, rather than so industriously providing for their survival.
When such a class is formed, it should be permanently isolated
from the rest of society. Recent legislation in Ohio adjudges a
person an habitual criminal when convicted of a third offense,
under which he may be held for life. This law is based upon
sound physiology and psychology. Such a permanent quarantine
should be applied to all tramps, cranks, and generally worthless
beings. Society must do this for protection, not punishment ; to
avoid their contamination ; and, above all, to prevent the propa-
gation of their kind. Advanced sociology will devote its princi-
pal energies to avoiding the production of the unfit, and then see
to it that they do not survive beyond one generation. Here lies
the only solution of this difficult problem — first prevention, next

permanent isolation.

«-*♦

THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA.

By Prof. JOHN S. NEWBERRY.

WHEN the white man landed on these shores he found them
covered with a dense forest, the home of the bear, the elk,
the lynx, and the other wild animals indigenous to this country.
The only human inhabitants were the red Indians, who roved the
forest, "the children of the shade" — the chase their occupation,
and their amusement war. From Maine to Florida the country
was overrun by various tribes of these untutored savages, and
for many years it was believed that the whole of North America
was what it was called — the New World — and that its animals and
savage men were part of the first wild stock with which it was
peopled.

As the wave of civilization moved westward the forest was
mowed down before it, and step by step the native tribes — with
many a hard-fought battle and bloody tragedy — were driven
deeper into their forest recesses.

Behind the advance guard of the whites the country was soon

188 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dotted with hamlets, which grew to towns, and these in time to
cities. The intervals between them were covered with grain-fields
and orchards, of which the growth was so luxuriant that it seemed
to prove the soil to be now for the first time opened to the sun-
light. Thus several generations passed ; but in time the invading
hosts pressed through the great natural water-gap, which once
connected the Hudson with the lakes, or crossed the Alleghanies
from Pennsylvania and Virginia, and took possession of the basin
of the Ohio. Here they entered their promised land — the valley
of the Mississippi — a region which by its broad topographical
unity, its universal fertility, its network of navigable waters, and
its unequaled mineral resources, is without a rival on the earth's
surface in its fitness to become the home of a great nation. Here,
too, the wandering and stealthy savage was in full possession,
and resisted the invasion of his hunting-grounds with his charac-
teristic ferocity.

Ultimately, however, he was compelled to yield to the superior
numbers and intelligence of the whites, and, within fifty years
from the first struggle on the " dark and bloody ground " of Ken-
tucky, he had practically abandoned all the territory east of the
Mississippi.

"When the forests were opened in this region, it was for the
first time discovered that the nomadic Indian was not autoch-
thonous, and that he had been preceded by a sedentary and par-
tially civilized people, who had cultivated the soil, worked the
mines, and left behind them a vast series of monuments which
extended from the Alleghanies to the prairies, from the Lakes to
the Gulf. These monuments consisted of mounds, walls, fortifica-
tions, and other structures composed of earth or rough stone, and
among them the mounds (chiefly sepulchral) were so conspicuous
from their numbers and size that the people by whom they were
constructed — and whose name and history had been utterly lost —
for want of other designation were called the Mound-builders.

The records of this ancient people, with the lessons they teach
in regard to their degree and kind of culture and their ethnical
relations, will be referred to again. Meantime we will pass to
notice a still more extensive and interesting series of monuments
which attest the ancient occupation of America by civilized man.

Long before the Northern whites had entered the valley of the
Mississippi, and had discovered the first traces of the mound-
builders, the Spaniards who invaded Mexico and Peru found
there a civilization in many respects superior to their own — a
civilization which extended throughout Mexico, the Isthmus, and
the west coast of South America to the frontiers of Chili ; that
had produced cities that rivaled in extent and in the magnificence
of their buildings those of the Old World— cities that were lighted

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 189

at night, guarded by police, that contained palaces, temples, courts
of justice, schools of law, medicine, music, and literature, with
parks, aqueducts, fountains, and artificial lakes.

The cities were connected by graded roads, on which were sta-
tions and relays of messengers for the rapid transmission of intel-
ligence. The population was divided into various castes, includ-
ing royalty, nobility, different grades of traders and artisans, and
finally slaves. The country was cultivated with much agricult-
ural skill, and in the towns were workers in gold, silver, copper,
and bronze. Their military organization was thorough and effect-
ive, and strategic points were guarded by fortifications, some of
which have had no rivals in magnitude in the history of the
world.

This civilization, imposing as it was, at the advent of the Span-
iards had passed its golden age, was then in its decadence, and
has since, chiefly by the brute force, cruelty, and rapacity of the
European invaders, been nearly driven from the earth.

So much has been written of these two American civilizations
— that of the mound-builders of the Mississippi Valley, and that
of the palace-builders of Central America — and their study has
been pursued with so much interest and success, that it may seem
presumptuous that I should venture to occupy the hour kindly
granted me with a theme so broad and already so familiar. But
it has happened to me to traverse much of the territory in Central
America, Mexico, and the United States where the relics of these
bygone races are most abundant, and as the subject has always
been one of intense interest to me I have lost no opportunity of
gathering by my own observation such information as came within
my reach ; hence, it is possible that I may be able to contribute
something to what you may have learned of our predecessors in
the occupation of this continent, and of the real and original
American citizen.

The Mound-builders. — As has already been mentioned,
traces of a people more advanced in the arts than the nomadic
Indian are spread over the entire valley of the Mississippi and
the Lake basin. These have been so fully described that you are
familiar with their general character, but few of us have a just
idea of their number and magnitude.

It is estimated (but I fear with little accuracy) that not less
than ten thousand monuments of the mound-builders are con-
tained within the limits of Ohio, and they are scarcely less numer-
ous in the adjacent States of Indiana and Kentucky. In some
places, as at Newark and Circleville, they cover square miles of
surface, and it is hardly to be doubted that they are the work of
a people or peoples not less numerous than the present popu-
lation.

i9o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

They are most abundant where the agricultural capabilities of
the country are greatest, and we find them associated with areas
of special fertility in such a way as to prove that they had
stripped the forest from these areas, and chiefly derived their
subsistence from their cultivation. Hence we learn that they
were a sedentary and agricultural people. Yet their structures
are for the most part earthworks — walls for defense, or to form
inelosures, sepulchral mounds, etc. ; and while we find what seem
to be raised foundations of extensive buildings, those buildings
have disappeared, and we must hence conclude that they were for
the most part structures of wood.

The mound-builders were ignorant of the use of iron, and prob-
ably possessed no other metals than copper, which they mined
extensively, but never smelted ; for we find their implements com-
posed of the native metal, often with specks of silver, thus betray-
ing its source on Lake Superior, and only hammered into shape.
From this copper they made battle-axes, daggers, knives, awls,
and ornaments; but most of their tools and weapons were of
stone, and many of them were laboriously and tastefully wrought.

They have left no evidence that they had a knowledge of
masonry — an art in which the inhabitants of the table-lands so
much excelled.

This is the more remarkable, as stone easily quarried abounds
in the vicinity of their works, and some of the great structures of
our Western table-lands, whose builders apparently had not the
use of metals, show what good work could be done without me-
tallic tools.

I have said that the mound-builders made use of but a single
metal — copper — and yet they were industrious and enterprising
miners. Their copper mines on Lake Superior have been often
and fully described. They must have been worked for genera-
tions, since the ancient excavations exceed in magnitude all the
work of the white man in that region ; but the methods which
they used were exceedingly rude and simple.

They had no knowledge of metallurgy, and the Lake Superior
copper was only available for their purpose because it occurs in
the metallic state. They excavated the rock by the use of fire,
stone hammers, and wooden shovels.

They never penetrated the earth to a greater depth than sixty
to eighty feet, and for ladders they used the trunks of trees from
which the branches projected at frequent intervals, and these were
cut off to form steps. Since no considerable structures belonging
to this people have been found near the Lake Superior mines, it
seems probable that their mining operations were carried on only
in summer, and by parties who, migrating from the lower country
in the spring, returned in autumn.

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 191

Although the copper mines of the mound-builders were their
most important ones, they had others by which they procured
things that were of no less value to them. Of the coal, which con-
stitutes the mainspring of modern civilization, and of iron, its
most important adjunct, though existing in unequaled abundance
in the country they inhabited, and trodden under foot in their
daily vocations, they seem to have been utterly and strangely
ignorant. Yet they worked with much labor the mines of mica
in North Carolina, from which they procured what was by them
highly prized as an ornament ; the soap-stone quarries of the Alle-
ghany range, where they obtained material for their domestic
utensils and the all-important ceremonial pipe ; and those of flint
in Ohio and elsewhere, from which came the material out of which
the greater number of their tools and weapons were fashioned.

In addition to these, I can assert from my own observation
that they worked at least one lead mine in Kentucky, and sank
wells from which they obtained petroleum in all our principal
oil regions.

As these facts have not been reported by others, and yet are
unquestionable, I venture to emphasize them with a few words of
description.

Near Lexington, Ky., is a vein of lead ore which is traceable for
half a mile or more through cultivated and forest land. The ore
is galena in heavy spar, which has resisted the solvent carbonic-
acid water that has removed the limestone wall rocks and shows
conspicuously at the surface. Thus it attracted the attention of
the mound-builders, who seem to have prized the galena only for
its brilliancy, as we find it in many of the mounds, but so far we
lack evidence that it was smelted. To obtain it in the mine to
which I have referred, they made a deep trench along the course
of the vein, taking out the ore to the depth of perhaps ten or
twenty feet. One hundred yards or more of this trench is now
visible, running through forest which has never been disturbed
by the whites. Here it is five or six feet deep, and is bordered on
either side by ridges of the material thrown out. On these, trees
are growing which have reached their maximum dimensions,
showing that at least five hundred years have elapsed since the
mine was abandoned.

The working of the oil wells by the mound-builders is as
plainly proved. When drawn to Titusville by the first successful
oil wells, I was struck by the peculiar pitted surface of the soil of
the forest which covered the bottom lands of Oil Creek. The pits
were ten feet or more in diameter, and two to three feet deep, con-
tiguous, and innumerable. Subsequently I discovered that each
of these funnel-shaped depressions marked the site of an ancient
well, sunk through the alluvial deposits, but not into the rock.

i92 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

One of these, just opened in an excavation for a new oil well,
showed a pit twenty-seven feet deep, cribbed up with timber, and
containing a rude ladder like those found in the Lake Superior
copper mines. The timber used for the inclosure of the ancient
pit had been cut with a blunt-edged instrument, doubtless of

stone.

I afterward found similar pits in the oil regions of Kentucky
and Tennessee, at Mecca and Grafton, Ohio, and at Enniskillen,
in Canada. In the latter locality the oil was obtained by sinking
pits to the depth of forty or fifty feet in the Drift clay, the oil issu-
ing from crevices in the underlying rock and accumulating be-
neath the clay. In the excavation of one of these pits an ancient
one of similar character was brought to light. This was filled
with rubbish, twigs, leaves, etc., and a pair of antlers was taken
from it at a depth of thirty-seven feet. The antiquity of this pit,
like those of Oil Creek, was proved by the large trees growing
over it.

The contents of their sepulchral mounds have supplied some
information — though less than we desire — of the domestic habits
of the mound-builders. Usually the bones they contain are so
much decomposed in the lapse of time that they have given us
but an imperfect knowledge of their osteology. From the few
remains found well preserved we may, however, infer that as a
people they were of average size, of fair proportions, and with a
cranial development not unlike that of our modern Indians. The
jaws were somewhat prognathous ; their teeth — as is usual with all
peoples who make much use of their jaws for mastication — are
strong and regular; and the wisdom-tooth, which in our jaws,
shortened by disuse, has inadequate room and is of little value,
was with them one of the largest and most useful of the set. On
account of the lengthened under jaw, the incisors met in direct
opposition, and apparently because they used their teeth for grind-
ing seeds of which the envelopes contained much silica, they are
often found uniformily worn down nearly to the jaw. We know
little of the crops the mound-builders cultivated except that their
great staple was corn, and that they raised and used tobacco.

They buried their dead with imposing ceremonies, and not un-
frequently cremated their remains on a kind of altar which occu-
pies the center of the sepulchral mound, and, as is the habit with
perhaps all primitive people, vases, weapons, tools, and ornaments
were buried with the body. Of these the pottery sometimes shows
considerable taste and skill — the vessels having graceful forms
and being often ornamented with colors or with incised designs.
The weapons and implements that are found so abundantly in the
mounds and scattered over the surface are rarely of copper, gen-
erally of stone. Of these the arrow-heads, spear-heads, daggers,

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 193

augers, and hoes are usually of flint ; their axes and celts are gen-
erally made of green-stone, a tough and heavy rock specially
adapted to such use ; the celts were inserted in handles and closely
resemble those of the polished-stone period in the Old "World.
Their axes, all grooved for a withe, were frequently wrought with
great skill and patience. The most common ornaments found
with the remains of the mound-builders are anklets or armlets of
copper, and strings of beads of shells or bone, of copper or baked
clay. In addition to these are many large ornaments of shell or
stone perforated for suspension from the neck or for attachment
to the head.

Of the clothing of the mound-builders we have as yet little in-
formation, since the lapse of time has caused fabrics of vegetable
or animal fiber to perish. In a few instances, however, the anti-
septic properties of copper salts or special conditions have been
the means of preserving some fragments of cloth made from the
fibers of a plant. Of these the workmanship is so good that we
may believe that woven fabrics were largely used for clothing.

In regard to the ethnic relations of the mound-builders, the
age in which they lived, and the causes of their disappearance, much
has been conjectured, but little can be asserted. As to the time
in which they lived in the country they inhabited — when and how
long — this at least may be said, viz., that they occupied all the
forest-covered region of the Mississippi Valley — to which they
seem to have given a decided preference — for many hundreds and
perhaps thousands of years. This is indicated by the general
occupation of this wide-spread area, the magnitude and number of
such of their works as have resisted the ravages of time, and the
great abundance of the stone implements of their manufacture
found scattered over the surface ; also by the extent of their min-
ing operations on Lake Superior and elsewhere. All this can
mean nothing less than the long-continued possession of the

country.

The general distribution throughout the valley of the Missis-
sippi of shells obtained on the Gulf or Atlantic coast ; the copper,
mica, galena, flint implements, etc., all of known origin, indicate
considerable internal interchange of commodities, but furnish no
proof of a foreign commerce.

In regard to the origin of these peoples little is known. We
may infer from their bony structure that they belonged to the
American family of men, and were not unlike, in structure, physi-
cal aspect, and color, the red Indian of to-day.

A few stone tablets have been found in the mounds, which are
decidedly Mexican in character ; and if, as seems probable, the
authenticity of these relics should be established, they would go
far to prove synchronism and intercourse between the mound-

VOL. XLI. 16

i9+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

builders and civilized races of the South ; but this does little or
nothing toward establishing a relationship between them.

As to when and ivhy and how the mound-builders disappeared
we can form a more accurate and reliable conception. A large
number of the monuments left behind by them are of a defensive
nature ; in some localities, as in the valley of the Cuyahoga, near
Cleveland, every headland which overlooks the river is crowned
with a fort or citadel ; and it is evident that those who occupied
this and many other areas of the Mississippi Valley were engaged
in a constant struggle with persistent, harassing enemies.

Following the migrations of the various tribes of the modern
Indians (as we are able to do chiefly by the clew of language) we
learn that they have come from the North, and have for hundreds
of years been pushing by devious and interlacing routes south-
ward to occupy the territory once possessed by sedentary, peace-
ful, and agricultural peoples — the mound-builders in the East and
the stone-house builders in the West.

Limitation of time forbids the citation of the proof of this
northern invasion, but it is sufficient to convince those who have
most carefully studied the subject. We may therefore accept the
conclusion that in America, as in Europe, hordes of northern
barbarians (multiplied by the fecundity of a cool and healthful
climate, and inspired by the force and restlessness acquired in
their strife with Nature's obstacles) invaded southern lands whose
more fertile soil and genial but enervating climate developed the
arts of peace at the expense of those of war.

The commoner belief has been that the ultimate fate of the
mound-builders was entire extinction ; but there is good reason to
believe that in the Natchez and Mandans, and perhaps some other
tribes still existing, but in small numbers, at the advent of the
whites, we have their lineal descendants. The grounds of this
conclusion can not be fully set forth here, but it may be said that
the tribes referred to in many respects contrast strongly with
the more numerous and characteristic inhabitants of the country ;
and also that their customs and arts, their implements and struct-
ures, bear a close resemblance to those of the former occupants
of the Mississippi Valley.

As to the time which has elapsed since the mines and struct-
ures of the mound-builders were abandoned we have only nega-
tive evidence. The heaps of debris about the Lake Superior cop-
per mines, the filled-up oil wells, and the earthworks of Ohio,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, were found by the incoming whites
covered with dense forests in which the trees had attained their
maximum size. Beneath this present generation of trees, and
overgrown by their roots, were lying the prostrate and decaying
trunks of a preceding generation. We thus have evidence that

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 195

at least a thousand years had elapsed since the country was
abandoned by its former inhabitants, and their fields and villages
were overgrown by the forest. Beyond this point all dates are
left to conjecture.

One interesting feature in the Western mounds is that many
of them, especially in the prairie regions of the Northwest, are
made to imitate, on a gigantic scale, the forms of men, quadru-
peds, and birds, and among the animals thus represented is what
seems to be the elephant or mastodon. Small figures of an ele-
phantine animal also appear in the archaeological collections of
the Northwest, and are claimed to be authentic. These relics go
far to prove the acquaintance of the mound-builders with either
the mastodon or mammoth, and may be accepted as presumptive
evidence of the synchronism of man here, as in Europe, with
one or both of these great pachyderms — and hence of his great
antiquity.

The Palace-builders. — The remains of an ancient civiliza-
tion, scattered over the west coast of South America, the Isthmus,
and Mexico, are so varied and interesting that they form a theme
to which nothing like justice can be done in the few minutes at
my disposal. Detailed descriptions of these great monuments
are, however, the less necessary, since many volumes have been
devoted to their exposition. Those who have access to Squier's
Peru, Stephens's and Catherwood's, Norman's and Waldeck's
books on Central America, or Lord Kingsborough's great work
on Mexican Antiquities, will find there, and in the documents cited
by their authors, a literature scarcely less rich and interesting
than that formed by the records of the Egyptians or Assyrians.

Of this vast field I can give you but the merest sketch, but, as
part of it lies within our own territory, and as in its exploration
I have taken part, I can perhaps add some facts additional to
those you have learned, and such as will compensate for the time
they may occupy. To summarize, as briefly as possible, the
knowledge we have of this subject, I may say that from the
frontier of Chili to Salt Lake, there exists an almost uninter-
rupted series of monuments of a civilization which, though locally
peculiar, was generically the same, and unquestionably the prod-
uct of divergent streams flowing from a single source. The
typical and characteristic remains of this civilization consist of
great works of masonry and engineering (fortifications, temples,
palaces, communal houses), which in their magnitude and per-
fection of workmanship rival the masterpieces of ancient archi-
tecture. Bridges, aqueducts, and thousands of miles of paved
and graded roads attest the engineering skill of the people by
whom they were constructed.

Honduras, Yucatan, and Colombia would seem to have been the

196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

center of this civilization. It is true that the monuments of Peru
are equally extensive and imposing as those already discovered
in Central America, but they are far better known ; and we have
reason to believe that, buried in the almost impenetrable forests
of Honduras and the Isthmus, there still remain more extensive
and interesting ruins than any yet brought to light. There is
little doubt that here we have the richest field for future explora-
tions, and a source from which we may hope for more light upon
the history of the peoples whose works we are considering.

In regard to these peoples, however, there is no such mystery
as clings about the mound-builders. Though stripped of much
of its former power and glory, the civilization of the Incas and
the Aztecs was still in active life at the time of the invasions of
Cortes and Pizarro; though, under the hand of the oppressor,
the native population, with all its complicated systems of laws,
religion, customs, and literature, was rapidly destroyed or degraded
beyond recognition. As we know, the chronicles of the old Span-
ish historians are somewhat highly colored, and the wealth, mag-
nitude, and splendor of the cities they conquered were magnified
by the Spaniards to enhance the glory of their exploits. There
can be no doubt, however, that in both North and South America
there were found civilized and wealthy nations, far advanced in
all the arts then known in Europe, except the working of iron,
and with a perfection of political, social, and religious organiza-
tion that can not fail to excite our wonder and admiration.

As proof of the reality of the advancement in the arts and the
solid achievements of the Peruvians, Mr. Squier tells me that the
great Incarial road, which reaches from Quito to Chili, is a work
of far greater magnitude than our Union Pacific Railroad ; that
some of the public buildings of the Peruvians were constructed
of masonry that in its perfection is not surpassed by the finest
monuments of ancient or modern architecture ; also, that a single
fortress guarding one of the passes through which the wild
hordes of the upper Amazon sometimes entered Peru, was a
mightier mass of masonry than would be formed by heaping to-
gether all the forts upon our coasts from Maine to Mexico.

As an evidence of the wealth of the country, it is reported that
the gold and silver vessels brought for the ransom of Atahualpa,
and which, as we read, filled his prison as high as he could reach,
had a value of something like twenty-five hundred thousand dol-
lars ; and it is said further that the gold plates and ornaments
stripped from the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco were worth not
less than one million dollars.

The essential unity of the civilization which covered all the
country containing the monuments referred to is attested by the
resemblances in religion — for all was sun-worship — in language,

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 197

in customs, in style of building, and especially by a peculiar skill
in the construction of works of masonry, in the manufacture of
pottery, and in ornamental decoration. That there were marked
local differences, and that this civilization was shared by inde-
pendent nationalities, is certain; but it is no less true that it
sprang from a common source, and was harmonized by constant
intercourse through hundreds and it may be thousands of years.

Since a large population was found inhabiting the cities and
embodying this civilization at the time of the conquest, it would
seem that everything important could be easily learned about
this peculiar phase of human development. But it should be
remembered that the propagation of the Christian faith was a
motive only less strong than the thirst for gold in the Spanish
invaders, and a bigotry ferociously intolerant of all heresy made
it a cardinal virtue to destroy every representative of pagan
creeds and rites.

Hence from religious as well as political causes the conquest
was followed by a destruction which soon swept away nearly all
traces of the literature, customs, and government of the con-
quered people, and did all that was possible to bury their history
in oblivion. Fortunately, among the numerous monks who at-
tended the invading armies were a few possessed of scholarly
tastes, who described what they saw, and, perhaps surrepti-
tiously, translated some of the ancient hieroglyphic records, and
preserved vocabularies of some of the dialects then in use. These
have furnished a clew to the interpretation of some at least of the
abundant inscriptions in Central America, and we can not doubt
that by the earnest following of this clew, and the patient appli-
cation of the methods which have revealed the secrets of the
Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Assyrian cuneiform characters,
we shall obtain from the Central American records much light
upon the history of the civilization we are considering.

In Mexico and Peru few inscriptions are preserved, and yet
we know that the art of writing on paper, or its equivalent, was
practiced in both countries.

Unfortunately, it was not the habit of these peoples, any more
than it is with us, to make enduring records on stone, and the
loss of the ephemeral manuscripts which existed at the time of
the conquest is an irreparable one. There is little doubt, how-
ever, that when the inscriptions of Palenque, Uxmal, Copan,
Chichenitza, etc., shall be translated, the mystery which has so
long hung over the origin and progress of all this phase of intel-
lectual culture will be dissipated.

Those who believe — as some do — that the Peruvian civilization
is distinct from and totally independent of that of Central Amer-
ica and Mexico, will not share the hopes I entertain from the

198 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

translation of the abundant records of Yucatan. But no one can
compare the pyramidal structures of central Mexico, Tehuante-
pec, and Huanaco, or the style of architectural ornamentation of
Mitla, Uxmal, and Granchimu, without feeling that they are the
work of a people who were generically the same. The striking
and peculiar images in gold, silver, and alloy, as well as the pot-
tery of Peru, of Bogota, and Chiriqui, afford confirmatory evi-
dence of this unity.

The intercourse between these neighboring and cognate nations
was undoubtedly for the most part by sea. Columbus met traders
from cities of Central America at Ruatan, where they came in a
vessel of considerable size, carrying sail and manned by twenty
sailors ; and Pizarro, on his way to Peru, when near the equator,
encountered a vessel of the Peruvians, which he says " was like a
European caravel," and was loaded with merchandise, vases, mir-
rors of burnished silver, and curious fabrics of cotton and wool,
the latter undoubtedly made from the wool of the llama. With
such vessels it would be easy to pass from the Mexican to the
Central American and thence to the South American ports ; and
we have incidental evidence that this was done. Louis Hoffman,
a German mining engineer, who was one of the scientific corps
attached to the staff of Maximilian, and who on professional duty
visited all the mining districts of Mexico, tells me that on the
Pacific coast, directly south from the city of Mexico, in a region
abounding in ruins yet unstudied, at the mouth of a river, is what
was once a large seaport town. From this point the passage
would be direct and easy to Tehuantepec, Panama, and thence
southward.

The question of the origin of the Mexican and Peruvian civili-
zation has been much discussed, and various views have been
advanced in regard to it : by some, that it was the fruit of seed
borne across the Atlantic by the Phoenician traders, and was
therefore of European origin ; by others, that it was a remnant of
the civilization that pervaded the fabulous country of Atlantis,
which once stretched from Central America far over toward the
Old World, from which it was separated by a strait that was
easily passed in the original dissemination of the human race.

It must be said, however, that with the exception of some feat-
ures which are common to all phases of human culture, and are
the spontaneous outgrowth of qualities which are inherent in all
peoples — or are the records of creeds or customs which prevailed
in the cradle of the human race, wherever that be — there is noth-
ing whatever to indicate a borrowing from Egypt or Tyre or any
European nation. On the contrary, there are an originality and
independence in all the forms in which this civilization was em-
bodied that prove that it was either indigenous and grew from

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS OF AMERICA. 199

small beginnings in the country where it subsequently attained
its full development, or was imported in its embryonic state from
the Oriental Archipelago. There are some things which indicate
that its germs were derived from the latter source. On Ascension
and Easter Islands there are large structures of stone with huge
columnar engraved monuments. Remains of similar character
are reported from the Sandwich, Kingsmill, the Ladrones, Navi-
gator's, and other islands of the Pacific ; and it is evident that, in
times so ancient that all memory of them is lost, a people inhab-
ited these islands who had many of the arts of civilization, and
who were essentially and characteristically workers in stone. The
similarity of the works on these different islands indicates their
progressive occupation by a people who were compelled, in pass-
ing from one to another of their stopping-places, to traverse as
great a breadth of ocean as separates some of these from the
American continent ; and it is not improbable that the final rest-
ing-place of this people was upon the western coast of the great
double continent, of which the continuous Cordilleras, like a great
wall, arrested their eastward migration. Here they spread from
their center of radiation to Chili on the south and to Utah on the
north, elaborating in the course of time a civilization that was
locally colored by the varying conditions of existence, but retain-
ing enough of its original character to show that it was all an
outgrowth from a common root.

If this was the history of our Mexican and Peruvian civiliza-
tion, its original founders must have belonged to the same general
stock with those who built the architectural monuments of India,
and erected in the island of Java those wonderful temples now
buried in the forests, and in ruins.

Still, the time of separation must have been so remote, and the
culture of the period so low, that each form of civilization grew
up independently of the others, and they now show little relation-
ship.

It is the opinion of geologists that a great continent once occu-
pied portions of the present areas of the Indian and Pacific
Oceans — a continent to which they have given the name Lemuria
— and it is speculated that this was the cradle of the human race.

Be that as it may, from this section of the earth the brown
Polynesians, Malays, Tahitans, Sandwich-Islanders, and Maoris
spread, carrying with them characteristics and faculties which
might very well be developed into a civilization such as that
found on this continent by the European whites; and there is
direct and collateral evidence that they sometimes landed on our
shores.

Considering the balancing probabilities, I may say that it
seems to be most probable that the west coast of America was

200 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

colonized from that source, and that the development of great
and cultivated nationalities was the result of ages of quiet resi-
dence in countries which favored by their climate and resources
the special phase of development which we here find recorded.

As to the date of the planting of the first seeds of this civiliza-
tion we can only say that it is lost in the obscurity of the past.
Everything indicates that some of the monuments in the cate-
gory we have reviewed are among the oldest records of the human
race ; and it is certain that the gradual growth and spread of this
civilization, the long noonday of its maturity, and its progressive
decadence — which began long before the advent of the Europeans
— must be measured by thousands of years. Thus it will be seen
that in antiquity this indigenous and peculiar American civiliza-
tion takes rank with that of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hindoos,
and Chinese, and in respect to culture, numerical importance, and
territorial area will bear comparison with either.

-♦♦-♦-

WHAT ARE DIATOMS ?

By EMILY L. GKEGOEY,

OF BARNARD COLLEGE.

SINCE the microscope has become so familiar in our homes and
ordinary places of resort, many terms are frequently heard
which have an unfamiliar sound. For example, a lady asked the
other day, with a laugh over the open confession of ignorance :
" What are diatoms ? I hear the word used very frequently, and
with such an air of acquaintanceship and familiarity, that one
must suppose they are the most common, every-day affairs, and
yet I must confess I have never seen one and don't know really
what they are."

Thinking possibly there might be others interested in a brief
description of this curious plant, the following story is told of a
visit paid this summer to a gentleman said to know all about
diatoms. The plants in question are so small as to be seen only
with the aid of the microscope ; those of ordinary size, when mag-
nified about three hundred and fifty diameters, appear about a
quarter of an inch long. Others are much larger. They are curi-
ous little plants with a silica shell, which, in certain places, is pro-
vided with little apertures through which living parts of the
plant protrude. In this way they are enabled to move about
freely in the water by which they are generally surrounded, for,
though they are not all strictly water plants, they all need consid-
erable water to enable them to thrive, and so are always found in
wet places.

WHAT ARE DIATOMS?

201

Owing to their freedom of motion they were at one time sup-
posed to be animals. Now it is known that they are plants, as
they can perform all the functions of plants, and no animal', with
all his superiority, high nature, etc., is able to do this. They are
found everywhere in all inhabited countries, and in fact all over
the seas, so it may be readily granted that a plant so common and
wide-spread as this should be quite familiar to every one.

Again, not only are the living plants so wide-spread and com-
mon, but the shells of the dead ones remain intact for many years ;
and in certain localities these tiny shells are so numerous as to
form a large portion of the soil. Some of the best
known of these localities are the sites of Rich-
mond, Va., and Berlin in Germany. It is often said
that the city of Berlin rests on a foundation of

Fig. 1.— Pleurosigma Fig. 2.— Pinnularia

FoRMOSUM. MAJOR.

Fig. 3. — Stauroneis
Phcenicenteron.

Fig. 4. — Navicula

DlDYMA.

diatom shells. The little plant dies and decays, leaving the shell,
which retains its shape for many years. These cells are most
beautifully marked with very delicate tracery. No tools can be
made to perform such work as this. Some shells with the most
regular forms of markings are used for testing lenses, such as
Pleurosigma, shown in Fig. 1. Some of the most common forms
are represented by Figs. 2, 3, and 4, while another less frequent
and with more curious markings is shown in Fig. 5.

Now, though it is so easy to obtain large numbers of these
plants— only a spoonful of mud from the bank of a stream or edge
of a pool, a bit of sea-weed thrown up on the shore will contain

202

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

thousands of them and a great many different forms— though it is
quite easy to find them almost everywhere, it is still very difficult
to make out their manner of existence. For example, how they
perform the feat of locomotion is not well understood. There are
two ways of explaining this : one is, that the diatom moves from
place to place, owing to the osmotic changes constantly taking
place inside the shell ; the other and perhaps better authenticated
opinion is connected with the peculiarity already referred to — that
is, the presence of little apertures in the wall through which por-
tions of the protoplasmic contents protrude. Those who believe

in the osmotic theory claim

Y

iw

//

-.TrMA?.

m>

0Q

^H

••

Fig. 5. — Stictodiscus Californicus.

that no such apertures exist,
and consequently no proto-
plasm finds its way to the
outside of the shell. In
connection with this point
comes the story of the visit.
While working in the
Botanical Laboratory of
Berlin this past summer,
the writer was invited to
visit a gentleman having
the reputation of knowing
more about diatoms than
any other person now liv-
ing. It is rather a strange fact that this gentleman is not a
learned professor who has spent a long life over scientific prob-
lems, but a retired book-seller who owns a beautiful villa in the
suburbs of Berlin, and has for many years been gathering in-
formation of various kinds about this wonderful little plant. He
has nearly all the literature treating this subject, several large
volumes of which are now out of print, and for which he told me
he had been obliged to pay exorbitant prices.

Before proceeding to the inspection of the laboratories, speci-
mens, models, etc., coffee and cakes were served in the garden, a
distinctively German hospitality which no scientific interests are
allowed to interfere with. We then began in the preparing labo-
ratory, a small but very completely fitted room, where the mate-
rial for investigation is stored, treated, and classified for use.
Here are the chemicals used in preparing the plant for examina-
tion. Some processes serve to preserve the form and general
structure of the living part within the shell, so that this may be
studied ; other reagents, on the contrary, destroy the living por-
tion, whereby the shell may be more easily examined. In this
laboratory was a microscope of somewhat older style than our re-
cent ones, but a very good, reliable instrument, which he told me

WHAT ARE DIATOMS?

203

he used in the coarser manipulations, but, owing to the presence
of chemicals in this room, none of his finer instruments were kept
here. He explained his methods of treatment in clearing the soil
and dirt from the land specimens, and also showed me the little
silk nets which he uses when fishing for the water forms. Certain
kinds grow only on the surface of the sea ; so, to collect these, it is
necessary to go out in a small boat and row very slowly, for the
cloth of which the net is made must be very fine in order to pre-
vent the escape of the tiny plants through its meshes. Owing to
this extreme closeness of the meshes, the water drains through
very slowly. The form of the net is quite like those used to catch
butterflies, but is held with the handle up and close to the boat.
At very short intervals of time it must be taken up and the water
poured out; the inside of the cloth is then carefully rinsed in
clear water, which is kept in a jar or bottle for that purpose. The
most difficult part of the process is to row slowly and steadily
enough to prevent tearing the nets.

These diatoms found on the surface of the water are fur-
nished with long arms or projections, from which protrude hair-
like bodies, which apparatus he conjectures is for the following
purpose: One means of deciding that this little organism is a
plant, is that it performs the function of assimilation, as it is
called, by which it gives out
oxygen. Now, this gentleman
thinks the little hair-like out-
growths are for the purpose of
holding the oxygen in their
meshes so as to enable the plant
to float.

After looking through this
room and learning as much as
possible about his methods of
treatment, we went into an-
other much larger and more
elegantly furnished apartment,
where all the nice and delicate
work of studying forms and
making models was done. Here
were kept the books, all that

have been written on this plant, and they filled a case of consid-
erable size ; also a very complete collection of microscopical ap-
paratus. All that modern artisans can do in the way of fine and
delicate instruments may be found here. Nothing less than the
best oil-immersion lenses can be used in the study of form neces-
sary to understand the inner structure of these plants. Several
models have been made by this gentleman, and he told me of the

Fig. 6. — Living Diatoms : a, Cocconenia lanceo-
latum ; b, Bacillaria paradoxa ; c, Gompko-
nema mariuum ; d, Diatoma hyalina.

204

THE POPULAR SCLEXCE MONTHLY.

Fig.

-Eohinella Flabellata, a fan-like
marine diatom.

hours of patient labor which it cost to bring out so much, as one
little turn of the inner canal whose windings hold the living and
active part of the plant, and also the explanation of the manner
in which it moves. He has studied the mechanism of several
forms and made models of plaster of Paris, and others of wire.

Pinnularia major (see Fig. 2) is
the plant from which the most
conclusive results were obtained,
and he claims to have demon-
strated the existence of aper-
tures on the surface of the shell
through which the protoplasm
may protrude. He does not, how-
ever, claim to have actually seen
the protoplasm on the outside of
the shell, but holds that, accord-
ing to other known facts, it must
be forced out, though in very small quantities. These apertures
do not open directly into the interior, but by a series of winding
canals whose action prevents the too easy expulsion of the con-
tents. The movement of this protoplasm along the lines between
the openings causes the movement of the diatom in a similar
manner to the action of the fins of fishes. All this labor, after
all, has reference only to a certain class of these plants ; there are
many others of such different forms that much study will yet
have to be expended on them before their secrets are laid bare.

There are some curious little forms which grow in clusters on
stem-like bodies which are often fastened by their other extremi-
ties to some object in the water. Some of these are shown in
Figs. 6 and 7 ; and, finally, a variety of miscellaneous forms may
be seen in Fig. 8.

There are large collections of these plants in nearly all the
large herbaria of Europe, and the manner of preparing them for
such collections may almost be said to form a special branch of
industry. Experts are able to mount and arrange in order hun-
dreds of these little organisms under a circular cover-glass of
about five eighths of an inch in diameter. The dexterity which
these experts acquire in the use of instruments is something
almost as marvelous as the organisms themselves. It must be
remembered, however, that this mechanical labor has nothing to
do with the work of the scientist who studies the plant. It would
be impossible for an investigator to give enough time to enable
him to acquire this skill. A gentleman in Wedel, Holstein, has
acquired a great reputation in this kind of work, and has plates
holding from four to sixteen hundred different forms. These cost
from twenty dollars upward, and he has recently finished a plate

WHAT ARE DIATOMS?

205

on which are mounted four thousand diatoms, with which there
is a printed catalogue. This single plate is the result of four
years of continued labor, and the price he fixes for it is twenty
thousand marks, or about five thousand dollars. I inquired if
there was any probability of the owner selling such an expensive
collection, and he said very quickly : " Oh, yes ! Some rich Eng-
lish or American gentleman will probably purchase it ; no Ger-
man ever will." According to some of the latest systematic

Fig. 8. — Microscopic View of Richmond Infusorial Earth. (By Ehrenberg.j

authorities, there are about eight thousand different species — so
this plate may be considered as representing half of the known
species.

It may be doubtful whether this story will help relieve the
embarrassment of those who do not exactly understand what a
diatom is. It serves to show, however, that very few people do
know all about it ; and this, together with the thought that it is
considered of sufficient importance to warrant spending years of
patient labor over it, will surely prove a consolation to those who
have been puzzling over the meaning of the word.

206 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO SOCIOLOGY.

By Dr. LEWIS G. JANES.

IN the preface to his recently published volume on Justice,
Mr. Herbert Spencer newly emphasizes his conviction of the
importance of the bearing of biological laws upon the study of
sociological phenomena. Comparing the method of his present
w< >rk with that of Social Statics, which covered a similar field
of discussion, he asserts that "whereas, a biological origin for
ethics was, in Social Statics, only indicated, such origin has now
been definitely set forth ; and the elaboration of its consequences
has become a cardinal trait." The influence of this conviction is
everywhere observable throughout the work.

It is not the purpose of the present writer, however, to discuss
the applications which Mr. Spencer has made of this principle,
except incidentally ; but rather to reaffirm its importance, and
to call attention to certain inferential dangers which spring from
an unqualified acceptance of the conception that there is an en-
tire identity of principle between the laws of social and organic
growth.

While it is my firm conviction that Mr. Spencer has in no
way exaggerated the importance of recognizing the bearing of
biological principles in the study of societary evolution, it* is
equally important to guard at the outset against a fundamental
though common misapplication of the analogy which would lead
to results entirely divergent from the actual trend of social prog-
ress, as bearing upon the true scientific relations of the individual
to the state.

On the one hand, it is undoubtedly true that nearly all our
writers upon sociological, ethical, and economic topics are insuffi-
ciently grounded in a knowledge of the scientific method as re-
vealed and illustrated in the physical and biological sciences.
Their arguments rest largely upon an a priori and metaphysical
basis of reasoning. They treat man as a being dissevered from
the world. They fail to recognize the fact, demonstrated by the
triumph of the doctrine of evolution, that man is one with the
universe ; that he can not be studied apart from his connection
with the laws and principles which govern the physical world
and the vital activities of the lower organisms. It may not be
necessary for the sociologist, moralist, or political economist to
be a complete master of physics and biology in all their branches
— life is too short for such a preparation ; but he should at least
be sufficiently acquainted with these sciences to be thoroughly
conversant with the scientific method of investigation, the tone
and temper of mind requisite in the investigator, and have a

RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO SOCIOLOGY. zc7

general understanding of the laws and processes of biological
growth as they are related to and distinguished from those exem-
plified in the evolution of inorganic structures.

On the other hand, theorists of the socialistic school have
eagerly seized upon the assertion made by evolutionary writers
that " society is an organism," and, by exaggerating the analogies
between social and biological processes, have thence logically
deduced their own doctrine of the supremacy of the state over
the individual, claiming for it scientific and evolutionary sanc-
tion. Though Mr. Spencer has carefully guarded himself against
this misapprehension, and his own philosophy of society is dia-
metrically opposed to that of socialism, it is often claimed by
writers of this school, and even by those who are of quite another
way of thinking,* that it is only by a breach of logical sequence
that he escapes socialistic conclusions.

Mr. Spencer, however, early noted the important fact that so-
ciety differs from the higher products of biological evolution in
that no social sensorium is discoverable; and in Justice he re-
affirms and emphasizes this distinction in discussing the nature
of the state. " The end to be achieved by society in its corporate
capacity — that is, by the state," he declares, " is the welfare of its
units ; for the society having as an aggregate no sentiency, its
preservation is a desideratum only as subserving individual sen-
tiencies." He subsequently repeats this statement with renewed
emphasis, evidently regarding it as of great importance.

In organic structures the unit or cell exists for the sake of the
completed organism ; its individual sentiency, if it possesses such
a psychic quality, is subordinate to the sentiency of the organic
whole. In society, however, the fact is the reverse : the social
organism exists for the sake of the individual, or social unit.
This relation of the individual to the social structure is one un-
questionably which should be borne in mind and given its due
weight in the application of biological analogies to the solution
of the problems of society. Mr. Spencer's recognition of it com-
pletely absolves him from the logic of socialistic conclusions.

The ' resemblances between social and organic structures, how-
ever, are more notable and important than their differences, and
are recognized not only by philosophical students of society, on
the one hand, but also by eminent biologists on the other. Prof.
Haeckel, speaking of the structure of animal tissues, says : " All
the numerous tissues of the animal body, such as the entirely dis-
similar tissues of the nerves, muscles, bones, outer skin, mucous
skin, and other similar parts, are originally composed of cells ;
and the same is true of the various tissues of the vegetable body.

* Cf. Mr. George Gunton, in The Principles of Social Economics, pp. 298-810.

zo8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

These cells . . . are independent living beings, the citizens of the
state, which constitutes the entire multicellular organism." *

Again, he declares: "Every cell is an independent organism.
... It performs all the essential functions which the entire or-
ganism accomplishes. Every one of these little beings grows and
feeds itself independently. It assimilates juices from without,
absorbing them from the surrounding fluid ; the naked cells can
even take up solid particles at any point of their surface, and
therefore eat without using any mouth or stomach. Each sepa-
rate cell is also able to reproduce itself and increase. The single
cell is also able to move and creep about, if it has room for mo-
tion, and is not prevented by a solid covering; from its outer
surface it sends forth and draws back again finger-like processes,
thereby modifying its form. Finally, the young cell has feeling,
and is more or less sensitive." f

Elsewhere, even more pointedly, he affirms, " The many-celled
organism is ordered and constituted on the same principles as the
civilized state, in which the several citizens have devoted them-
selves to various services directed toward common ends." J

Both biology and sociology treat of the phenomena of life;
both involve psychological as well as merely physical conditions.
In the natural order of the sciences the one leads up to the other
by an inevitable sequence. There is a similarity in the processes
of growth between biological and sociological structures which is
noteworthy and most suggestive. Inorganic substances grow by
simple accretion, or addition to their bulk. Their growth is in-
voluntary, and is chiefly determined by the operation of external
forces and conditions. Organic substances, on the contrary, grow
by intussusception — a process of waste and repair initiated and
carried on in the individual cells or structural units throughout
the internal constitution of the organism ; and their growth is
mainly stimulated by internal, volitional effort. In this respect,
as I have elsewhere argued, " the growth of societies resembles
that of organic substances ; it is a sort of vital chemistry." * The
individual in his relation to society resembles the cell in its rela-
tion to the vegetal or animal organism. The death of individ-
uals, and the birth and growth of others to fill their places in
society, proceed in like manner with the processes of waste and
repair in organic structures.

In the biological structure, however, the attractive forces
which bind atoms into cells and cells into an organic unity are
molecular and physical. In the sociological structure they are
functional and psychical. And herein, I think, lies the explana-

* Evolution of Man, vol. i, p. 60. f Ibid., p. 131. % Ibid., pp. 149, 150.

* The Scope and Principles of the Evolution Philosophy, p. 22.

RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO SOCIOLOGY. 209

tion of that difference between these structures to which Mr.
Spencer, Mr. Fiske, and others have called attention.*

As to the essential nature of those purely physical forces which
we call attractive — e. g., gravitation, cohesion, and chemical affin-
ity— we really know nothing. We know these forces only through
their observed effects ; and their " laws " which we deduce from
repeated observations of these effects are merely our subjective
classifications of orderly recurrent phenomena and their recog-
nized conditions. In regard to sociological phenomena, however,
we have an additional source of information. We can study the
attractive forces which bind society together, not only in the
secondary relation of their observed effects, but also in their pri-
mary relation, as movements of our own thought. Affection and
self-interest are thus seen to be the attractive forces which bind
society together, and these forces are consciously directed and
made steadily operative solely by individual volition. Therefore
it is that in its psychical aspect — the aspect directly involved in
all measures of social advancement — society is subordinated to
the individual, the structure to the unit, instead of the reverse, as
in the evolution of animal and vegetal organisms.

All actual and permanent expansion and integration of society
proceeds from the voluntary, co-operative action of individuals.
The social reformer, therefore, who would work in harmony with
the tendencies and laws of Nature must direct his efforts toward
convincing the judgments and influencing the motives and moral
natures of individual men and women, rather than toward forci-
bly changing the customs of society by legal enactments, official
pronunciamentos, or majority votes under the white heat of an
emotional political campaign. All of these popular and custom-
ary agencies of political action are doubtless of some service as
educational influences, inciting thought among large classes of
people who would otherwise remain passive puppets or unreflect-
ing adherents of conventional social customs ; but as means of
finally solving and disposing of social and political problems they
are lamentable failures.

It is strange that our socialistic reformers, who advocate the
cure of societary ills by legislation and the paternal control of
the Government over the affairs of the individual, do not see that
men and women must first be personally convinced of the utility
of such public arrangements as they advocate, with substantial
unanimity, before legislation in their behalf could possibly be
effective. And when the practical unity of sentiment has been
wrought out in the community which would insure the enforce-

* The Doctrine of Evolution : its Scope and Influence. Popular Science Monthly, Sep-
tember, 1891, p. 592. Notably, also, Mr. George Gunton, in his Principles of Social Eco-
nomics.

vol. xli. — 17

2io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ment of the law, the law is usually no longer necessary. In other
words, voluntary consent is the essential condition of all stable
social arrangements, instead of governmental coercion.

It may be objected that the social philosopher is compelled to
recognize that, under the law of relativity, arbitrary and pater-
nal forms of government have had and still have their proper
place in the order of societary evolution. They are adapted to
certain phases of culture and civilization, wherein order could
not be maintained under freer and more democratic governmental
institutions. This is true ; but such forms of government are
always temporary and unstable, where the conditions of social
progress are steadily operative. As populations attain to a higher
degree of intelligence and culture, a larger freedom is demanded ;
and no arbitrary government can long resist this popular demand.
The result of such resistance, when it is attempted, if not revolu-
tion, is stagnation, atrophy, and arrested development.

This principle of voluntary consent is well illustrated in the
earliest and most primitive type of societary development — the
family. The family is based upon the marriage relation; and
while, in the savage and barbarous stages of human evolution, we
have marriage by capture and the exercise of various modes of
coercion sanctioned by custom and authority, it is universally
admitted in all highly civilized communities that true marriage
rests upon the uncoerced consent of both contracting parties. As
this consent is less a matter of mere formality and becomes more
perfect and complete, involving the recognition of attractions
not only emotional and physical, but also intellectual, moral, and
spiritual, so is the union more permanent and satisfying.

The principle herein laid down holds good in every stage of
social combination, however complex and widely extended it may
be. It is a sound political philosophy which is enunciated in
that paragraph of our Declaration of Independence which affirms
that all just powers of government rest upon the consent of the
governed. This is as true of the older autocratic and monarchi-
cal systems as it is of our own democratic - republican form
of government. An autocracy which finds no response in the
hearts of the people, but is maintained solely by the iron rule of
external compulsion, is a tyranny, unstable in its foundations,
unadapted to its societary environment, and destined to early
destruction, either by peaceful evolutionary measures or by force-
ful revolution. In such a state, nihilism and anarchism are
natural products of the existing social conditions. The pent-up
forces of an artificially restrained individualism must somehow
find vent, even if it be by means of revolutionary violence. Rus-
sia to-day offers an instructive example of the truth of this prin-
ciple.

RELATION OF BIOLOGY TO SOCIOLOGY. 211

The object of the social reformer should be, not only to accom-
plish the renovation of society, but to do it in the quickest pos-
sible time in which it can be so accomplished that the changes
effected shall be permanent, and the trend of social evolution
shall surely be directed toward the ideal end of individual en-
lightenment and liberation and social integration. These ends
can be surely accomplished by the method of evolution ; they are
as surely retarded and indefinitely postponed by the methods of
anarchical violence and artificial compulsion. The individualism
fostered and aimed at by the evolutionary method should be
sharply distinguished from that destructive anarchism which aims
at the sudden and forceful abolishment of existing institutions.

Here, too, biology offers us a wise suggestion. Galton's law
of " reversion toward mediocrity " shows that those biological
changes which are suddenly effected by artificial selection and
forcible deviation from the main trend of natural evolutionary
tendency are not permanent. They endure only so long as the
organisms are kept under the direct and active influence of the
artificial conditions which produced them. The moment they are
left to the unrestrained operation of purely natural forces, they
speedily revert to their original status. This must be the case in
sociological evolution also, whenever social and institutional con-
ditions are artificially forced, in advance of the intellectual cult-
ure and functional development of the masses of the people.

The history of our own time is full of instructive examples
illustrative of this sociological law : of innumerable co-operative
experiments, ideal communities, and the like, that have arisen,
obedient to philanthropic impulse, enjoyed a brief, precarious
existence, and died for want of sustenance ; of artificial commer-
cial situations, the product of legislative interference with the
natural laws of trade, which induce at first a feverish appearance
of prosperity, followed by great fluctuations in values, and finally
by panic and financial collapse. As artificial conditions thus
established are always liable to be suddenly modified or annulled
by variations in popular sentiment, the progress of discovery
and invention, changes in governmental administration and ad-
ministrative policy, the influx of foreign elements into the popu-
lation of a given locality, and a thousand and one other causes,
temporarily or permanently operating, it should manifestly be
the purpose of the wise social reformer to build along the great
lines of natural evolutionary tendency, and thus to make use of
those elemental forces, social, moral, and biological, which will
insure stability and permanent prosperity for the results of his
efforts.

He will thus aim to encourage voluntary co-operation instead
of an enforced regulation of society by means of legislative en-

212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

actments. The success of this aim will, of course, depend upon
the intelligence and moral development of the citizens of a given
community. The liberation of the individual — his increasing
ability to secure the satisfactions consequent upon the free and
orderly use of all his faculties — will proceed pari passu with his
increasing dependence on the co-operative labors of his fellows.
The processes of social differentiation go on hand in hand with
the tendencies to social integration. As occupations become more
diversified, the individual acquires greater skill in his special
vocation ; he produces a greater amount of wealth, and thus con-
duces more to the well-being of society, as well as, under a prop-
erly regulated system of labor, to his own personal well-being.
Fewer hours of labor are requisite to insure a livelihood, as labor
becomes differentiated and automatic; more time may be be-
stowed upon general culture, social intercourse, and the service of
the commonwealth — upon the development, in short, of that full-
ness of life which constitutes the ideal of a perfect manhood.

In wisely serving himself, the individual is thus rendering a
greater service to society ; and this, in turn, inures to his own
roundabout development. Egoism is thus purged of its excesses,
and made to promote the general well-being. This, in turn, con-
duces to the highest individual prosperity and culture. In the
proper equilibration of egoistic and altruistic motives in the gov-
ernment of conduct, all conflict between these motives ceases. In
wisely serving his neighbor man renders the truest service to
himself, and vice versa. Thus society integrates by a natural
process of growth, obedient to laws which are operative in the
evolution of all living things ; and its ultimate form constitutes
a real brotherhood of consent, instead of a militant organization
consolidated by external coercion.

+«»

WANTED— A RAILWAY COURT OF LAST RESORT.

By APPLETON MOKGAN.

WHILE the debates in Congress which resulted in the pas-
sage of the act to regulate interstate commerce were in
progress, and during the first few months of the enforcement and
interpretation of that act, I contributed to The Popular Science
Monthly a series of criticisms of that act and of its policy.

To me, and to thousands of others, the policy of the act seemed
un-American and paternal ; or, if not un-American and paternal,
then a policy which could and should be applied to other than the
transportation industry — to places of public amusement, or to
professional pursuits, to the business of the physician or the law-

WANTED— A RAILWAY COURT OF LAST RESORT. 213

yer, or to hundreds of others. I pointed out that, if rigidly en-
forced, the act would amount to a confiscation of private prop-
erty ; since, if the investment of private capital in any business
can be compelled to make charges for services in accordance with
a tariff not framed with any reference to the capital invested or
the value of the service rendered ; or if the value of services can
be estimated by the person served, and paid for only in accordance
with his estimate, and without hearing from the party perform-
ing the service, the value of private property invested in plants
used to render services to others than its owner would speedily
disappear. In other words, the principle upon which the Inter-
state Commerce Act appeared to me to proceed was one which, if
pronounced proper, would justify — and if rigidly enforced might
even result in — the operation of all railways by the Government.
But, however that policy might work in European countries, it
seemed to me impossible of other than despotic and ruinous appli-
cation in the United States with its five hundred railways, their
vast united capital and their enormous aggregate of fixed in-
debtedness held in the shape of negotiable securities, and very
largely held in England and upon the European continent. At
least it seemed to me impossible without a peremptory, and so a
paternal, fixing of values at which the Government should acquire
the railway road-beds and plants, not to mention the creation of a
tremendous civil list, which in itself would probably precipitate
the very evils and tyrannies which the socialists and alarmists
foresaw from the private ownership of railways, and the conse-
quent accumulation of occasional private fortunes beyond the
actual appreciation of services of the employments of capital.

The Interstate Commerce Act has now been in operation about
four years. Its enforcement, so far from being rigid, has been
marked by extreme leniency and enlightened judgment upon the
part of the commission appointed to administer it — a judgment
in which the echoes of public clamor or the verdicts of the market-
place have found no recognition ; and the result has been, it seems
to me, an entirely unforeseen situation — one still more favorable
to the railway companies and charitable to their procedure, if
possible, than was the situation prior to the enactment of any In-
terstate Commerce law whatever. Before proceeding to demon-
strate a few of the anomalies of this, from my own standpoint,
entirely satisfactory condition of affairs, it is only fair to the rail-
way companies to state that they, immediately upon the appoint-
ment of the commission, began to enforce the most implicit
obedience to the letter of the Interstate Commerce law, and that
— whatever diplomacy there may have been on their part — it
has never resulted in the administration in a single case of the
penal processes with which the commission was empowered by

2i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the act to, in its judgment, follow up a recalcitrant railway
company.

The inventors of the act of Interstate Commerce designed it to
cheapen freights to the people by compelling railways to sharply
compete, and to relieve the country from what were claimed to be
discriminations, and to adjust local inequalities. They put the
act upon the statute-book. But — by a strange deliverance of affairs
— none of these objects were accomplished. No sooner did the act
become law than it operated to relieve the railways from competi-
tion, increased freights, and shifted, without lifting or adjusting,
what were called " discriminations." But, while powerless to ad-
vance the objects for which its projectors had fondly drafted
and urged it, the act did accomplish one great good — and one not
local, as were the grievances, if any, it was framed to remedy, but
a national and general good, which it is needless to say its framers
and proponents never dreamed of subserving. That national
good was nothing less than the appreciating of American railway
securities in the European exchanges.

I am not exactly certain that the railway companies them-
selves foresaw this result when they yielded so prompt and
unanimous an obedience to the Interstate Commerce Act, but it
is indisputable that this acquiescence and obedience brought
about this happy desideratum. It has not been unsuspected that,
just as the past few years have seen the " Trust " devised by capital
to meet and offset and checkmate the waste and unreasonableness
of the labor-unions, so the railway companies, upon finding the
popular opposition to them crystallizing into a Federal statute,
by a single coup turned the statute itself into an aegis, and made
it (as the old maxim says of the device of a mortgage) a shield as
well as a sword. But, however this may have been, the immediate
result was as I have said. The European investor, who had often
looked askance at American railway securities, because he had
somehow absorbed a notion that our United States railway com-
panies were more or less unregulated by statute, and so more or
less lawless, upon seeing them brought under Federal regulation
(always with his old-time ideas of the paternal and constabulary
benefits of government control), did not hesitate to bestow upon
our railway securities the confidence with which he already re-
garded our Government securities. As I have said, it is an open
question whether the railroad companies themselves foresaw this
result; but it remains another and a very curious cumulative
instance of how (as I have before noted) the Interstate Commerce
Act worked upon the railway companies, much as the prophet
Baalam is related to have worked upon the children of Israel. He
was employed to curse them, but he blessed them superlatively.

But if the policy of Federal regulation of railroads is to be

WANTED— A RAILWAY COURT OF LAST RESORT. 215

permanent, it should be as perfect in operation and as nicely
adjusted as possible ; and to this end there are two details still
desirable. In order that the subjects of the regulation, as well
as its administrators, should be able to know exactly what is
required of them: exactly what to expect, and be forever — the
one as well as the other — confident that no rules and regulations,
penalties or punishments, should be at any time " sprung " upon
them, or be enforced by way of surprise ; or without, as the phrase
goes, that due process of law, " of which " notice " has been held
to be the most essential part " : it is necessary and vital that there
should somewhere be and remain a court of last resort.

Now, the tribunal or office which we know as the " Interstate
Commerce Commission " — with headquarters in Washington — is
not a court of last resort, or, indeed, a court of any sort. It is
nothing, indeed, but a referee or master-in-chancery, whose only
authority is to find and report a fact or a state of facts. (This
has been repeatedly held, not only by the lower courts, but by the
Federal Supreme Court itself.) Moreover, this Interstate Com-
merce Commission has no power to award a judgment; or, if
it does award a judgment, to enforce that judgment by process or
execution. However penal in character its decrees may be, the
summary process must issue elsewhere.

Assuming that the American principle that all government de-
rives its charter from the consent of the governed has been satis-
fied by the obedience rendered to the provisions of the Interstate
Commerce law by the railway companies, it follows that the rail-
way companies are entitled not only to know exactly what is ex-
pected of them, but to know to what tribunals they are amenable
in case of any future disobedience or inadvertence or misunder-
standing as to the provisions or edicts by which they are governed.
And, further, the governed are entitled to a single statute or set of
statutes, and to a single tribunal or succession of tribunals, and
to be relieved from the confusion of conflicting collateral statutes
and collateral tribunals. If they, the governed railway com-
panies, are not entitled to know just exactly what they are to do
and what to leave undone, then they are entitled to the public sym-
pathy rather than to the public surveillance ; and, no matter what
they do or leave undone, can plead such a. conflict of collatera
laws and of decisions and of decrees of courts as will leave it
impossible for them to be guided by anything — in any given case
— but their own sovereign discretion.

Is there at present such a state of affairs as renders the rail-
ways entitled to act upon their own sovereign discretion, equitably
if not legally; and to plead mistake in case of an arraignment
for any consequences or any result of such action ? Remembering
that the law of the land, the common law, was not written for rail-

zi6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

way companies, who are only persons (or at the most common
carriers in the eye of the common law), certainly they are entitled
as persons that statutes passed to regulate them as railway com-
panies should be definite, fixed, single, and certain. It is as abhor-
rent to justice that a corporation, or a railway corporation, as it is
that a natural person, should be compelled by law to act at his
peril. But the situation is exactly this : Anomalous and intoler-
able and abhorrent to justice as it may appear, our United States
railway companies are compelled by law to act at their peril. For
every single one of our forty-four sovereign States, and about all
of the Territories, have copious and dictatory statutes concerning
railways, and these statutes are in every case to be added to — not
held appealable to or reconcilable with, but collaterally additional
to — the Act of Interstate Commerce! And each governed and
regulated railway company must either select some course of pro-
cedure which shall contain some three or four, some larger or
smaller, groups of these State and Federal statutes, or else disobey
one or more groups of them at its peril ; or in almost every possible
case presented to it for its discretion institute suit for a construc-
tion of all these statutes in each particular case, and carry it to
the court of highest resort, the Supreme Court of the United States !
Indeed it is only, as I have said, because the Interstate Commerce
Commission has thus far been composed of gentlemen and jurists
who have used the utmost personal judgment, conservatism, and
leniency in administering the statute, that every railway company
in the land has not been driven to one or the other of these pro-
cedures (and this not once but hundreds or thousands of times*
almost daily, in fact),viz., either to flatly disobey, or else to main-
tain a suit up to the Supreme Court of the United States. But
from the calmness and conservatism of a tribunal as once, at pres-
ent or at any one time constituted, unhappily no warrant for the
future or for any other time can be drawn. A change of personnel,
always possible, might ingraft or enforce a new policy at a mo-
ment's notice, with what results nobody could predicate or prophe-
sy. But one can always state that, in whatever form the result
came, it would amount to an interruption of public business and
of the course of commerce.

Now, there are two remedies for this state of things : one of
which has been urged before, and by a no means inconsiderable or
thoughtless or turbulent or revolutionary element of the popula-
tion ; and the other of which has been certainly suggested, though
not, as I am aware, ever very seriously discussed. The first
remedy is the purchase and operation of the railways by the Gov-
ernment ; and the second is either the abolition of State railway
statutes and of State Boards of Railway Commissioners, or else the
making of the Federal Board of Interstate Commerce an appellate

WANTED— A RAILWAY COURT OF LAST RESORT. 217

court from the court of the State Railway Commissioners, thus
either subordinating or conforming all State railway statutes to
the Federal statute of Interstate Commerce, amending the rail-
way statutes to the statute of Interstate Commerce in as far
and as often as the same may he amended or altered or enlarged
by the Federal Congress.

The first of these remedies — the Government purchase and
operation of railways — I have so fully and at length discussed in
these pages that it would seem superfluous to touch the matter
further, unless the reasons then given to show that the project
was impracticable and impossible (or, if practicable and possible,
then unconstitutional) can be disposed of. I may briefly state
that the principal of those reasons were : first, that the immense
number of competing railways would make the operation of more
than one of them between terminals an act of bankruptcy on the
part of the Government (which would attempt to compete with
itself), while to discontinue a competing road would be to deprive
local stations of business facilities to which they would be en-
titled as well as the terminals ; and, secondly, as above stated,
that to operate the five hundred railways in the United States, or
any considerable number of them, would necessitate a civil serv-
ice so enormous and costly that, even if administered with the
most rigid economy, it would absolutely and superlatively realize
for this people the worst effects which the most hectic of the
popular railway reformers have prophesied from the continu-
ance of the present system. In addition to these practical objec-
tions the constitutional objection was, that the purchase of our
railways would be impossible at present, whatever it might have
once been, since no price at which the railway plants could be
purchased could be arrived at. To purchase them at more than
their value would be a robbery of the non-railway public; to
purchase them at less than their value would be a robbery of the
owners of the railways ; while to purchase them at their exact
value, admitting that it could be reckoned, would be in itself a
confiscation (and so a robbery), as forcing innocent holders to
relinquish such legitimate investments for their capital as they
had lawfully seen fit to select.

As to the second remedy, there is, I think, something — indeed,
a great deal — to be said in its favor, not only from the side of the
railway companies, but from the side of the people of this country
(from the shippers, as we may perhaps call the non-railroad oper-
ating population; of course, an enormous majority of the whole).
And as to this I respectfully offer the following considerations, not
in behalf of the railways, but of the customers of the railways.

Congress has more than once passed a national bankruptcy
act, and, I believe, always with beneficial results. Moreover, I

218 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

think no sooner has a national bankruptcy act expired or been
repealed, and the various State insolvency laws more or less taken
its place, than the public credit has felt the change unfavorably,
and the business interests of the community have clamored for
the re-enactment or rehabilitation of the national statute. Now,
if the Interstate Commerce Act stood alone, both the railway
companies and the people would know exactly what was expected
of each, independently and reciprocally. A codification of the
procedure thereunder would place the whole simply at every-
body's hand. The railway company would have no excuse for
disobedience, and the aggrieved shipper would have not only his
grievance but his remedy at his tongue's end. And not only
would the shipper have a right to prosecute the company for dis-
obedience or inadvertence or neglect or mistake, but the railway
company might proceed against a recalcitrant shipper to com-
pel him to obey the law : and this to the benefit not only of the
railway company, but of his co-shipper or neighbor, to the quiet-
ing of all possible railway " discrimination."

If it is necessary in the present paper to demonstrate that as
the Federal law stands, and as all these State and Territorial laws
stand, neither of the great interests involved, neither the people
nor the railways, can know where they stand, either independently
or reciprocally, the demonstration is easily forthcoming.

To outline it as briefly as possible : At the appearance upon
our statute-books of the act of Interstate Commerce, the art of
railroading, in spite of all and singular the State statutes (some
of them absolutely ridiculous, more of them unconstitutional,
arbitrary, and penal, and almost prohibitive, and almost all of
them inecpiitable to a large degree, as my prior papers have
perhaps demonstrated), was rapidly approaching the state of
an exact science. But, by the appearance of that act, this art or
science of railroading was arrested and thrown back upon itself
in a sort of " chaos by act of Congress." The enormous fixed or
mortgage debts of the American railways — a large, perhaps the
largest part of which was held in Europe (where, to a degree
almost impossible to adequately describe to one not familiar with
these matters, it involved the national credit itself) — had rendered
the pooling system imperative. This pooling system had not
been " sprung " by the railways upon the people, nor was it for
the benefit of higher rates, or in the nature of a combination
against trade, or of a "Trust." On the contrary, it had been
evolved slowly — by long and costly experiments, and by extended
deliberation on the part of the railway companies, and had ex-
pedited an absolute cheapening of freights, and a consequent im-
petus to manufactures, the reclamation of waste lands to agri-
cultural purposes, and so had resulted in an unexampled — and

WANTED— A RAILWAY COURT OF LAST RESORT. 219

promised a still more enlarged — prosperity. Not only was it
found impossible for the moment to equate rates, or to know
what to charge the public for railway service, but among the
railway companies themselves it was impossible to contract or
hold each other to their agreements, covenants, or mutual obliga-
tions. Moreover, every or any insignificant local railway in the
land (of five or ten miles long, or even of less) might and did
solicit and accept freight to any point in the United States,
Canada, or Mexico at arbitrary rates — deliver the freight at the
end of its haul to other, and this to yet other, lines — so finally
forwarding that freight to its destination at a rate absolutely
prohibitive to a trunk line extending directly from the shipping
to the destinative point of that very freight ; and this from mo-
tives, not of competition, but of, say, jealousy, or looking to the
depreciation of securities, and so of ultimate absorption, or con-
trol, or " wrecking " of the trunk line. Into this confusion stepped
the State railway boards, each lending a hand, until for a time it
seemed as if the business of railroading was about the most un-
desirable and unprofitable of employments not only, but a sort of
punishment in itself. In short, it was as a last gasp, or a forlorn
hope, that the railway companies, to save themselves, invented
" pools/' and begged acquiescence in them of the short local lines
— in the hope of being able to earn their operating expenses, and
possibly a prophetic fraction of their fixed charges. Imagine
their consternation at an act of Congress which appeared and
prohibited pooling !

What the railway companies or the national credit would have
done, had it not been for the first important decision of the Inter-
state Commerce Commission (known as the Louisville and Nash-
ville decision), it is impossible to conjecture. That decision,
coming at the right time, declared that, while the text of the act
forbade " pools " or " discriminations," or " the charging more for
a short than a long haul," the spirit of the act was to do the rail-
way companies as well as the shippers justice under the circum-
stances of each case. In short, that circumstances must control.

Under, I say, that benign decision, the railways have been
able to exist and to prosper and pay their fixed charges. The
" Gentlemen's Agreement " — nothing more or less than a series of
" pools," called " associations " — only created by a sort of national
instead of local consent (that is, by the principal railways acting
as a unit instead of by groups of railways here and there — grouped
by local or competitive considerations), has enabled the interest
on American railway securities to be met abroad, and so the
national credit maintained in the sensitive European markets,
and all for the time has been well. The expense, to be sure, has
been borne by the people — the shippers. There has been a uni-

220 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

form advance in freights. But this advance the people have felt
was a small enough price to pay for the principle of Federal
control of railways ; and, as I say, the railway companies have
acquiesced.

But, while the situation is just at present satisfactory, and
while the railway companies, up to the present time, have been
able to " pull through/' it is impossible to deny that there is cause
for considerable uneasiness, and indeed for considerable positive
alarm, in the railway situation. It can not be too often repeated
that the enormous mortgage debt of our five hundred American
railway companies, averaging some fifteen thousand dollars per
mile for some 200,000 miles of railway, being largely held abroad
and payable in gold, most intricately and indissolubly controls
our national credit. It must not be for a moment forgotten that
the payment of the interest on this vast debt or loan is dependent
upon the earnings of all this mileage, and that, if the shipper can
not pay what the railway earns, this interest can not be paid. It
is for these reasons that the subject of a conflicting Federal and
State supervision of railways, and of their relations with the
people, is of popular interest, and deserves discussion in The
Popular Science Monthly, instead of being treated only in finan-
cial articles, which only reach the banker, the investor, and the
capitalist. Nay, more, the direct interest of the people in the
question of a collateral and possibly conflicting State and Federal
jurisdiction over railway companies is even more immediate
than as above outlined. Indeed, this direct popular interest can
be traced into so many channels, each one of them ramifying
into so many more, that one quite despairs of exhausting them
within the limits of a single paper. Some of the more important
of these channels may be, however, briefly indicated :

First, it is directly to the public interest : to the interest of each
individual, capitalist, investor, or professional or working man,
bread-winner or consumer : that values should fluctuate as little
as possible, which is only another way of saying that capital
should always be able to find remunerative investment. But (as
shown before in these pages) if the capital now locked up in rail-
ways is not a remunerative investment, the next step is the rail-
way bankruptcy, the stock-" waterer," and the railway-wrecker.
Admitting, then, that the enormous fortunes, the accumulations
of vast resources in the hands of one or two individuals — which
was the constant argument of our Mr. Hudson and his ilk, and
always is and always will be the argument of the communist and
the anarchist — comes from stock-watering and railway-wrecking,
it is the direct popular interest that our railway companies should
earn their fixed charges. And to earn their fixed charges they
must first, as we have said, earn their operating expenses : and to

WANTED— A RAILWAY COURT OF LAST RESORT. 221

earn these, or either of these, they must first of all be left in peace,
and not at their peril to lawfully do all lawful business which
comes to them.

A second ramification of this question of conflicting Federal
and State laws may seem at first far-fetched, but on examination
it will, I think, be found to be very intricately connected with the
public interest. In the President's last message to Congress his
Excellency says :

" I have twice before urgently called the attention of Congress
to the necessity of legislation for the protection of the lives of
railroad employe's, but nothing has yet been done. During the
year ending June 30, 1890, 369 brakemen were killed and 7,841
maimed while engaged in coupling cars. The total number of
railroad employe's killed during the year was 2,451, and the num-
ber injured, 22,390. This is a cruel and largely a needless sacrifice.
The Government is spending nearly one million dollars annually
to save the lives of shipwrecked seamen; every steam-vessel is
rigidly inspected and required to adopt the most approved safety
appliances. All this is good ; but how shall we excuse the lack of
interest and effort in behalf of this army of brave young men,
who, in our land commerce, are being sacrificed every year by the
continued use of antiquated and dangerous appliances ? A law
requiring of every railroad engaged in interstate commerce the
equipment each year of a given per cent of its freight-cars with
automatic couplers and air-brakes would compel an agreement
between the roads as to the kind of brakes and couplers to be
used, and would very soon and very greatly reduce the present
fearful death-rate among railroad employe's."

It seems to me that this passage brings us exactly to the ques-
tion before us, for, while the President's recommendation is on
the side of humanity, it is possible to see how considerable in-
equality and injustice might result from a carrying out of the
suggestion. Even humanitarian laws are not always laws for the
greatest good of the greatest number. For example, it might be
asked, Why interstate railways only ? (of course, in a message
to Congress only interstate railways could be mentioned, as under
its jurisdiction, though this is only true in a measure and not, as
I take it, necessarily so) — and, if interstate railways only, how if
State laws should also provide for the use of an automatic coupler,
and supposing a State law should decree the use of one kind and
the Federal law decree the use of another ? Before the railway
company could ask for a reconciliation of the two decrees, or even
in good faith endeavor to provide an equivalent, how many liti-
gants might arise to sue for a penalty under one law or the other,
or how many railway accidents be added to the fatality list ? And
let it not be forgotten that, strange as it may appear, the enforce-

222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ment of the President's suggestion would actually work a hard-
ship to the employe's themselves by throwing thousands of them
out of employment. (Of course, the hoary old question as to
whether improvements in machinery in the long run do actually
throw laborers out of employment might be discussed just here,
but I fancy that while we were discussing it a great many brake-
men might starve.)

If such a matter as this could be left by all the States, by unan-
imous consent, to the Federal power, and if, instead of so sweep-
ing a law as the President suggests, a statute might be provided
requiring the draw-heads of all freight-cars manufactured or ad-
mitted into the United States to be of a uniform height and to be
within projecting frame corners from the rail surface, everybody
can see that not only humanity but perfect justice both to the
railway company and to the employe" would be subserved.*

We are not at present discussing the question of automatic
couplers ; but this illustration shows : first, the necessity of a single
and uniform railway law-maker, and that the law-maker should
be guided only by expert knowledge and act only after adequate
discussion and deliberation as to the best methods for not only
preserving the lives of employe's, but of conserving to them the
opportunity of earning a living, and to the railway company the
opportunity to earn the money to pay them their wages. It is
certainly not necessary to go further into the subject already so
fully discussed in these pages; but when the reader of former
papers remembers the absurd and arbitrary laws passed by cer-
tain State Legislatures, such as prescribing the size and cost of
station-houses, the number and distance even, without the slight-
est regard to the business or the earnings of the company, he will
see at once how prohibitive of profitable railway enterprises (and
so how perilous to the public, and even to the national prosperity)
it may be, to leave all statutory control and regulation of railways
in its present indifferent, undecided, and altogether chaotic state.
It seems to me that it is the interest of the nation, of the public
at large, of the railway companies, of their employe's — in short,
of all concerned — that such an adjustment may be arrived at as
will secure, if at all, a Federal control of railways in the spirit of

* I think such a law as this would be a better one than one directing the use of an
automatic coupler, for it would not throw any brakemen out of their jobs. As to the loss
of life spoken of by the President, the larger number of instances will, I think, be found
to have occurred at night, when brakemen, not knowing of course the height of the draw-
heads of the cars approaching them, and often while using every precaution, might be
caught and crushed by a different build of car with flush corners, or higher or lower tim-
bered corners. Such a law, prescribing uniformity in this detail, and mulcting the company
owning the car or cars causing the death or mutilation with adequate damages, would be, I
think, a salutary and an exemplary one.

WANTED— A RAILWAY COURT OF LAST RESORT. 223

the present Act of Interstate Commerce, by making that act su-
perior to and controlling all State laws : at any rate, some single
tribunal whose decisions may make a body of railway law for
the protection as well as for the discipline of railway com-
panies. If a possible dissenting voice should urge that there
was a difference between a " State " and an " interstate " railway,
I may add that it has been held repeatedly by the Interstate Com-
merce Commission, and never denied by the courts, that a rail-
road which is wholly within a single State, if engaged in the
transportation of passengers and freight going to or coming from
another State, is engaged in interstate commerce and is therefore
subject to congressional control ; and the Commission have repeat-
edly asserted, and are in this upheld by the highest authority,*
that Congress may with respect to all the subjects of foreign and
interstate commerce, the power engaged in, and the instruments
by which it is carried on. It gives the power to prescribe the rules
by which it shall be governed and the conditions upon which it
shall be conducted. It embraces within its control all the instru-
mentalities by which that commerce may be carried on, and the
means by which it may be aided and encouraged; and, if I am
not in error, this power has been extended, by the present Inter-
state Commerce Commission, to the regulations and the work-
ings and maintenance of a bridge over which freight having an
interstate destination is transported ! With such an interpre-
tation of the constitutional clause, it would not seem to be going
too far if the Commission should assume a veto power over the
State Commissioners ; and I am sure it would not be difficult to
use it with the highest possible regard for the interests of all con-
cerned.

One of the jurisdictions proposed for such a tribunal of rail-
way last resort as I have suggested is that of restricting the con-
struction of proposed railway lines by decreeing whether or not a
proposed railway line is necessary or desirable between two given
points. I think it is entirely safe to say, however, that no such
jurisdiction will ever be assumed, or, if assumed, will ever be exer-
cised by any tribunal or court within the United States. This
people would resent (and no class of it sooner than that of men of
the Hudson caliber, who see in railways the approaching cataclysm
of the nation), as intolerable, the idea of any arbitrator — however
lofty — deciding upon an individual's right to invest his own capi-
tal entirely as seemed to him good ; but principally because such
a power, if granted, would not be confined to a negative action
alone. The right to forbid the building of a railway between two
certain points would lead up to, and in time arrogate, the right

* 93 U. S., 103-114. Id., 196.

224 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to decree the building of another railway between two other
points ; and as the one would be impossible, so the other would
be absurd.

For all that is said about superfluous and over-railway con-
struction, I confess that I would like to hear mentioned the one
of our five hundred United States railway lines which is superflu-
ous, or which the community which is served by it would consent
to have torn up or to otherwise dispense with. I have myself
cajoled, argued, and fought for rights of way, and finally brought
condemnation and sundry other legal proceedings in order to con-
struct a railway ; but, once constructed, I think it would be dan-
gerous to limb or life to suggest a discontinuance of that railway
to the very people who once resisted, to their last extremity, its
location.

The people of the United States are indebted to their railways
in a sense which obtains in no other country on this planet. To
say that the railways have turned forests into farms and made
the desert blossom as the rose does not express this obligation.
It is a greater one than that. To the United States as to no other
nation the railways have brought wealth by a present realization
of prospective revenues so enormously as to quite amount to an
actual creation of values. In other countries railways have been
built when populations demanded them, or could not exist longer
without them — when great cities were to be brought together and
great industries to be served. In the United States the railways
have preceded and created the demand, the interests, the cities
themselves.

The percentage in error of judgment is at least no greater in
the promoting of railway enterprises than in any other branch of
human procedure. Nor is it impossible to argue that even a forced
railway construction — where actually no demand can be pre-
mised, no interests subserved, where no capital seeks legitimate
investment, and no traffic exists, and for only ulterior purposes
(such as "selling out") — is entirely a disadvantage to a com-
munity. Even the debentures of such a railway are not a public
burden. For, while a promise to pay value is not perhaps a crea-
tion of value at the start, if interest be paid upon that promise and
it is finally funded and ultimately paid in cash, it becomes a con-
tribution to the public wealth (however meanwhile that promise
or the guarantee of it may work criticism or prophecy of national
ruin, or the elocution of the agitator or the communist about
bloated or unhealthy private fortunes and the like). Large views
and considerations of " the long run," do not, I think, warrant any
paternal surveillance over private capital or the laws of supply
and demand. What is wanted is either a surcease of railway
commissions, Federal, State, and Territorial, in the United States,

PESTIFEROUS PLANTS. 225

or else that those tribunals which do exist be created into an intelli-
gible succession, with one of last resort at the top, whose decrees
shall be final to protect, as well as to discipline, both the railway
company and its customers.

-♦♦♦-

PESTIFEROUS PLANTS.

By Prof. BYRON D. HALSTED,

BOTANIST OF NEW JERSEY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE EXPERIMENT STATION.

SOME plants, naturally, are better fitted to subserve the wants
of man than others, and for the growth of these he puts forth
special effort ; in short, the whole underlying foundation of mod-
ern agriculture rests upon methods of favoring these plants and
thereby enlarging and multiplying those qualities in them that
led to their being chosen by man as objects of cultural attention.
All plants, therefore, that now legitimately occupy space in our
fields, orchards, and gardens are living an unnatural life, because
they are in part creatures of selection and care ; and it therefore
follows that, owing to this stimulus under which they have flour-
ished for generations, when the fostering hand of man is with-
held they either perish or gradually drift back to the wild state
and slowly lose many of their most valuable qualities as culti-
vated plants and regain those that better fit them for the stern
battle of life. During the time while cultivated plants have been
brought to a high plane of usefulness there have been many other
species with no merit in their products that have stood in the
way of the development of these fostered plants. The weeds have
grown strong because obliged to fight their way and take every
possible advantage when opportunity offers. They quickly win
in the race for supremacy in every field devoted to cultivated
crops, when man's care is withheld, and multiply their kind to an
extraordinary extent. More reasonable it would be to expect a
man under the softening influences of civilized life to win in the
rough race for existence when placed, unaided, among savage In-
dians, than to hope for the success of a parsnip or onion seedling
when surrounded by a rank growth of weeds.

There is nothing in the structure of a plant that Cain-like
curses it forever. No part of the leaf, stem, fruit, or flower gives
conclusive evidence that it belongs to a weed, and therefore we
are forced back to the definition that was accepted a long time
ago, namely, " A weed is a plant out of place." Its relation to
others makes a plant a weed. A rose bush of the rarest variety,
and one highly prized in its proper place, is a weed when occupy-
ing the soil to the detriment of some other plant that has the

TOL. XLI. — 18

226 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

authorized right to the soil. Clover and the best of grasses may
be serious weeds, fit subjects to be uprooted by the cultivator or
hoe, when growing in a corn-field and injuring the maize crop.
If a field is devoted to wheat, it follows that all other plants
therein may be weeds, whether it be cockle, red-root, or an oak
tree.

There is a possibility of any kind of a plant being a weed, but
this thought does not prevent some species always being out of
place. For example, there is no function in the economy of the
farm garden that the Canada thistle can do as well as many other
plants. As a forage plant, or a source of nutritious seeds or
beautiful flowers, the pig-weeds are a substantial failure, equaled
only by their success in occupying the soil and robbing it of
nourishment designed for useful plants. It would puzzle any one
to find a proper place for the horse-nettle, now advancing upon
the Eastern farmers from the Southwest, and destined to spread
its horrid, prickly, worse than worthless branches over our cult-
ured soil. The bur-grass, cockle-burs, burdock, and a long list
of congeners are practically universal every-day curses from which
all earnest crop-growers wish to be free.

The natural covering of a fertile soil is a growth of vegetation.
Upon the broad, open prairie there is a dense coat of grass,
while in the Eastern States a heavy growth of trees clothed the
virgin soil. So strong is Nature's desire to assert this right that
if we allow one of our fields to lie fallow, at the end of the season
it will be covered with vegetation. She understands that a bare
soil is a wasteful soil, for while it is not producing anything it
may lose by leaching much fertility already in its bosom. Every
generation of plants inherits the deposits of all previous gen-
erations, and in turn should add to the accumulated stock in the
soil. By this economical and saving practice of Nature the fer-
tile newly broken grass lands have been made, while the upper
soil in the forest has received the enriching accumulations of
ages. Man overturns this harmonious system, and by breaking
up the sod destroys the very method by which sod is made. He
clears away the forest and many of the conditions which favor
the growth of trees. It is upon this newly exposed soil that
weeds assert their supremacy, and if the hand of man is withheld
they will soon weave a garment, in itself unattractive, that clothes
the bare earth. Weeds have a thousand ways of doing this to
one possessed by cultivated plants. Bring up, if you please, some
soil from the bottom of a newly dug well, and if exposed for a
season some weeds will have planted colonies upon the bare heaps
and vied with each other for the entire possession of the new ter-
ritory, at the same time gaining in forces for the occupation of
any similar place elsewhere.

PESTIFEROUS PLANTS. 227

The crop-grower necessarily introduces the condition of a bare
soil for a portion of the year for every crop, and must therefore
accept the situation : while he invites their presence and develop-
ment, even stimulating them in various ways by making the con-
ditions favorable for the growth of his crop plant, he must become
a competitor with the weeds for the possession of the soil. The
weed seeds are either in the soil or soon find an abundant en-
trance, and if the way is clear the young pests are up and doing
as with the morning sun.

Most of our weeds, like much of our vermin, have come to us
from beyond the sea. Just how they emigrate in every case will
never be known ; some came as legitimate freight, but many were
" stowaways." Some entered from border lands upon the wings
of the wind, on river bosoms, in the stomachs of migrating birds,
clinging to hairs of passing animals, and a hundred other ways
besides by man himself. Into the New England soil and that
south along the Atlantic seaboard the weed seeds first took root.
Also the native plants, with a strong weedy nature, developed
into pests of the farm and garden. Many of the native weeds
are shy and harmless in comparison with the persistent and
pugnacious ones that have like vagabonds emigrated to our
shores. Why should it be that plants of another country not
only find their way here, but after arriving assert themselves
with a vigor far surpassing our native herbs ? Dr. Gray, in writ-
ing upon this point, says, "As the district here in which the
weeds of the Old World prevail was naturally forest-clad, there
were few of its native herbs which, if they could bear the expos-
ure at all, were capable of competition in the cleared land with
emigrants from the Old World." The European weeds had
through long ages adapted themselves to the change from forest
to cleared land, and were therefore prepared to flourish here in
the rich forest soil that was suddenly exposed to the sun and sub-
jected to other new conditions by the felling of the trees. To go
back of this we are not sure that the ancestors of some of our
European weeds ever came from the forests, but instead were
brought into the cleared-up lands from open regions in the early
days of agriculture in the Old World. As civilized man moved
westward, the weeds followed him, re-enforced by new native ones
that soon vied with those of foreign blood. Not satisfied with
this, these natives of the interior ran back upon the trail and be-
came new enemies to the older parts of our land. The conditions
favorable for the spreading of weeds have increased with the
development of our country, until now we are literally overrun.
Weeds usually as seeds, go and come in all directions, no less as
tramps catching a ride upon each passing freight train than in
cherished bouquets gathered between stations and tenderly cared

228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for by transcontinental tourists in parlor cars. " Weeds," Bur-
roughs says, " are great travelers. . . . They are going east and
west, north and south, they walk, they fly, they swim. . . . They
go under ground and they go above, across lots and by the high-
way. But like other tramps they find it safest by the highway ;
in the fields they are intercepted and cut off, but on the public
road every boy, every passing herd of sheep or cows, gives them
a lift." They love the half-earnest tiller of the soil, and will
crowd around his barns and dwelling, and flourish in his garden
and fields so long as he favors them with slight attention to his
crops.

The fact is patent that weeds are everywhere, and the best
means need to be taken to resist their greater prevalence. In
this warfare against them there is no weapon equal to a thor-
ough knowledge of the enemy — that is, an understanding of the
nature of these pests, their appearance in all stages of growth,
methods of propagation, and dissemination of the seeds. This
knowledge is much more highly appreciated in Europe than here.
In Germany, for example, they have wall maps upon which the
leading weeds are represented. Hung as these are upon the
school-room walls, a child, simply from daily seeing these life-like
colored drawings of the various pests, will learn their appearance
and names. Some such method of instruction is needed in this
country, by which the children who are soon to be our farmers
and gardeners may become familiar with the troublesome weeds
even in advance of their advent, that the proper means may be
taken at once for meeting and destroying them. Editors of agri-
cultural papers and professors in agricultural colleges yearly re-
ceive many letters asking for the simplest kind of information
concerning many common weeds, thus showing the general lack
of knowledge upon this important subject. To put a map of a
dozen of the most destructive weeds upon the walls of every
country school-house in the United States is a great undertaking ;
but if it were done, the next and succeeding generations of farm-
ers would be the better able to carry on the work of extermina-
tion. There are a large number of farmers' clubs throughout the
country, and a great deal might be done by hanging a weed chart
upon the walls of these halls where farmers gather from time to
time for mutual improvement and a better understanding of the
ways and means of a more profitable agriculture.

Weeds have been neglected in more ways than one, and just
so far as they are overlooked and left to themselves the greater
will be the curse. As one looks over the premium lists of our
thousands of county and State fairs one seldom sees a prize offered
for the best collection of weeds. It seems incompatible with our
fitness of things to have a good collection of anything that is bad ;

KOREAN MOUNTAINS 'AND MOUNTAINEERS. 229

and yet the fact remains that there is no class of plants about
which an increase of knowledge is more imperative than these
same ugly weeds. A few dollars expended in awards by each
fair association would bring together lists of plant pests the ex-
hibition of which would not only surprise but greatly instruct
those who see them. It is not less important for the farmers of
any district to know of the arrival of a new weed than of the ad-
vent of a new fruit or grain.

In this connection, and in conclusion, it is a pleasure to an-
nounce that space at the World's Columbian Exhibition has al-
ready been set aside for a display of the weeds of the whole coun-
try, and preparations are now making for a full occupation of the
allotment.

■» » »

KOREAN MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINEERS.

By CHARLES W. CAMPBELL.

AS delineated on a Korean map of the country, the White
Head Mountain seems to consist of a circle of jagged peaks
inclosing a moderate-sized lake. The description of it in Chi-
nese, in the letterpress department of the Atlas, recites that
" Peik-tu San, or White Head Mountain, lies seven or eight days'
journey to the west of Hoiryeng (a town on the Korean border),
in Manchu territory. The mountain is in three tiers, is two hun-
dred li, or sixty miles high, and the circuit of its base covers one
thousand li, or three hundred miles. On the summit there is a
lake eight hundred li, or two hundred and fifty miles in circum-
ference, whence flow the three rivers Yalu, Sungari, and Tumen."
These dimensions are greatly depreciated in Mr. James's descrip-
tion of the mountain in his book, The Long White Mountain.
Nevertheless, lakes in mountain-tops seven or eight thousand
feet above sea-level are rare enough to tempt the adventurous
traveler to try to explore them ; and this one on Peik-tu San
yields precedence in interest, historically and geographically, to
few others in the world. So thought Mr. Charles W. Campbell,
of the English consular service in China, when, on the last days
of August, 1889, he left Seoul on the tedious journey, by primitive
Korean conveyances, of six hundred miles to the mountain. From
his account of the journey, and the discussion it called forth in
the Royal Geographical Society, are derived the facts given in
this article.

The country traversed during the first four days of the journey
was typical of the center and south of the Korean Peninsula.
" Korea is a land of mountains. Go where you will, a stretch of
level road is rare, and a stretch of level plain rarer still. The

23o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

view from any prominent height is always the same ; the eye
ranges over an expanse of hill-tops, now running in a succession
of long, billowy lines, now broken up like the wavelets in a
choppy sea, often green with forest, but just as often bare and.
forbidding. Clear mountain brooks or shallow streams rushing
over beds of gravel are never wanting in the valleys below, where
a rude long bridge, or curling smoke, or the presence of cultiva-
tion, leads you to observe the brown thatch of some huts clus-
tered under the lee of a hill." On the fifth day Mr. Campbell
" branched into untrodden country for the purpose of visiting a
remarkable range called the Keum Kang San, or Diamond
Mountain, where the most notable collection of Buddhist monas-
teries in Korea is to be found. There was a considerable change
in the configuration of the land as we passed eastward from
Keum-Seng. The valleys contracted into narrow, rocky glens,
forests of oak, pine, maple, and chestnut clothed the steeper and
loftier slopes, and cover sufficiently thick to delight the heart of
the sportsman abounded everywhere." A pass too steep for laden
animals had to be crossed with the help of bearers. It is known
as the Tan-pa Byeng, and is the western barrier of the Keum
Kang region. " The summit is about twenty-eight hundred feet
above sea-level. Thence in clear weather a view of the Dia-
mond Mountains was said to be obtainable, and tne name Tan-
pa, which means ' Crop-hair,' was given to the ridge in the
early days of Korean Buddhism, to signify that those who reached
this point had taken refuge in the cloister, and should sever their
connection with the world by parting with their hair.

" From Tan-pa Byeng, a journey of sixteen miles in a north-
easterly direction brought us to Ch'ang-An-Sa, or the Temple of
Eternal Rest, a Buddhist monastery at the foot of the Keum Kang
San (Diamond Mountains). These mountains are a remarkable
section of the main range which practically determines the east
coast of Korea. Elsewhere the aspect of the chain is tame enough,
but in the north of the Kang-wen province it suddenly starts into
a towering mass of irregular, precipitous rocks, whose appearance
earned for them many centuries ago their present designation.
Viewed from the Eastern Sea, which is not more than thirty miles
off as the crow flies, their serrated outline is very striking, and
must always make them conspicuous. The district they occupy
is a fairly well defined one, some thirty miles long by twenty
broad. Few places are more renowned in any country than these
mountains are in Korea ; in popular estimation they are the beau-
ideal of scenic loveliness, the perfection of wild beauty in Nature.
I found that both Chinese and Japanese spoke and wrote of them,
but more because they are a Buddhistic center than for any other
reason. At Seoul a visit to Keum Kang San is quite fashionable,

KOREAN MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINEERS. 231

and supplies all the material necessary for reputation as a trav-
eler. Buddhism evidently found a home in these secluded mount-
ains soon after its introduction into Korea, which Chinese and
native records tell us occurred in the latter half of the fourth
century after Christ. A Korean book — the Keum Kang San
Record — states that Ch'ang-An-Sa was restored or rebuilt at the
beginning of the sixth century, and at the monastery itself tradi-
tion dates the oldest relics from the T'ang period (a. d. 618 to 907).
At present upward of forty shrines, tended by three or four hun-
dred monks, a few nuns, and a host of lay servitors, are scattered
over the east and west slopes of the Diamond Mountains. The
great majority of the monks are congregated at the four chief
monasteries, and the nuns possess a small sanctuary or two where
they find sufficient to do, apart from religious exercises, in weav-
ing cotton and hempen garments and other womanly occupations.
The monks, when not in residence at the monasteries, travel all
over the country, alms-bowl in hand, chanting the canons of
Buddha from door to door, soliciting subscriptions to the building
of a new altar or for the repair of an old one, and begging from
day to day the food and resting-place which are rarely denied
them."

The route followed a rough torrent winding up the west slope
to the water-shed — which is 4,200 feet above sea-level, and the
highest point reached in the journey across Korea — and descended
the eastern flank by a wild mountain-path. " The monastery of
Ch/ang-An is superbly situated a little way up the west slope.
The lofty hills which wall in the torrent on the north recede for
a few hundred yards, and rejoin it again, leaving in the interval
a semicircular space of level ground, upon which the temple is
built. Nothing could be more effective than the deep-green set-
ting of this half-circlet of hills, rising up like a rampart from the
rear of the buildings, and rendered additionally pleasing to the
eye by a symmetrical covering of leafy forest and shrub. In
front, the water swishes and swirls through rough, tumbled gran-
ite blocks, here and there softening into a clear pool, and beyond
this again towers a conical buttress of the Keum Kang San, thickly
clothed with pines and tangled undergrowth for half its height.
The peak possesses the characteristics of the range. Gaping
seams and cracks split it vertically from the summit down until
vegetation hides the rock, at sufficiently regular intervals to give
one the impression of looking at the pipes of an immense organ.
The topmost ribs are almost perpendicular, and gleam bare and
blue in the evening sun ; but lower down the cracks and ledges
afford a precarious lodging to a few conifers and stunted oaks."
The other mountains along the route occupy equally pretty situ-
ations. Soon after crossing the Keum Kang range, Mr. Campbell

23 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

struck the Japan Sea. A journey of sixty miles along the coast
brought him to Wen-san, one of the ports opened to trade by the
treaties with foreign powers. Hence he followed the coast-line
northward for six days, passing through a number of populous
towns, to Puk-ch'eng. Trade, which was not active on the Seoul-
Wen-san route, was particularly stirring along the east coast. It
is mainly in Manchester cottons. Fairs were common between
Wen-san and Puk-ch'eng — as they are in all the populous dis-
tricts of Korea. "The road was always animated with a con-
course of merry, brightly dressed people, wending their way to
the market town; women carrying jars and baskets of melons,
pears, chillies, etc., on their heads, and babies on their backs;
bulls and carts laden with brushwood for fuel; produce of all
kinds, including grain and dried fish, borne by ponies and men ;
sturdy, half-nude coolies, perspiring under lofty, wooden frame-
works, to which assortments of earthenware pots and turned
wooden dishes are attached; and, more numerous than all, the
pleasure-seeker, or Jcu-Jcyeng-kun, in holiday dress, strutting
along in company with a batch of friends, gesticulating, laugh-
ing, and cracking jokes productive of the most hilarious mirth.
Such throngs greeted the foreigner with amused surprise, some-
times a trifle rudely, but always good-naturedly. The women, in
most cases, behaved as properly conducted Korean women ought
to do when their faces run the risk of being scanned by a stranger,
and turned their backs upon him ; yet frequently all scruples
vanished before an overpowering curiosity to take in the particu-
lars of so odd a costume, or to discuss the singularity of the
equipage. The main street of the town or village is the market-
place. It often widens into a sort of place or square, where
straw booths are hastily erected for the occasion ; but, ordinarily,
each man exposes his wares on some boards, or on a cloth spread
on the ground in the best spot available. The articles for sale are
of the simplest."

From Puk-ch'eng Mr. Campbell took the direct, across-country
route through Kap-san, to Peik-tu-san, in preference to the more
interesting circuitous route, because of the lateness of the season.
Following the Peik-ch'eng River to its source, he then, next day,
after leaving the city (September 24th), reached the crest of the
range which here fringes the highlands of North Korea. The
top of the pass, called Hu-ch'i Ryeng, is 4,300 feet above the sea ;
thence to the Yalu, at Hyei-san, a distance of a hundred miles,
there was a gradual descent, with one remarkable irregularity, to
an elevation of 2,800 feet. " The aspect of the country had com-
pletely changed. We had left some valleys producing rice and
cotton, and had entered a plateau-like region, where these crops
were impossible, their places being taken by oats, millet, and

KOREAN MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINEERS. 233

hemp. At first our way lay through a forest of spruce, pine,
birch, and oak, broken by an occasional marshy glade ; to this
succeeded an undulating country, which bore traces of being
recently cleared. Clearings were made simply by setting fire to
the forest — a process which I saw in operation. The population
was scanty, but evidently increasing; the houses were log-huts,
plastered with clay, roofed with thatch or shingle, and fenced
with palisades of stakes six or eight feet high. Game hereabouts
was very plentiful. . . . Tigers, leopards, and bears are also said
to be easily obtainable. The tiger, indeed, is a fruitful subject
of discussion. From Wen-san to Peik-tu San, and thence to
Peng-yang, I heard endless stories of the brute's ravages, and
more than once I was asked to delay my journey to shoot a ' man-
eater.' In the Yalu backwoods I passed through a deserted
clearing, where four out of a total of ten inhabitants, had become
the prey of a man-eating tiger during the previous winter and
spring." Large tracts of cultivated land became common near
Kap-san ; and the neighborhood is said to contain most of the
mineral wealth of Korea ; gold, silver, and lead being worked at
several places, but with sorry appliances and little skill. There
is no doubt that the country is rich in useful and valuable min-
erals, but it has yet to be ascertained whether they can be worked
at a profit.

The first view of the White Head Mountain was obtained from
the crest of the ridge overlooking the Yalu, about thirty miles
north of Kap-san. " Its renown was at once comprehensible, for,
distant as it was, the view was majestic. The white, irregular
mass towered, without any marked or prominent peak, head and
shoulders over the surrounding hills, though one could see that
it was not lofty, as mountains go. . . . Just at the point where
this mountain is first visible a small temple has been erected for
the purpose of offering sacrifices, which is done by the King of
Korea every year on the 4th of the eighth moon (August) to the
Peik-tu San deities. At Seoul I was led to believe that the offi-
cials deputed to perform this function actually ascended the
mountain, but they evidently preferred a compromise, the efficacy
of which has apparently never been doubted."

The rest of the journey to the mountain, with only hunters'
paths and blazes through the forest, which was made in the first
days of October, was beset with difficulties on account of the
wintry weather. The last settler's hut was passed, and after that
the party had to depend on the hunters' huts, which had been
deserted for the winter. When two or three miles from the end
of the journey, the best guide who could be depended upon fell
in a fit brought on by overexertion. The superstitious Koreans
attributed his paroxysms to the malevolent san sin, or mountain

234 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

genii, and spent the night in offering prayers and propitiating
sacrifices of rice to the offended deities, while Mr. Campbell doc-
tored the man with Liebig's extract. The man had somewhat
recovered from his disability, but in view of the discontent of his
party, and the risk of going farther into the wilderness under the
circumstances, Mr. Campbell made no further attempt to reach
the top of the mountain.

This mountain, the Old White Mountain, as it is called by the
Chinese of Manchuria, " is the most remarkable mountain, natu-
rally and historically, in this part of Asia. The perennial white-
ness of its crest, now known to be caused by pumice when not by
snow, made the peoples that beheld it from the plains of Man-
churia give it names whose meanings have survived in the Chi-
nese Ch'ang-pai Shan, or Ever-white Mountain. This designa-
tion, obviously assigned to the White Mountain alone, has been
extended to the whole range without apparent reason, for no other
peak of it, so far as is known, can pretend to perennial whiteness,
whether of pumice or snow. . . . The great point of interest in
the mountain, apart from its whiteness, is the lake — twelve miles
in circuit, according to Mr. James and his party, the only Euro-
peans who have seen it — which lies in the broad top of the mount-
ain at a height of 7,500 feet above sea-level, and is supposed to be
the source of the three rivers, Yalu, Tumen, and Sungari. The
Tei-Tei-ki (Great Lake), as the Koreans call it, is the nucleus of a
mass of legend and fable. It is a sacred spot, the abode of beings
supernatural, and not to be profaned by mortal eye with impu-
nity. Curiously enough, neither Chinese nor Koreans have the
faintest notion of the real character of Peik-tu-San. The Chinese
say that the lake is an eye of the sea, and the Koreans tell you
that the rock of which the mountain is composed ' floats in water/
for lumps of pumice were common on the Yalu at Hyei-san. My
crude geological explanations, that this cho-san (ancestral mount-
ain) of Korea was a burned-out volcano, whose crater had been
filled with water by springs, were listened to with polite wonder
and treated with less credulity than they deserved. I pointed to
the black dust, to the clinkers, and to the rocks lining the banks
of the Yalu for miles, many of which looked as if they had been
freshly ejected from some subterranean furnace, but to no pur-
pose. If the occurrences I had spoken of had taken place, they
must have been handed down by tradition, and it was useless to
cite lapse of time — Koreans are ignorant of geological periods — to
people whose history extends as far back as four thousand years
ago. According to my observations, most of the forest between
Po-ch'm and Peik-tu-San grows on volcanic matter, which was
without doubt ejected from Peik-tu-San during successive erup-
tions. The general inferiority of the timber hereabouts to that

KOREAN MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINEERS. 235

of the rest of Korea led me to examine the soil wherever an up-
rooted tree or a freshly dug deer-pit furnished the opportunity.
Beyond a thin coating of leaf -mold on the surface, there was seldom
anything else than broken pumice, broken to the size of a very
coarse sand. According to the hunters, this was the subsoil every-
where in the forest. . . . Nearing the mountain, we get the clear-
est evidence of the character and recency, geologically speaking,
of the eruptions which spread this vast quantity of volcanic ma-
terial over such a wide area. Ten miles due south of the White
Mountain, the Yalu, now eight or ten yards broad and very shal-
low, flows between banks like a railway cutting, sheer, clean, and
absolutely devoid of vegetation, for denudation was too rapid to
permit the slightest growth. The sections thus exposed were
often over a hundred feet in depth, and at one of the deepest por-
tions I counted thirteen layers of black volcanic dust, all varying
in thickness, and each separated from the layer above by a thin
stratum of volcanic mold. So fine was this dust that the least
breath of wind caught it and scattered it freely over the adjoin-
ing snow, to which it gave a grimy, sooty appearance. The for-
ests of South Manchuria, though uninhabited now, were, we learn
from Chinese records, the home of many races in ages past. The
comparatively recent kingdom of Ko-ku-rye, which arose in the
first century b. c, is said to have occupied the Ch'ang-pai Shan
and the head-waters of the Yalu River." Very few, if any, traces
of these ancient peoples are found now ; but this is hardly to be
wondered at, considering their low civilization and the temporary
character of their dwellings.

Captain Younghusband, speaking to Mr. Campbell's paper,
described the trip which he, Mr. James, and Mr. Fulford made to
the mountain from the northern or Manchurian side in the sum-
mer of 1886. At the foot of the mountain they found some most
lovely meadows covered with iris, lilies, and columbine, surpass-
ing even those of Kashmir. " Passing on up through the forest,
we came to the summit of the Ch'ang-pai Shan. Before us were
two prominent peaks seen from the north side — there are really
five all round — and between these the saddle. Arriving there, we
expected to see a view on the other side toward Korea ; instead
of that, however, we saw, straight under our feet, this wonderful
lake situated right at the top of the mountain. It was of the most
clear deep blue, and surrounded by a magnificent circle of jagged
peaks, ascending one of which I got a clear view of all this country,
over which Mr. Campbell traveled later on. We saw through the
forest the course of this Yalu River and the Tumen River, which
both rise on the spurs of this mountain, and out of this lake flowed
a small stream which eventually runs into the Sungari, perhaps
the most important tributary of the great Amur River, which

236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

flows along the southern edge of Siberia. . . . The whole of this
country shows signs of a volcanic origin. There is no doubt that
this mountain Peik-tu San was formerly a volcano, and that this
lake is the crater of the volcano."

Mr. Campbell's narrative and the discussion furnished some
pleasing pictures of Korean life and character. It is a curious
fact and suggestive that the most conspicuous and seemingly the
most lasting traces left of ancient Korean settlements are the
strawberries. The beauty of the situations of the Buddhist mon-
asteries was remarked upon. For centuries Buddhism has been
under a ban in the country, and its followers, driven from the
settled country to the mountains, have established their monas-
teries there, out of the way. In selecting the most beautiful re-
treats for the study of their religion, they have followed, said one
of the speakers, the bent of Korean character. " These monas-
teries form hotels for those travelers in the country who take
their delight in leaving town life, taking simple food, and travel-
ing day after day, piping their way on the roads, rejoicing in the
beauty of the country. I should think in hardly any country in
the world the ordinary rustic takes so much delight in Nature as
in Korea; when he goes with you up the mountains, and, on
arriving at the top, you expect him to sigh as if nearly dead, he
will expatiate on the beauty of the scene before him. In this love
of scenery, as in many other points, the Korean differs greatly
from his neighbors the Chinese."

The Korean hamlets are of two kinds, " the purely agricultural,
and those which depend as much on the entertainment of travelers
as on farming. The site of the agricultural village is a hill-slope
facing the south. Over this, low, mud-walled, straw-thatched
hovels, each standing in its own piece of garden, which is pro-
tected by a neat fence of interlaced stems, are scattered at random,
and there is not much of an attempt at a street anywhere. Every
house has its thrashing-floor of beaten clay, the workshop of the
family. The stream which runs past the foot of the hill, or courses
down a gully in its side, is lined with women and girls washing
clothes with sticks instead of soap, preparing cabbages for pickle,
or steeping hemp. Seen from a distance, these places are quite
picturesque. The uneven terraces of thatch are brightened by the
foliage and flowers of gourds and melons which climb all over the
huts. In the gardens surrounding each house are plots of red
chilli, rows of castor-oil plants, and fruit trees such as peach, apri-
cot, pear, and persimmon. The roadside village, on the other
hand, is generally a most unlovely spot. The only street is the
main highway, which is lined on both sides by a straggling collec-
tion of the huts I have mentioned. Heaps of refuse, open drains,
malodorous pools, stacks of brushwood for fuel, nude, sun-tanned

KOREAN MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINEERS. 237

>

children disporting themselves, men and women thrashing grain
and occasionally a crowd of disputants — all combine to make it a
very indifferent thoroughfare. Most of the houses are inns or eat-
ing-shops. The main gate of the inn leads directly from the street
into a quadrangle bounded on two sides by open sheds, which are
provided with troughs for the feeding of pack-animals, and on the
other two sides by the guest-rooms and kitchen. The court-yard
is often dominated by a powerful pig-stye, and littered with fodder
or earthenware pitchers and vats." General agriculture is, how-
ever, not so elaborate and fruitful as in Japan and southern China.
" The principal farm animal is the ox ; in mid-Korea he is a splen-
did beast — hardy, tractable, and bearing a strong resemblance in
build to our short-horned stock. A cane or iron ring, for which
his nostrils are pierced when young, suffices to control him, and he
is early accustomed to his constant work of load-carrying. Plow-
ing is done with the ox ; rarely or never with the pony. Dairy
produce is unknown, or nearly so. Draught cattle and ponies
are fed on coarse fodder and a boiled slush of beans, chopped
straw, and rice-husks. The remaining domestic animals are
black, hairy pigs, wily gaunt creatures, and horribly loathsome ;
wolfish dogs, possessing a surprising nose for foreigners; and
fowls that almost equal their wild congeners, the pheasants, in
powers of flight and wariness."

An incident which happened to Mr. Campbell during his jour-
ney— in which a woman by bullying and coaxing forced a party
of unwilling bearers into his service — gave a fresh blow in his
mind to the theory of the subjection of women in the East, and
strengthened his opinion that " women in these parts of the world,
if the truth were known, fill a higher place and wield a far greater
influence than they are usually credited with."

In a paper read before the French Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence, on the Succession of Media inhabited by the Ancestral Series of Man, M.
Fauvelle presented a genealogical table of beings in which, waiving the question
of plants, he showed forth the successive development of animals, beginning in
sea- water, continuing afterward in fresh water, then in moist and marshy soil, to
reach a higher stage on dry lands. The beginning was the cell, which originated
in sea-water, an aquatic medium ; the climax was man, a product eminently
aerian. M. G. de Mortillet, while he recognized the ingenuity and attractiveness
of M. Fauvelle's system, suggested that, to put it on a solid base, it would be
necessary to prove that sea salt existed at the time of the origin of life.

In a paper at the British Association on the worship of meteorites, Prof. H.
A. Newton gave accounts of divine honors having been paid to meteoric stones
in early times, and of myths and traditions pointing to such worship. Particular
attention was directed to the indications of this cult that are found in Grecian and
Roman history and literature.

238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

DUST AND FRESH AIR.

By T. PEIDGIN TEALE, E. K. S.

EXCEPT in the case of museums, few serious attempts have
been made to exclude dust from rooms, closets, cupboards,
and drawers, to the contents of which, not infrequently, dust is
simply ruinous. We allow dust to run riot among our things of
value, and then go to considerable expense to render them clean
again, only to start them on a fresh career of defilement.

Looked at in the abstract, is not our passive capitulation to
dust incomprehensible ? When I enter an office in a town and
see the window-sills and papers dotted with soot, or go into a bed-
room and see the toilet-table defaced with blacks, and know that
the soot and the blacks need not be there, I can not refrain from
asking how comes it to pass that we so patiently submit to such
perpetual discomforts. You will doubtless reply, We agree with
you as to the existence of the evil, but how is it to be remedied ?
My object is to offer some practical suggestions whereby you may
so far mitigate and reduce the evils of soot and dust as to make
them tolerable, perhaps even to lay down principles by which the
evils can be annihilated in those instances in which the result to
be obtained is worth the cost of achievement. For the practical
purposes of every-day life it may turn out that we had better
be content with approximate perfection, a condition of existence
which compels us to be content with approximately pure water
from a filter, and approximately pure air in our living-rooms.

If dust is to be kept out of any cavity, we must first find out
why the dust gets in, in spite of good workmanship and accurate
fitting. The reason is simple, ridiculously simple when stated,
but, curiously, it has been little, if at all, thought of, and certain-
ly hardly ever acted upon in practice. And the reason is this :
Closets, cupboards, drawers, and boxes contain air ; if the air were
inelastic and never altered in volume, there would practically be
no entrance of dust into these closed cavities. Unfortunately for
our cleanliness, air is changing in volume incessantly. We are
all familiar with the barometer, and most of us no doubt under-
stand why the quicksilver rises and falls in the glass tube, or why,
in the aneroid barometer, the index moves to right or left. Let
us consider what these changes mean, and what they record.

When the air around us becomes condensed — shrinks into a
smaller volume — it becomes heavier, puts greater pressure on the
surface of the mercury, and makes it ascend in the tube ; then the
mercury is said to rise. When the air expands — swells into a
larger volume — it becomes lighter, the pressure on the mercury

DUST AND FRESH AIR. 239

is less, the mercury sinks in the tube, and the barometer is said
to fall. Therefore, every change of height of the quicksilver
which we observe is a sign and measure of a change in the vol-
ume of air around us. Further, this change in volume tells no
less upon the air inside our cases and cupboards. When the ba-
rometer falls, the air around expands into a larger volume, and
the air inside the cupboard also expands and forces itself out at
every minute crevice. When the barometer rises again, the air
inside the cupboard, as well as outside, condenses and shrinks,
and air is forced back into the cupboard to equalize the pressure ;
and, along with the air, in goes the dust. The smaller the crevice,
the stronger the jet of air, the farther goes the dirt. Witness
the dirt-tracks so often seen in imperfectly framed engravings or
photographs. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, whenever you
see the barometer rising, that an additional charge of dust is
entering your cupboards and drawers. So much for the barom-
eter, which is a very restless creature, rarely stationary for many
hours together. But this is not all. We also have the ther-
mometer. The temperature of our rooms varies daily — often con-
siderably— between midday and midnight, and greatly between
summer and winter. What does the thermometer tell us ? Not
less than the barometer does it tell of change of volume of the
air, though it is probably not so rapid in its effect upon the air
in inclosed spaces as is the change of volume indicated by the
barometer. Many of you have seen a fire-balloon. The heated
air, filling the balloon, expands, and becomes lighter than the sur-
rounding air, and up goes the balloon, until, the source of heat
having become exhausted, the contained air cools, contracts, be-
comes as heavy as the surrounding air, and down comes the
balloon again. So, also, as temperature rises outside our cases,
the increased warmth is slowly conducted to the air inside the
case, which expands and escapes through the crevices. Then,
when the time for cooling comes, the air inside slowly contracts,
and back rushes the air through the crevices, and again in goes
the dust. Thus, we see we have two factors constantly acting,
one or other tending to produce daily, nay, hourly, changes in
volume of our dirt-carrying air.

In order to inform myself of the amount of change of volume
that could, under extreme conditions, possibly take place, I asked
Prof. Riicker to kindly calculate for me the change of volume
that would take place in one hundred cubic feet of air, between a
temperature of 30°, i. e., just above freezing-point, in combination
with the barometer standing at thirty inches, or about " fair," and
a temperature of 60°, combined with the barometer standing at
twenty -nine inches, or " stormy." He told me that the difference
would be about ten cubic feet, or one tenth ; in other words, that

240 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a closed case of one hundred cubic feet, if hermetically sealed at
a temperature of 30°, with the barometer standing at thirty inches,
would have to resist the pressure equivalent to the addition of ten
cubic feet, when the temperature rose to 60°, and the barometer fell
to twenty-nine inches. Have we not now discovered the reason
why dirt enters closed spaces ? What shall be the remedy ?

Seeing, then, that air will find an entrance, and in the nature
of things must get in — well, we must let it in, not at innumerable
uncovenanted small crevices, but at our own selected opening,
specially provided. Then we are in a position to strain off the
dust by providing the selected opening with a screen, which acts
as a filter. These, then, are the general principles on which we
must act. The rest is a question of detail. The details range
themselves under three heads : 1. What is the most effective, or
the most generally applicable filtering material ? 2. Given the
filtering material, what ought to be the proportion between the
area of the screened opening and the cubic contents of the case to
which it has to be fitted ? 3. What, in any particular instance, is
the best situation for the filter ?

What is needed in our filtering material is that it shall readily
allow air to pass through, and shall also possess the quality of ar-
resting in its meshes fine particles of dust. For some purposes it
may suffice to use a coarse canvas, the threads of which are not
too closely twisted and have an abundance of fine fibers project-
ing from them, thereby reducing the small squares of the woven
texture to a still finer mesh. The material I have used most fre-
quently is " bunting," but it has disappointed me. When exam-
ined by the microscope many of the small squares of mesh are
seen to be deficient in delicate fibers standing out from the
threads, which would enhance the filtering power of the texture.
Lately I have tried other materials, domette, flannel, and cotton-
wool between layers of muslin, such as is used for dressing
wounds under the name of Gamgee tissue. Cotton-wool is prob-
ably the most perfect filter. Indeed, so perfect is it that in the
new science of bacteriology it is used as an effective means of ex-
cluding dust and germs from flasks in which experiments are to
be carried on. In order to put various textures to an exact com-
parative test, an experiment was tried. Having selected six quart
bottles with wide mouths, I tied over the mouth of each a piece of
the filtering tissue which I wished to test. The bottles are not
liable to crack, as wooden boxes are ; the only access for the inter-
change of air in the interior was through the filtering texture. I
thus had a means of testing the comparative value as strainers of
the various materials. Within the bottles were placed glass slides
on which any dust that was carried in might settle. The experi-
ments were begun on May 5, 1891, and the slides were taken out

DUST AND FRESH AIR. 241

on January 6, 1892, and most carefully photographed by Mr.
Lafayette, and made into lantern slides.

The bottles were placed near a window in a room in the build-
ing of the Leeds Philosophical Society, i. e., quite in the center of
Leeds. The materials tested were : canvas ; bunting ; ordinary
flannel ; domette flannel, rough side in ; domette flannel, rough
side out ; cotton- wool, one inch thick.

The results of the experiments show that as a consequence of
eight months' exposure, including a week of the worst fog I ever
knew in Leeds, three of the filtering tissues admitted a very ap-
preciable amount of dust, viz., coarse canvas the most, bunting
coming second, ordinary flannel admitting less than either. The
other three bottles were screened, one with thick domette rough
side in, one with domette rough side out, and one with cotton-
wool about an inch in thickness. The last three show hardly a
trace of dust. Curiously, the cotton-wool shows a trace more
than the domette flannel. The explanation of this I suspect to be
that the cotton-wool was not tied firmly enough round the neck
of the bottle, which had no rim, and that some air passed between
the bottle and the wool, instead of through the wool.

Another experiment which I tried was to fit up a cupboard
with panels of double domette flannel. After the fog, to my sur-
prise, the inner screen had become more or less black, showing
that black particles had passed into the cupboard, but with this
remarkable difference : whereas the outer flannel was almost uni-
formly black from top to bottom, the inner flannel was divided
into four squares of different shades of blackness, corresponding
to four spaces between shelves. Of these four, the lowermost
was almost as black as the outside, and the uppermost was almost
clean. I just mention this as a fact which needs an explanation,
but without suggesting one.

There is one error which I think has been committed in the
screens made for me, and it was pointed out by my friend Mr.
White, the architect, of Wimpole Street. The filtering material
is likely to act more effectively if left loose and not stretched
tight, as when tense the interstices are stretched and made larger,
and when out of sight it might be very loose, almost baggy, with
advantage.

Hoping to get some hints as to the comparative value of the
various textures under trial, I placed specimens of each under the
microscope. It is obvious that both canvas and bunting are of
too open a texture, having numerous small holes unguarded by
delicate fibers. Judging by the microscope, one would conclude
that of woven textures, probably flannel, and still more, domette
flannel, are the best, and this judgment seems to be borne out by
the experiments with the bottles.

VOL. XLI. — 19

24z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

This is a question which experience alone can decide. Doubt-
less the larger the area of screened opening, the more effective
the filtration. For a book-case with glazed front, probably the
whole of the back might be made of flannel loosely fixed over the
necessary skeleton framework. For a cupboard or closet, every
panel should be replaced by a screen. If the closet have a win-
dow, all crevices and joints in the window should be pasted up to
exclude the soot, otherwise the wind from, the outside, or the fires
of the house from the inside, will force the air soot through. On
the other hand, it is probably true that, given very perfect fitting
and workmanship, aided by the interposition of velvet, as here-
after described, where the edges of the doors come in contact
with their frame, a much smaller area of filter, perhaps even a
simple tube, filled with cotton-wool, may prove to be efficient.
These, however, are points on which further experience is needed,
and which may, ere long, be settled by experiment.

Where shall we place our screen ? This is a question which
admits of a variety of answers, and gives scope for endless inge-
nuity. In anything which is being newly made, such as the cup-
boards and closets of a new house, or in new furniture, we are
masters of the situation. In many of them we may substitute at
the back our filtering texture for wooden boards, and perhaps
even save expense thereby. In closets we may replace the panels
of the door by filtering texture, guarding the closets, if necessary,
against thieves by wire netting or iron bars fixed on the inner
side. As a rule, chests of drawers may have the filter over the
whole surface at the back, care being taken that the back of each
drawer falls half an inch short of the top of the drawer, to allow
free entrance of air from the screen. In one set of drawers, so
placed that I could not get at the back, the difficulty was got over
in this way : In the front of each drawer a series of twenty holes,
of an inch diameter, was made for admission of air. The filter,
on a frame, was fixed on the inner surface of the front of the
drawer, so that the material should stand half an inch away from
the holes. A somewhat similar plan was adopted in a bureau.
About twenty large holes, two inches in diameter, were cut in the
wood-work at the back, some of the holes being opposite pigeon-
holes. Then the whole was covered with bunting, on a frame so
arranged that the bunting was fully half or two thirds of an inch
away from the wood. Another method has been adopted at the
Yorkshire College for some of the cases. The filter was applied at
the roof, somewhat after the fashion of a weaving-shed roof, the
vertical face being filled in by the screen. Again, Mr. Branson has
provided a roof filter for a case of scientific instruments, by placing
the screen in the roof of the case, and protecting it by a false roof
two inches above it, to prevent its being choked by falling dust.

DUST AND FRESH AIR, 243

What shall we do with crevices and cracks ? At first, I hoped
that narrow chinks might be ignored, on the principle that easy
passages of air through an ample screen would virtually stop off
currents through narrow spaces. In this I have been disappointed,
as, in some cases, a chink, though apparently narrow, has proved
too accommodating to the passage of air, and a more ready chan-
nel than the interstices of flannel. My rule now would be to close
or guard with filtering material every place where the door comes
into contact with its frame.

The plan I have adopted with the doors of several cupboards
and closets is this— to put strips of cotton velvet wherever the
door comes into contact with its framework. On the side where
the hinges are, the velvet is glued and sprigged to the edge of the
door ; on the other side and the top the velvet is fixed to the re-
bate against which the door presses. If the door belong to a
closet, and the bottom is not in close contact with the floor, a small
piece of flannel or cloth may be fixed along the inner side of the
bottom of the door, so as to form a curtain which closes the gap,
and filters any air that passes through.

Such, then, are the principles which may guide us to a victory
over dust, and such are some of the details whereby we may work
out a method by which the victory is to be won. Do not suppose
that I claim to have completely conquered the enemy ; but a be-
ginning has been made, a beginning definite enough and assured
enough to encourage others, and especially architects, to study
the question and to make trials. If they will but work with de-
termination to conquer, they may confer upon the community a
most welcome amelioration of some of the smaller miseries we
have to submit to.

And now let me venture to tell you what I should do were I
to construct an office in the center of a town. I should begin with
the fireplace. Let it be constructed on the principles I have been
teaching for the last ten years, and which were brought to a focus
in my lecture at the Royal Institution in 1866 — principles which
are at last influencing the construction of fire-grates throughout
the kingdom. Shortly stated, they are :

1. The back and sides of the fireplace to be fire-brick, built
solid.

2. The depth of grate from front to back never to be less than
nine inches.

3. The back to lean over the fire, not to lean away from it.

4. The front bars to be vertical and thin, not horizontal and
thick.

5. The ash-place under the grid to be made into a closed hot
chamber by a movable shield, named an " economizer."

The effects of this construction are :

24+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

(a) Great diminution of dust, since the ashes fall into a closed
ash-chamber.

(6) Better warming of the room, with a diminution of about
one fourth in the quantity of coal used.

(c) Diminished draft across the floor, from diminished roar up
the chimney when the fire is burning briskly.

(d) Diminished production of soot.

These are the principles which I have urged, and they are
open to every one to adopt. I do not speak of a further improve-
ment, as it is the subject of a patent, and is not open to every one
to copy.

Having made sure of my fire, the next step would be to secure
admission of air to supply the fire, without making a draft or
introducing dirt. As far as I know this is best done by the
" Harding diff user," which admits air directly from the outside
and delivers it through a series of small jets near the ceiling. To
shut out the smuts the air passes through a canvas screen placed
diagonally in a flat tube, which leads up to the " diffuser " and
gives a filtering area about six times the sectional area of the
tube. This air is admitted into the room by a legitimate channel,
and is filtered. The " Harding diffuser " was once patented, but
the patent has lapsed.

Having thus secured a supply of air for the chimney, we can
afford to deal with the windows, and make them air-tight, with-
out fear of the chimney smoking. Now I should like to see a
revolution in windows, at any rate, wherever we can be content
with panes of moderate size, and can have the heart to surrender
plate glass.

Three things are required of a good window :

1. That the outside of the window may be cleaned by a servant
standing inside the room, whereby the risk and expense of clean-
ing from without are avoided.

2. That it shall exclude wind and dirt, even under the stress of
a gale.

3. That the air of the room, especially in frosty weather, shall
not be itself so chilled by contact with the large surface of glass
as to cause induced cold currents, which have not even the merit
of being air freshly introduced.

To attain these points, the sash window must be abandoned.
The window must be so divided that one half vertically, or in a
large window one third, may open inward on hinges, the other
half or two thirds being fixed, and therefore wind-tight ; the
breadth of each division to be such that a servant's arm can reach
out and clean the outer side of the fixed window as she stands
inside the room. In the case of three divisions the fixed windows
would be to the right and left of the hinged window. The hinged

DUST AND FRESH AIR. 245

•

window should be in two or three divisions, according to the
height, not in one large casement from top to bottom. Thus have
we provided for my first requirement, the cleaning of the window.
The hinged window must be so constructed that when closed the
framework of the window locks into a double rebated fast frame,
after the manner of a jeweler's show-case. Then, if well made, it
would fit tight and keep out wind and dust. This provides for
my second requirement.

Lastly, the panes should be doubled — that is, a second pane
must be placed inside the ordinary pane at a distance of about
five eighths of an inch. The outer pane is fixed by putty in the
usual way. The fixing of the inner pane is peculiar and all-im-
portant. The inside of the frame is cut to receive the glass ex-
actly in the same manner as the outer side for the outer pane, but
the inside pane must not be fixed by putty, but is held in place,
" sprigged " firmly against its rim, " the rebate," by small nails,
two in each side, very carefully put in. Why do I insist upon
this mode of fixing the inner pane ? For two reasons : one, to
make it easy to remove the inner pane if ever it should be neces-
sary to clean the inside of the two panes ; the other reason is, to
enable me to render cleaning of the inside unnecessary. How is
this achieved ? By facing the flange, against which the pane is
pressed, with cotton velvet. The air that must perforce pass in
and out of the space between the panes must pass the velvet, and
be filtered. Two windows of my bedroom thus treated five years
ago have never needed to be cleaned ; and a pane, which was re-
moved at the erjd of four years for inspection, was absolutely
clean. Another advantage of the double panes is this : When my
other windows with single panes are steamed all over, and even
glazed by the frost, the outer panes of the double window show
hardly a trace of unfrozen steam ; the inner panes are never
steamed. Again, a thermometer placed between the panes has
never been below 30° all this severe weather, even though a ther-
mometer outside the window has been several times below 20°.

Lastly, I would treat the cupboards and drawers after the
manner already described. The result would be, not absolute
freedom from dirt, nor absolute protection from London fog, but
such a departure from what is commonly experienced as to make
the experiment well worth all the trouble it costs.— Journal of
the Society of Arts.

Of the three hundred and twenty-three asteroids known on February 1st,
seventy were discovered by American astronomers — forty-eight by Peters and
twenty-two by Watson. Peters stands second on the list of successful discoverers.
Palissa, who is first on the list, is credited with the discovery of eighty asteroids.

246 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE COLORS OF WATER

By CAEL VOGT.

" f^\ RANDPA," asked my two grandchildren, as if with one
vZT voice, " shall we pass over the blue lake when we go to
Geneva ? "

Our residence at Salvan, a charming village of the canton
Wallis, about a thousand metres above the level of the sea, was
nearing its end. The return journey was the subject of lively
conversation, and we were almost entirely occupied with the
fancies of the children, who asked no end of questions. "We
shall go across the blue lake," I said. "First we shall go
down to the station. Grandma and I will go in carriages, you
others will walk. Then we shall take the railway train and go
down to the lake. The steamboat will be there, and as soon as
we are aboard — "

"Grandpa," interposed the others, "why is the lake so
blue?"

I was somewhat confused by these questions. If a fool can
ask more questions than ten men can answer, a child can perplex
more than a hundred grandpas. An evasive reply, like " It is
blue because it is not yellow like the Oder at home," was not
available with my children. It is an old observation that the
simpler a phenomenon of Nature appears at first sight, the more
complicated it is in fact ; but it is always well to recollect that
there is no simple phenomenon in Nature, that all that ever hap-
pens or is perceived by our senses is only a result of very differ-
ent or even opposing forces and causes, which we must not only
learn by observation, but must also separate from one another by
experiment, if we would come to a conclusion that has hands and
feet. Every one can see that the Lake of Geneva is blue, and
most persons regard the subject as quite simple and clear, with-
out probing further into the causes of the blue color. But
if a child in his naive candor asks for the reason of this color
which has struck him because the waters of his home are not
like it, there floats before the mind of the expert an unantici-
pated multitude of problems in optics involving the most difficult
laws and broad knowledge, and over which mathematicians and
physicists and students of every kind, artists and poets, have
racked their brains, without having ever reached a definite solu-
tion. How, then, shall he convey ideas to a child which shall
give an answer to the question adapted to his powers of compre-
hension ?

I was thinking of preparing a small water-color drawing, when

THE COLORS OF WATER. 247

the children asked their eager question. "Why should I not in-
voke the Muse to the help of art ? A large cylindrical glass,
holding a litre, stood on the table, filled with the superb water
that gushes out of the slates fresh and cool, crystal clear, and
chemically pure.

"Look at the water in the glass," said I; "of what color
is it?"

" I don't see that it is of any color," said one. " It is red,"
said the other.

" But that comes from the flowers that are behind it," replied
Annie. " Come round to where I am ; it doesn't look red from
here."

Lili ran round the table, and confessed, a little vexed, that the
water was not red. She had a disposition, perhaps, like Lessing's,
who was dissatisfied because the spring was always green, and
not, by way of change, sometimes red.

" Is it not true, grandpa, that water has no color ? "

" Yes, dear child, it is blue, but so little so that you can not
see it."

" Can you see that it is blue ? "

" No ; but still it is blue. Look at this."

I took a little ultramarine on the end of the brush and mixed
it with the water. " Does it look blue now ? "

" No ; I see nothing."

" Nor I. But you saw how I put a little blue color in it with
the brush."

" Yes, but there was not enough of it. Put more in."

I silently took the glass and set it on a piece of white paper in
the bright sunshine. " Now look from above down into it."

" It is blue ! " said the little one, clapping her hands, " but only
a very little."

" Look at it from the other side, where the sun is shining into
it. Is it not a little bit red, like the bell-flowers which you picked
yesterday ? "

" That is wonderful," said the little one. " It is blue from
above, a little bit red in the sun, and when we look at it from this
side of the room we see nothing ! "

" Think about it a little. The glass is as broad as my finger
is long. But it is at least three times as high as my finger.
When you look at it from the side, you see only a finger's length
of water ; but when you look down into it, you see through three
fingers' length of water — three times as much. You see it blue
from the side, and three times as blue from above, don't you ? "

" Is that really true ? " said the little one, as she measured
with her finger. She nodded that she was satisfied.

" Now imagine that the water is as deep as the height of the

248 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

church-steeple, and deeper — that it reaches from here up into
Salvan and down to Vernayaz. Then you would see the water
from above it all blue."

" Is the lake, then, really so deep ? "

" Yes, and deeper."

I will not continue the conversation any longer. It went on
with various simple experiments, beginning with differently col-
ored stones, which I let drop into the water, and then placed on
the white, then with setting the glass with its weakly bluish
contents on differently colored papers, and ended with my trying
to make the children perceive how the colors changed when they
were seen through the whole depth of the glass. I will not say
that the little ones were brought to a full comprehension of the
matter ; but they stuck fast to the assertion that water is blue,
of an infinitely weak blue, and that the blue color can not be
seen till one looks into a certain depth of it.

Physicists first acquired this knowledge by means of an ex-
periment of Bunsen's, who let a piece of white porcelain fall into
a tube filled with distilled water, and satisfied himself that the
descending piece looked bluer as it sank deeper. Bunsen had, of
course, provided that only white light reflected from the ceiling
of his room should fall into the tube, and not the blue light of
the sky. The experiment has been modified in various ways, and
made more convenient, but has always given the same result; and
it is now established as a scientific truth that chemically pure
water, free from all other constituents, either dissolved or floating,
has a bright, clear, blue color.

But there is no such water in Nature, for rain-water, even dis-
tilled— water evaporated out of the sea and everywhere, and car-
ried on in the form of clouds, and falling in drops — even that rain-
water contains some dissolved substances, and still more of little
microscopic bodies that are floating in the air which the drop
carries with it in its fall.

Yet we can assure ourselves at least as to the dissolved salts,
in which sea-water, for example, is rich, that they are all, par-
ticularly common salt, colorless in the crystalline condition, and
therefore have not the least influence on the color of sea- water.
Seamen and sailors, although uninstructed in this matter, and
without knowledge, know very well that they, going away from
the coast, in a short time reach the clear, the " blue water," and
then sail over deeps till they can not reach the bottom with
their anchors.

I have already said that every phenomenon in Nature is a com-
plex affair, and depends on many causes and conditions. This is
true of the coloring of large masses of water, as of lakes and
seas, which are indeed, as is known, of very different shades. It

THE COLORS OF WATER. 249

may be permitted to consider here a few of the conditions that
have an influence on the general effect.

A still-water surface forms a mirror which reflects those colors
of the horizon that fall upon it at the same angle as that under
which the eye stands to it. When I am at the shore of a quiet sea,
or of a still lake, the water beams with the colors of the horizon.
In a bay surrounded by woods, I see a deep gray ; on the broad
surface at sunset, the liveliest yellows and reds ; looking straight
down from my boat, the blue of the sky over my head.

These reflected colors concern the physicist the least, for he
knows that every reflecting surface returns them ; but they inter-
est the painter almost exclusively. They constitute the tone of
his landscape ; they enliven the otherwise monotonous, dead sur-
face, and he as well as the looker at his picture receives chiefly
the impression of them. They are for the most part the colors
of the lower horizon, for the point of view of the spectator is
usually only a few metres above the level of the water.

Thus with the smooth mirror. But the scene changes immedi-
ately upon the slightest agitation. It is very seldom that the sea
is quite still. The waves form hills and valleys, their surfaces are
more or less inclined, and they reflect not the horizon with its
down-toned colors, but the more saturated tints of the zenith.
Whoever has seen the Mediterranean Sea or the Lake of Geneva
under a cloudless sunset, and a slight rippling of the waves, will
recollect that the surfaces glowing with burning yellows and reds,
are broken up by sharp, deep-blue lines ; they are the wave-val-
leys, which, by reason of their oblique inclination, turn the blue
colors of the zenith into the eye. But this is not all. With the
smooth mirror surface, and lower point of view, the eye not only
receives the rays reflected from the surface, but it pierces through
the inclined parts of the wave-valleys into the mass of the water,
and thus perceives the proper color of the water, more intensely
as the small surface of the wave-valley stands more perpendicu-
larly to the eye. If the waves are very short, and follow one
another rapidly, this impression of the color of the water will
overcome that of the reflection. I can satisfy myself of this fact
at any time.

The windows on the western front of my house look toward
the Arve, which is here crossed by a dam that causes a fall of
about a metre. Above the dam, the glacier-stream, colored a
grayish yellow in summer and green in winter, is perfectly
smooth; and from my windows, which are situated about six
metres above the river, I can see hardly any but the mirror colors,
yet a little mingled with the proper color of water, which appears
considerably stronger when the sky is covered and its glaring
light does not — as the painters are accustomed to say — " eat up "

250 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the softer tones. But below the dam the water is in lively motion
with endless little racing wavelets, and here the green color comes
out so vividly that the reflection almost wholly vanishes. Yet
another fact is revealed by the movement. Only with a perfectly
smooth mirror surface are the outlines of the reflected objects
fully clear and sharp. The reflection is then so perfect that one
often hardly knows whether he sees the objects themselves or
only their mirrored images on the water ; and the lines between
water and shore are quite effaced. The slightest movement causes
the outline of the mirror picture to appear notched ; clearer lines
from the horizon creep into the darker colors of the picture, but
notches from these, too, spring out over the lines which the out-
line should have. This phenomenon is so common that we notch
the borders of water reflections in colored pictures, as well as in
those drawn only in black. I have no doubt that a relationship
lies at the bottom of this phenomenon like the fact observed by
Colladon, and now often remarked, that water in motion carries
the light along with it. A stream of water, flowing through a
dark tube out of an illuminated receiver, carries the light along,
whether it be white or colored, and shines ; why should not mov-
ing waves exhibit the same effect ?

But enough of these painters' impressions, which, as we have
said, are neglected by the physicist, but are still of the highest
significance for the beholder as well as for the artist, and, as may
result from our representation, are dependent on various factors,
among which, besides mirroring, the real color of the water is to
be considered.

Let us go a little closer into this matter.

Pure or colorless water containing salts in solution is beauti-
fully blue and perfectly transparent, at least to a certain depth.
It is, hence, clear that with the color of all objects visible at this
depth, and constantly reflecting the rays of light, is associated under
the water a blue tone, more intensive as the depth at which the
object lies is greater. The gravels on the shore of a lake or the
sea become, when seen through the blue water, as if they were
observed through a pane of blue glass ; and since all shore figures,
with trifling exceptions, are of a yellowish color, they will shine
of a more or less green color, and the water on the shore will like-
wise appear green.

I here lay aside all physical deductions concerning the nature
of color. We know that it is not, as was once thought, a property
of bodies, but that a transparent body like water, for example,
shows a distinct color, because it lets certain colored rays through,
but not others, and that a solid body reflects the rays which we
perceive, but to a certain extent absorbs the others. The discussion
of the nature of color is not of very great importance for our essay.

THE COLORS OF WATER.

251

Blue water also takes on another tint when objects lying on the
ground are seen through it, and this mixed color tone depends on
the color of the ground. We can easily verify this by the simple
experiments described above with blue colored water in a cylinder
glass. White bodies, pieces of porcelain for instance, appear light-
blue, yellow-green, red- violet, and, the deeper they sink, the more
is this shading from blue washed out, till it is destroyed. The
red shades vanish first of all.

The depth to which no trace of bottom-colors reaches us is cer-
tainly not little, and may, under favorable conditions, be esti-
mated at several hundred metres. But the question is a large
one, and we will consider a little more carefully to what extent
the more or less favorable conditions I have mentioned have been
determined.

I have already said that pure water does not exist in Nature.
It always must contain dissolved or floating substances which
will change its colors. Peat waters contain brown and blackish
organic matters in solution. They may be perfectly clear and
transparent, but the colors which the humus acids and similar
substances lend them will always produce a certain effect upon
them, which will be re-enforced by the dark-brown or black colors
of the bottom of the peat lakes. It has also been observed that
filtered water from a blue lake on evaporation leaves a white or
light gray, and that from green lakes a yellow sediment ; and that
thus blue lakes contain white matters and green lakes yellow ones
in solution, whose colors produce with those of the water mixed
tints. The difference in the colors of the Lake of Geneva and
of the Bodensee is explained on this principle, but the results of
the experiments on which the conclusion rests have been dis-
puted, and there is much room for doubt on the subject. What-
ever may be thought of this, it is certain that no water in Nature
is perfectly clear and transparent, but is more or less turbid by
the presence of other substances floating in it. That this turbidity
is of greater or less importance, that we can distinguish at greater
or less depths objects swimming in the water, like fishes, or lying
on the bottom, are taught by daily experience as well as by ex-
periments which have been made by sinking solid bodies in sun-
light and on cloudy days and at different seasons, or by letting
down sources of light, such as burning lamps and incandescent
electric lights, and ascertaining the depth at which a perceptible
glimpse of them can be obtained. It is to be regretted that these
as well as other experiments upon the penetrating power of light
have been made only in waters not quite clear, as in a few Swiss
lakes and the Mediterranean Sea. Whoever has traveled on the
coasts of Norway must have been astonished at the transparency
of the water in many of the fiords ; it is also affirmed that in some

25 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the North American lakes the eye can perceive objects on the
bottom at the depth of several hundred metres. Visibility ex-
tends to no such depths in either the Lake of Geneva or the Med-
iterranean Sea. The water of the Lake of Geneva is more trans-
parent in winter than in summer, but in this lake, as well as in
the sea-waters that have been thus far examined, the extreme
limits of visibility are at forty-five, and at most fifty metres'
depth. Observations in diving apparatus have shown that one
is there as in a blue cloud, and can only see some seven or eight
metres in a horizontal direction, in exceptional cases twenty
metres, and at most twenty-five metres. But the seeing man can
dive with the apparatus only to a depth of thirty metres, and, al-
though he can not see clearly, he is surrounded by diffuse light.

The light from above must therefore penetrate more deeply.
A more closely approximate measurement has been made by such
means as sinking sensitized photographic plates into the water,
and exposing them to the light at fixed depths, or by sinking sub-
stances which are chemically acted upon, changed, or destroyed
by light, so that the measure of the alteration may at the same
time furnish the measure of the strength of the acting light.
Photographic experiments have shown that a depth of four hun-
dred metres in the Mediterranean Sea is the average limit to which
a blackening of the plate can be verified.

Thus light penetrates to ten times as great a depth as our eye,
and this is an important point — a whole zone, three hundred
metres in thickness, receives light and thus also sends up rays
which our eyes can not immediately distinguish, but in all proba-
bility perceives through the mixture of the color tones which they
produce. It is known that there are other differences than those
of blindness to certain colors in the eyes of men, and that our or-
gans may be trained to an extraordinary degree of delicacy in the
observation of the finer tints. I once visited the Gobelins tapes-
try factory in Paris in company with some painters ; the work-
men could distinguish with ease and indubitably tints which
looked identical to our unskilled eyes. There must, to return to
our subject, radiate up from that depth to the surface, light, of a
bluish color, which makes far less impression on our eyes than
the colors called warm, yellow and red, which — especially the lat-
ter— are absorbed by the water.

It was formerly believed that total darkness reigned in the
greater depths of a thousand metres and more, and that the col-
lected colors of deep water were seen on a black ground. But, in
the light of the recent deep-sea investigations, this idea must
be given up, along with the other one that once prevailed, that
there is no animal life in great depths. Most animals living in
dark caves have atrophied or no eyes; there are also living

THE COLORS OF WATER. 253

beings found on the surface of the earth, which hide themselves
in dark places, under the ground, etc., and are blind. Similar
conditions prevail in the great deeps. There are blind crustaceans
there, which probably live in the mud and under stones, while
others, moving animals, fishes, have large, well-formed eyes. It
must be that they see, or in other words that there is light there.
Whether this light is produced in the depth by means of the
phosphorescent organs which many of these animals, even fishes,
possess, or whether it penetrates from above, as might perhaps be
concluded from the fact that some of the deep-sea animals whose
organization compels them to creep on the ground have yellow
and red colors on their backs, is of no importance so far as our in-
quiry is concerned. "We can only reach the inevitable conclusion
that we see the colors of water not on a dark or black ground but
on one that is illuminated, if but faintly. This is of moment be-
cause, in the light of it, particles floating in water are illuminated
not from above only, but from below too.

We can satisfy ourselves of the effects of the coarser floating
matter of sand and mud, as well as of the fact that the color of
masses of water depends to a large extent upon the color of such
matter. The Arve, which flows in front of my windows, is gray-
ish yellow in summer, and opaque, assuming a deeper color after
rain-storms ; in winter, on the contrary, it is green, semi-trans-
parent, and greener and clearer the less water it carries; facts
easily explainable upon principles which one of my pupils nearly
established by observations continued through a whole year. In
summer the Arve carries, with the surplus glacier-water, grayish-
yellow fragments of the mountain rocks in great multitudes;
after heavy rains, masses of yellow mud are added to these, hav-
ing been washed away from the banks of the stream. In winter
the amount of sediment derived from the glaciers is small, and
the blue color of the water is transformed into the green mixed
color. Every glacial stream has its individual color, derived from
the disintegrated rocks ; and it is not without reason that the two
rivers which join at Zweilutschine, in the Bernese Oberland, are
known as the Black and the White Lutschine. The one brings
disintegrated white limestone, the other the emery of pulverized
dark slates.

How extraordinarily strong the mixed colors produced by sedi-
mentary matter may appear was shown me by an observation
which I made at Nice at the end of December, 1889. The weather
had been fine for a few days, and the sea, which I overlooked
from my window to Cape Antibes, about fifteen kilometres away,
had been unusually blue. Now came stormy weather, with spo-
radic showers in the mountains of the Var. The river, whose
mouth is about six kilometres from my house, poured considerable

254 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

masses of saturated ochre-colored water into the sea, and there
was a sharp boundary of waves between the clay-yellow tongue
which continually licked itself farther into the sea, and the deep-
blue salt water. After a few hours the yellow tongue became
bordered with a widening green band, so brightly, so poisonously
green, that I was induced to apply my whole stock of green (vert
Paul Veronese) to the completion of a study on which I tried to
fix the phenomenon as truly as possible. Under the blowing of
the west wind the tongue stretched itself out farther, to the rocky
shore behind the harbor of Nice, around toward the bay of Villa-
f ranca ; and when I visited the latter place the next day the water
appeared, not steel-blue as usual, but green, fully green ; and the
fishermen of the zoological station there complained that no
marine animals could be found swimming around, because they
had fled from the green water. The blue color returned after a
few days. The green was produced by the finer yellow floating
matter ; the coarser particles had already sunk.

The finer matter keeps afloat for a very long time. G. Bischof
put some of the flood waters of the Rhine in large casks, and de-
posited these in the cellar of the chemical laboratory at Bonn.
The finer particles had not yet entirely settled, and the water had
not become clear, after several months of absolute stillness. It is
plain that in a lake, in which the continual inflow and outflow
keep up a constant current, though it be slight and unremarked
by ordinary observers, fishermen and rowers, these fine floating
particles will never come to rest, and that, since they have a
yellow color, this will appear more intense in the deeper parts,
because a larger number of yellow particles are floating in the
thicker layers of water there. But, farther away, the shades
which the floating matters of single brooks and rivers exhibit
vary endlessly between gray, yellow, and reddish, and there re-
sult the most diversified and delicately shaded mixed colors, with
constant variations according to the quantity of floating matter
that is carried into the water-basin. Also in the sea, which is
never quiet, the fine floating matter keeps afloat for a long time,
and is distributed over immensely large surfaces.

Organic matters, plants and animals, have effects similar to
those of mineral substances. The shores are covered with numer-
ous plants; they grow on the lakes in all stages of green and
brown (many microscopic plants, which cover the rocks as with a
slime, are yellow or brown) ; green plants grow on the sea-shores
to a depth of thirty metres, yellow and red sea-weeds to a still
greater depth, forming semblances of woods and meadows, and
mingling their colors with those of the water. Even in north-
ern seas there are numerous stationary animals, sponges, solens,
mussels, masses of which develop a definite color ; while visitors

THE COLORS OF WATER. 255

to southern seas are unable to say enough of the splendid colors
conjured up by the coral reefs.

But even this is not all. All lakes and seas swarm with swim-
ming or " pelagic " plants and animals. Green and yellow, one-
celled, microscopic algse are exceedingly common to a consider-
able depth; and green and yellow algse sometimes come to the
front in such masses that " the Red Sea " becomes no arbitrary
designation, but the correct expression of an observed fact. I
have seen the bay of Villafranca colored partly red by millions
of swimming Anchinia rubra about as large as peas ; I have seen
mile-long strips, several metres broad, immediately along the
shore on the Riviera, colored a deep royal blue by compressed
masses of swimming salleemans (Veletta spirans).

We can not absolve the transparent swimming water-organ-
isms, from the larger medusa down to the infinitesimal microbes,
from having a certain amount of influence on the color of water.
We should not be able to see their crystal-clear bodies if they
did not refract the rays of light in a different direction from the
surrounding water. By this means they send out a multitude
of refracted rays, which singly are of little importance, but in
the aggregate must produce an effect through their accumulation
when millions of these living beings are crowded into a cubic
millimetre. To what purpose should we have in some parts of
the retina of our eye a million of sensitive elements or rods to
the square millimetre, if we could not seize single impressions
and unite them into a view of the whole ?

Finally, we will not forget the air that is mixed with the
water. If we shake a viscous fluid in the air, it becomes whitish,
and at last white, like milk. Yet the fluid and the air are both
transparent. But the air-bubbles scattered through the water
refract the light in another way. The wave looks whitish, quite
white on its edges, from the inclosed air, and as the motion grows
stronger the white becomes more prominent, with a greenish tone
when the water is clear and the sky clouded, radiant yellow in
sunshine, and clay-yellow when the water is not clear. All these
tones mix with the colors of the deep, and with the mirror-colors
of the surface. Thus the question of the causes of the colors of
water rises to be one of the most complex problems of science as
well as of art, the full solution of which has not yet been reached,
in spite of the various efforts of men of science and of pictorial
artists, because in order to meet the apprehension of the common
eye they have to continue into a picture the endlessly changing
colors and shapeless figures which the sea affords. But when I
stand before a wave painted by Mazure in Paris (he is there usu-
ally called Mazure le Vague, the Wave-Mazure), and see how that
artist, without help of shore, walls, buildings, or ships, which sup-

256 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

port the eye by their forms, shows me a wave from the sea with
its reflected and refracted colors harmoniously mingled with the
bottom tints issuing from the deep and with the proper color of
the water itself, my arms, as they say, fall from my body. And
it is then hard for me to realize that the colors of water in gen-
eral are composed of a multitude of factors, among which the
most important are the normal blue of pure water, the mirror-
colors of the surface, the refracted colors of the moving parts, the
proper colors of bodies swimming in the water, and the colors of
the bottom or of only very softly illuminated parts shining up
through the mass.

In this, as in everything, the principle is true that there are
no simple phenomena in Nature, but that all are only the result
of a number of single factors, the aggregate effect of which we
observe and perceive with a very imperfect instrument — our eye.
— Translated for The Popular Science Monthly from Die Oarten-
laube.

-♦♦♦-

THE ANIMAL VIEW OF MAN.

ONE of the most curious and unconsciously paradoxical claims
ever advanced for man in his relation to animals, is that by
which M. Georges Leroy, philosopher, encyclopedist, and lieu-
tenant des chasses of the Park of Versailles, the vindicator of
Buffon and Montesquieu against the criticisms of Voltaire, ex-
plains in his Lettres sur les Animaux the intellectual debt which
the carnivorous animals owe to human persecution. He pictures
with wonderful cleverness the development of their powers of
forethought, memory, and reasoning which the interference of
man, the enemy and " rival," forces upon them, and the conse-
quent intellectual advance which distinguishes the loup jeune et
ignorant from the loup adulte et instruit. The philosophic lieu-
tenant des chasses had before long ample opportunities for com-
paring the " affinities " which he had discovered between civilized
man and " instructed " wolves, in the experiences of the French
Revolution ; but without following his fortunes in those troublous
times for game-preservers, we may perhaps return to the question
of the natural relation of animals to man, which, as pictured by
Rousseau to prove his a priori notions of a state of nature, so justly
incurred the criticism of the practical observer and practiced
writer, M. Georges Leroy.

That man is, generally speaking, from the animal's point of
view, an object of fear, hostility, or rapine, is to-day most unfortu-
nately true. But whether this is their natural relation, and not
one induced, and capable perhaps of change, is by no means cer-

THE ANIMAL VIEW OF MAN. 257

tain. Savage man, who has generally been first in contact with
animals, is usually a hunter, and therefore an object of dislike to
the other hunting animals, and of dread to the hunted. But civil-
ized man, with his supply of bread and beef, is not necessarily a
hunter ; and it is just conceivable that he might be content to
leave the animals in a newly discovered country unmolested, and
condescend, when not better employed, to watch their attitude
toward himself. The impossible island in The Swiss Family
Robinson, in which half the animals of two hemispheres were col-
lected, would be an ideal place for such an experiment. But, un-
fortunately, uninhabited islands seldom contain more than a few
species, and those generally birds, or sea-beasts; and in newly
discovered game regions, savage man has generally been before
us with his arrows, spears, and pitfalls. Some instances of the
first contact of animals with man have, however, been preserved
in the accounts of the early voyages collected by Hakluyt and
others, though the hungry navigators were generally more intent
on victualing their ships with the unsuspecting beasts and birds,
or on noting those which would be useful commodities for " traf-
ficked' than in cultivating friendly relations with the animal in-
habitants of the newly discovered islands. Thus, we read that
near Newfoundland there are " islands of birds, of a sandy-red,
but with the multitudes of birds upon them they look white.
The birds sit there as thick as stones lie in a paved street. The
greatest of the islands is about a mile in compass. The second is
a little less. The third is a very little one, like a small rock. At
the second of these islands there lay on the shore in the sunshine
about thirty or forty sea-oxen or morses, which, when our boat
came near them, presently made into the sea, and swam after the
boat." Curiosity, not fear or hostility, was, then, the emotion
roused in the sea-oxen by the first sight of man. The birds,
whales, and walruses in the Wargate Sea and near Jan Mayen's
Land were no less tame, and the sea-lions in the Southern Pacific,
the birds that Barents first disturbed in Novaya Zembla, and even
the antelopes which the early explorers encountered in the least-
inhabited parts of central South Africa, seem all to have regarded
the newly discovered creature, man, with interest and without
fear. Sir Samuel Baker, in his Wild Beasts and their Ways, re-
marks on the " curious and inexplicable fact that certain animals
and birds exhibit a peculiar shyness of human beings, although
they are only exposed to the same conditions as others which are
more bold." He instances the wildness of the curlew and the
golden plover, and contrasts it with the tameness of swallows and
wagtails. The reason does not seem far to seek. The first are
constantly sought for food, the latter are left undisturbed. Per-
haps the best instance of such a contrast is that of the hawfinch

VOL. XLI. — 20

258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the crossbill, birds of closely allied form and appearance.
The hawfinch, which is probably the shyest of English small
birds, seems to have acquired a deep mistrust of man. But the
crossbills, on the rare occasions when they descend from the un-
inhabited forests of the North into our Scotch or English woods,
are absolutely without fear or mistrust of human beings, whom
they see very probably for the first time. When animals do show
fear on first acquaintance, it is probably due, not to any spon-
taneous dread of man as man, but because they mistake him for
something else. " Nearly all animals/' says Sir Samuel Baker,
" have some natural enemy which keeps them on the alert, and
makes them suspicious of all strange objects and sounds that
might denote the approach of danger " : and it is to this that he
attributes the timidity of many kinds of game in districts where
they " have never been attacked by firearms." A most curious
instance of this mistaken identity occurred lately when Kerguelen
Island was visited by H. M. S. Volage and a party of naturalists
and astronomers, to observe the transit of Venus. There were
large colonies of penguins nesting on the island, which, though
the place is so little frequented by man, used at first to run away
up the slopes inland when the sailors appeared. They apparently
took the men for seals, and thus took what appeared the natural
way of escaping from their marine enemies. They soon found
out their mistake, for it is said that " when they became accus-
tomed to being chased by men" — an experience for which the
sailors seem to have given them every opportunity — "the pen-
guins acquired the habit of taking to the water at the first alarm."
In another colony, the nesting females would settle down peace-
fully on their eggs if the visitors stood still. " The whole of this
community of penguins (they numbered about two thousand)
were subsequently boiled down into ' hare-soup ' for the officers
and men of H. M. S. Volage," writes the Rev. A. E. Eaton, " and
very nice they found it." We may compare with this destruction
of the penguins, the letter of Hakluyt on the voyage to New-
foundland by Antony Parkhurst, describing with high approval
the business facilities for the fishing trade offered by the taine-
ness of the great auks — called " penguins " in the passage : " There
are sea-gulls, musses, ducks, and many other kinds of birdes store
too long to write about, especially at one island named ' Penguin/
where we may drive them on a planke into our ship as many as
shall lade her. These birds are also called penguins, and cannot
flie; there is more meat in one of them than in a goose. The
Frenchmen that fish neere the Grand Bank doe bring small store
of flesh with them, but do victuall themselves alwayes with these
birdes."

The point of view from which the lion or tiger looks on man

THE ANIMAL VIEW OF MAN. 259

is perhaps not so far removed from that of the non-carnivorous
creatures as might be supposed. Man is certainly not the natural
food of any animal— except of sharks and alligators, if he is so
rash as to go out of his native element into theirs— and if the item
" man " were subtracted from the bill of fare of all the carnivora,
they would never want a meal. The notion of the natural atti-
tude of a lion to a young lady —

" When as that tender virgin he did spye,
Upon her he did run full greedily,
To have at once devoured her tender corse,"

is still popular, but hardly correct. More probably the lion would
get out of the way politely — if we may judge by the pacific be-
havior of those in our last-explored lion-haunt, Mashonaland. M.
Georges Leroy's contention for the natural affinity, or semi-sym-
pathy, which should exist between man and the intelligent hunt-
ing animals is no doubt partly reasonable. Leigh Hunt was
unpleasantly struck by the incongruity of the notion of being
eaten by a wild beast — " the hideous impracticable fellow-creature,
looking one in the face, struggling with us, mingling his breath
with ours, tearing away scalp or shoulder-blade." But the " fel-
low-creature " is not nearly so impracticable as he is supposed to
be. More human beings are probably killed by tigers than by
any other wild beast, except by starving wolves. Yet this is what
Sir Samuel Baker has to say on the subject : " There is a great
difference in the habits of tigers. Some exist upon the game in
the jungles. Others prey especially upon the flocks belonging to
the villagers. A few are designated ' man-eaters/ These are
sometimes naturally ferocious, and having attacked a human be-
ing, may have devoured the body, and thus acquired a taste for
human flesh ; or they may have been wounded on more than one
occasion, and have learned to regard man as a natural enemy. But
more frequently the * man-eater ' is a very old tiger, or more prob-
ably tigress, that, having hunted in the neighborhood of villages
and carried off some unfortunate woman, has discovered that it is
far easier to kill a native than to hunt jungle game." As a rule,
the tiger is only anxious to avoid men ; and it is noticed that in
high grass tigers are more dangerous than in forests, because in
the former they can not be seen, neither can they see, until the
stranger is close upon them. An ancient instance of the opposite
behavior is that recorded of the new colonists of Samaria, whom
the lions attacked, and " slew some of them." A curious inver-
sion of this experience occurred when the islands in the Brah-
maputra, which were swarming with tigers, were first cultivated.
The natives, mainly by the aid of traps set with a bow and arrow,
killed off the tigers so fast that the skins were sold by auction at

26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from eight annas to one rupee apiece. In this case, the tigers
were the first aggressors by carrying off cattle. But it seems evi-
dent that there exists no a priori reason, founded in natural an-
tipathy, why man and animals, if we could reconstruct a " state
of nature " in which we could put civilized, not savage man, should
not dwell together in profound peace, or at least in such peace as
obtains between accidental neighbors. The only ground for quar-
rel that seems inevitable is the everlasting one between the shep-
herd and the wolf ; and that, after all, is a question not of preju-
dice, but of property. — TJie Spectator.

■*»*■

SKETCH OF WILLIAM HUGGINS.

DOCTOR HUGGINS is one of the leaders in the modern meth-
ods of astronomical research, and his name is associated
with a considerable proportion of the discoveries that have been
made respecting the constitution of the sun, stars, and nebulae,
and with the results in general of the application of physical in-
vestigations and of spectroscopic observation in particular to the
heavenly bodies.

William Huggins was born in London, February 7, 1824.
He received his early education in the City of London School, and
continued his studies in mathematics, the classics, and modern
languages under private tutors. He devoted much time to ex-
periments in natural philosophy, and by the aid of the appa-
ratus which he collected he gained practical knowledge of the
elements of the chief branches of physical science, including
chemistry, electricity, and magnetism. He also studied, using the
microscope, animal and vegetable physiology, and became in
1852 a member of the Microscopic Society. He developed a par-
ticular interest in astronomy, and, " under great difficulties," says
one of the earlier biographies in Men of the Time, while still re-
siding in the metropolis with his parents, " observed the planets
and some of the double stars between the chimneys of London."
The erection of an observatory in 1855, at his residence at Upper
Tulse Hill, which he supplied with good instruments, gave him
better opportunities for observation ; and in 1858 he had an Alvan
Clark telescope of eight inches aperture, mounted equatorially.
He occupied himself here for some time with observation of double
stars, and with careful drawings of the planets Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn. In the light of the knowledge gained in his physical
studies he was not satisfied to follow in the beaten track of ob-
servation, but sought to broaden the field of study, and inquire as
far as possible into the physical qualities of the sun and stars. A

SKETCH OF WILLIAM HUGGINS. 261

means of conducting investigations of this kind, which his prede-
cessors had not possessed, was offered in the method of spectrum
analysis discovered by Kirchhoff ; and he was first able to under-
take the application of this method in the beginning of 1862. In
preparation for the research he mapped the spectra of twenty-six
of the chemical elements, publishing the results of his labors in
the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. In con-
junction with Dr. William Allen Miller, he compared the spectra
of some fifty stars with those of several terrestrial elements, and
found that the stars are hot bodies, similarly constituted with our
sun, and containing many of the substances found on the earth.
In 1864 he and Prof. Miller reported to the Royal Society the
results of their observations of the spectra of the planets Venus,
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn ; but they had found the light from
Uranus too faint to be satisfactorily examined with the spectro-
scope.

The study of Uranus was resumed with an improved tele-
scope in 1871 by Mr. Huggins, and he found its spectrum to be
continuous so far as the feebleness of its light permitted it to be
traced, or from C to near G. A photograph of the spectrum of
Sirius was obtained by Mr. Huggins and Prof. Miller in 1863,
when observations were suspended. They were resumed by Mr.
Huggins in 1876, with apparatus so arranged that the spectrum
of the sun could be taken on the same plate, and this method
was applied to other bright stars. After recording in his com-
munication to the Royal Society his expectation, with apparatus
then under construction, of obtaining finer lines which might be
present in the stellar light than those that had been seen, and of
extending the photographic method to stars that were less bright,
Prof. Huggins referred in general terms to " the many important
questions in connection with which photographic observations
of stars may be of value." Another paper recording the progress
of these investigations to the end of 1879 named thirteen bright
stars, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, and different small areas of the
moon, to which the method had been applied. Six of the spectra
belonged to stars of the white class, while Arcturus seemed to
present a spectrum " on the other side of that of the sun in the
order of changes from the white-star group." The photographs
of the planets showed no sensible planetary modification of the
violet and ultra-violet parts of the spectrum. The results of the
photographs of lunar areas taken under different conditions of
illumination were negative as to any absorptive action of a lunar
atmosphere. The author was then preparing to attempt to obtain
by photography any lines which might exist in the violet and
ultra-violet spectra of the gaseous nebulae. He further pointed
out " the suitability of the photographic method of stellar spec-

262 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.

troscopy, first inaugurated by his researches, to some other inves-
tigations, such as differences which may present themselves in the
photographic region in the case of the variable stars, the differ-
ence of relative motion of two stars in the line of sight, the sun's
rotation from photographic spectra of opposite limbs, and the
spectra of the different parts of a sun-spot." The British Associa-
tion address of 1891 includes a fine summary of the results to date
of observations of this character as they bear upon the evolu-
tional order in which in this paper he arranged the stars from
their photographic spectra. Substantially the same order had
been proposed by Vogel in his classification of the stars in 1874.

Dr. Huggins presented a paper on his examination of the
great nebula in Orion in 1868, and referred in it to earlier observa-
tions. The discussion was continued in 1872, and in 1882, when
the author threw out the suggestion of a hope that the further
knowledge of the spectra of the nebulae afforded us by photog-
raphy might lead, by the help of terrestrial experiments, to more
definite knowledge as to the state of things existing in those
bodies. In communications to the French Academy of Sciences
and to the Royal Society in 1889 he considered it probable that
nebulae yielding a spectrum of luminous rays, with a very faint
continuous spectrum, which is probably formed in part by lumi-
nous rays in close proximity, are at or near the beginning of the
cycle of their celestial evolution. " They consist probably of gas
at a high temperature and very tenuous, where chemical dissocia-
tion exists, and the constituents of the mass, doubtless, are ar-
ranged in the order of vapor density. As to the conditions which
may have been anterior to this state of things the spectroscope is
silent. We are free, so far as the spectroscope can inform us, to
adopt the hypothesis which other considerations make most prob-
able. On Dr. Croll's form of the impact theory of stellar evo-
lution, which begins by assuming the existence of stellar masses
in motion, and considers all subsequent evolutional stages to be
due to the energy of this motion converted into heat by the col-
lision of two such bodies, these nebulae would represent the second
stage in which these existing solid bodies had been converted into
a gas of very high temperature. They would take the same place,
if we assume, with Sir William Thomson, the coming together
of two or more cool, solid masses by the velocity due to their
mutual gravitation alone. I pointed out in 1864 that the gaseous
nature of these bodies would afford an explanation of the appear-
ance of flat disks without condensation which many of them pre-
sent. ... In other gaseous nebulae strong condensations are seen,
and a stronger 'continuous' spectrum. The stage of evolution
which the nebula in Andromeda represents is no longer a matter
of hypothesis. The splendid photograph recently taken by Mr.

SKETCH OF WILLIAM HUGOINS. 263

Roberts of this nebula shows a planetary system at a somewhat
advanced stage of evolution ; already several planets have been
thrown off, and the central gaseous mass has condensed to a mod-
erate size as compared with the dimensions it must have possessed
before any planets had been formed." In 1891, after more defi-
nitely describing the appearance of Mr. Roberts's photograph, he
said that "to liken this object more directly to any particular
stage in the formation of the solar system would be f to compare
great things with small,' and might be indeed to introduce a false
analogy ; but, on the other hand, we should err through an excess
of caution if we did not accept the remarkable features brought
to light by this photograph as a presumptive indication of a prog-
ress of events in cosmical history following broadly upon the lines
of Laplace's theory."

Dr. Huggins's spectrum observations on comets, in connection
with those of other observers, satisfied him of the existence of
different types, and that the same comet might present on one
occasion one spectrum and on another the other spectrum ; that
they shine partly by reflected solar light and partly by their own
light, the spectrum of which indicates the presence in the comet
of carbon, possibly in combination with hydrogen. In the case
of the Wells comet of 1882, he remarked that as Prof. A. Herschel
and Dr. Von Konkoly had showed long before that the spectra of
the periodic meteors are different for different swarms, it was not
surprising that we now had a comet the matter of the nucleus of
which under the sun's heat showed an essential chemical differ-
ence from the long series of hydrocarbon comets which had ap-
peared since 1864. The spectrum of Coggia's comet (1874) indi-
cated an approach to the earth of forty-six miles per second,
while the real velocity of approach was only twenty-four miles
per second. It was uncertain whether the whole or part of the
difference in the velocity was due to the motion of the matter
within the comet. It seemed probable, therefore, that the nucleus
was solid, heated by the sun, and throwing out matter which
formed the coma and tail ; and part of this was in a gaseous form,
giving the spectra of bright lines. The other portion existed
probably in small incandescent particles ; the polariscope show-
ing that certainly not more than one fifth of the whole light was
reflected solar light. In a paper on Photographing the Solar
Corona without an Eclipse, Prof. Huggins spoke, in 1882, of prob-
lems of the highest interest in the physics of our sun connected
with the varying forms of the coronal light which seemed to
admit of solution only on the condition of its being possible to
study the corona continuously, and to confront its changes with
other visible phenomena presented by the sun. The spectro-
scopic method of viewing the prominences failed ; experiments in

264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

looking at the corona through, screens of colored glass or other
absorptive media had not been satisfactory. The author had
therefore undertaken to use photography, and had satisfied him-
self that under certain conditions of exposure and development,
a photographic plate could be made to record minute differences
of illumination existing in different parts of a bright object,
which was so subtle as to be at the very limit of the power of
recognition of a trained eye, and even, perhaps, of those that sur-
passed that limit. Describing his apparatus and method, he
showed that it was possible, by isolating through properly chosen
absorbing media, the light of the sun in the violet part of the
spectrum, to obtain photographs of the sun surrounded by an
appearance distinctly coronal in its nature. He afterward found
that, by using plates sensitive to violet light only, it was possible
to do away with absorbing media and remove the difficulties that
occurred in sifting the light. In 1886 Dr. Huggins accounted
for his failure to obtain in England, since the summer of 1883,
photographs showing satisfactory indications of the corona, by
the existence in the atmosphere since the autumn of 1883 of finely
divided matter which caused an abnormally large amount of
glare. Mr. Ray Woods had met the same trouble in Switzerland
in the summer of 1884.

In his British Association address, 1891, Prof. Huggins re-
peated a conclusion which he had expressed in 1885, that the
corona is essentially a phenomenon similar in the cause of its
formation to the tails of comets — consisting for the most part
of matter going from the sun under the action of a force, pos-
sibly electrical, which varies as the surface, and can therefore
in the case of highly attenuated matter easily master the force
of gravity even near the sun — as according with the lines along
which thought had been directed by the results of subsequent
eclipses.

In the early part of 1868 Prof. Huggins presented to the Royal
Society some observations on a small change of refrangibility
which he had remarked in a line in the spectrum of Sirius as com-
pared with a line of hydrogen, from which it appeared that the
star was moving from the earth with a velocity of about twenty-
five miles a second, if the probable advance of the sun in space
were taken into account. The thought of discovering motion in
this way was not wholly new, though Prof. Huggins was the first
to apply it in practice. The Rev. John Mitchell, of the Royal
Society, presented an ingenious paper, in 1783, On the Means of
discovering the Distance, Magnitude, etc., of the Fixed Stars, in
Consequence of the Diminution of the Velocity of their Light, in
which he suggested that by the aid of a prism " we might be able
to discover diminutions in the velocity of light as perhaps a hun-

SKETCH OF WILLIAM HUGGINS. 265

dredth, a two-hundredth, a five-hundredth, or even a thousandth
part of the whole." Doppler had also, in 1841, suggested that on
the same principle on which a sound should become sharper or
flatter if there were an approach or a recession between the ear
and the source of the sound would apply equally to light ; and
Fizeau, about eight years later, had pointed out the importance
of considering the individual wave-lengths of which white light
is composed. Prof. Huggins was not able to continue his obser-
vations of this feature till 1872, when, having devised a trust-
worthy apparatus, and enjoying favorable weather, he applied his
method to fourteen stars which were found to have a motion of
approach and twelve which appeared to be receding. He re-
marked upon these results that the velocities of recession or ap-
proach assigned to the several stars by him represented the whole
of the motion in the line of sight existing between them and the
sun. As we know that the sun is moving in space, a part of
these observed velocities must be due to the solar motion. He
had not attempted to make this correction, because, although the
direction of the sun's motion seemed to be satisfactorily ascer-
tained, the velocity with which it was advancing rested on sup-
positions more or less arbitrary. It would be observed that,
speaking generally, the stars which the spectroscope showed to
be moving from the earth were situated in a part of the heavens
opposite to Hercules, toward which the sun was advancing ; while
the stars in the neighborhood of that region showed a motion of
approach. There were some exceptions to this general statement ;
and there were some other considerations which appeared to show
that the sun's motion in space is not the only, or even in all cases
the chief, cause of the observed proper motions of the stars.
There could be little doubt that in the observed stellar move-
ments we have to do with two other independent motions, namely,
a movement common to certain groups of stars, and a motion
peculiar to each star.

Pertaining to other subjects than spectroscopic astronomy
on which Prof. Huggins has written, we notice a communication
to the Royal Society On the Function of the Sound-post, and
on the Proportional Thickness of the Strings of the Violin. A
curious letter from him in Nature, in 1873, relates the* case of a
family of dogs the members of which had inherited an antip-
athy to butchers' shops and butchers. Some of them could not
be induced to pass by a butcher's shop; others showed great
uneasiness in the presence of a butcher, although they could not
see him; and one of them attacked a gentleman visiting his
master, whose business was that of a butcher. In 1872 Dr.
Huggins edited and annotated an edition of Schellen's Spectrum
Analysis in its Application to Terrestrial Substances and the

266 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Physical Constitution of the Heavenly Bodies, translated by
Jane and Caroline Lassell.

Dr. Huggins was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1865,
and has received two of its medals; he was awarded, with Dr.
Miller, the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1867,
for their conjoint researches, and he was given a second medal of
the same society in 1885. He has received doctor's degrees from
the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, and Trinity
College, Dublin ; and he holds the honors and memberships of
other British societies, and of numerous societies in foreign lands.
As Rede lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, in 1869, he gave
an account of his researches in astronomy by means of the
spectroscope ; and as President of the British Association in 1891
he delivered an inaugural address, the more definite purpose of
which, as defined by the author, was " not to attempt a survey of
the progress of spectroscopic astronomy from its birth at Heidel-
berg in 1859, but to point out what we do know at present, as dis-
tinguished from what we do not know, of a few only of its more
important problems." The success of this effort, the Observatory
says, was recognized equally by the general public and by those
more familiar with astronomy. " Those who were already famil-
iar with Dr. Huggins and his work have learned afresh almost to
their surprise how closely he has been identified with the ' very
remarkable discoveries in our knowledge of the heavens which
have taken place during this period of thirty years/ Not that the
president materially assists in pointing this moral; rather is it
pointed by the facts in spite of him. He is almost too eager to
assign credit to others when he might justly have mentioned his
own work."

The manufacture of flints is still carried on at the hamlet of Porcharioux,
department of Loir-et-Cher, France, where the stone is abundant and of fine
quality. The stones are quarried and roughly broken by the men, and are taken
by the women into the house to be finished. A single worker can dress five or
six thousand stones in a week. The use to which the flints are applied is not
known to M. Belot, who has described the manufacture ; but the business seems
to be profitable. The work is attended with danger of lung disorders caused by
the dust, a liability which the workers accept philosophically. The business is in
the hands of a single family.

A recent investigation by Mr. Thomas Whitelegge, of Sydney, may cast some
light as to the causes which influence marine food supplies. He found that a
sudden discoloration of the water in Port Jackson Harbor was caused by the pres-
ence of a minute organism which he identified as a species of the genus Qleno-
dinium; and, so far as he was able to judge, fully half of the shore fauna was
destroyed by the invaders. The bivalves were almost exterminated wherever the
organism was abundant during the whole of the visitation.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

267

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE ''AMERICAN EXPERIMENT" IN
EDUCATION.

STATE Superintendent of Education
Andrew S. Draper lately delivered
an address on education before certain
teachers' associations. He also lately
made a report on the same subject to
the Legislature of New York. In the
address he spoke of the " stern logic of
the American experiment" having forced
free schools upon the countries of Eu-
rope. What the stern logic of the
American experiment teaches we are
ourselves not prepared to say ; but we
notice that, in his annual report, Super-
intendent Draper tells us that one re-
sult of the American experiment is that
since 1851 there has been a steady de-
crease in the percentage of attendance
at the public schools. These are his
words :

"The reports show that in 1851 the
' total attendance ' comprised 75*6 per
cent of the school population. This
percentage has constantly fallen off with
surprising regularity during the inter-
vening forty years. In 1861 it was 65*6
per cent, in 1871 it was 68*4 per cent,
in 1881 it was 61*4 per cent, and in 1891
it was 57*8 per cent. This is a showing
which must engage the attention of all
thoughtful persons. There should be
some explanation of it, or there should
be vigorous measures to remedy the
growing evil of non-attendance upon
the schools. Is there any explanation ?
Are the circumstances as unfortunate as
the figures indicate ? It should be said,
in the first place, that the ' school popu-
lation,' being all between five and twen-
ty-one years, includes many children
whose parents deem them too young to
go to school, and a great many more
who have gone through the schools and
commenced work. In other words, the
statutory school age is both younger and
older than the actual school age is, or

ever can be, in the greater number of
cases, and is therefore misleading. This
will indicate why the percentage is
small, but not why it continually grows
smaller."

The fact is that, since the establish-
ment of kindergartens, children are go-
ing to school at a younger age now than
they did a generation ago ; and it is
also the case that boys and girls stay
longer at school nowadays than they
used to do ; so that, in the absence Of
other influences, the percentage of at-
tendance ought to be higher considera-
bly than it was in 1851. Perhaps it was
that forty years ago people had not yet
learned to undervalue education on ac-
count of its very cheapness. "Whatever
the explanation, it seems to us that "the
logic of the American experiment " re-
quires to be further explored.

THE LAW AND THE DOCTORS.

Mr. Frederic Harrison and Mrs.
Fawcett have been having a little con-
troversy of their own on the subject of
"the emancipation* of women." Mr.
Harrison is desirous that women should
have all possible educational advantages,
and he says many fine things about their
intellectual and moral powers ; but he
still holds that their place is in the
home, not in the factory, the counting-
house, the Government office, or the
political meeting. Mrs. Fawcett points
out the impossibility of confining women
to the home in these days when 60
many of them have no home, or none
that can give them a living ; and, apart
from that, she resents the idea that
women are not adapted to extra-
domestic tasks and duties. The con-
troversy is in able hands, and we have
no wish to intervene at present. One
remark that Mrs. Fawcett makes, how-
ever, seems to call for a word. She

268

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

speaks of " people who are in rebellion
against all order in society ; who think
marriages should be dissolvable at will ;
that parents ought to have no control
over their children," and so on through
quite a list of absurdities, the last being
the opinion that " any quack or im-
postor who chooses to put a brass plate
on his door calling himself a physician,
a lawyer, or what not, should occupy
exactly the same position as those who
have entered the various professions
after complying with the constituted
educational test of fitness." Now, we
are not acquainted with any persons,
nor have we heard of any, who hold
this opinion ; but we do know of some
who consider that if there is anything
that tends to bring the capable man
and the ignoramus down to a common
level, it is the brass door-plate under
existing conditions. The public under-
stand now that they have a guarantee
that the M. D. on a door-plate or
diploma means something definite ;
whereas the fact is that it may cover
the widest possible diversity of attain-
ments and abilities. The present sys-
tem casts a kind of mysterious sanctity
round the very blunders of the author-
ized physician, so that good wives may
be heard talking of them with bated
breath almost as if they were treading
on holy ground. The doctor in fact is
treated in general with far more con-
sideration and even reverence than the
minister, and, so far as we can see, his
science only suffers through the dis-
tinction made in his favor. Whatever
Mrs. Fawcett may think of it, we are
strongly of opinion that medical science
will never make the progress it is capa-
ble of till it is wholly set free from
state control. Instead of such freedom
placing the impostor and the competent
practitioner on a level, it is the very
thing, we are persuaded, that would
do most to drive impostors, certified
and non-certified, out of the "profes-
sion."

LITERARY NOTICES.

Moral Teachings of Science. By Arabella
B. Buckley (Mrs. Fisher). New York:
D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 122. Price, 15
cents.

Science has been many times accused of
having no tendency toward morality, and, in
fact, of exerting an opposite influence by re-
leasing men from some restraints that for-
merly held them to the path of virtue. It is
true that the adherents of science have not
yet been able to construct a complete system
of ethics, based on the evolution philoso-
phy, but their position has been that of a
builder who is jeered at because his house
has no roof before he has had time to raise
its walls in the face of the hindrances
thrown in his way by his critics. The old
conception of the universe is a growth of tens
of centuries ; must the new be thoroughly
worked out in a single generation? How-
ever, scientists have no disposition to shirk
the ethical problem, and now that they have
achieved a suitable vantage-ground are already
beginning to develop a solution of it. The
present volume is designed to show in a sim-
ple manner that science does tend to produce
moral conduct, and how its moral teachings
are to be looked for. The author affirms at
the outset that acquaintance with scientific
truth can not give us false guidance with re-
spect to conduct. If selfishness is not the
universal law of progress, she says, "we
need have no fear that the study of natural
laws will mislead us into believing it. With
our limited knowledge we may often be per-
plexed, but so long as we do not overstrain
the facts we shall not be confounded. If it
be true that the instincts which lead us to
be just and merciful, honest and unselfish,
pure and affectionate, to fear moral degra-
dation, and to aspire to nobleness of charac-
ter, are inherent in the very laws of our
being, then we shall find the gradual devel-
opment of these qualities in the groundwork
of living nature. In a word, we shall find
evidence that high moral duties are not
true merely because all religions have taught
them, but that all religions have taught them
because they are true."

The author admits no question as to the
existence of God, but declares that his " ul-
timate nature and attributes" "must tran-

LITERARY NOTICES.

269

scend our utmost efforts of intuition or im-
agination." Yet, she continues, " we can not
surely fail to recognize that partial mani-
festations of that nature are taking place
within and around us at every moment of
our lives." Science has revealed how the
First Cause proceeds in the creation of a
particular kind of plant or animal ; it has
shown, as no other testimony has been able
to show, that " his ways are not as our
ways," and that he is " without variableness
or shadow of turning," and it has made men
feel that every right or wrong act is sure to
have its proper recompense. The presence
of pain and strife in the world has long been
a mystery. The great scientific doctrine of
natural selection first gave a clew to their
usefulness.

In both the animal and the vegetable
kingdoms the author points out that species
and individuals that satisfy the conditions of
their surroundings flourish, while those that
behave differently perish. From this she
draws the lesson that in order to attain the
highest life of which he is capable, man
must adapt his conduct to the will of the
Author of all things, as expressed in the
laws of the universe. Although one's con-
duct is largely influenced by heredity, this is
no excuse for resigning one's self to a down-
ward course. From the very beginning of
animal life we see a power of choice devel-
oping together with consciousness, and out
of this power springs responsibility. The
success and the enjoyment achieved by dis-
regarding moral laws are only a short-lived
success, and an imperfect enjoyment.

The question of immortality Mrs. Fisher
deems a profound and difficult one. Regard-
ing it as intimately connected with all higher
morality, she feels obliged to state her con-
viction upon it, which is that "our moral
nature and the conclusions of science, even
apart from religious belief, all point to a
continuation of individual existence beyond
the few short years we pass in this world."
The reasons that she gives in support of this
opinion are not, however, as clearly teachings
of science as are those which she finds as a
basis of moral conduct. The chief argument
is that persons who suffer inherited disad-
vantages in this life ought to have compen-
sation. Thus it will be seen that the book
accepts the main principles of religious eth-

ics, and supplies reasons for obeying moral
laws in addition to those which the most
enlightened religions contain. Its influence
on the adult or the young reader can not fail
to be elevating, and it should prove to be a
valuable textbook for the teaching of pure
ethics.

Principles and Practice op Plumbing. By
S. Stevens Hellyer. London: George
Bell & Sons, 1892. Pp. 294. Price,
$1.25.

This is one of the Technological Hand-
books issued by the London publishers, George
Bell & Sons, and edited by Sir H. Trueman
Wood, Secretary of the Society of Arts. It
appears to cover the subject quite completely
though briefly, and contains much informa-
tion that the householder would find it ad-
vantageous to know, though it is addressed
primarily to the plumber. The contents of
the volume range from a consideration of the
metallurgy of lead and tin to the proper fix-
ing in place of the various apparatus which
it is the business of the plumber to know
about.

The Elements of Politics. By Henry
Sidgwick. London and New York:
Macmillan & Co., 1891. Pp. 632. Price,

$4.

Prof. Sidgwick has undertaken in this
volume a general survey of the field of poli-
tics, with the object of determining what
work a government may properly undertake
to do, and what form of structure is best
suited to the purpose. Holding to the in-
dividualistic view of social organization as
contrasted with the socialistic, and seeking
his sanctions in the main in the principle of
individualism, he yet departs widely at times
from the laisser-faire school of political
thinkers. He rejects the strictly individu-
alistic test of what things a government may
properly attempt to do as being inadequate,
and adopts instead the " general welfare," as
the test of what things are permissible and
what are not. From this point of view he
is able to find adequate sanction for 6uch
extensions of government activity as public
education, the care and relief of the indi-
gent, public hospitals, public parks, sanitary
supervision, etc., and the carrying on of cer-
tain businesses that are semi-public in char-
acter, such as the transmission of mails and

270

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

telegrams, and the supply of water and light-
ing in towns.

The scope of the author's inquiry in this
branch of his subject may perhaps be best
indicated by the following extract :

" The legislation of modern civilized com-
munities, then, is, in the main, framed on
an individualistic basis; and an important
school of political thinkers are of opinion
that the coercive interference of government
should be strictly limited to the application
of this principle. I propose, accordingly, in
subsequent chapters, to trace in outline the
chief characteristics of the system of law
that would result from the consistent appli-
cation of the individualistic principle to the
actual conditions of human life in society.
I shall then examine certain difficulties and
doubts that arise when we attempt to work
out such a consistent and exclusive individu-
alistic system. I shall analyze the cases in
which, in my judgment, it tends to be inade-
quate to produce the attainable maximum of
social happiness ; and I shall consider to what
extent, and under what carefully defined
limitations, it is expedient to allow the intro-
duction of paternal and socialistic legisla-
tion, with a view to remedy these inadequa-
cies."

In the branch of this subject relating to
the structure of a government, Prof. Sidg-
wick is occupied with a discussion of what
he esteems the most desirable relation be-
tween the three prime departments of a gov-
ernmental structure — the executive, legisla-
tive, and judicial. His discussion is well
worth study, and abounds in suggestions of
improvements in details as well as in prin-
ciples of the more prominent features of
modern governments.

The Horse. By William Henry Flower,
Sc. D., Pres. Z. S., etc. Modern Science
Series, No. II. New York : D. Appleton
& Co. Pp. xiv + 204. Price, $1.

Prof. Ball's instructive book on The
Cause of an Ice Age, which opened the new
popular scientific series, edited by Sir John
Lubbock, is followed by the present volume,
in which the structure of the most interesting
of the domestic animals is described. The
author begins by defining the horse's place
in nature, as indicated by its ancestors,
whose fossil remains have been found in

considerable abundance, and by its relatives.
In the second chapter the horse and its
nearest existing relatives are described.
These are the Perissodactyle ungulates com-
prising the three families, tapirs, rhinoce-
roses, and horses. Of these the tapirs retain
more of the primitive characteristics of the
common ancestors of the three families than
either of the others. Of the tapirs there is
but one genus. The rhinoceroses are grouped
in three sections or genera — the rhinoceros
with one horn, the ceratorhinus and the
atelodus, each with two. The horses (fam-
ily Equidce) comprise the horse proper, the
asses, and the zebras. Although wild horses
have been abundant in both America and
Europe, the nearest approach to a wild horse
existing anywhere at present is the tarpan
of the steppes in southeastern Russia. The
latter half of the volume is devoted to the
structure of the horse, chiefly as bearing
upon its mode of life, its evolution, and its
relation to other animal forms. The bones
of the head and neck and the dentition are
fully described, and the chief characteristics
of the lips, nostrils, and neck are pointed
out. In describing the cervical ligament,
which is attached like a stay-rope to the
neck and to the fore part of the backbone,
the author takes occasion to condemn the
useless cruelty of the bearing-rein. The
fourth and last chapter is devoted to the
limbs, and contains an interesting compari-
son between the arrangement of the bones
in the limbs of the horse and in those
of man. Twenty-six figures illustrate the
text.

Principles of Economics. By Alfred Mar-
shall. Vol. I. Second edition. London
and New York: Macmillan & Co., 1891.
Pp. 770. Price, $3.

This well-known treatise of Prof. Mar-
shall has undergone but slight changes in the
present edition, the more important of which
are pointed out by the author in his preface.
The work is a general presentation of the
science on the general lines laid down by the
English economists, but there is to be traced
in it the influence of more recent economic
thought in modifying the treatment of many
problems and altering the weight given to
conditions and considerations not strictly
economic. As Prof. Marshall points out, the

LITERARY NOTICES.

271

older economists were disposed to view the
science too largely from the point of view of
the needs and actions of the " economic man "
— an ideal construction actuated only by eco-
nomic motives, instead of those of the actual
man, in the determination of whose economic
action many motives enter besides those that
are strictly economic. Paramount among
these are the ethical forces, family affections,
and other altruistic feelings, which in any
given set of conditions are sufficiently uni-
form to produce conduct that may be pre-
dicted. The introduction of considerations
of this kind as economic factors, while leav-
ing the older conclusions substantially as
they were, tends to give to them much less
sharpness of outline, and presents economic
laws more as statements of general tenden-
cies than as a set of fixed and invariable
conditions.

The book is well printed and bound and
of convenient size, and is provided with
marginal notes indicating the subject-matter.
An appendix concerned with the application
of mathematics to economic problems, and
an index complete the volume.

Manual of Chemical Technology. By Ru-
dolf von Wagner. Translated and ed-
ited by William Crookes, F. R. S. From
the thirteenth enlarged German edition
as remodeled by Dr. Ferdinand Fischer.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 24
+ 968. Price, $7.50.

So great have been the changes in the
chemical treatment of materials in the vari-
ous industries since the author's last edition
of this work appeared that the present edi-
tion is practically a new book. The elev-
enth edition was completed by Wagner
shortly before his death in 1880. The
twelfth edition, which was issued in 1886,
was edited by Dr. Fischer, who cut out the
matter that had become obsolete, and in-
serted references to recent improvements in
the processes treated, but made no exten-
sive changes. In the present edition the
work has been wholly remodeled; the al-
phabetical arrangement of the subject-matter
has been replaced by a classified grouping ;
new subjects have been introduced, the latest
developments in old subjects have been in-
serted, and about half the six hundred il-
lustrations are new.

Since fuel is indispensable in every de-

partment of technology, it is first considered,
over one hundred pages being given to this
subject and lighting. Both the preparation
and use of heating and lighting materials
are considered. The greater part of this
section is new matter. In Section II, Met-
allurgy, a new subdivision on potassium and
sodium is inserted. Section III is devoted
to Chemical Manufacturing Industry, includ-
ing the production of sulphur, sulphuric acid,
soda, explosives, ammonia, salts of the met-
als, etc. New topics in this section are
water, manures, and thermo-chemistry. Sec-
tion IV, on the Organic Chemical Manufact-
ures, has been written entirely anew. This
chapter includes alcohols and ethers, organic
acids, benzol colors and other organic color-
ing matters, etc. The fifth section is de-
voted to glass, earthenware, cement, and
mortar ; the sixth deals with Articles of Food
and Consumption ; and the seventh with the
Chemical Technology of Fibers, while the
eighth is a miscellaneous group, comprising
the products of hides, bones, and fats, the
essential oils, resins, and the preservation of
wood. Thermometric, hydrometric, and other
tables are appended to the volume. The
translation has been carefully edited by Prof.
Crookes, with the omission of some passages
of merely local application and the insertion
of notes and bibliographical references, mak-
ing the version much more valuable to Eng-
lish readers than a simple translation would
have been.

The Working and Management of an Eng-
lish Railway. By George Findlay,
General Manager of the London and North-
western Railway. New York : Macmillan
& Co., 1891. Pp. 354. Price, $1.50.

In this small volume of three hundred
odd pages Mr. Findlay has detailed the work-
ing and management of one of the great
English railways — the London and Northwest-
ern. His description includes the financial
and business as well as the mechanical oper-
ations of the road. What strikes the reader
of these pages the most forcibly is the thor-
oughness with which all the details of oper-
ation have been worked out, and the care
exercised over these details to assure the
perfect operation of the road at all times.
To this end the road is placed under the most
detailed supervision, as well as being pro-
vided with the various modern appliances

272

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

which experience has shown are essential to
safety. It is, of course, operated under the
block system, without which the operation
of any great railroad with its multifarious
traffic can not be safe. To listen to the ex-
cuses often made by railroad officials for not
adopting this system, one would get the idea
that it is in some way complex and intricate
and not easy of application to railway oper-
ation under all circumstances. It is, how-
ever, simplicity itself. It does not consist in
any necessary forms of appliance, but is sim-
ply a method of operating. Mr. Findlay de-
scribes some simple forms of indicators used
on the London and Northwestern, but any
form of indicator may be used. The block
system consists simply in dividing a road
into a number of sections and allowing but
one train at a time in either direction in any
given section. To apply it to a road re-
quires only the erection of proper signals
and suitable means for operating them, and
knowing their condition by the operators sta-
tioned along the line at the entrance of every
block division. It is a matter of no small
wonder that the officials of any considerable
road should resist the introduction of so sim-
ple a method of insuring safety, and that
any community should tolerate a railway
service not operated in such a manner. The
book is very readably written, and can be
read with interest by the general public who
have to make use of the railways, and with
profit by not a few of our railway mana-
gers.

Diseases of the Urinary Apparatus. By
J. W. S. Gouley, M. D. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. xiii + 342. Price,
$1.50.

Criticism of the substance of this trea-
tise must be left to that very small minority
of the medical profession who are familiar
with the latest contributions, made in Europe
and in this country, to the author's special
branch of their science. It is enough to say
on this subject that Dr. Gouley has here
brought into one small volume everything
which the well-educated practitioner, who is
not yet a specialist, needs, to set him on a
level with the foremost specialist in urinary
surgery and medication — except experience.
The physician of a scientific habit of inquiry
will find it a most stimulating book ; full, in-

deed, of the facts of observation and prac-
tice, but with each fact set forth, not as an
isolated fragment of knowledge, but as an
essential part of an organic system of truth.
At the same time the spirit of inquiry per-
vades the whole. The student of the subject
is taken into partnership with the teacher in
the great work of advancing the boundaries
of knowledge. The dogmatism which claims
finality and universality for its own formulas
is excluded ; and every acquisition is made a
stepping-stone in the way to new discovery.
One hardly knows, in ending the perusal of
these pages, whether the writer is most to
be congratulated as the representative of the
generation of reformers, who have recon-
structed this important branch of medical
science and placed it on a lasting basis, or
as the harbinger of their successors, who
will surely, by following out the same meth-
ods to far greater results, add immeasurably
to its power to serve mankind.

It is rather our province to speak of the
literary form of the work, which certainly
deserves special notice. Technical treatises,
in every line of professional learning, are so
often marked by everything that is forbid-
ding in style that it is a rare privilege to
meet with one which can be treated as litera-
ture. Of course, no such work is designed
for popular reading; and this one, in par-
ticular, is addressed only to students of spe-
cial education and high intelligence. But its
special merit is that it is perfectly adapted
to its end. There is no waste of words, no
tedious repetition, no looseness of statement)
no parade of impertinent learning, no obtru-
sion of personality. Concise in style, precise
in definition, clear in reasoning, orderly and
progressive in arrangement, and with an ac-
curacy and care in terminology almost with-
out precedent, it leads on from the elements
of the subject to the very border lines of
contemporary knowledge in a steady march,
which offers a model in plan to all who
would teach subjects of difficulty. We trust
that it will receive from the profession a
welcome which will be an object-lesson to
many medical writers ; for it would be easy
to name many whose books, while containing
information of great value, would be doubled
in usefulness, though halved in size, if re-
written after the fashion of this admirable
tnulium in parvo.

LITERARY NOTICES.

273

Travels among the Great Andes of the
Equator. By Edward Whymper. With
a Supplementary Appendix, bound sepa-
rately. New York : Charles Scribner's
Sons. Pp. xxvi + 456, and xxvi+147.
Price, $6.

Whether regarded as a book of travel
or as a record of scientific exploration, Mr.
Whymper's production has eminent claims
to attention. The chief object of his expe-
dition was to investigate the physiological
effects of the diminished air pressure at high
altitudes. That some disturbance of the
bodily functions is caused by ascending to
great elevations had been established by the
testimony of "multitudes of persons of di-
verse conditions — by cultured men of science
down to illiterate peasants. . . . Nausea and
vomiting ; headaches of a most severe char-
acter ; feverishness, haemorrhages, lassitude,
depression, and weakness ; and an indescrib-
able feeling of illness — have been repeatedly
mentioned as occurring at great elevations,
and have only been cured by descending into
lower zones. To these maladies the term
mountain sickness is now commonly ap-
plied." AVhile such effects have been felt
by persons who have slowly climbed mount-
ains to heights of fourteen thousand to fif-
teen thousand feet, balloonists have often
risen within an hour to much greater heights
without such inconvenience. This fact
gives reason to believe that symptoms pro-
duced by fatigue have been attributed often
to rarefaction of the air. Accordingly, in his
Andean explorations, Mr. Whymper took
especial care to eliminate the effects of fa-
tigue from his observations.

The scene of his operations was that
part of the chain of the Andes crossing the
Republic of Ecuador, and among the mount-
ains climbed were Cotopaxi, on the summit
of which a night was spent, and Chimborazo
twice, the summit being reached only in the
second ascent. Many less noted peaks also
were scaled. Besides making the observa-
tions which were his chief care, Mr. Whymper
determined the altitudes and the relative posi-
tions of the chief mountains of Ecuador, made
comparisons of boiling-points and aneroid
readings with the readings of the mercurial
barometer, and made botanical, lithological,
zoological (chiefly entomological), and archae-
ological collections. As stated in the intro-
duction, he concerned himself "neither with

VOL. XLI. 21

commerce nor politics, nor with the natives
and their curious ways." Yet the incidents
of the expedition, which are plentiful and are
recounted with much vividness and humor,
tell not a little about the " curious ways " of
Ecuadorian bipeds and quadrupeds, likewise
of hexapods and centipedes. The baggage-
mules were inexhaustible mines of original
sin, and the insects in the lower regions
were everywhere. One full - page plate
crowded with figures of flying and creeping
things is described by the author as " selec-
tions from my bed-fellows at Guayaquil." The
volume is copiously illustrated with carefully
drawn and engraved pictures, many of them
from the author's photographs. The mete-
orological observations are appended to the
main volume. In the supplementary vol-
ume Mr. Whymper's zoological collections
are described, with illustrations. They in-
clude a goodly number of species which were
new to science.

The Chinese Scientific and Industrial
Magazine, John Fryer, LL. D., editor, is now
in its sixth volume. Its purpose is to con-
vey to intelligent Chinese a knowledge of
the principles and progress of Western sci-
ence and art. It contains, quarterly, one
hundred pages of matter, printed in the best
Chinese style, liberally illustrated, relating
to subjects of practical as well as theoretical
interest. In the number before us such sub-
jects are treated as photography, the art
of living long, sugar-making, therapeutics,
pressing, drawing, shearing, and stamping
machinery, electricity, materia medica, ice-
making machinery, the manufacture of lu-
cifer matches, dual consciousness, electric
railroads, Edison's kinetograph, and mathe-
matical problems. Presbyterian Mission
Press, Shanghai ; Ralph Waggoner, 10
Spruce Street, New York. Price, $1 a year.

Dr. John Aulde, acting upon the belief
that with the better knowledge of the physi-
ological action of drugs large doses are not
needed to produce desired clinical effects,
has prepared The Pocket Pharmacy — a book
intended both for practical use and as a plea
for small doses, to be administered in ac-
cordance with physiological deductions. We
are learning, he holds, instead of the gross
manifestations of disease, to regard more
closely the derangement of cell function on

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

which they depend. Having acquired this
knowledge by studying the pathological
changes occurring in disease, we endeavor to
discover remedies which, by their known
physiological actions, would be calculated to
arrest or counteract those changes. This
leads to the study of the effect of medica-
tion on the diseased cell, and logically to the
conclusion that small doses are to be pre-
ferred. The present work is the outgrowth
of personal experience in practice, and it is
adapted to use with the pocket case. It con-
tains a list of remedies, with the diseases to
which they are suited, and a therapeutic in-
dex of diseases with reference to the remedies
prescribed for them. (D. Appleton & Co.,
publishers.)

A hand-book on Chemical Calculations
(New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 60
cents) has been prepared by Mr. R. Lloyd
Whiteley, to supply a need for a work giving,
besides a fair selection of problems, a con-
cise and yet explicit account of the methods
of solving them. It is intended to form a
part of the course of teaching or study suita-
ble to the chemical student who wishes to
prepare himself for whatever duties in his
line he may be called upon to perform, and
is also an aid to examinations. A short sum-
mary of chemical facts or processes is given
before explaining methods ; and the ex-
planations concern methods of calculating
the results of specific gravity determinations,
of analyses of all kinds, and of atomic and
molecular weight determinations, and are
brought up to date. The author is a labora-
tory teacher and a lecturer on certain special
branches of chemistry, and brings the re-
sults of his experience and of his intercourse
with students to aid in his work. Prof. F.
Clowes furnishes the preface.

A translation of Dr. Walther HempeVs
Methods of Gas Analysis, made by Prof. L.
M. Dennis, of Cornell University, is published
by Macmillan & Co. It has been the pur-
pose of the author, omitting the complete
description of known methods, which would
make the book too bulky for a laboratory
guide, to describe his own researches and
the construction of apparatus, and all the
operations which are involved in the analysis
of gases with his apparatus. The apparatus
devised by Pettersson has been described
because a wholly new principle in the meas-

urement of gases is there brought into use
In the translation, which has been made
with the personal co-operation of Prof. Hem-
pel, the chapter upon the determination of
the heating power of fuel has been largely
rewritten, with the introduction of new cuts
of the latest forms of apparatus, the chapter
upon the analysis of illuminating gas has
been changed, and a new method for the de-
termination of the hydrocarbon vapors has
been inserted. Price, $1.90.

In the treatise of R. Lovett and C. Davi-
son on The Elements of Plane Trigonometry,
the subject is divided into three parts, deal-
ing, respectively, with arithmetical, real al-
gebraical, and complex quantity. Such an
arrangement appears to the authors to be a
natural one, and has the advantage of intro-
ducing the new names and formulae that be-
long to the subject before the student en-
counters the difficulty of the application cf
signs to denote the sense and direction of
lines. The work differs mainly from those
most generally read in the extent to which
the treatment adopted by Prof. De Morgan,
the influence of whose writings appears
throughout it, has been followed. Abundant
examples for exercise have been collected
from university and other examination papers.
Published by Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.60-

A book on the Essentials of Physics has
been added to the series of Saunders's Ques-
tion Compends (W. B. Saunders, Philadel-
phia), by Dr. Frederick J. Brockncy. It has
been prepared especially for students of
medicine, and is intended to be a compromise
between such books as Ganot's, which is
found too large to be used as a text-book,
and some elementary books on the subject
which do not contain all that is necessary for
the student to know. The questions are
classified as On Matter and its Properties —
Solids, Liquids, and Gases ; On Heat ; On
Light ; On Sound ; and On Magnetism and
Electricity. Price, $1.

Mr. David Denning's hand-book on The
Art and Craft of Cabinet-making (Macmil-
lan, $1.50) will be welcomed by amateurs
and young craftsmen, and even experienced
workmen may derive pleasure and profit from
it. It relates to the construction of cabinet
furniture, the use of tools, the formation of
joints, etc., explaining the ordinary reliable
methods of the workshop, but not exploiting

LITERARY NOTICES.

275

novelties in style or processes. It marks the
distinction between cabinet-making and join-
ery, and between cabinet-making and decora-
tion ; gives a review of the development of
furniture, in which the tricks and deceits of
a class of dealers in pretended antiques are
exposed ; and then furnishes practical infor-
mation, with more than two hundred illus-
trations, concerning the various matters per-
taining to cabinet-making — furniture woods,
glue, nails, tools, wooden appliances made
by the user, grinding and sharpening tools,
joints, structural details, construction of
parts, drawing, veneering, etc., and the con-
struction of various articles.

Mr. J. Traill Taylor's manual on the Op-
tics of Photography and Photographic Lenses
(New York : Macmillan & Co., $1) is prac-
tical rather than theoretical, and is intended
for the users of photographic lenses. It in-
cludes the substance of articles furnished to
the photographic journals and photographic
clubs of Great Britain. It furnishes brief
accounts of the nature and properties of
light, the principles on which the use of
lenses is based, their defects and the means
of remedying them, the different classes of
lenses ; the methods of preparing, mounting,
fitting, and using them ; and such other in-
formation as the photographer needs respect-
ing them. The author distinguishes the op-
tics of photography from that of the tele-
scope or microscope by showing that the
former takes cognizance of rays transmitted
obliquely as well as axially, and brings both
the chemical and visual rays to a focus on
the same plane.

A book, small enough to be carried in
the pocket and convenient for reference at
any time, entitled American Citizenship and
the Right of Suffrage in the United States, has
been compiled by Taliesen Evans, and is pub-
lished by him at Oakland, Cal. It comprises
abstracts of national and State laws affecting
citizenship and suffrage in the United States,
and of such questions relating thereto as
have from time to time been passed upon
by the courts. The effort has been made to
treat the subject in such a way as to make
the presentation acceptable and instructive
to the American student, and interesting and
useful to persons of foreign birth who de-
sire to become citizens and voters. It in-
cludes general reviews of the conditions of

American citizenship and of the right of
suffrage ; literal quotations of the constitu-
tional provisions of each of the States con-
cerning the qualifications of voters ; a chap-
ter on the qualifications for holding office ;
and the Constitution of the United States.

The Rev. Emory Miller, D. D., LL. D.,
apparently endeavors, in a book on the Evo-
lution of Love, to approach the deepest ques-
tions of divinity. Superstition, opinion, and
discrimination, he says, are three epochal
words, of which the first has had its day and
the second its noon, while the sun of dis-
crimination is dawning. Casting away super-
stition, refusing to be bound by opinions, the
author tries, he says, honestly and by the
method of discrimination, to seek the truth.
In this spirit he discusses the Implication of
Being as perceived, as conceived, and as
conditioned, and finds perfection of Being in
perfect love. He next discusses Creation,
with the conclusion that it is an indulgence
of love's eternal, altruistic spirit; finds the
origin of evil in selfishness, and its solution
in conditions within which it is held that
provide for either its merciful remedy or its
self-extinction. The last chapters relate to
The Atoning Fact, The Revelation of Aton-
ing Fact, and Eschatology, or the doctrine of
" last things." Chicago : A. C. McClurg &
Co. Price, $1.50.

The Bureau of Education has issued a
Circular of Information on Sanitary Condi-
tions for School-houses, the result of an ex-
tended study of this subject by Dr. Albert
P. Marble, of Worcester, Mass. This mono-
graph is concerned with practical devices for
ventilation and heating, drainage and light-
ing. Appended to the body of the circular
are papers on Ventilation of School-houses
heated by Stoves, Hygienic Construction of
the Bridgeport High-school Building, Wor-
cester School Buildings, Plans and Specifica-
tions of School-houses prepared for the Wis-
consin State Bureau of Education, and De-
signs for School-houses accepted by the De-
partment of Public Instruction of the State
of New York. The whole document is copi-
piously illustrated; the main portion has
twenty-three figures in the text and seventy-
one plates, showing heating apparatus, the
arrangement of ventilating ducts, the course
of heated air through rooms, sanitary closets,
etc. The appendixes are accompanied by

276

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

eighty illustrations, showing plans and views
of school-houses, and arrangements for heat-
ing and ventilating.

V. Wood Notes Wild.
Boston : Lee & Shep-

Two Fly-catchers from

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Aldrich, Wilbur. Farming Corporations. New
York : W. Aldrich & Co., 1*0 Broadway. Pp. 255.
Si-
Baldwin, Joseph. Psychology applied to the
Science of Teaching. New York : B. Appleton &
Co. Pp. 381.

Barrows, H. D., Los Angeles, Cal. The Farm-
ers and the Currency. Pp. 4.

Benedict, James E. Thirty-seven New Species
of Hermit Crabs. Washington : United States
National Museum. Pp. 26.

Bottone, S. R. A Guide to Electric Lighting.
New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 189. 75 cents.

Brooklyn Ethical Association. Lectures, etc.,
on Man and the State. Nos. 18, 19, 20, 21, and 23.
By E. B. Andrews, R. G. Eccles, E. D. Mead,

D. S. Remsen, and Lewis D. Janes. 10 cents
each.

Bryant, William M. The World-Energy and
its Self-Conservation. Chicago : S. C. Griggs &
Co. Pp. 304. $1.50.

Burt, Stephen Smith. A Flying Trip from New
York to California. Pp. 10.

Bushnell, Allen R., M. C. Free Coinage of Sil-
ver. Pp. 14.

Butler, N. M. The Place of Comenius in the
History of Education. Syracuse, N. Y. : C. W.
Bardeen. Pp. 20.

Chemical Society of Washington. Bulletin
No. 7. Pp. 32.

Cheney, S. P. and J.
Notations of Bird Music,
ard. Pp. 261.

Cherrie, George K.
Costa Rica. Pp. 2.

Clark, Alvan & Sons, Cambridgeport, Mass.
Notes on the Telescope. Pp. 22.

Columbia College, New York. President's An-
nual Report, 1891. Pp. 121.

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
Report for 1891. New Haven. Pp. 208.

Cope, E. D. Characters and Variations of
Snakes. Washington : United States National
Museum. Pp. 108.

Creighton, Charles. A History of Epidemics
m Great Britain. New York : Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 706. $4.50.

Davies, Charles. New Elementary Algebra.
New York : American Book Co. Pp. 294. 90
cents.

Dominion Illustrated Magazine. April, 1892.
Montreal : Sabisten Publishing Co. Pp. 64. 15
cents, $1.50 a year.

Douglas, C. H. J. The Financial History of
Massachusetts. New York : Columbia College.
Pp. 148. $1.

Eckstein, Ernst. Hertha. Translated by Mrs.

E. H. Bell. New York : G. Gottsberger Peck.
Pp. 360.

Eigenmann, Carl H. and Rosa 8. Catalogue of
the Fresh-water Fishes of South America. Wash-
ington : United States National Museum. Pp. 81.

Food. Monthly. April, 1892. Vol. I, No. 1.
New York : The Clover Publishing Co. Pp. 64.
20 cents.

Forbes, S. A., State Entomologist of Illinois.
Report on Noxious and Beneficial Insects. Spring-
field. Pp. 90, with Plates and a Supplement.

Gage, S. H., Cornell University. Life-history
of the Vermilion-spotted Newt. Pp. 25, with
Plate.

Gannett, Henry. The Mother Maps of the
United States. Washington : American Geo-
graphical Society. Pp. 16.

Gatschet, A. S. The Klamath Indians of South-
western Oregon. Washington : United States
Geological Survey. Two volumes. Pp. 711 each.

Gill, Theodore. The Genus Hiatule of La-
cfipede, or Tautoga of Mitchill. Pp. 2.

Good Roads. Monthly. Tsaac B. Potter, Ed-
itor. New York : League Roads Improvement
Bureau. Pp. 50. 20 cents, $2 a year.

Goodfellow, John. Dietetic Value of Bread.
New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 313. $1.50.

Gouley, J. W. S. Diseases of the Urinary Ap-
paratus. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp.
342.

Graves, John A. Substantialism. Washing-
ton, D. C. : Terry Brothers. Pp. 75.

Greeley, A. W. Geography ot the Air. Wash-
ington : National Geographic Society. Pp.16.

Hill, R. T., Austin, Texas. Notes on the
Texas-New Mexican Region. Pp. 16. — Topogra-
phy and Geology of Northern Mexico and South-
west Texas, 1 lid New Mexico. Pp. 8. — Recon-
naissance of the Ouachita Mountain System. Pp.
14.

Hubbard, G. G. The Evolution of Commerce.
Washington, D. C: National Geographic Society.
Pp. 18.

Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station, La-
fayette. Fourth Annual Report. Pp. 30.

James, J. F. The Palaeontology of the Cin-
cinnati Group. Pp. 16.

Keen, W. W., M. D. Amputation at the Hip-
joint by Wyeth's Method. Pp. 13. And D. D.
Stewart. Nephrotomy for Calculous Pyelitis. Pp.
10.

Lacroix-Danliard. Le Poil des Animaux et les
Fourrures. Paris : J. B. Bailliere & Son. Pp.
419. 4 francs.

MacDonald, Arthur. Views of Dr. A. Baer on
Drunkenness. Pp. 8.

Marsh, O. C. Recent Polydactyle Horses. Pp.
16.

Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion. Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Con-
trol. Pp. 352.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston.
Annual Catalogue, 1891-'92. Pp. 243.

Michigan State Pharmaceutical Association.
Proceedings of Ninth Annual Meeting. Pp. 1 )0.

Milo, William. Notes on Beauty, Vigor, and
Development. New York : Fowler & Wells Co.
Pp. 21. 10 cents.

Mooney, James. The Sacred Formulas of the
Cherokees. Washington : United States Geologi-
cal Survey. Pp. 100 ; and other ethnological
papers.

Nebraska. Fifth Annual Report of the Agri-
cultural Experiment Station. Pp. :-i00.

Newel], Jane H. Outlines of Lessons in Bota-
ny. Boston : Ginn & Co. Pp. 393. 90 cents.

The New World. Quarterly. Vol.1, No. 1-
March, 1892. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co-
Pp. 200. 75 cents, $3 a year.

Ohio State Academy of Science. Constitu-
tion, etc., and Historical Sketch. Columbus.
Pp. 12.

Parsons, J. R., Jr. French Schools through
American Spectacles. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W.
Bardeen. Pp. 136. $1.

Ramsey, Samuel. The English Language and
English Grammar. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 571. $3.

Randall, C. D. The Fourth International Pris-
on Congress. Washington : Bureau of Education.
Pp. 253.

Smithsonian Institution. Annual Report of
the Board of Regents to July, 1890. Pp. 808.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

277

Stephens, C. A. Pluri-cellular Man. Norway
Lake, Maine : The Laboratory Co. Pp. 114.

Stowell, T. B. The Lumbar, Sacral, and Coc-
cygeal Nerves in the Domestic Cat. Pp. 28, with
Plate.

Strahan, 8. A. K. Marriage and Disease. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 326.

Wadsworth, M. E. The South Trap Range of
the Keweenawan Series. Pp. 3.— Geology of the
Marquette and Keweenawan Districts. Pp. 24. —
The Dofia Inez and the Llano del Inca Meteorites.
Pp.6.

Ward, Lester F. The Utilitarian Character of
Dynamic Sociology. Pp. 7.

Wistar, Tsaac J. Consumption, etc., of North
American Coal. Pp. 16.

Wrightmour, Rev. J. S., Xenia, Ohio. The
Accuracy of the Bible in the Light of Scientific
Knowledge. Pp. 20. 6 cents.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Possibilities of Wheat-raising. — Within
twenty years, according to a bulletin of the
State Agricultural Experiment Station, the
area annually sown to wheat in Ohio has in-
creased from an average of 1,800,000 acres
during the eighth to 2,500,000 acres during
the ninth decade. This area represents
twelve per cent of the area in farms with-
in the State ; but several counties are sow-
ing annually from eighteen to twenty and
even twenty-five per cent of their farm-lands
to wheat. A further increase in acreage
is anticipated from the clearing away of
more forest and the reclamation of waste
lands by drainage, so that it will be possi-
ble to devote 3,000,000 acres to wheat with-
out interfering with any other agricultural
interest. Such an increase, at the present
rate of production, would represent an an-
nual crop of 40,000,000 bushels. But it is not
to be supposed that Ohio farmers will rest
content with a yield of only thirteen bushels
of wheat per acre. The northern third of
the State has increased its average yield
within forty years by nearly three bushels,
and the middle third by from one to two
bushels, and it is reasonable to expect a fur-
ther increase within the next forty years.
At the average already reached in Summit
County, the whole State would produce about
60,000,000 bushels, or bread for twelve million
persons. What is true of Ohio is true, to a
greater or less extent, of the entire winter-
wheat belt of North America. The area
now sown to wheat in this region may be ex-
panded largely without infringing upon other
productions, and the rate of yield may and
will be very materially increased by better

husbandry, including an intelligent use of
manures and fertilizers, and more thorough
drainage. The profitable culture of wheat
on the steep hillsides of southern Ohio ap-
pears to be hopeless. The great problem
before the grower in the central belt of
counties is winter-killing, but it may be
partially solved by under-draining and the
intelligent use of clover and manures. The
influences are more generally favorable to
wheat culture in the northern counties than
elsewhere in the State. A general improve-
ment in the methods of agriculture appears
to have contributed more largely to the in-
crease of the wheat crops than the use of
commercial fertilizers.

Distribution of Diphtheria. — A paper by
Dr. Samuel W. Abbott, Secretary of the State
Board of Health, on the Distribution of Diph-
theria in Massachusetts, brings out some cu-
rious results from an examination of the con-
ditions in the several parts of the State in
which the disease has prevailed during the
past eighteen years. The town which suf-
fered relatively most of all was Florida, a
hilly town of small population, situated over
the Hoosac Tunnel. Next to it was Spencer,
an interior town of Worcester County, having
a comparatively dense population (7,466 in
1880), mostly engaged in the shoe manufact-
ure. The third town in the list was Free-
town, with 1,329 inhabitants in 1880, adjoin-
ing Fall River, and situated on low and sandy
ground. Other towns that suffered greatly
were Adams, Williamstown, and Hancock, on
high land ; Webster, a manufacturing town
on comparatively low land ; Ayer, and Nan-
tucket. Four towns had no deaths from diph-
theria during the period under consideration.
They are all small towns, distant from rail-
roads, and not visited by the general public.
Dividing the towns and cities according to
the density of their population, the author
found that the average annual death-rate from
diphtheria and croup in ninety-two densely
settled towns and cities was ll-39 per 10,000
of the population, while that of two hundred
and fifty-four rural or sparsely settled towns
was 6"53 per 10,000 for the same period. Out
of the twenty-eight cities, twenty, including
all of the most populous, except Fall River,
had a death-rate from diphtheria and croup
higher than the average of the State. Divid-

278

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing the counties into three groups — those in
which there were, respectively, jfo of an acre,
14 acres, and 4-8 acres to each person, the
corresponding rates of mortality from diph-
theria and croup were 12% 10"2, and 8-8 an-
nually for every 10,000 persons. The rela-
tion of certain railway lines to the diphtheria
death-rate is worthy of note. It was com-
paratively high in the greater number of
cities and towns traversed by the Boston and
Albany Railroad — a leading road for traffic,
carrying large numbers of passengers, and
having many stations ; was less upon the line
of the Fitchburg road, which is of about the
same length but does less business ; and still
less upon the line of the more recently built
Massachusetts Central road. The term diph-
theria first appeared in the registration re-
ports of the State in 1858. The number of
deaths assigned to it increased rapidly till
1863, when 1,420 were registered. There
was then a rapid decline to 251 in 1867, after
which the annual number continued nearly
uniform (about 275) for seven years, when it
rose again to 2,610 in 1876 and 2,734 in 1877.
The census of 1890 gave the number of deaths
as 32,716. The diphtheria death-rate bore
no relation to the general death-rate, except
during the period from 1862 to 1867. In
1872, when the general mortality-rate was at
its highest point and infectious diseases were
generally very prevalent, the diphtheria death-
rate was far below the mean, and in 1876 and
1877, when the general death-rate was near
the mean, the diphtheria death-rate was at
its highest point. The author concludes,
further, that diphtheria is eminently conta-
gious ; that it is infectious by direct expos-
ure and through indirect media, but less so
than some other diseases, such as small-pox
and scarlet fever ; that overcrowding, faulty
ventilation, and filthy conditions favor its
spread ; that the direct influence of plumb-
ing and transmission through public and pri-
vate water-supplies is not proved ; that its
propagation is favored by soil moisture, damp
cellars, and general dampness of houses ; and
that the poison may remain dormant in
houses for a long period.

Scientific Observation of Children. — In

a paper on this subject addressed primarily
to mothers, Mrs. Helen Adler has laid out a
plan of work of considerable scope, and

calling for the exercise of careful judgment.
Mothers, the author says, " must first of all
learn to appreciate the value of true scientific
observation, must train themselves to observe
correctly, methodically. They must humbly
learn that their own powers of appreciation
are worthless without the strict selection of
valuable facts, the subordination of what is
interesting and delightful to them to the
universally interesting and profitable. . . .
Method, strict, logical method, is the first
desideratum ; then vigilant observation, ve-
racity, discrimination, and ingenuity in the
study of the child. Baby ways are charm-
ing and irresistible ; they will be no less so
when an attempt is made to discover the
order of progress that dwells in them." The
development of language alone is mentioned
as offering a fascinating field of observation ;
the study of the baby will and its evolution
another ; and the psychic life of the child
will seem somewhat nearer to us, the growth
of its faculties a little more clearly revealed,
if we trace the record of their development
day by day. Later in life comes the devel-
opment of the character of the child as a
social being. A practical direction is given
to these observations by appending to them
a classified schedule of the points to which
attention may be directed.

Olives and Olive Oil. — The olive is culti-
vated on about seventy thousand acres in the
department of the Alps Maritimes, France,
and yields a revenue of more than two mill-
ion dollars a year. Two species of the tree
are described by our consul at Nice as grow-
ing in the south of France : the oleaster, or
wild olive, which has a kind of thorn and
very short leaves, and produces only a few
small berries, which appear to be proof
against insect enemies ; and the sativa, or cul-
tivated olive, which produces a large fruit, and
is known in several varieties. The olive tree
flowers every year ; but, while some growers
advocate an attempt to gain a yearly crop,
the majority are content to try to get a good
crop every two years. Olives to be preserved
green are plucked in September ; those des-
tined for oil, from November till the follow-
ing May ; but the best results to crop and
tree seem to follow harvesting near mid-win-
ter when the olive is black ; while oil made
from olives gathered as late as February and

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

March is preferred for its keeping properties.
The mill in use at the present day to crush
the olives differs but little from those which
have been used for centuries. A mill has
lately been invented which, as it crushes the
pulp, extracts the stone and throws it out,
thus allowing the pulp, the true virgin oil, to
be obtained from the press without any ad-
mixture of that obtained from the stone or
kernel. To prepare virgin oil, olives are
taken, free from blemish, when only three
quarters ripe, slightly crushed, with care that
the seed be not touched by the millstone,
then placed in a heap so arranged that the
oil shall run out of itself and be collected.
Oil thus prepared is greenish, has an exqui-
site perfume, and can be kept for many years.
A second quality of oil is extracted by the aid
of water ; and after all the usual means of
extracting the oil from the pulp have been
employed, ten per cent of oil can still be ob-
tained by using bisulphide of carbon. After
the oil is extracted, the skins and refuse are
employed in heating boilers ; the muddy sub-
stance found at the bottom of the most infe-
rior quality of oil is used as manure ; and the
broken stones, or grignons, make an excel-
lent fuel.

The Pace of Mind. — The appearance of
a new quickly calculating man, Jacques Inau-
di, a Piedmontese, in Paris, has suggested
the inquiry, What is the nature of the power
that gives men of this kind their remarkable
faculty ? The Spectator suggests that such
cases are abnormal instances of the differ-
ence in pace which we all know exists be-
tween the working of different and even of
equal minds. " Everybody who has studied
his acquaintance at all," it says, " knows
that this difference is very great ; that one
man can comprehend an interrogation in half
the time taken by another ; that no two chil-
dren are alike in quickness of thought, as
distinguished from accuracy or depth of
thought ; and that clever women constantly
reach results, which can only be reached by
their thinking more rapidly than men." The
difference is especially marked in mental
arithmetic; and the difference, though it
can be affected by practice or neglect, is ul-
timately independent of both. Inaudi was
asked to mention the day of the week on
which a given date would fall some years

hence, and answered accurately, Monday. It
is not to be supposed that he guessed, for he
had done the like before, and there was no
ground for assuming collusion ; then " his
mind must, say, in three seconds, have trav-
ersed a calculation which it would take the
few men who could do it in their minds at
all, many minutes. Such pace is almost un-
thinkable, even if we remember that, the date
on which this day falls in this year being once
ascertained, the rest of the problem is only a
swift effort of memory, the days advancing
in a regular sequence, accelerated by leap-
years ; but still, superior pace is a theory
which does meet all the conditions." The
existence of differences in the pace of mind
being conceded, the question next arises
whether speed can be cultivated. If it can,
we have a way pointed out by which intelli-
gent life may be rendered longer and fuller.
Dr. Martineau is said to believe, what many
other persons fancy, that the English middle
class has in the last two generations gained
so greatly that the gain is perceptible in
mental quickness. The Brahmans of India
are celebrated for their superiority in this
faculty. Teachers admit that the children
of the educated poor are easier to teach than
children of the uneducated poor ; that " they
have not only more ' receptive minds,' which
may mean only better memories, but that
their minds move positively quicker." On
the other hand, the English educated never
seem as quick as the Irish uneducated.

The Destiny of Sea-coast Land. — Among
the results of his examination of the provis-
ions of the shore towns of Massachusetts for
public places of resort, and the industries and
resources of the people, Mr. J. B. Harrison
says, in Garden and Forest, that he found
"everywhere recent changes in the owner-
ship of land and a movement of people of
means from the cities and the interior of the
country to the shore regions of the State. I
found leagues and leagues together of the
shore line all private holdings, without a
rood of space in these long reaches to which
the public has a right to go. ... I found a
great population inland hedged away from
the beach, and all the conditions pointing to
a time, not remote, when no man can walk
by the ocean in Massachusetts without pay-
ment of a fee, as we formerly had to pay

280

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

for glimpses of Niagara. I could see that
the movement for open spaces for public re-
sort has vital relations to civilization, and
has been instituted in response to a pressing
need." In view of the changes in industrial
conditions that are likely to take place under
these circumstances, Mr. Harrison finds one
resource which has received comparatively
little attention of late — the soil, which in
most of the shore towns appears to be much
better than the popular estimate of it. " It
has greater capabilities than are yet recog-
nized. This is especially true of the Cape
Cod country. The soil there is better than
that of southern New Jersey ; and I have
seen many Massachusetts men in Dakota,
Montana, and Idaho, trying, in great priva-
tion, to make a living in regions more forlorn
and hopeless than any part of the shore
country of the Old Bay State. ... I think
these towns might yet support a great popu-
lation by a highly developed agriculture and
horticulture, and that owners of the land
might wisely keep it and cultivate it."

Snow Effects in the Pamirs. — The region
of the Pamirs, or the roof of the world, in
central Asia, where the empires of Russia,
India, and China corner upon one another,
consists of a succession of long, broad, open
valleys, running approximately parallel to
each other in a general direction from north-
east to southwest, and separated by low (for
that region) ranges of mountains. The cli-
mate is very severe. The lowest point of the
Pamirs is 10,300 feet above sea-level, and
their usual average is from 13,000 to 14,000
feet. Hence the cold must be very intense.
Captain Younghusband, while he had no ex-
perience of the winter weather, found tem-
peratures at the end of October and begin-
ning of November of 18° Fahr. below zero.
Some interesting snow phenomena were wit-
nessed by this explorer. He has looked at a
mountain-peak, and then, a few moments
later, seen it gradually disappear ; and only
by closer observation could he make out that
it had been overshadowed by an impercepti-
ble snow-storm. " The snow, indeed, in these
mountains was often very fine, and almost
like dust ; and a very beautiful effect is, that
it nearly always falls in perfect little hex-
agonal flakes, like little stars of lacework,
each one quite distinct, and remaining intact

until it reaches the ground ; then, as it has
fallen, the snow of course remains white on
the surface, but, digging into it, appears of
a beautiful delicate pale-blue color. Anoth-
er effect of the snow is seen at the mount-
ain-tops, when the peaks seem to be fading
away, and vanishing off like clouds of whit-
ened smoke. It is produced by the high
wind blowing away the fine dust-like snow at
the summits. Again, another almost similar
phenomenon on the mountain-tops is that of
long, level clouds, like streamers, flowing
away from the peaks. The moisture-laden
air from the plains of India has been con-
densed on the icy mountain summits, and
the wind has blown the mist away in a long,
thin streamer." Another effect of snow-parti-
cles glittering in the air in clear sunlight is
also common among us on very cold winter
days.

The " Down-below People."— The Have-
su-Pai, otherwise known as the Koxoninos,
or Cochnichnos, are a dying race of Indians,
their numbers being estimated at less than
two hundred souls, who were visited a few
years ago by Mr. Benjamin Wittick. Dr. R.
W. Shufeldt, seeking for information about
them, has found that very little is known
concerning them, but was able to obtain
two photographs taken by Mr. Wittick, il-
lustrating their general appearance and the
style of their huts. They exist in one of the
grandest canons in Arizona, living along the
banks of the stream that passes through it.
Their name, which is given them by the
Yumas, means the " down-below people," or
a tribe or race that live down in the canon.
They call themselves the " Ah-Supai." The
canon in which they dwell is that of Cata-
ract Creek, is forty-five hundred feet deep,
and the stream tumbles by a series of cas-
cades into the Grand Canon of the Colorado,
fifteen hundred feet deeper. The Indians
raise, according to Captain John G. Bourke,
fine peaches and good corn and melons, and
weave fine and beautiful baskets. They are
great hunters, and live by trading off buck-
skins and sometimes mountain-lion pelts to
the Moquis, Navajos, and Apaches. Mr.
Frank H. Cushing describes their home as
in a green, moist plain of sandy soil, nearly
two miles long by half a mile at its greatest
width, of which he could catch only occa-

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

281

sional glimpses through the rank growth of
willows with which the trail was lined.
" These glimpses, however, revealed numer-
ous cultivated fields of corn, beans, sunflow-
ers, melons, peaches, apricots, and certain
plants used in dyeing and basket-making,
and usually carefully protected by hedges of
wattled willows or fences of Cottonwood
poles. Everywhere these fields were crossed
and recrossed by a network of irrigating
canals and trails. Here and there were little
cabins, or shelters, flat-roofed, dirt-covered,
and closed in on three sides by wattled flags,
canes, and slender branches, while the front
was protected by a hedge like those of the
fields, only taller, placed a few feet before
the house, and between which and the house
burned smoky fires. The houses were always
nestled down among the thick willows bor-
dering the river, or perched on some con-
venient shelf, under the shadows of the
western precipices." Little buildings of
stone laid in mud plaster, somewhat like the
cliff dwellings, were also seen in the hori-
zontal cracks of the western cliffs, often
high up. These Indians have medicine-men,
use the sweat-house, possess many dogs, have
considerable families, and are on good terms
with the whites.

The Purposes and Arrangement of Mu-
seums.— The museums of the future in this
country, says G. Brown Goode, " should be
adapted to the needs of the mechanic, the
factory operator, the day laborer, the sales-
man, and the clerk, as much as to those of
the professional man and the man of leisure.
It is proper that the laboratories be utilized
to the fullest extent for the credit of the
institution to which they belong. No mu-
seum can grow and be respected which does
not each year give additional proofs of its
claims to be considered a center of learning.
On the other hand, the public have a right
to ask that much shall be done directly in
their interest. They will gladly allow the
museum officer to use part of his time in
study and experiment. They will take pride
in the possession by the museum of tens of
thousands of specimens, interesting only to
the specialist, hidden away perpetually from
public view, but necessary for purposes of
scientific research. These are foundations of
the intellectual superstructure which gives

the institution its standing. Still, no pains
must be spared in the presentation of the
material in the exhibition halls. The speci-
mens must be prepared in the most careful
and artistic manner, and arranged attract-
ively in well-designed cases and behind the
clearest of glass. Each object must bear a
label, giving its name and history so fully
that all the probable questions of the visitor
are answered in advance. Books of refer-
ence must be kept in convenient places.
Colors of walls, cases, and labels must be
restful and quiet, and comfortable seats
should be everywhere accessible, for the task
of the museum visitor is a weary one at
best. In short, the public museum is, first
of all, for the benefit of the public. When
the officers are few in number, each one
must of necessity devote a considerable por-
tion of his time to the public halls. When
the staff becomes larger, it is possible by
specialization of work to arrange that cer-
tain men may devote their time uninterrupt-
edly to laboratory work, while others are
engaged in the increase of the collections
and their installation."

The Technical School at St. Etienn?,
France, — At the technical school in St. Eti-
emie, France, according to the United States
consul in that city, three hundred students
are taught weaving, dyeing, sculpture, iron-
founding, cabinet-making, and other arts, free
of charge. The apprenticeship course lasts
four years, and after completing it a certifi-
cate of aptitude is given, under which the
pupil may obtain a situation in the line of
industrial labor he has chosen. In the first
year the students pass through all the work-
shops, to be initiated into the proper handling
of the different tools. After that, the boys
are classed according to their tastes, desires,
and aptitudes. They work at manual labor
three hours daily during thesecond year, four
hours in the third, and five hours in the first
and seven in the last six months of the fourth
and last year. Great attention is paid to the
teaching of the theory of the different trades,
the fitters being taught to trace and cut out
cog-wheels, and the carpenters to design and
execute a certain number of works, such as
stairs of different kinds, shutters, balconies,
etc., on a reduced scale. The weavers are
also given special lessons in book-keeping,

282

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

legislation, commercial geography, and one
of the modern languages. Careful attention
is paid to design.

Embroidering by Machinery. — The re-
cent invention, at Arbon, of a new steam
machine for making embroideries threatens,
says Consul Byers, of St. Gall, to revolutionize
some of the most important manufacturing
interests of the Swiss Republic. Eastern
Switzerland, with St. Gall as a center, has
been for a hundred years the headquarters
of the embroidery industry of the world.
Embroidery by hand alone had been prac-
ticed when the present hand-machine was
brought into use in 1827. Under the former
system the technical skill and readiness of
hand of the Appenzell women were marvel-
ous, and the embroidery made by them be-
came famous all over the world. At the
present day possibly not five per cent of the
embroideries are made exclusively by hand.
The Schiffli steam machine, invented about
fifteen years ago, produces a low class of
goods of inferior quality. For the more re-
cently invented Arbon machine its owners
claim that it will at least triple the product
of the hand-machine, that it can produce
goods cheaper, and can turn them out of bet-
ter quality than the old method, and do it
without so much wear and tear to the mus-
cles of men and women.

The Pnnir. — The puma (Fells concohr of
Linnaeus), known also as the panther, painter,
cougar, American lion, and by several other
names, is, according to Mrs. Frederick W.
True, the only large, unspotted native Amer-
ican cat. It varies much in color, and is
from five to seven feet long. The area over
which it ranges extends from New Eng-
land and British Columbia to the straits of
Magellan. On the Atlantic coast the species
has apparently not been found in New Hamp-
shire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, or Dela-
ware. No mention appears of its having
been found in Michigan or Indiana. It was
extirpated in Ohio before 1838, and probably
more recently in Indiana and Illinois. With
these exceptions, and Nevada, there are re-
corded instances, more or less numerous, of
the occurrence of the puma, since the begin-
ning of the century, in every State and Terri-
tory of the Union. Regarded as a species,

the puma possesses in a remarkable degree
the power of adapting itself to varied sur-
roundings. It endures severe cold during
the winter in the Adirondack Mountains and
other parts of our northern frontier, and
hunts its prey in the snow. It is equally at
home in the hot swamps and canebrakes and
along the river-courses in our Southern States.
In South America it inhabits the treeless,
grass-covered pampas, as well as the forests.
In the Rocky Mountains it ascends to the
great altitudes at which the mountain sheep
are found ; and it is also met with high up
on other ranges. It selects for its abode
such spots as afford some shelter, but is
found in the thickets and copses rather than
in the great forests. It seeks its prey chiefly
at dawn and twilight and under cover of
night, but sometimes also hunts by day. Deer
are its principal quarry, but it also preys upon
the smaller mammals and on wild turkeys.
Of the larger domestic animals, such as the
horse and cow, it attacks only the young, but
it will carry away a full-grown sheep from
the fold, and in South America often preys
upon the llama. It does not ordinarily at-
tack men, but is disposed to flee from them
when surprised ; but such attacks have been
known. Like the cat, it scratches the bark
of trees, purrs when satisfied, and has been
heard to mew.

Influence of the Indian Trade. — As to the

effect of the Indian trading post, Mr. Fred-
erick J. Turner says, in a paper on The Char-
acter and Influence of the Indian Trade in
Wisconsin, of the Johns Hopkins Historical
and Political Science Series, that, giving him
iron and guns and a market for furs, it tend-
ed to prolong the hunter stage ; leaving the
unarmed Indian at the mercy of those who
had bought firearms, it caused a relocation
of tribes and a demand for the trader by
remote and unvisited Indians, made the sav-
age dependent on the white man's supplies,
and gave the Indians means of resistance to
agricultural settlement. On the side of the
white man, the Indian trade gave both French
and English a footing in America, invited
exploration, and fostered the advancement
of settlements as long as they were in exten-
sion of trade. In Wisconsin the sites of the
principal cities are the sites of the old trad-
ing posts, and those earliest fur-trading set-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

283

tlements furnished supplies to the farming,
mining, and lumbering pioneers. Reports
brought back by the individual trader guided
the steps of the agricultural pioneer. The
trader was the farmer's path-finder into some
of the richest regions of the continent. In
Wisconsin, at least, the traders' posts, located
at the carrying-places around falls and rapids,
pointed out the water-powers of the State.
The trails became the early roads. " An old
Indian trader relates that the path between
Green Bay and Milwaukee was originally an
Indian trail and very crooked, but the whites
would straighten it by cutting across lots
each winter with their jumpers, wearing bare
streaks through the thin covering, to be fol-
lowed in the summer by foot and horseback
travel along the shortened path. The pro-
cess was typical of a greater one. Along the
lines that Nature had drawn, the Indians
traded and warred ; along their trails and in
their birch canoes the trader passed, bringing
a new and transforming life. These slender
lines of Eastern influence stretched through-
out all our vast and intricate water-system,
even to the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, and
the Arctic Seas, and these lines were in turn
followed by agricultural and by manufactur-
ing civilization."

French Silk-weaving Center?. — Accord-
ing to the United States consular clerk at
Lyons, the geographical position of silk-
weaving in France has undergone consider-
able changes since the introduction of the
industry. Cities in which silk-weaving was
formerly of great importance, have turned
their attention toward other industries, while
new centers have sprung up and attained
more or less prosperity. Tours was the first
great silk-weaving center of France, but its
industry in this line has been declining for
the last sixty years. Nimes was likewise one
of the early centers, and reached great pros-
perity in the eighteenth century ; but it has
now less than one sixth as many looms as it
had then. About twenty-five thousand looms
are employed in Paris and the adjoining dis-
tricts in weaving silk and silk-mixed goods,
galloons, fringes, cords, and other varieties
of passementerie and trimmings. Nets, tulles,
and laces constitute the specialties of Ca-
lais. Whenever the demand for silk nets
is low, the manufacturers substitute cotton or

wool on their looms. During the latter half
of the present century Roubaix has become
the center of an extensive industry, manu-
facturing silk and wool and silk and cotton-
mixed goods. These articles, though often
wanting in originality, find ready sale on ac-
count of their low price. At Saint-Chamond,
silk-weaving has been established in a mod-
est way ever since the thirteenth century ; and
by confining their attention to braids and
similar articles, the manufacturers have ad-
vanced their specialties to a degree of ex-
cellence that has established for them a
world-wide reputation. At Saint-Etienne the
weaving of ribbons is carried on, with great
variations in the value of the yearly manu-
facture. Lyons is considered the most im-
portant silk center of France, and of Eu-
rope as well. Its total production averages
about $80,000,000 a year. The quantity of
goods produced is now greater than ever be-
fore, and constitutes two thirds of the pro-
duction of France, and one quarter of the
total production of the world.

Swiss Watch-making. — The Swiss watch
industry is chiefly situated in the west of
Switzerland, where the French language is
spoken, and particularly in Geneva, Vaud, the
canton of Neutchatel, and the Bernese Jura.
An ingenious labor organization has sprung
up there, which combines at once the advan-
tages of principal and minor industry. Com-
posed of small workshops, grouped in a given
region, it is under the control of a manufact-
urer who gives orders to the workman, and
supplies him with the necessary materials,
and, when the watch is finished, effects a sale.
Under this system the master has not the gen-
eral expenses of a factory, and the diminu-
tion in production and holidays affect him
but little. In his turn, the operative working
at home has a particular part of the watch to
construct. He is both journeyman and fore-
man, who combines his dwelling with his
shop. Paid by the piece, he works at his
leisure from early in the morning till late at
night. Such a system, which allows the wife
to assist in the labors of the husband, and
the children to be initiated by an easy ap-
prenticeship into the manufacture of a spe-
cial part of the watch, must suit the mount-
aineers. They preserve their intelligence,
realize often large profits, and by the intel-

284

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ligent practice of industrial art improve
their social status. Little by little the heads
of business houses have drawn into their
locality a large number of families from the
rural districts, and in the mountains, at one
thousand metres altitude, and on the plains
where only the abundant pasturage affords a
means of livelihood for the native, towns
have risen rapidly — for instance, Chaux de
Fonds, Locle, and Saint-Imier. Thus, the sys-
tem of collective industry, with work at the
domestic hearth, has formed several genera-
tions of watch-makers. But, for thirty years,
competition, and particularly American com-
petition, has necessitated the erection of
works with mechanical appliances.

The Sources of Gntta Percha.— Of the

various kinds of gutta-percha, only those pro-
duced by trees of the old genus Iso?iandra,
now sunk in Dichopsis, are available for use
as insulators of cables. Their natural habi-
tat is exclusively in the Malayan region. The
destruction of this zone of forests proceeds
rapidly. The natives cut every available tree,
and repeat the process as fast as the plants
spring up again. The scanty plantations
started in the East Indies are, moreover, not
formed of the best species, but of those
which yield an inferior product. The best
species has, in fact, become excessively rare,
but is still in existence. Its adult represent-
atives were yet propagating themselves in
1887 at the Chasserian estate in the ravines
of the ancient forest of Boukett Tinah, in the
center of Singapore. When M. Serullas, of
Paris, found the spot in 1887, gutta-collect-
ing had ceased for thirty years.

The Kanjntis. — The Kanjutis, of Hunza,
the robber tribe of the Pamir table-land, in-
habit the deeply cut valley which runs from
the apex of central Asia, where the Hindu-
Kush and Himalaya systems meet, and the
water-shed between eastern and western Asia
joins that between northern and southern
Asia. Captain Tounghusband found them
to be small, well-built, hardy, determined,
though not fierce-looking men, wearing long
black curls, which gave them a very wild
appearance. Perhaps the most remarkable
feature about them is their capacity for en-
durance. " They issue from their strong-
holds on their raiding expeditions, and cover

often two hundred miles of mountainous and
uninhabited country, entirely on foot, and
carry their own supplies for the whole dis-
tance on their backs ; and I have known
cases of men carrying news of my move-
ments to their chief in an incredibly short
time. Dressed in long cloaks of thick, home-
made woolen material, they sleep out in the
open in the most intense cold, and yet live
upon almost nothing. They are also very
avaricious, although they know and care little
for money ; but they covet goods greedily."

A Stronghold of Birds.— The Bird Rocks,
or Three Islands of Birds, near Newfound-
land, were so resorted to by gannets in Au-
dubon's time that their tops seemed covered
with snow. The birds were then much used
for bait, and Audubon's captain told him
that his boat's crew had once killed six hun-
dred and forty of them in an hour, with no
better weapons than sticks. Up to 1860
they covered the tops of the rocks and many
of the ledges on the sides. The erection of
a lighthouse on the Great Rock, in 1870, was
followed by a rapid decrease in numbers.
In 1881 Mr. Brewster found the birds on
the Great Rock confined to the ledges along
the sides, while the Little Rock was still
densely populated. In 1887 not a gannet
was raised on the Little Rock, although a
few were breeding on the pillar of rock
adjacent to it. The murres, razor-bills, and
puffins, Mr. Frederick A. Lucas believes, have
probably suffered somewhat less than their
more conspicuous comrades, although even
among them the decrease must have been
very great. Still, their smaller size, and con-
sequent ability to breed in crevices of the
rocks and on ledges too narrow to accommo-
date a bulky gannet, has been of great serv-
ice to them ; while the razor-bill also seems
to be learning by experience the desirability
of putting an egg out of sight whenever
practicable. The puffins find safety in their
burrowing habits, and breed extensively in
the decomposed sandstone at the northeast-
ern portion of the Great Rock, as well as un-
der the overhanging inaccessible ledges of the
northern side of the Little Rock. The little
rocky pillar already mentioned is well occu-
pied by birds of various species, and, owing
to the difficulty of scaling the rock, the little
colony is fairly secure. But, from its size,

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

285

the precipitous nature of the sides, and the
fact that only one landing lies contiguous to
the breeding birds, the Great Bird Rock must
ever remain the stronghold of this interesting
colony of sea-fowl. There is no regular di-
vision of the birds into large colonies accord-
ing to species, but the separation is rather by
size, gannets occupying the highest and broad-
est ledges, and murres and razor-bills taking
what is left.

A Buddha, and its Moaning. — A bronze
Buddha in the United States National Mu-
seum, as described by Charles De Kay, is
thirty-eight inches and three quarters, or in-
cluding the halo, seventy inches high, has a
bronze halo, and differs from the famous
seated Buddha at Kamakusa in size and in
the position of the forefingers. These do
not touch each other along the two upper
joints, but lie one within the other. A slight
trait of this kind is of the greatest impor-
tance to a Buddhist. It marks the difference
between figures of the greatest of all Bud-
dhas at the moments of his ecstasy or absorp-
tion into the Nirvana, or it distinguishes the
Buddha from foreign or local saints who
have presumably reached Buddhahood by
meritorious pondering. The figure has the fa-
mous knob on the forehead, about which
many legends revolve ; also the short round
curls over the head, supposed to be the snails
which guarded Buddha from sunstroke, and
it carries the mark on the top of the head.
It has the large ears, with their lobes pierced
and distended, but no ear-rings. The figure
represents Buddha, after having taught his
doctrine, merging himself into Nirvana. To
an adept, the position of the thumbs and fore-
fingers expresses a world of hidden mean-
ings. The figure is luckily provided with
a copious inscription which is couched in
phrases anything but easy of translation. Its
name is " the Buddha of the Five Wisdoms,"
and its motto, " All the world can share the
blessings of Buddhism."

Biological Physiology. — The Director of
the Marine Biological Laboratory (Wood's
Holl, Mass.) for 1891 calls attention to the
needs of physiology as one of the most im-
portant branches of biological science which,
for want of room, has thus far been neg-
lected. It is not animal or human physiol-

ogy, as commonly understood, that the di-
rector has more especially in mind, but what
he calls biological physiology, or the prov-
ince of the biological economy of organisms.
" It is in this almost new province that we
meet the great problems of geographical and
geological distribution, and those of the in-
terrelations of species in both the animal
and vegetable kingdoms. It is here that we
study life-histories, habits, food ; the influ-
ences of the physical environment, and the
reciprocal relations, which are ever varying
according to the issues of the universal strug-
gle for existence. It is in this direction that
experimental physiology finds one of the
most inviting fields in the whole range of
biology." As instances of what varied and
interesting problems here await the experi-
menter, are mentioned the experiments of
Pfliiger and others to determine the influence
of gravitation on the development of the
egg; Boveri's experiments to determine
where the formative power resides, and
whether it is shared equally by both sexes ;
Fol's studies on fertilization ; Auerbach's
determination of the sexual distinction be-
tween the paternal and the maternal ele-
ments of the nucleus ; Weismann's studies
on the laws and causes of variation; the
effects of chemical agencies on germ-cells
as tested by Oscar and Richard Hertwig;
the experiments of Beudant, Plateau, and
Schmankewitsch in transferring animals from
fresh to salt water, and vice versa ; Semper's
observations on the effect of the volume of
water on the size of the creatures living in
it; and others.

A Meteorological Poet. — A curious paper
has been published by Naval Surgeon Gre-
maud, of Brest, France, on the tempest de-
scribed in the first book of Virgil's iEneid.
He answers some of the criticisms that have
been made of it, and shows that the critics
were not meteorologists. Having carefully
compared the latest accounts of cyclones
with Virgil's description, he has found the
descriptions of the dangerous semicircle, the
tractable semicircle, the plunging winds, and
the columns of water rising like a wall and
falling upon the ships to demolish them, cor-
rect ; and establishes a complete analogy be-
tween them and the determinations of sci-
ence. Hence, Virgil was not only a poet,

286

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

but a good meteorologist as well — one of the
scientific men of his time. M. Vice-Admiral
Vignes, President of the Geographical So-
ciety of Paris, on reading the paper, re-
marked that he was surprised to find in Vir-
eil the exact laws of cyclones, which sailors
did not learn till a comparatively modern time.

British Fisheries.— The North Sea fish-
eries of Great Britain were reported at the
meeting of the British Association to be de-
clining. It was proposed to draw up a his-
tory of the North Sea trawling grounds, com-
paring their present condition with their
condition some twenty or thirty years ago,
when comparatively few boats were at work ;
to continue, verify, and extend observations
as to the average size at which prime fish
became sexually mature ; and to collect sta-
tistics as to the size of all fish captured in
the vicinity of the Dogger Bank and to the
eastward, so that the number of immature
fish annually captured may be estimated ;
also, to make experiments with beam trawl
nets of various meshes with a view to deter-
mine the relation, if any, between the size
of mesh and the size of fish taken.

The Kingfisher.— The habits of the king-
fisher (Halcyon vagans) are the subject of a
paper by Mr. J. W. Hall, of the Auckland
(N. Z.) Institute. His observations, while not
decisive, favor the opinion that kingfishers
capture live birds. They are also sometimes
captured by hawks ; but the hawk does not
always come off best. One day the author
saw a hawk sailing round the bend of a hill
followed by a kingfisher. Then at once
arose a great outcry, and the hawk came
again in sight, bearing the kingfisher in its
talons. But, nothing daunted, the kingfisher
with its pickaxe of a bill pegged away at
the breast and abdomen of its captor to
such good effect that the hawk was glad to
liberate its prey, whereupon the kingfisher
flew away, apparently but little the worse for
the encounter, and carrying with it the full
sympathy of the onlookers.

NOTES.

The Japanese observe very exact propor-
tions between leaves and flowers in the ar-
rangement of irises. With three leaves they
use one flower, with seven leaves two flowers,

with eleven leaves five flowers, with thirteen
leaves only three flowers, and with fifteen
leaves only two flowers again. When we
examine pictures that show the results of
the application of these rides, says Garden
and Forest, we are convinced that they have
been dictated by a very true feeling for ar-
tistic effects of the most delicate sort.

According to the analyses of Dr. C. F.
Millspaugh, of the West Virginia Experi-
ment Station, weeds vary largely in the per-
centages of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and
potash which they contain. One of the
evening primroses has only one per cent of
nitrogen, while the poke-weed has three per
cent of that substance, and a dry ton of the
weed will contain twenty-two dollars' worth
of it. By composting weeds with plaster, a
valuable manure may be obtained.

According to the story of George Hunt,
keeper of the lighthouse at Tillamook Rock,
on the Pacific coast, in the storm of Decem-
ber 7, 1891, the waves swept clear over the
house, washing away the boats, and tearing
loose and carrying off the landing platform
and tramway which were bolted to the rock.
On the 29th the waves were still higher, and
streams of water poured into the lantern
through the ventilators in the balloon top of
the dome, one hundred and fifty-seven feet
above the sea-level.

Dr. Alanus, a tianslation of whose letter
relating his experiences is published in the
Medical and Surgical Reporter, says that
after having lived for a long time as a vege-
tarian without feeling any better or worse than
he had felt w ith a mixed diet, he discovered
one day that his arteries were showing signs
of atheromatous degeneration. Consulting a
work by Dr. E. Morin, of Paris, he found
that affection pointed out as one of the re-
sults of living on an exclusively vegetable
diet. He now no longer considers puieiy
vegetable food as the normal diet of man,
but only as a curative method of great serv-
ice in various morbid states.

According to an article in the Overland
Monthly, many women in California gain a
livelihood by raising flower bulbs and seeds
for market, and many others send to San
Francisco every day hampers of wild flowers
and ferns which have been picked from the
neighboring canons. Mrs. Theodosia Shep-
herd, of Ventura, stands foremost among
these successful floriculturists, although only
eight years have passed since, without means
and broken down in health, she grew her
first seeds for market in the old mission town
of San Buena Ventura. She now fills orders
from prominent Eastern florists, with occa-
sional calls from Europe, Australia, and the
Sandwich Islands.

An attempt has been made by Herr
Pf eiffer to prove and measure, by the change
in electric conductivity, the solvent action cf

NOTES.

287

water on glass. He found that a cubic centi-
metre of water dissolved at 20° C. in one
hour from one to two millionths of a milli-
gramme from a square centimetre surface of
glass ; that with temperature rising arith-
metically, the growth of solubility is consid-
erably more rapid than that of a geometrical
series ; that the increase of conductivity of
the water for a given kind of glass under
like conditions is a characteristic constant;
and that later, when a certain quantity of
alkali is dissolved, further action involves a
dissolving also of silicic acid, and the salts
then formed may cause a decrease of con-
ducting power.

A vein of asbestos has been found near
Broken Hill, New South Wales, in which
there are fibers thirteen inches long, of silky
and flexible texture, but less tough than Ital-
ian asbestos. It is reddish in color.

The sixth annual meeting of the Iowa
Academy of Sciences was held at Des Moines,
December 29th and 80th. The programme
of discussions was full, and besides technical
subjects of biology, zoology, petrology, etc.,
included several topics of domestic and other
economical importance, such as the determi-
nation of the active principles of bread-
making, the bacteria of milk, the effect of
feeding on the composition of milk, sugar
beets, the coal-bearing strata, brick and other
clays, and aluminum in Iowa ; the artesian
well question, and the report of the commit-
tee on State fauna. The President of the
Academy, Prof. C. C. Nutting, made an ad-
dress on Systematic Zoology in Colleges,
and Mr. J. E. Todd gave some Further
Notes on the Great Central Plain of the Mis-
sissippi.

The statement that the adoption of elec-
tric lighting in the English Savings-Bank De-
partment has been followed by a considera-
ble reduction in the amount of sick-leave
points to what will probably be one of the
chief advantages of this mode of lighting
rooms. An electric lamp does not draw on
the oxygen of the room, and does not give
off irrespirable gases as do gas and oil lights.

According to the Minneapolis Tribune,
as cited in Garden and Forest, the leading
opponents of the proposed forest reservation
in northern Minnesota have become support-
ers of the measure. The Duluth Chamber of
Commerce sent its secretary, Mr. Thompson,
to the meeting of the State Forestry Associ-
ation, to protest against the movement, but
when he learned that instead of withholding
the timber from use it was proposed to se-
cure a constant lumber-supply, and that the
forests when protected from fire and larceny
would be more productive than they are
under the present lack of supervision, Mr.
Thompson himself joined the Association and
was made a member of the Executive Com-
mittee, which is laboring to induce the Presi-

dent to make the proclamation withdrawing
the forest lands from sale and entry.

A collection of letters and unedited
memoirs by the Swedish chemist, Scheele, is
in course of publication, under the direction
of Baron Noidenskiold. The question of
preparing an English-American edition of
the work is under consideration.

In the Cambridge Antiquarian Society,
November 11, 1891, Prof. Hughes described
the results of his examination of some de-
serted Indian villages in Arizona, one of
which consisted of caves excavated in the
top of a small hill of lava ; and another of
dwellings built under the shelter of over-
hanging ledges in the cliffs of the Walnut
Canon, much resembling the cliff dwellings
of mediaeval times along the rivers of Dor-
dogne.

Statues of Boussingault, by M. Dalon,
and Chevreul, by M. Fagel, are to be erected
in Paris, in connection with the Conservatoire
des Arts et Metiers. The Chevreul statue is
a repetition of one executed by M. Fagel in
1889.

Manganine is the name of a new alloy,
consisting of copper, nickel, and manganese,
which has been brought into the market by
a German firm, as a material of great resist-
ing power; it having a specific resistance
higher than that of nickeline, which has
hitherto passed as the best resisting metal.
It is said to be affected in only minute de-
gree by high temperatures, and is therefore
adapted for the manufacture of measuring
instruments and measuring apparatus in gen-
eral, which are required to vary in resistance
as little as possible under different degrees
of heat. While the resistance of other met-
als is increased by the raising of their tem-
perature, that of manganine is diminished.

TnERE is an art in dusting which does not
receive the attention it demands. According
to the various analyses of different observers,
the components of ordinary dust exhibit
special characters in almost endless variety.
Mineral matters, animal and vegetable debris,
morbid germs, and whatever is small and
light enough to remain for any time sus-
pended in the air, falls into the category ;
and among these things are many substances
that in the air do mischief. The spread
of cholera and exanthematous diseases has,
doubtless with truth, been attributed to its
influence. Methods of dusting, therefore,
which merely remove the dust to another
place or fill the air with it, are not sufficient
and are not harmless. It should be wiped
rather than brushed away, and carried away
off, or destroyed. Then let the sunlight in
to kill the infection that may remain.

An examination of tinned peas, greened, by
Drs. M. Charteris and William Snodgrass, of
Glasgow, showed, by deposits on the crucible

288

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and on the blade of a steel knife inserted into
the gastric solution, the presence of copper.
The copper and its albuminate were digested
in solutions similar to those of the pancre-
atic and gastric juices, and in the stomach of
the living animal. Administered to a rabbit
and a pig, the salts of copper produced toxic
symptoms.

A novel rice-pounding machine used in
the northern Shan states (Indo-China) is de-
scribed by Lord Lamington as including bam-
boo pipes through which water is led into a
hollow cut into one end of a pestle such as
is usually worked by foot. The other or
mallet end rises with the weight of the
water till the water is automatically dis-
charged, and then the pestle falls back and
does its work of pounding the unhusked
paddy.

The Acarus saccliari, or sugar-mite, is
very frequently found in raw sugar, but not
in refined. In an inferior sample of raw
sugar, Prof. Cameron found five hundred of
the organisms in ten grains. They may be
avoided by eating only refined sugar, but it
is doubtful if they would do any harm if
they were eaten. The disease knowTi as
" grocer's itch," however, is probably due to
the presence of this mite, which works its
way under the skin and produces symptoms
identical with those produced by the common
Acarus scabiei, and the remedies are the
same for both. The parasites multiply very
rapidly, and Gerlach found that a single
female would produce fifteen hundred thou-
sand progeny in three months. The most
common agents for destroying them are mer-
curic chloride and sulphur.

Discussing the value of the tree as a
schoolmaster, Garden and Forest presents as
the first of its lessons that " it teaches man
to reserve judgment by showing that the in-
significance of a germ is no criterion of the
magnitude of its product, that slowness of
development is not an index of the scope of
growth, and proves to him that the most far-
reaching results can be attained by very sim-
ple means. A barrel of acorns may be the
nucleus of a forest that shall cherish streams
to fertilize a desert ; a handful of cedar cones
may avert an avalanche, while a bushel of
pine seed may prevent the depopulation of
a great section of country by mountain tor-
rents."

It should be mentioned pertinently to
President Jordan's article on Agassiz at
Penikese, that the buildings of the Anderson
School on that island were totally destroyed
by fire in August, 1891. The fire caught —
Mr. George O'Malley, of New Bedford, in-
forms President Jordan — under one corner
of the building, and in a very short time

nothing was left.

The Laboratory for Investigators of the
Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's

Holl, Mass., will be open from June 1st to
August 1st. The laboratory for teachers and
students will be opened July 6th for regular
courses of seven weeks in zoology, botany,
and microscopical technique. The number
of students will be limited to fifty, and pref-
erence will be given to teachers and others
already qualified. Students may begin their
individual work as early as June 15th without
extra charge. A spacious new wing of the
laboratory building will be ready for use on
July 1st.

A summer course in botany is held annu-
ally in the lecture-room of the College of
Pharmacy, 209 and 211 East 23d Street, New
York, to consist of ten lectures, beginning
this year April 28th, and closing with the ex-
cursion of July 5th. The extensive appliances
for instruction of the institution are used ;
fresh material is collected weekly ; and com-
petent lecturers are provided by a committee
of the Torrey Botanical Club. In addition
to the lectures, the course includes ten ex-
qursions. The lectures will be given on
Thursdays, at four o'clock in the afternoon,
and the excursions will be made on Tues-
days and Saturdays, each member choosing
the series of excursions which he will attend.

The fourth meeting of the Australasian
Association for the Advancement of Science
was held at Hobart, Tasmania, January 7th to
14th, under the presidency of Sir Robert Ham-
ilton, and was in every way successful and
creditable. The president, in his inaugural
address, gave a sketch of the history of the
Royal Society of Tasmania, and suggested
reasons why all intelligent persons in Aus-
tralia should do their utmost " to hasten the
advent of the time, which is undoubtedly
approaching, when science will form a much
more integral part of the life of the people
than it does at paesent." The next meeting
will be held at Adelaide, and Prof. Tate will
be its president.

OBITUARY NOTE.

Dr. Charles Metmott Tidy, an eminent
English chemist and analyist, died March
15th. He had been joint lecturer on chemis-
try and Professor of Chemistry and Medical
Jurisprudence and Public Health at the Lon-
don Hospital, and was at the time of his
death Official Analyist to the Home Office
and Medical Officer of Health for Islington.
He also held the office of Reader of Medical
Jurisprudence at the Inns of Court. Among
his publications were a course of Cantor Lect-
ures on the Practical Applications of Optics
to the Arts and Manufactures and to Medi-
cine ; a paper on the Treatment of Sewage ;
a work on Legal Medicine ; a paper on Am-
monia in the Urine in Health and Disease ;
and a Hand-book of Modern Chemistry, the
second edition of which appeared in 1887.

LUTGI GALVANI.

Hferarnii Librar r.

NEW YORK.
T II E

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

JULY, 1892.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

By Prof. FREDERICK STARR.

THE object of this article is not to present a history of anthro-
pology in America, but to sketch briefly some of the work
at present done, so as to show the aims and methods of our work-
ers in the science.

That anthropology is yearly attracting greater attention among
us is shown by the way in which institutions of learning are
recognizing its importance. Not many years ago a scientific jour-
nal made the statement that but one institution of learning in the
United States, the University of Rochester, had the science upon
its curriculum. The way in which it was introduced there is
somewhat interesting. At that time the scientific work offered
to students at Rochester was admittedly insufficient in quantity,
but the way seemed hardly clear to the employment of any addi-
tional teaching force to do extra work. At this stage of affairs
Prof. Joseph Gilmore, in charge of the Department of Rhetoric
and English Literature, offered, in some degree at least, to meet the
need, to announce an optional course in anthropology. The work
was very elementary, extending over but a single term, and cov-
ering the field considered in De Quatrefages's little volume, The
Natural History of Man. From the beginning the course was a
favorite one, and many students elected it, The effect was good
and the example has been followed. Since that time instruction in
anthropology has entered into the work of a considerable number
of American colleges and universities. It is suggestive to inquire
how and why it has been introduced. At Yale, Prof. Sumner has
for several years given such courses, because he felt that students
unacquainted with the science could not profitably undertake

VOL. XLI. 22

290

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

his work in political science and economics. At Union College,
Prof. Hoffman has found it necessary to give lectures on anthro-
pology, as preliminary to the best work in psychology. At the
University of Mississippi we believe it has been introduced as
fundamental to historical study. In one way or another the sub-
ject has been crowding itself into the curricula, until now, in
addition to the institutions already mentioned, Brown, Harvard,
Clark, Vermont, and the University of Pennsylvania offer facili-
ties for such study. At the new University of Chicago anthropol-
ogy is to be recognized, and
several courses, covering a
wide field, will probably be
offered. The work at two
or three of the universities
deserves special notice. At
Yale, Prof. W. G. Sumner
gives two courses of instruc-
tion in alternate years — one
for undergraduates, the oth-
er for graduate students.
The elementary course is
based upon Tylor's Anthro-
pology and Joly's Man be-
fore Metals, both of which
are carefully read by the
students, and form the basis
of class - work. Lectures,
discussions, and prepara-
tion of original papers up-
on selected topics make a
suggestive and excellent
course. Supplementary reading of important French and German
writers is arranged for such students as desire to do the best
work. In the second course similar methods are pursued, and
the required reading consists of Topinard's Anthropology and
Letourneau's Sociology. These two courses are deservedly popu-
lar with the students. The instruction work in anthropology at
Harvard is an outgrowth of the Peabody Museum of American
Ethnology. Of the museum itself we shall speak later. The
work of Harvard University is divided into twelve departments,
of which the most recently established is the Department of
American Archaeology and Ethnology. This department is equal
in rank to any in the university, being on the same footing as the
Department of Ancient Languages, or the Department of Mathe-
matics. Graduate work leading to a Ph. D. degree is offered.
We quote the following announcement from the latest catalogue :

Prof. W. G. Sumner.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

291

" A course of special training in archaeology and ethnology,
requiring three years for its completion, will be given by Prof.
Putnam. It will be carried on by work in the laboratory and
museum, lectures, field-work, and exploration, and in the third
year by some special research. The ability to use French and
Spanish will be necessary. For this course a knowledge of ele-
mentary chemistry, geology, botany, zoology, drawing, and sur-
veying is required, and courses in ancient history, ancient arts,
and classical archaeology are recommended as useful." Students
are now pursuing such study at Harvard under Prof. Putnam's
direction. Since the establishment of this department a fellowship
at Harvard University has been founded by Mrs. Mary C. Thaw,
of Pittsburgh. Founded largely from personal admiration of Miss
Alice C. Fletcher, and appreciation of her work, the fellowship is
to be held by this lady during her life. In the event of Miss
Fletcher's death, "the in-
come from the fund of thir-
ty thousand dollars is to be
paid as a salary to such per-
son as shall be appointed by
the trustees of the museum
to carry on the same line of
work and research relating
to the Indian race of Amer-
ica, or other ethnological
and archaeological investi-
gations." At the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania a spe-
cial chair of American Ar-
chaeology and Linguistics
is held by Dr. D. G. Brin-
ton, than whom no man in
America is better qualified
to offer courses in Indian
languages. The broadest
anthropological work at
present offered in an Ameri-
can institution is that conducted by Dr. Franz Boas at Clark Uni-
versity, Worcester, Mass. Dr. Boas received his training in an-
thropological study in Germany. Although partial to work in the
direction of comparative mythology and linguistics, he is thor-
oughly trained in the methods of ethnography and physical an-
thropology. A great traveler and an excellent field-student, he
has done admirable work among the Eskimos and the tribes
of the northwest coast of America. For several years he has
directed an exploration among these people, supported by a fund

Prof. F. W. Putnam.

292

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

supplied by the British Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence, and his animal reports, published by that body, have been
veritable storehouses of new and valuable information. Dr. Boas
has lately prepared an important work upon the Mythology of

North America, which will
soon appear from the fjress.
Dr. Boas is in charge of the
Physical Anthropology Sec-
tion of the Department of
Ethnology and Archaeology
of the World's Columbian
Exposition of Chicago. In
connection with this work
he plans to gather such
a mass of anthropometric
data concerning the red man
as has never before been
brought together. Within
the next few months he
hopes to have fully twenty
thousand Indians of differ-
ent tribes carefully meas-
ured. Important facts may
be discovered from a care-
ful study of the material
thus secured. Dr. Boas at
present lectures to a class of students upon statistics in anthro-
pology and other sciences ; how to secure, tabulate, and use them.
Special graduate students are put at work in his laboratory, which
is fairly equipped, upon some line of original research and study,
the results of which may be published as contributions to sci-
ence.

Museums in ethnography and anthropology are not yet nu-
merous in America. Collections of considerable size and worthy
of special notice exist at Cambridge, Salem, New York, Phila-
delphia, Washington, and Davenport. Of very great importance
is the Peabody Museum of American Ethnology at Cambridge,
connected with Harvard University, and under direction of Prof.
Frederick W. Putnam. At first a zoologist, especially interested
in fishes. Prof. Putnam has long since laid aside everything
except archaeology. The present work and importance of the
museum are mainly due to him. Nine large rooms are filled with
valuable collections, a great part of which have been gathered
under his personal supervision. No man has done so much to
bring about the careful and systematic method of excavation of
mounds now followed as he. To refer to all the objects of

Albert S. Gatschet.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

293

special interest in this museum would take us far beyond our
limits. Among the collections are magnificent series from the
mounds of Ohio and the stone graves of Tennessee; complete al-
tars of baked clay from Ohio " altar mounds " ; Kentucky cavern
finds ; interesting series from the caverns of southern California,
comprising perishable objects seldom preserved, such as a feather
head-dress, basketry, wooden objects, and a wonderful lot of bone
whistles found in a single basket ; Flint's interesting gatherings
from Nicaragua ; collections from the old cities of Yucatan ; the
Agassiz collection from ancient Peruvian graves ; the rich yield
from the Madisonville cemetery : Wyman's collection from the
fresh-water shell-heaps of the St. John's River, Fla. ; and the
famous Abbott collection from New Jersey, the basis of Dr. Ab-
bott's paper, The Stone Age in New Jersey. Two other series
deserve especial mention — the one of specimens from Honduras,
some of the pottery in which is exceedingly interesting as show-
ing a field for exploration scarcely known to our archaeologists.
Prof. Putnam has made arrangements with the Government of
Honduras whereby the museum has the exclusive right of ar-
chaeological exploration in that country for a term of ten years.
Mr. Saville, the museum as-
sistant, is now in that field.
Very important is the great
collection of American " pa-
lseoliths." Here are Dr. Ab-
bott's argillite implements
from the Trenton gravels,
and the skulls from the
same locality ; Miss Bab-
bitt's quartzite flakes and
rude implements from the
Minnesota drift deposits ;
and the Ohio, Indiana, and
Delaware specimens from
post-glacial or glacial de-
posits. Nowhere else is there
any such an exhibit of these
rude, early types, which
have caused so much bitter
discussion. We have spoken
only of American collec-
tions, but there are also in

this museum series illustrative of European archaeology, fine
specimens from the South Seas, and a Semitic museum, which
deserve more than a passing reference. The museum has pub-
lished annual reports for twenty-four years ; some of them have

Dr. D. G. Brinton.

294

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

contained papers of much value. At present octavo monographs
by such writers as Mrs. Zelia Nuttall and Mr. A. S. Gatschet are
also published by the museum. One important and original ac-
complishment of the museum remains to be mentioned. In Adams
County, ( >hio, on a high bluff at some distance from the nearest
railroad town, is the Great Serpent Mound, in some respects the
most remarkable monument of antiquity in America. It was

in danger of destruction,
when Prof. Putnam made
an appeal for funds for its
purchase and preservation.
Ladies of Boston responded
to the appeal, the money
needed was raised, and paid
over to the museum, which
made the purchase. The
place has been pleasantly
laid out as Serpent Mound
Park, and the old monu-
ment itself has been careful-
ly surveyed, restored, and
put into a condition to with-
stand the destroying action
of time and the elements.
Prof. Putnam is Director of
the Department of Ethnol-
ogy of the Columbian Ex-
position, and in connection
with its work has kept par-
ties in the field excavating mounds and gathering material. His
plan of display is a vast one, and a most instructive and interest-
ing object lesson in American anthropology (ethnography, physi-
cal anthropology, archaeology) is sure to be prepared.

New York is not so much a center of anthropological work as
it should be. At the American Museum of Natural History there
is much good material. Here one may see what is left in Amer-
ica of the Squier and Davis collection from the Ohio mounds,
containing many specimens figured in the Ancient Monuments of
the Mississippi Valley ; the Squier collection from Peru, compris-
ing a wonderfully fine lot of greenstone carvings ; the collection
of Colonel C. C. Jones, made chiefly in Georgia, numbering five
thousand specimens, and the basis of his book, The Antiqui-
ties of the Southern Indians ; a remarkable collection in Euro-
pean archaeology, including series from the river gravels and
caves of France, from the lake dwellings of Switzerland, and from
the famous localities of Denmark ; the Emmons collection from

Dr. C. C. Abbott.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

295

Alaska, which is perhaps the best collection from the Tlingits ;
the Sturgis collection from the South Seas, recently purchased by
the museum, and far larger than any other in America, and sur-
passed by few in Europe. Besides these collections belonging to
the museum, and on display, there are in the building two remark-
able and extensive series belonging to private collectors — men of
wealth — Mr. James Terry and Mr. Andrew E. Douglass. The
Terry collection is mainly the personal gathering of the owner,
and is particularly rich in Pacific coast specimens. The Douglass
collection is made up of exceedingly choice stone implements
from every part of the United States, and it is unsurpassed in the
number of rare and beautiful objects — banner-stones, bird and bar
amulets, hematites, and grooved axes. These two collections will
no doubt ultimately become the property of the museum. Not-
withstanding its treasures in material collections, the museum
has never published one line of contribution to anthropological
science, nor has it under-
taken, apart from a few
lectures to its membership
any educational work in the
subject.

In Philadelphia a vast
amount of work has been
done by a few individual
workers, with no pecuniary
return, and with but very lit-
tle financial backing. What
is there has been brought
about by truly heroic work
from love of the cause. The
work is mainly done at the
Philadelphia Academy of
Science or at the University
of Pennsylvania. At the
academy is the Morton col-
lection of crania, gathered
by our earliest great anthro-
pologist, and at that time

one of the largest in the world ; here, too, are the collections in
archaeology gathered by Poinsett, Vaux, and Haldeman. For
several seasons, including the present one, Dr. D. G. Brinton has
presented at the academy courses of lectures upon some ethnologi-
cal subject. The most active work in Philadelphia at present,
however, is at the university. In reference to it, Mr. Culin, who
is one of its heartiest supporters, writes us :

" The chief center is the new Department of Archaeology and

Prof. Edward S. Morse.

296

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Palaeontology of the University of Pennsylvania, which is main-
tained by an independent organization — the University Archeeo-
logical Association. This department covers a broad field. It.
Las had an expedition for two years in Babylonia; it contributes
annually to the Egyptian Exploration Fund.; and has carried on
explorations in various parts of the United States. In two years
it has established a museum in four sections — American, Baby-
lonian, Egyptian, and Ori-
ental—with remarkably full
collections in each. It has
just opened a loan exhibi-
tion of objects used in wor-
ship, intended as the first of
a series of such special ex-
hibitions of an educational
character in which the re-
sources of the museum and
of private collections will
be made accessible and dis-
played."

An unusual number of
active societies exist in Phil-
adelphia, which more or less
directly assist anthropolog-
ical science. Such are the
American Philosophical So-
ciety, Numismatic and An-
tiquarian Society, and the
Oriental Club. In all of
these, so far as anthropological work is concerned, Dr. Daniel G.
Brinton is a moving spirit. Dr. Brinton scarcely needs an intro-
duction to American readers ; no one has done more to make an-
thropology known to the people and to raise up other workers.
His writings upon American religions are delightful reading. For
several years he has edited a most important work, the Library of
American Aboriginal Literature ; of this some eight volumes have
appeared. Each volume is devoted to some one literary produc-
tion of the American race. The original text is printed in full ;
and a translation, critical notes, and a vocabulary make the subject
available to the student. Dr. Brinton has lately issued two little
volumes — Races and Peoples and The American Race — of popular
but scholarly character. The other workers in Philadelphia who
are best known are the curators of the departments of the Univer-
sity Museum, Dr. C. C. Abbott, Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., Mrs. Cor-
nelius Stevenson, and Mr. Stewart Culin. Dr. Jastrow is one of
the best Semitic scholars in America. Mrs. Stevenson is perhaps

Major J. W. Powell.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

297

our only lady Egyptologist. She may justly be compared in that
held to Miss Edwards, of England. Her lectures on Egyptian
subjects have made a sensation.

To the work of Dr. C. C. Abbott we briefly referred in connec-
tion with the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. Dr. Abbott lived
for many years at Trenton, gathering a great collection of archae-
ological specimens from the State of New Jersey. The series, now
at Cambridge, numbered
many thousands of speci-
mens, and was the basis for
The Stone Age in New Jer-
sey and for the later book
Primitive Industry. In 1875
Dr. Abbott found the first
argillite palaeolithic imple-
ments in the Trenton gravel.
This gravel is said by geolo-
gists to date back to the
close of the Glacial Period,
and any evidence of hu-
man workmanship in un-
disturbed gravels of that
kind carries the existence
of man in the Eastern Unit-
ed States back to a consid-
erable antiquity. A lively
warfare has been waged
against these "finds." It
has been questioned wheth-
er the objects were of human workmanship, and whether they were
really of the same age as the gravels. But similar implements have
been found in similar deposits in other States within the glaciated
area, and each new discovery tends to establish those which pre-
ceded it. Since his connection with the University Museum, Dr.
Abbott has continued field-work in the Delaware Valley, and has
lately made many interesting discoveries, such as workshops
where argillite implements (non-palaeolithic, but ancient) were
made and quarries where the Indians gathered their materials for
arrow-heads and spear-heads. Dr. Abbott aims to exhaust the
archaeology of the Delaware Valley before he ends his work.
Such thorough study of limited areas is what we most need in
American archaeology. After such work has been done for each
section of the United States, then, and then only, can our students
reach sure conclusions.

The loan exhibition of religious objects above mentioned is
mainly due to the energy and efforts of Mr. Stewart Culin, who

Gaerick Mallery.

298

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

finds his most interesting work in the neglected fields of popular
superstitions and games, and who is an earnest student of com-
parative religion. The exhibition was formally opened on March
Kith, when crowds of visitors were present. The collection is the
first of its kind publicly shown in America. It is on the general
plan of the Muse'e Guimet in Paris, and, although not to be com-
pared with that in size, it presents some valuable features that are
lacking there. Some eight hundred objects illustrated Brahman-
ism, Buddhism, Taoism, Mohammedanism, the fetich-worship of
South Africa, the Shamanism of North America, the idolatry of
Polynesia, and the old religions of Egypt. There has been much
hard work given to this display, and great credit is due those who
have been interested in its preparation.

While we speak of work done by noble individual effort and
sacrifice^ and without the assistance of Government or of wealthy
organizations, we must describe what is done at Salem and at
Davenport. No museum in America has exerted a greater influ-
ence than that in Salem,
Massachusetts. A large pro-
portion of the most active
scientific men in our coun-
try, directly or indirectly,
owe much of their first im-
pulse and enthusiasm to
some department of its
work. In 1799 the Salem
East India Marine Society
was organized, with a mem-
bership confined to persons
who had actually navigated
the seas beyond the Cape of
Good Hope or Cape Horn
as masters or supercargoes
of vessels belonging to Sa-
lem. Those were the palmy
days of commercial suprem-
acy and the seas were dotted
with vessels from the old
town. The third of the ob-
jects stated as reasons for organizing the society was " to form a
museum of natural and artificial curiosities, particularly such as
are to be found beyond the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn."
The museum began November, 1799, with a gift of objects from
Sumatra by Captain Jonathan Carnes. In course of time much
choice material in ethnography was brought here — particularly
from the South Sea Islands, China, India, Africa, and South

Frank Hamilton Cushing.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

i99

America. Meantime, the Essex Institute was gathering collec-
tions in other lines and from the neighboring district. In 1867
the collections of the two organizations were combined in the old
East India Marine Society Hall, becoming the property of the
new organization — the Peabody Academy of Science. The acad-
emy has gone on quietly but
constantly, with little blow-
ing of trumpets, and good
work has been done. Late-
ly an additional exhibition
hall has been built, and in
it are displayed the ethno-
graphical collections. No
one in America who is en-
gaged in studying the eth-
nography of the South Sea
Islands can afford to neglect
this series. Prof. Edward
S. Morse, whose chief con-
tributions to ethnography
are his paper on Methods
of Arrow Release and his
book on Japanese Homes, is
the director of the academy,
and Mr. John Robinson is

m

charge of the museum.

Prof. 0. T. Mason.

Some day the story of the

Davenport (Iowa) Academy of Science will be an interesting chap-
ter in the history of science in the United States. It has never
had a large donation in money, and much of its work has been
done by poor men. It has had a constant struggle to survive. It
is certainly fit to live, for there, with no trained anthropologist or
professional ethnographer to direct or develop a definite plan of
work, has grown up an excellent collection in archaeology. Prob-
ably nowhere except in Salisbury, England, is there so large a
series of " curved-base pipes " of stone from the mounds ; nowhere
else is there so interesting a series of copper axes wrapped in
cloth ; nowhere, except at Washington, so fine a series of pottery
from the Arkansas mounds, nor many much better collections of
mound crania. Nor has the academy been silent. Notwithstand-
ing its money poverty it has published valuable Transactions, by
the exchange of which it has gathered a creditable library.

Washington has become a great scientific center, and of the
whole circle of sciences none is more cultivated there than an-
thropology. Under Major Powell — a remarkable organizer and
an indefatigable worker — has been organized the Bureau of Eth-

3oo

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nology, with its band of workers each in some special line.
Work is actively conducted both in the field and office, and the
results are published as papers in the annual reports, as bul-
letins, or as monographs. Major Powell himself is our best au-
thority on the Utes. For years he has been mainly interested in
linguistics, and his Introduction to the Study of Indian Lan-
guages has led to the gathering of many vocabularies. The mass
of linguistic material in the possession of the bureau is almost
incredible. In his last annual report Major Powell presents a
paper upon the Linguistic Families North of Mexico. This paper

is accompanied by a map
showing the conclusions he
reaches. The best-known
linguist in the employ of
the Bureau of Ethnology
is Mr. Albert S. Gatschet,
whose studies are most thor-
ough and critical. Mr. Gat-
schet is by birth a Swiss,
and has devoted his time
since 1875 to the study of an-
thropology and the Ameri-
can races and languages. Of
his more important works,
the earliest is the Migration
Legend of the Creeks, in
two octavo volumes ; the
original Creek text, transla-
tion, vocabulary, and criti-
cal notes upon the language
and ethnology of this im-
portant tribe compose the
work. Very recently the Government has published his great
work upon The Klamath Indians of Southwestern Oregon, in two
quarto parts. Mr. H. W. Henshaw, the general assistant in the
bureau, has also collected much linguistic material, especially
in California. One of the most complete studies, the results of
which the bureau is printing, is that of Rev. J. Owen Dorsey
among the Omahas. Mr. Dorsey has already published exten-
sively upon the language and the sociology of this people, but
he has still much material. Mr. James Mooney has made a special
study during three field seasons of the Cherokees of the North
Carolina Mountains, and his report upon their ceremonials has
just appeared. One of the brightest workers of the bureau is
Mrs. Stevenson, whose husband was one of the most indefatigable
collectors in the Pueblo regions. Mrs. Stevenson's Religious Life

Thomas Wil.son.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

301

of the Zuiii Child is a very good bit of work. Two of the bureau
force have been particularly interested in pictography — Colonel
Garrick Mallery and Dr. W. J. Hoffman. The former was fortu-
nately sent to the seat of the Dakota war in 1870. He there
found a rude and interesting native picture record, which he pub-
lished in 1877 under the title A Calendar of the Dakota Nation.
At its founding, during that same year, he was invited to a posi-
tion in the Bureau of Ethnology. He has continued his study of
picture-writing and has investigated gesture language, and by pub-
lication and encouraging research has added much to the knowl-
edge of both subjects. Through his Israelite and Indian (Vice-
Presidential Address before the American Association) and other
articles published in these pages, Colonel Mallery is already
known to the readers of this journal. With Colonel Mallery, Dr.
Hoffman has been much in-
terested in picture-writing,
but he has also written up-
on a wide range of subjects
in ethnology, archaeology,
and folk lore. His most im-
portant contribution is The
Grand Medicine Society of
the Ojibwas. W. H. Holmes
is an artist, and his papers
upon art in pottery and text-
ile fabrics are among the
most delightful in Ameri-
can archaeology. Mr. Frank
Cushing, as a village boy
in western New York, was
a hunter of Indian relics on
the old village sites of the
Iroquois ; invited »to the
Smithsonian Institution, he
was sent to New Mexico to
study Pueblo life. The story

of his life at Zuiii, his adoption, his initiation into mysteries, his
conduct of an " aboriginal pilgrimage " to the Ocean of Sunrise,
has been told and retold in magazine articles. At the establish-
ment of the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Exploration,
in January, 1887, Mr. Cushing was placed in charge of its work
and conducted it for two years, first in the Salado and Gila Val-
leys in Arizona, and later at Zufii and its neighborhood. Two
years of such work brought on a serious illness, from which Mr.
Cushing is only now recovering. Some results of his wTork were
published in the report of the meeting of the International Con-

Dr. J. Walter Fewkes.

302

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

gress of Americanists for 1888. From these years of experience
Mr. dishing has gained a stock of information, little of which has
yet been published. At present he is again officially connected
with the Bureau of Ethnology. We have only suggested the

work of this bureau, and
have not even mentioned
some workers who have
done good work.

The collections made by
Government workers go to
three museums — the mate-
rial in physical anthropol-
ogy to the Army Medical
Museum, that in ethnogra-
phy to the United States
National Museum, and that
in prehistoric archaeology
to the Smithsonian Institu-
tion. The Army Medical
Museum is a great collec-
tion, beautifully arranged.
There is much material here
to interest the anthropolo-
gist— many fine anatomical
specimens ; a wonderful se-
ries to illustrate the effects
of gunshot wounds and their healing; a goodly number of mon-
strosities ; most important of all are the skeletons and crania of
North American tribes — more than two thousand of the latter.

Prof. Otis T. Mason is in charge of the ethnological treasures
at the United States National Museum. He is a most systematic
worker, and his card catalogue of references to literature of eth-
nography is well worthy of study. His annual summaries of an-
thropological progress are exceedingly valuable. More than any
other American ethnographer he has carefully studied casing,
display, and labeling. Where, as in the Eskimo series, the mate-
rial from any given region or tribe is large in amount and varied
in character, the arrangement is geographical. In general, how-
ever, the idea in the arrangement is to show culture history.
This idea, so admirably carried out in Oxford, is scarcely found
elsewhere in American museums. Some of the series are excel-
lent ; the development of the knife, the history of musical instru-
ments, the history of fire-producing instruments are good. Some
cases tell the story of a whole technique ; thus the case of Guada-
lajara (Mexico) pottery shows by specimens and by small figures
of potters at work every step in the manufacture. A point that

Adolf F. Bandelier.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

3°3

Prof. Mason particularly wishes to emphasize is the way in which
primitive man works. Thus he is not content with securing the
various fire-making machines, but he must have Mr. Hough dem-
onstrate their use by actually making fire with them. So he has
encouraged Mr. Maguire to illustrate how stone tools were made
by making them. One is astounded by the vast collections in
this museum — there is a bewildering wealth of material. All
that is received is divided into three series — the smallest is dis-
played in cases ; the second, much larger and wonderfully rich,
is placed in drawers for students to use ; the third is stored away
for purposes of exchange. The museum publishes its own Trans-
actions, in which many valuable monographs appear.

The Curator of Prehistoric Anthropology of the Smithsonian
Institution is the Hon. Thomas Wilson, who at one time repre-
sented our Government in Europe. While there he had unusual
opportunities for field-work in the famous localities, for study of
museums, and for acquaintance with the workers. He has charge
of a vast mass of material. Here are surface-found specimens
from every State in the Union ; the beautiful objects from the
mounds which supplied the
illustrations for Holmes's
Art in Shell ; the famous
copper plates from the Eto-
wah mounds ; the Perkins
collection of copper imple-
ments from Wisconsin ; the
Latimer collection of stone
implements from Porto Rico ;
good series from Mexico, Yu-
catan, and Central America.
Here, too, are the results of
Dr. Cyrus Thomas's mound
explorations and Warren K.
Moorehead's deposit. A large
space is devoted to Mr. Min-
deleff's wonderfully natural
and interesting miniature re-
productions of the pueblos
of New Mexico. There is, in
fact, such a wealth of mate-
rial that one is confused by

its very abundance. Mr. Wilson has done a very wise and in-
structive thing in arranging "synoptical cases." These are table-
cases, placed in two groups, one on each side of the entrance-door.
In one is given, by a few carefully selected, carefully labeled, and
illustratedly explained specimens, a synopsis of the prehistoric

Mrs. Zelia Nuttall.

3°4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

archeology of Europe, tlie arrangement following De Mortillet's
classification. In the second group of cases a similar synoptical
arrangement illustrates American archaeology. As to the general
collection, it is arranged strictly on a geographical basis, speci-
mens from one State being together. Under this grouping a
sub-classification according to form or type is carried out. One
important work undertaken by Mr. Wilson deserves mention.
From specimens in the museum a series of about one hundred has

been selected, from which
copies in plaster have been
carefully made. One hun-
dred such sets of casts have
been prepared, and printed
labels accompany them.
These sets of casts are to be
distributed to various insti-
tutions of learning in the
United States, and consid-
erable public interest in ar-
chaeology should be the re-
sult.

To complete our sketch
we must refer to some indi-
vidual explorations or work,
and to anthropological pe-
riodicals. The Hemenway
Archaeological Exploration
has been mentioned. This
important work is support-
ed by Mrs. Hemenway, of
Boston. At present Dr. J. Walter Fewkes is the director of the
work, which is centered upon the living tribes in the Moki pueblos.
Dr. Fewkes is admirably qualified for the task, as he has had a
thorough training in scientific methods of study. His field-work
is excellent, and his own taste leads him to investigate the exceed-
ingly interesting but difficult subject of the significance of the
religious-dance ceremonials. Dr. Fewkes is perhaps the first
scientist who has used the phonograph in taking down the re-
ligious music of a barbarous tribe. He has gathered consider-
able Zuni music in this way, which Mr. Benjamin Ives Gilman
has studied carefully. The results of this study as well as those
of Dr. Fewkes's own work are published in the Journal of Amer-
ican Ethnology and Archaeology, the official organ of the explora-
tion. Work in the Southwest presents many attractions, and a
recently organized expedition under, Mr. Warren K. Moorehead,.
is now in the field. This expedition is, we believe, the child of a

Miss Alice

Fletcher.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA.

3°5

New York journal — the Illustrated American. Its object is a
thorough study of the cliff-buildings of the Colorado district.
Mr. Moorehead is one of the most enthusiastic of our young
archaeologists, and has already done admirable work in Ohio
mound exploration. He was for some time with Mr. Wilson at
the Smithsonian Institution, and has recently been making some
remarkably successful excavations for the World's Fair. The
Colorado expedition started February 29th, and is to be in prog-
ress for some months.

Mr. Ad. F. Bandelier, by parentage a Frenchman, is one of our
most scholarly and critical students in that most difficult field
— Spanish America. He has been markedly successful both in
field-work and in study of the old Spanish records. Follow-
ing the line of criticism so ably used by the late Lewis H. Mor-
gan, Mr. Bandelier has destroyed much of the romance of Aztec
and Peruvian history ; but from the ruins he has reconstructed
pictures of these most interesting societies that are lifelike, and
far more in accordance with
the genius of the American
race than the old ones. His
papers — at first published in
the annual reports of the
Peabody Museum, but lat-
terly in the publications of
the American Archaeologi-
cal Institute — are models of
scholarship. Mr. Bandelier
is now planning an impor-
tant exploration into Peru-
Ecuador. It is to be hoped
that he may have no diffi-
culty in finding the finan-
cial support that he needs.

Two ladies are doing re-
markable work in Amer-
ican anthropology. Mrs.
Zelia Nuttall works in the
same field as Mr. Bande-
lier. Although an Ameri-
can, Mrs. Nuttall lives at Dresden, Germany. She surrounds herself
with an Aztec atmosphere ; her library, one of the richest in Mexi-
can works in existence, is cased in pieces of furniture whose forms
and decorations are drawn from Mexican architecture. On all
relating to Mexican archaeology and history she is an authority.
Two of the Peabody Museum monographs are by her — one upon a
curious feather head-dress, the other upon the Mexican throwing-

VOL. XLI. 23

Kev. S. D. Peet.

3o6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

stick, or aflafl. Recently Mrs. Nuttall had the pleasure of discov-
ering at the old castle of Ambras (Germany) a fine shield of an-
cient Mexican feather-work. In the last number of the Interna-
tionales Archiv fur Ethnographie she publishes an exhaustive
and handsomely illustrated article upon the subject of feather

shields from Mexico. In a
recent visit to Florence.
Italy, Mrs. Nuttall discov-
ered in the library an Aztec-
manuscript with pictures.
It turned out to be a treatise
upon dress and ornament,
and contains a text in Span-
ish letters. This, reprinted
in fac-simile, with critical
notes and an English trans-
lation, Mrs. Nuttall will pre-
sent at the next congress of
Americanists in October.
Miss Alice C. Fletcher, al-
though a fellow of Harvard
University, assistant of the
Peabody Museum, and em-
ployed in the Indian Bu-
reau, is really a free lance in
American ethnology. She
is more — she is a firm friend
of the Indian, and has shown herself so in many, many ways. As
special Indian agent she has personally located five thousand In-
dians upon their own lands under the " Land in Severalty Bill."
Her studies in sociology and religious beliefs among the Ponkas,
Winnebagoes, etc., have been scientifically carried on. She is
about to publish a work upon Ponka music, that has occupied
much time and hard labor during several years back. All who
know Miss Fletcher or who are acquainted with her work expect
this work to be a most valuable contribution to knowledge.

Three periodicals in America busy themselves with anthro-
pology— the American Antiquarian, the American Anthropolo-
gist, and the Journal of American Folk-lore. The Journal of
American Folk-lore is the organ of the American Folk-lore Soci-
ety, and is under the editorship of Mr. W. W. Newell. The Ameri-
can Anthropologist has grown out of the Anthropological Society
of Washington ; it is coming to be more and more a representa-
tive journal of our national work in the field of anthropology.
The American Antiquarian deserves a longer notice, because it is
the pioneer journal. Mainly occupied with American archaeology,

Sir Daniel Wilson.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL WORK IN AMERICA. 307

it has always been open to papers in other departments. From
the beginning it has been under the editorship of the Rev. Stephen
D. Peet, who has worked hard to put it where it now is, and who
deserves hearty support in an undertaking which has never been
a money success. Mr. Peet has himself been a field-worker and
an original thinker. His field of labor is one that was for years
left almost untouched, although none is more interesting — the
effigy mounds of Wisconsin. Years ago Dr. Lapham prepared a
work on the subject, which was very creditable for that time.
Mr. Peet has gone over the same ground, and has resurveyed the
groups. But he has done much more : he has surveyed many new
groups, has made a careful study of the animal forms represented
and of their attitudes, and has tried to work out their significance.
The theories he suggests are certainly entitled to consideration,
and his study deserves recognition and higher praise than it has
yet received.

Nor are our Canadian neighbors neglecting anthropology. Sir
Daniel Wilson's works, Prehistoric Man and Prehistoric Annals
of Scotland, were training-books for the present generation of
scholars. Very recently he has added an interesting contribution
to a curious field in his little book Left-handedness.

Another veteran worker whom we love to recognize is Horatio
Hale, who, half a century ago, went around the world as the
ethnologist of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition. Of him Dr.
Brinton, in the dedication of his recent little book on Races and
Peoples, justly says, " His many and valuable contributions to
linguistics and ethnography place him to-day among the foremost
authorities on these sciences/' Both, in advanced years, preserve
the zeal for scientific progress, which shows itself in the planning
and directing of anthropological investigations, in the founding
of collections such as those of Toronto University and the Cana-
dian Institute, and in the development of such students as David
Boyle and Mr. Chamberlain. This archaeological collection of the
Canadian Institute at Toronto is a surprisingly rich and interest-
ing one, and the annual reports regarding it are becoming valued
contributions to archaeological literature. In one of the more
recent of these reports Mr. Chamberlain presents a valuable bib-
liography of Canadian work in anthropology — a long list of valua-
ble papers. We only regret that we have not the space to refer
to some of them and to their authors in detail.

Such, briefly sketched, is some of the work Americans are
doing in the great field of anthropological science.

3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

PHYSIOLOGY AND THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE.

By Dr. J. M. RICE.

THAT disease is far more prevalent than our knowledge of pre-
vention justifies can hardly be doubted. An inquiry into the
cause of this evil, as well as into the manner in which it can be
removed, is therefore, in my opinion, not inopportune.

With few exceptions, that which is done at present for the
prevention of disease is limited to improving the sanitary condi-
tions surrounding the individual, in consequence of which two
very important factors are left out of consideration : Firstly, that
many diseases are caused by unfavorable internal conditions,
which for the most part can be traced to imperfect development
and improper modes of living ; and, secondly, that exposure to
unfavorable external conditions is not necessarily followed by
illness, for the reason that the body itself offers a certain amount
of resistance to the same. Unless, therefore, our efforts be ex-
tended *to the prevention of diseases arising from internal causes
as well as to increasing the power of resistance, they must to a
considerable extent remain inefficient.

As the means employed for the purpose of improving the sur-
rounding conditions are well known, it will be unnecessary to enter
into detail here regarding them. The deleterious substances in
the outer world are principally germs and other impurities of
various kinds in the atmosphere and food. That diseases arising-
from such causes have considerably diminished during the past
few decades, owing to the attention given to isolation, disinfec-
tion, antisepsis, sewerage, cleanliness, ventilation, etc., is unques-
tionable.

The remaining elements in prevention, namely, the regulation
of the internal conditions and the increasing of the power of
resistance, are so intimately connected that they are furthered by
the same measures.

Although the conditions upon which the power of resistance
depends are for the most part obscure, physicians agree that,
other things being equal, an individual is strongly guarded
against disease when he is in good health, and that resistance
diminishes when the vitality becomes lowered. Now, in order,
that there may be good health, normal functional activity of all
the organs is essential. By endeavoring to secure good functional
action, therefore, we do all possible for increasing resistance to
disease caused by unfavorable external influences ; but, in addi-
tion, we obviously aid in the prevention of functional derange-
ments which, together with their consequences, constitute a large
percentage of all diseases.

PHYSIOLOGY AND PREVENTION OF DISEASE. 309

But where shall we look for guidance if we desire to learn how
normal functional activity can be attained ? Naturally, to the
science which treats of the bodily functions, 'physiology ; and we
shall see in a moment that by the application of physiological
principles, not only will the organs be temporarily aided in the
performance of their functions, but, if continued, good physical
development, that condition upon which permanent health de-
pends, will be secured. Therefore, physiology is, as well as bac-
teriology, to a certain extent a science of prevention, but, in our
eagerness to catch and exterminate germs, it has been pushed far
into the background, though so much nearer home to us than the
latter.

That physical development is an important element in the
maintenance of health becomes obvious when we consider that,
other things being equal, an organ performs its functions in pro-
portion to its strength; hence, if all the organs be well developed,
all the functions will be thoroughly performed.

But good physical development is the result of adequate nour-
isli7nent of all parts of the body, and such nourishment depends
upon the proper performance of all the functions. That this does
not lead us into an absurdity becomes evident when we consider
that imperfectly developed organs may with assistance perform
their functions efficiently, and physiology points out how this aid
can be given. In consequence of this help, therefore, the organs
develop and perform their functions properly with ever less as-
sistance, and the condition of perfect health is gradually ap-
proached.

Now, if we assist the organs during childhood when they are
weak, not only will much be done to secure good health during
this period, but the age of maturity will be reached with a well-
developed body, and good health, therefore, to a considerable ex-
tent assured through life. It is true that, under ordinary circum-
stances, a smaller body can be nourished, with weaker organs ;
but if as early as the sixth year a child begins to labor from five
to seven hours daily the conditions are entirely changed. During
childhood a large quantity of nourishment is required for growth
alone, and, if a good share of this be expended in labor, it is clear
that, unless something be done to compensate for this unnatural
state of affairs, when the period of growth is over the body will
be imperfectly developed, with very little chance of recovering
the lost ground. When this is the case, the individual will be
liable to be afflicted with poor health ever afterward ; how often
it now occurs is but too well known.

As to the means for assisting the organs in their labor, none is
so powerful as muscular exercise. This agent not only plays an
important part in the general nutrition of the system, having a

310 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

favorable effect upon all the functions which, take part in the
changes through which the food must pass before being con-
verted into tissue, namely, digestion, absorption, circulation, oxi-
dation, and assimilation ; but it likewise aids in preventing de-
rangement of these functions — that is, a large number of diseases.
The following resume of the effects of exercise will show that its
value has not been overestimated :

First. Muscular contraction exerts a pressure upon the veins
and lymphatics, thus pushing forward and facilitating the flow
of venous blood and lymph, to the heart. In this manner the ex-
cretion of the products of tissue waste is enhanced. These mat-
ters are washed out of the tissues by the blood and lymph, and
after their return to the heart pass through the lungs, where the
carbonic acid is given off, then through the general circulation,
the remaining substances being eliminated by the skin and kid-
neys. When these matters, some of which are highly poisonous,
collect in abnormal quantities in the system, they become more
or less dangerous ; even such mild symptoms as headache, drowsi-
ness, and general lassitude in those who lead a sedentary life may
probably, in many instances, be traced to their toxic effects. By
muscular exercise, which hastens the elimination of these sub-
stances, therefore, many slight ailments, which, however, are suf-
ficient to make labor burdensome and rob life of many of its
pleasures, may be avoided.

Second. The circulation is controlled mainly by the action of
the heart. When the activity of this organ is increased, there-
fore, the general circulation will be improved. Now, the heart is
stimulated to action by the presence of blood in its cavities, and
muscular exercise, by hastening the flow of venous blood, will be
instrumental in sending more fluid through them in a given
period of time, and consequently in stimulating the organ to in-
creased activity. As many diseases, prominent among which are
those of the abdominal and pelvic organs, are the consequences of
congestion, and as good circulation does much for the prevention
of such congestion, muscular exercise, by improving the general
circulation both by increasing the activity of the heart and aiding
in the venous return, will do much to prevent a large class of
diseases.

Third. The respiratory center is increased in activity when the
blood is more venous than usual — that is, when the amount of oxy-
gen is diminished and the carbonic acid increased. Now, as an
organ consumes more oxygen and gives off more carbonic acid
when it is actively engaged in the performance of its functions, it
follows that exercise exerts a stimulating effect upon respiration
by making the blood more venous. When the activity of respira-
tion increases, a larger quantity of oxygen enters the system ;

PHYSIOLOGY AND PREVENTION OF DISEASE. 311

and it lias been calculated that this extra supply more than com-
pensates for that expended in exercise — a circumstance which is
readily understood when we consider that during muscular action
more blood passes through the lungs, thus coming in contact with
more oxygen. An increased supply of oxygen enhances the oxy-
genation of the food, thus directly facilitating the development
of energy ; and, besides, oxygen being a heart stimulant, the cir-
culation will again be favorably affected.

Fourth. Assimilation becomes furthered by muscular exercise,
for the reason that more blood passes through an organ during its
activity, and consequently the latter becomes enabled to absorb
more nourishment and lay by a larger quantity of reserve force.

Fifth. The blood, becoming more rapidly freed of its nutrient
material by increased rapidity of assimilation, will be more ready
to absorb such matters from the digestive organs. Improved
absorption leads to more perfect digestion, and consequently mus-
cular exercise aids considerably in the prevention of digestive
disturbances. Further, when the digestion is enhanced, more
food is called for. Increased appetite, together with improved
digestion, absorption, oxidation, and assimilation, naturally ex-
erts a marked influence upon the general nutrition of the sys-
tem ; therefore, exercise is a powerful means to the prevention of
so many diseases caused by malnutrition.

Sixth. Muscular exercise by its direct effect upon the muscular
system is the means not only of developing an active as well as
a strong and healthy body, but likewise of storing up a large
quantity of reserve force.

But, in order that muscular exercise may result in good physi-
cal development,^ must be carried on systematically for a long
period, and especially, for reasons already given, during the years
of childhood. The nature of the exercise plays by no means an
unimportant part in its efficacy. In order that all parts of the
muscular system may be brought into play, gymnastics and calis-
thenics are indispensable. These exercises, however, should be
supplemented by outdoor sports, such as games, rowing, swim-
ming, skating, and the like, for two reasons : Firstly, the latter
contain an element of pleasure without which that exhilaration
which makes exercise doubly valuable is apt to be wanting ; and,
secondly, the air inhaled at the time is purer than that in closed
rooms, an advantage which can not be overestimated.

But how can good physical development be placed within
reach of all children ? Only in one way, namely, by the introduc-
tion of effective methods of physical exercise into schools, for the
reason that during the greater part of childhood systematic work
outside of these institutions is, in the vast majority of cases, en-
tirely out of the question.

3i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In our search for means of preventing disease we have been
led, as we see, beyond the province of medicine and into that of
education. But the connection between these two fields, from
our standpoint, extends much further, as we shall find. Though
muscular exercise be carried to the point of perfection, and the
surrounding conditions leave nothing to be desired, health is not
assured ; for, should the expenditure of energy be too great, there
will still be marked interference with development. Hence, the
expenditure as well as the development of energy must be con-
sidered.

Now, the energy is expended by the organs in the performance
of their functions. Though ultimately derived from the food, its
proximate source is, at least in great part, the tissues, which, by
undergoing combustion, furnish the required energy ; whether it
be all derived in this way, or whether it be in part supplied im-
mediately by the blood, is a matter which has no influence upon
our problem. It is essential, however, to bear in mind that the
amount of energy which can be developed in a given space of time
is limited to the quantity of food digestible during this period,
and, if it be expended more rapidly tha n it is thus supplied, the func-
tions are performed at the expense of the tissues. If, therefore,
we desire to guard the system against waste and allow the organs
to develop properly, we must, as far as possible, limit functional
activity. There are, however, only two functions over which we
can exert a direct voluntary influence, namely, the muscular and
the mental. But as there is ample compensation for the energy
expended in muscular activity while there is none, in the physical
sense, for that used in mental action, it is clear that if we desire to
economize we must do so by exercising control over mental labor.
That the energy expended by the brain during its activity is de-
rived from the same source as that required for the performance
of the other functions is, to-day, a generally accepted fact.

But, in order that it may not interfere with physical develop-
ment, mental labor must be regulated both quantitatively and
qualitatively.

In regard to quantity, the number of school hours must not be
excessive ; and introduction into school life should be gradual, so
that the labor may be in proportion to the age and strength of the
child. In Germany this rule is observed, the children beginning
with about sixteen hours per week, to which two are added every
year until the fifth or sixth, when the maximum is reached.
The amount of work required at school, and in the preparation of
lessons, likewise needs careful consideration.

From the qualitative standpoint the methods of instruction
play an important part. When the laws of psychology are ob-
served, the mind being treated in accordance with its nature, the

WAYS OF THE OWL. 313

channels of least resistance are used, and the greatest amount of
labor performed with a given amount of energy.

As long, therefore, as physical exercise is grossly neglected,
and unpsychological methods of teaching remain in general use,
disease must continue in abundance, though ever so many im-
provements be made in sewerage, ventilation, and disinfection ;
for, as our argument has shown, attempts at prevention will in
great part remain ineffectual until good systems of physical and
natural methods of mental development have been introduced

into the schools.

**♦

WAYS OF THE OWL.

By FEANK BOLLES.

SINCE June, 1888, I have had in my possession for longer or
shorter periods eleven live owls, including snowy, great-
horned, long-eared, barred, and screech owls. I have also had op-
portunities of watching Acadian and screech owls in a wild state.
In June, 1888, 1 secured two young barred owls from a hollow beech
tree in a White Mountain forest. I have them still after three
and a half years of happy companionship. During the first sum-
mer they were pets not easily petted. They used beak and claws
fiercely and resented familiarity. I kept them in a large slatted
cage in my barn, where they had plenty of air and light. They
bathed freely and frequently. They ate largely of animal food.
They were awake by day, restless at twilight, but prof oundly quiet
by night. They could see perfectly in bright sunlight, and better
at night than most creatures. In the autumn I took them to Cam-
bridge, where they were given a large cage in my cellar. During
the winter I handled them more and more freely, beginning by
using stout leather gloves, but soon stroking and rubbing their
heads with my bare hands. They became more and more gentle,
and I found that even when they nipped me with their beaks they
did not attempt to cause serious pain. One of them, whose name
is Puffy, injured his wing early in his captivity, and has never been
able to fly. The other I keep clipped in one wing. In the spring of
1889 I began taking Puffy with me on walks. I found at once
that he was wonderfully useful in attracting other birds. During
the summer of 1889, the following winter, and the summers of 1890
and 1891 he was my companion on walks, drives, and trips in my
Ruskton boat. To a smaller extent I have taken his mate Fluffy
with me, but he is of a less patient disposition than Puffy, and
during a long walk is sure to hop from the stick upon which
I carry him many more times than Puffy would in an equal period.
In May, 1891, 1 secured a third baby barred owl from the same beech

3H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tree. Fr< >m the first hour that he was imprisoned he has shown an
irritable temper. His whining as a young bird was incessant by
day and not always suspended by night. Now, at the age of nine
months, lie whines whenever any one approaches him, and fre-
quently makes violent assaults upon me when I enter the part of
my cellar in which the owls are penned. Puffy and Fluffy dur-
ing their first summer were quite timid, and Fluffy is an arrant
coward now ; but Prince Edward, as the new captive has been
named, has never shown fear of anything living or dead, large or
small.

Of two fully grown screech-owls which I owned, one in the
spring of 1890, the other in the spring of 1891, little is to be said.

Great-horned.

Prince Edward.

Puffy.

Sxowdok.

Fluffy.

They were unhappy, and, although they ate well, both died from
the effects of pounding their heads against wire netting in efforts
to escape. These owls, when approached, stiffen their ears, make
their feathers lie closely against their bodies, keep every joint and
muscle rigid, and so nearly close their eyes that only an expres-
sionless slit remains through which they watch the intruder. To
the gentle caress of a hand they pay no heed. I have often taken
one of them in my hand, laid him upon his back, and so carried
him from room to room, and not been able to detect the movement
of a feather. Let, however, the intruder retire, or let him take a
dead mouse from his pocket and draw it by a string across the

WAYS OF THE OWL. 31 5

floor, and Scops is himself again in a twinkling. The ears are low-
ered, the bright eyes open wide with a wicked glare, and the soft
wings take the crafty and cruel little bird swiftly down upon the
mouse. This habit of shamming unconsciousness appeared to be
characteristic of the long-eared owl which was mine for a few
brief hours in October, 1891. I handled him freely, but the closed
eyes and rigid muscles did not move. I went away and watched
him from a distance, and he was alert and making full use of his
beautiful eyes.

Early in the summer of 1890 a friend sent me three young
screech-owls. They were as odd little gray hobgoblins as could
be imagined. Their temper, their voices, their appetites— all
needed superlatives to describe them. They were sent to the White
Mountains for the summer, and lived in a slatted box under the
barred owls' big cage. They loved mice, birds, and fish, but did
not take quite as kindly to raw liver as the barred owls did. For
a week or more two of them were taken away from the third, and
when they came back they no longer knew him as a brother. His
life was made a burden to him, and one morning in August I
found his body lying on the floor of their cage. They had re-
moved nearly all his feathers and would probably have devoured
him if I had not deprived them of the fruits of their unnatural
crime. A few days passed and the two murderers quarreled over
a mouse. In the frequent struggles that followed, one was killed
outright and the other survived but twelve hours. My efforts to
tame these young screech-owls were only partially successful. The
murdered one had taken one or two excursions with me, and while
I walked clung to a stick carried in my hand, or nestled between
my arm and my body. If placed in a tree he served quite well as a
decoy, although perhaps some species of birds did not take him as
seriously as they did the barred owls when those intruded upon
their breeding-grounds. •

In June, 1891, I was presented with Snowdon, a full-grown
snowy owl, which had been captured during the preceding winter.
He was a dangerous-looking bird, with a temper and a trick of
jumping for one's fingers. I clipped one wing and began by hand-
ling him roughly if he showed a disposition to fight. At the end
of a week he learned to step upon a stick and cling to it while I
carried him back and forth in the cellar. Taking him to the
White Mountains, I gave up to his use a box stall in the northeast
corner of my barn, and kept damp Iceland moss for him to
stand upon, plenty of water for him to bathe in or drink, and a
moderate supply of food for his sustenance. Although we had
some warm weather, he was in perfect health throughout the sea-
son, and is now in excellent condition. At first I kept the barred
owls away from him, fearing that they might murder each other,

3i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

but later experiments showed that Snowdon had no ill feeling to-
ward the barred owls, and ignored them even when they stole his
portion of the food. It is now six months since I turned them in
together, and during the whole of that time the four birds have
been on terms of quiet indifference.

About the middle of September, 1891, a Boston dealer sent me
a mature great-horned owl. He reached my country place just
in time to be sent back to Cambridge with the snowy and barred
owls. Clipping one of his great wings, I placed him with the

others in the 250 square feet of
cellar space fenced off for them.
Puffy prepared for war, Fluffy
fled, Prince Edward regarded the
stranger with indifference, and
Snowdon and the great - horned
formed an alliance at once. Three
months have passed, and, so far as
I know, no conflict has occurred.
The older barred owls fear and dis-
like the great-horned. Prince Ed-
ward treats him with brassy famil-
iarity, and Snowdon stays with him
in the corner of the cellar farthest
from the favorite perch of the
barred owls.

Having introduced my charac-
ters, I will now compare them in
several particulars. They arrange
themselves, when I think of them
as owls merely, into two groups — the brown owls and the gray
owls. The great-horned, long-eared, screech, and Acadian owls
seem to me much alike in disposition and their way of meeting
man. They seem like kindred.

The barred and snowy owls, while quite different from the
brown owls, are somewhat alike in temper. They show fight
when approached, and are very alert. The barred owls make
several different sounds expressive of various emotions. They
snap their beaks furiously when warning an enemy ; they whine
when hungry ; they make a soft, rather musical " oo " when meet-
ing after an absence ; they chatter with rage when pulling in op-
posite directions on the same bird or mouse ; and they hoot when
expressing the sentiments which make the domestic cock crow.
While young they make a queer chuckling chatter when cuddled,
and as the sound grows faint it suggests the music of a brood of
chickens nestling under their mother's feathers. The hooting
varies. In the August twilight I often hear the loud trumpeting

Great-horned on a Stump,

WAYS OF THE OWL.

3*7

" hoo " uttered at intervals of half a minute or more by wild owls
in the woods. The common hoot, which suggests to some ears
feline music, is generally "hoo-hoo hoo-h55, hoo-hoo hoo-hoo,"
but I heard a barred owl this winter in a remote White Mount-
ain valley say " hoo-dS, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo-00." He was
a conversational and inquisitive bird. By hiding in some ever-
greens and hooting to him I drew him little by little to the tree-
top just above me.

Wholly different is the conversation of the snowy owl. His
warning is sometimes beak-snapping, but oftener an open-
mouthed, hissing " ah/' which has a most menacing cpiality. He
occasionally utters a shrill, whistling scream expressive of pain
or the fear of pain, yet he makes it also when snatching a morsel
of food held toward him. Thus far I have heard my great-horned
owl make but four sounds : terrific beak-snapping ; ah-ing quite
equal to Snowdon's ; a hooting which suggests wind sighing in a
hollow tree, and taking the form of " whoo, hoo-hoo-hoo, whooo,.
whooo " ; and a series of soft, musical notes, rolled from his throat
when Snowdon comes too near his clutched breakfast.

My barred owls eat raw butcher's meat, mice and squirrels,
bats, any kind of bird, hawk and crow included, fresh fish, lake
mussels, snakes, turtle-meat,
some species of frog, earth-
worms, some kinds of in-
sects, and hen's or bird's
eggs. They will not touch
toads or the frogs which se-
crete an offensive scent. They
rarely eat tainted meat or
stale fish. Once they played
for hours with a dead weasel,
much as a cat plays with a
mouse, but they did not eat
any part of it. They catch
living fish from a tank, and
kill mice, squirrels, birds,
frogs, and snakes ; but they
were at first greatly alarmed

by a turtle, and a young hare running around their cage fright-
ened them almost into fits. Puffy will face and put to flight a cat
or a dog, but a pig is a terror to him. When Puffy was only six
months old he caught and killed a two-pound pullet, yet in March
and April, 1891, he roosted night after night on the same perch,
with an old Cochin hen which had begun her stay in his cage by
giving him an unmerciful trouncing.

So far as I have been able to ascertain, Snowdon will not kill

4.,

Snowdon on a Snow-covered Stump.

3i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

anything, no matter how hungry he may be. He eats dead birds,
mice, squirrels, fish, snakes, mussels, turtles, if opened, and butch-
er's scraps ; but he will make no effort to catch or kill a squirrel,
mouse, or snake, although shut up with them while hungry for a
day or more. In one instance of this kind he ate a squirrel which
he had allowed to live for twelve hours, as soon as it was killed
and given to him. I have seen him drink once, and only once.
If he bathes, it is a rare occurrence and done secretly. Early one
morning in August, 1891, I heard a splashing in the owl's water-
tank. It was about 3.30 a. m. Creeping to the cage, I peered in.
and saw Snowdon shaking himself, as though he had just finished
a bath.

His method of eating is suggestive of a carrion-eater. The
barred owls are deliberate in their way of treating their food.
They search for and crush joints and finny projections. In a
frog they feel of every limb from end to end, and crunch away at
the joints until they are mellow. They generally pull out the
stiff wing and tail feathers, even in quite moderate-sized birds.
Small snakes they swallow squirming. Snowdon, on the other
hand, ignores live snakes, and his first act with dead food is to
swallow it whole if he can possibly distend his throat far enough
to let it pass. I have seen the head of a large rooster vanish down
his throat bill foremost without his making any effort to crush
it. Often a piece of food will stick in his throat and refuse to go
down, in spite of vigorous jerks, jumps, and convulsive swallow-
ing. It is then ejected and sometimes dropped altogether. With
a large piece of meat or fish his method is different. Standing
upon it, he snaps at it viciously and tears off small bits, in eating
which he makes a smacking noise. Engaged in this way he is a
disgusting spectacle. His head is poked forward, and the feathers
upon it seem flattened. The hairy feathers around his beak are
drawn back, and his red mouth is open much of the time. If dis-
turbed while eating, he makes his shrill and extremely piercing
ory. He is perfectly willing to be fed by hand, snapping at and
bolting morsels of liver as fast as they are passed to him. He
sometimes eats enormous quantities of food in a short time. He
ate the whole of a full-grown bittern in twenty-four hours, and
on another occasion a cooper's hawk placed before him at night
had only one leg and a few feathers remaining in the morning.
Like other owls, he ejects hair and bone pellets from his mouth.

The great-horned owl is not so ready to be fed. He prefers to
eat while alone. Mice, however, are too attractive to be refused,
and whenever held before him are slowly and quietly taken and
swallowed. Other food he usually pretends not to see until I have
left him. He seems ready to eat anything that the other owls like.
I know that he has bathed at least once this winter, and, judging

WAYS OF THE OWL.

3'9

"by his plumage, lie uses water freely. When given a cod's head
or a large bird, he stands upon it and tears off morsels much as
Snowdon does. His motions in doing this are sudden and his
whole expression fierce and tiger-like. With horns slightly flat-
tened and eyes glaring, he first plucks a piece of flesh from the
carcass and then turns his head sharply from side to side to see
whether any other owl dares to intrude upon his repast. My

SXOWDON.

Puffy.

Great-horned.

"barred, snowy, and great-horned owls all feed freely in the day-
time. My screech-owls, on the contrary, usually waited until dark
before devouring their food. One of them apparently ignored a
live English sparrow for several hours while daylight lasted and
the sparrow was able to see him, but when night came the spar-
row was speedily caught, plucked, and eaten.

The feeling with which other birds regard an owl seems to be
a mixture of curiosity, hatred, and fear. Curiosity impels them
to approach, hatred causes them to make violent and abusive
cries, while fear inclines them to wariness and prevents them
from open attack upon their sphinx-like enemy. This feeling of
the birds is general, almost universal, and is shared in a modified
form by the smaller owls when brought in contact with large
ones. To the chickadee or the warbler it makes no difference
whether an owl is large or small ; he is an owl, and that prompts
inspection and vituperation. In several instances I have found
Acadian owls in the woods in consequence of the racket made
by birds scolding them. This winter, on the day after Christmas,
I was walking through a spruce thicket in Albany, N. H., when
the noise of nuthatches, Hudson Bay and black-capped titmice

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

and king-lets enticed me into the darkest part of the growth. The
birds were greatly excited, and as I softly drew near them I saw
that they were in a circle, all facing toward some focus invisible
to me. I crept farther, and saw the tail of a small owl projecting-
from behind the trunk of a tree. Presently his tiny monkey
face was screwed around over his back, and his timid yellow eyes
fixed themselves upon me. His tormentors soon flew away, and
after studying me attentively for some time the little Acadian
floated off out of sight also.

The young screech-owl, whose death at his brother's hands I
have already mentioned, irritated the birds of the forest and
meadow in the same way. I placed him, one morning, upon a,
birch tree which was in use by a family of yellow-billed wood-
peckers as a sap-drinking place. The sap-suckers made a great
clamor on seeing him, and their cries called together all the birds
which were within earshot. At least thirty individuals came, in-
cluding kingbirds, cuckoos, catbirds, veeries, chickadees, four or

Great-horned and Sxowdox.

five kinds of warblers, red-eyed vireos, song-sparrows, and two
humming-birds. Having scolded for nearly ten minutes, they
departed, leaving a sap-sucker and a humming-bird, which soon
forgot the owl and resumed their usual employment of drinking
the birch tree's sap.

Several times during the summer of 1891 I took my snowy
owl out to walk. He weighs three and a half pounds, so the task
of carrying him by hand upon an outstretched stick was rather
a laborious one. The birds noticed him at once, and scolded as
though he were of a species with which they were unpleasantly
familiar, instead of one with which they were presumably wholly

WAYS OF THE OWL. 321

unacquainted. Thrushes of various kinds, warblers, vireos, swal-
lows, and sparrows treated him precisely as though he had been
a barred owl. Once a grouse, with a family of chicks, confronted
him boldly for a moment, while her brood scattered to cover.
His conduct while at liberty was somewhat peculiar. He shunned
the woods, and if taken into them, quickly made his way out.
His left wing being clipped, his only method of advance was by
clumsy leaps, or by a queer wobbling run, aided by outstretched
wings. Whenever I placed him upon the ground, he would hurry
away to a distance, and stop to pant with his wings dragging
wearily at his sides. One warm morning I left him on an open
pasture hill-side, and walked away to a belt of woods nearly an
eighth of a mile from him. Concealing myself in the bushes, I
watched him closely through my glass for an hour and a half.
The time was nearly a blank. The owl, satisfied that I had gone,
walked toward me about a rod and sought the shady side of a
small patch of juniper. There he remained almost motionless for
the entire period. Sometimes he turned his head and watched
crows at a distance. Once or twice he glanced at the sky, and in
one instance he followed with his eyes the flight of a small bird.
Looking toward the sun did not. seem to affect his vision. That
he could see things at a distance was shown in several ways.
When I came slowly from my hiding-place he saw me at once,
and started jumping down the hill away from me. On another
occasion I took him out in a pouring rain, thinking that he
would go to the woods for shelter. He was content with stand-
ing under a small apple tree which gave him practically no
protection, a fact which he discovered and sought to remedy by
running to another tree of the same kind. Inactive, unable or
unwilling to kill mice or squirrels, even when most hungry,
silent, vacant in expression, cowardly, apparently stupid, the
snowy owl, judged by my one captive, is a dull and uninteresting
member of an unusually acute family. I doubt Snowdon's being
a fair type of his species.

The barred owls are the particular abomination of other New
England birds. They are courageous, keen of vision by day and
in the twilight, strong, alert, quick, yet crafty. Their voracity
makes them the terror of every nesting mother, the scourge alike
of the forest, the field, and the meadow. Of their merits as de-
coys there can be no doubt. If taken while young and clipped,
they are readily tamed and taught to obey simple orders. Mine
have been invaluable to me in studying the birds of New Hamp-
shire. When going for a walk, I take one or both of the older
ones. Entering their cage, I extend a short stick toward and on
a level with their feet, and say, somewhat sternly, "Get on."
They generally bite the stick once and then step upon it, and

VOL. XLI. — 24

322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cling to it patiently while I carry them through any kind of
country. When I wish to have them attract other birds I hold
them toward a convenient branch and say, " Get off/' which they
are very willing to do. Then by whistles or cries I attract
some bird's attention, and if it proves to be a titmouse, a wood-
pecker, a thrush, or some other excitable bird, the alarm is given,
and from all quarters the neighbors come pouring in to join the
tumult. Even while holding Puffy on a stick and walking with
him, I have had birds attack him. Once a pair of solitary vireos
followed me for some distance, one of them flying between my
head and the owl three times, apparently not noticing me any
more than though I had been a tree. A similar attack from a
sharp-shinned hawk was more surprising than pleasant. Some
species are less demonstrative than others, and seem to think
silence and retreat wiser than vituperation. Cedar-birds, great
crested fly-catchers, and scarlet tanagers are three species which
seldom greet Puffy noisily. Game birds, as a rule, are too much
afraid of me to remain near the owl, and the same is true of
water-fowl. Loons have, however, shown curiosity on discov-
ering Puffy, and sandpipers clearly dislike him. I tested this in
an amusing way one day, by taking Puffy out in my boat to a
point just to windward of a solitary sandpiper, and then setting
him adrift on a small board. At first the sandpiper did not see
him, but as the wind carried the placid owl nearer and nearer the
beach, the tattler suddenly discerned him, and became stiff with
astonishment. He faced the owl, his head poked forward and his
body rigid, then with a wild cry he flew, rising from the water
and passing over the trees, away from the lake.

Whip-poor-wills are not easy birds to watch at night, but they
usually fly toward the owl, uttering excited clucks, and fly several
times over it before going away to a distance. A mother night-
hawk, with young, showed great courage and sagacity in dealing
with Puffy. I placed the owl near her nest. She promptly flew
down on the side of the owl away from her young, and fluttered in
the grass as though wounded. Puffy hopped toward her. She flew
a few feet, he followed, she flew a rod, he followed a third time.
She flew three or four rods, and, as he hopped on, she rose and cir-
cled around him until, if he had seen her nest in the first place, he
never could have remembered in which direction it lay.

The hooting of a barred owl in the daytime, or my imitation of
the sound, almost invariably brings birds to the spot. Crows will
come a long way in response to the hated call. So will blue jays,
and several of the hawks and woodpeckers, hermit and Swainson's
thrushes, chickadees, and a few other small birds, including the
siskins in winter. Crows, in a particular region, soon learn that
a barred owl implies a man in the same thicket, but for the first

WAYS OF THE OWL. 323

two or three times, hooting will surely call them within short
range.

Although game birds usually avoid the owl on account of my
presence, a grouse with a large brood of young on one occasion
showed much courage in watching Puffy. Her chicks scattered,
but she remained in sight, whining and trailing her wings and do-
ing her best to entice the owl away from the spot. Once she came
within ten paces of him, her tail spread like a fan and her wings
arched like an angry hen's. Puffy paid little attention to her, but
seemed to be looking for the chicks which he had heard stirring
in the leaves. Whenever he hopped she rushed into view, whin-
ing. She remained near by during the whole of twenty minutes
that I spent in her domain.

In July, 1891, Puffy had a face-to-face meeting with a wild
barred owl. Puffy was perched upon a stump facing a hemlock
forest. Suddenly he became rigid and assumed a very unusual
attitude for him, his head being thrust forward and his body flat-
tened so that his breast rested upon the stump. Following the di-
rection of his steady gaze, I saw a fine specimen of his race in the
dark forest. He was as rigid as Puffy. How long they would
have glared at each other I cannot tell, for it began to rain, and
the stranger flew away.

The hearing of all species of owls known to me is marvelously
keen ; so keen, in fact, that I know of no way of testing it, since it is
so much more acute than that of man. If owls have the sense of
smell, I am unable to find satisfactory evidence of it. I have tried
various experiments with them, hoping to prove that they could
smell, but the results are all negative. They dislike putrid meat,
but they bite it to ascertain its condition. They will not eat toads
or frogs which yield an unpleasant odor, but they did not reject
these species until they had tested them by tasting. They may be
ever so hungry, yet they do not suspect the presence of food if it
is carefully covered so that they can not see it. This test I have
applied with the utmost care to the great-horned, snowy, and
barred owls. The latter are shrewd enough to learn my ways of
hiding their food, and when they suspect its presence they will
search in the places where I have previously hidden it, pouncing
upon pieces of wrapping-paper, and poking under feathers and ex-
celsior with amusing cunning. I tested them with the fumes of
camphor, ammonia, and other disagreeable and unusual smells,
but they failed to show that they perceived them unless the fumes
were strong enough to affect their breathing or to irritate their
eyes. Finally, I put a cat in a basket and placed the basket be-
tween the two owls. They were utterly indifferent to it until the
cat made the basket rock, when both of them fled precipitately, and
could not be induced to go near the basket again. Although Puffy

3 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

will put a cat to flight when on his mettle, Fluffy is frightened al-
most out of his wits by them.

A Japanese toy-bird, made of a piece of wood and a few scar-
let feathers, was eagerly seized by Puffy, indicating not only a lack
of power of smell, but the presence of an appreciation of color. I
have fancied that an appreciation of color is also shown by barred
owls in their frequent selection of beech trees as nesting-places, by
great-horned owls in their choice of brown-trunked trees, and by
Snowdon in an apparent preference for gray backgrounds.

To this real or imaginary ability of the owls to select protect-
ive backgrounds is to be joined an undoubted power of assuming
protective shapes. My great-horned owl can vary at will from a
mass of bristling feathers a yard wide, swaying from side to side
as he rocks from one foot to the other, to a slim, sleek, brown post
only a few inches wide, with two jagged points rising from its up-
per margin. When blown out and defiant, his bill is snapping like
a pair of castanets, and his yellow eyes are opening and shutting
and dilating and contracting their pupils in a way worthy of a
fire-breathing Chinese dragon. In repose he is neither inflated
nor sleek, but a well-rounded, comfortable mass of feathers. The
barred owls go through the same processes of expanding and arch-
ing out their wings when awaiting attack, and of drawing all their
feathers closely to their sides when endeavoring to avoid observa-
tion. In one instance Puffy escaped from me in the woods, perched
upon a small beech stump, drew his feathers into such a position
that he seemed a mere continuation of the stump, closed his feath-
ered eyelids until only a narrow slit remained for him to peep
through, and stayed perfectly stiff for an hour while I hunted
for him high and low. I passed by him several times without
bringing my eyes to the point of recognizing him as a living thing.
This power is shared by the screech-owl and the long-eared owl.
The plumage of the snowy owl is so solid that he seems more scaly
or hairy than feathered. He does not, so far as my specimen
shows, expand and arch his wings. Instead of standing straight
and becoming slim and rigid, he crouches and flattens himself
when seeking concealment. I can imagine him in his Labrador
wilds crouching thus amid a waste of junipers and reindeer moss,
and baffling the eye which sought to detect him there.

The control which owls have and exercise over their feathers
is not limited to moments when they wish to appear terrible or
inconspicuous. They seem to ruffle them or smooth them, ex-
pand them or withdraw them in queer ways at pleasure. The
barred owls, when stepping stealthily across a floor after a dead
mouse drawn by a thread, tuck up their feathers as neatly as a
woman hold her skirts out of the mud. When eating, the feathers
nearest the mouth are pulled aside in a most convenient way.

WAYS OF THE OWL. 325

When wet, the feathers seem to shake themselves as well as to be
shaken by motions of the body, head, and wings. My wife, in
making a water-color sketch of Snowdon, complained that, al-
though she could not see him move, he changed his outline a dozen
times in an hour.

The owl's eye is his most useful member. The popular belief
that the owl is seriously blinded by light is almost wholly un-
founded, at least so far as the species of which I am writing are
concerned. When a man approaches an owl in broad daylight
the owl, in nine cases out of ten, will close his eyes, and so appear
sleepy. As I have already explained, this is an effort to escape
notice by the assumption of a protective shape. That it is not due
to any dread of light or inability to see is shown by the following
instances of perfect seeing by owls in bright daylight : Walking
through a Cambridge road in March, 1891, 1 saw an Acadian owl
perched on a willow limb about fifty feet from me. His plumage
was stiffened and his eyes nearly shut. I approached him and
slowly raised my hand toward him. Suddenly his eyes opened
wide and glared at me. Then the soft wings spread and he fell
forward upon them, and flew toward the sun to a distant perch.
The Acadian owl already mentioned as having been seen in
December, 1891, in the spruce forest of the Swift River Valley,
watched me keenly, and swung his small head around after the
manner of owls, trying to see me clearly from more than one point
of view. The screech-owl which I first owned, although sham-
ming sleep one morning when I entered the room where I kept it,
pounced upon a dead mouse which I let fall upon the floor, and
flew off with it before I realized what had happened. One of
my three young screech-owls when only two months old tried to
catch a sap-sucking woodpecker which had perched near it in the
sunlight on a dead tree. My snowy owl, as I have already stated,
watches birds flying across the sky at a distance, and once saw me
as I slowly emerged from the woods an eighth of a mile from him.
Great-horned owls are well known to be active by day, and not
inconvenienced by sunlight. The barred owls, however, exhibit
the most marvelous powers of sight, and their eyes may well be
called telescopic. In dozens of instances Puffy has seen, and by
his fixed watching of the sky has called my attention to, hawks
flying at so great a height that they were well-nigh beyond man's
vision. More than this, he has on two or three occasions seen a
hawk approaching in the upper air when my eyes, aided by a
fairly strong glass, failed to see the bird until it drew nearer and
grew large enough for me to detect it as a mere dot in the field of
the lens. My eyes, by the way, are rather stronger and more
far-sighted than the average. If the bird thus sighted by Puffy
is a hawk or an eagle, he watches it until it is out of sight. If it

TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY,

pr< ■ - - crow or a swift he gives it merely a glance and

cs a The barred owls frequently look at the sun with

their eyes half-closed for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. Why
the; ' I am wholly at a loss to explain. I am in doubt as

how much Puffy can 91 ::ight. I onee held a eat within a few

inches of him in the darkness, and he did not stir. Had he seen it
he would certainly have moved and probably snapped his beak. In
Aug - S I taftei ark on a patch, of closely cropped

ss where the dim light enabled me to see him when he moved.
I went to the nearest tree and seated myself with my back against
ts trunk and my ler- - :ehed out before me. Half an hour
I moving except when a bat flew over him.

and I keeping perfectly motionless. At last he came toward me.
5I01 1 I ime. When he was within a few feet

I could see his outline quite plainly. One more hop brought him

my knee, upon which he jumped. Instantly he bounded into
the air and made off, unnii- ly frightened. He had no idea

that he w. - g ingi strike a leg and not a log ; yet if his eyes had

n much keener than a man's he would have seen not only that

theswen n tw d, but that I was leaning against the tree-

trunk " " hing him. In several instances I have called wild

barred owls at night and have had them alight in tree-tops close

above me. I could see them against the sky. but apparently they

1] 1 n t see me fitting among the brakes and bushes below them.
Once with an owl thus above me I imitated the squeaking cry of
a wounded, bird. I wished I had not. for the owl's ghostly wings
brushed past my socl sely that I fell back into the bushes.

1 ing that he would strike at me again.

The memory of my owls is noticeably good. Puffy and Fluffy,
the two barred owls which I have had. longest, remember their fa-
perches from season * season, and resume their chosen
roosts after months of absence. In one instance Fluffy, on his

urn t Cambridge after four months in the mountains, flew the
length of the cellar, expecting to strike a perch which had been
removed, and, failing to find it, fell to the floor. It is only neces-

y for me to bring a box-trap into the barn for Puffy to come
I :he front of his cage, eager to be given a chance to catch the
chipmunk which past experience leads him to believe is in it.
S lilar eagerness is shown in winter, when I bring a paper parcel
int * r, the wis knowing - -ell that it contains food that

y will tear it open themselves if I do not open it for them. If
the bundle is brought in without their knowledge and thrown at
random upon the floor, they do not find it, and will leave it for
days untouched. Puffy does not like going out in my boat. If
he finds that I am taking him to the shore near it, he invariably
jumps off his stick and :o hide in the bushes. Snowdon

WAYS OF THE OWL. 327

knows a piece of cloth which I have used to thro ead

when I have wished to handle him. and the Bight of it

• cause him to make strong efforts to escape from hi - -. All

three of the barred owls hide their snrplns food, and remember
where they keep it. Snowdon, on the contrary, sornetin. nds

tons which he is not ready to devour, letting hi
sink down bo as to cover them. Puffy not only nnd the

commands " Get on " and " Get off," hut he knows his; own
and generally an I call him V giving

clap "with his beak. He has frequently aledhi -. to

me by this answer when I have lost Mm in the bushes, tall g
or at twilight. That he especially, and all my other owls to a
degree, know me and distinguish me readily from strangers, :-. I
think, undoubtedly a fact. Thus far I hav rn unable *

that any of the owls have a clear notion of t: as indi-

cated by the coming or _ a >f daylight. The a rk-

ings of owls are extremely economical In summer the bird
enormous appetites, and become frantic with hunger if not fed.

:y forty or fifty hours. In winter, on the contrary, the ma-
ture birds fast for a week or more without complaint. During
the winter of 1889-'90 I could not ~ain that Fluffy ate any-

thing for more than a month — that is, from Christmas-time until
first week in February. Throughout this period he seemed
well, though inclined to keep quiet and t ~ y in the darkest
corner of the cellar. When fed regular". amply, all the

species of owls with which I have had any ience cast from

their mouths egg-shaped "' pell " -." composed of the bone and hair,
fish-scales, and feathers which remain in th-^: si machfi after the
digestion of the more nutritious parts of recent meals. This
tion is accomplished easily and quickly, with very little visible
muscular action. It usually, or at least often, takes pi at the
moment when the owl has anoth rty meal in view. TL

furnaces burn nearly all that goes into them. Considering the
amount of fuel put in, the extremely small amount of a - b
wonderful.

In disposition my owls vary widely. The barred — as

owls go — remarkably - -tempered and gentle. I never have

d one offer violence to another, even when two were struggling
over a morsel which both v.- mined to hav - don is

sullen, stupid, cowardly, and treacherous. The _• t-horned has
a temper, but he generally k - it ncealed under an air of dig-
nified reserve. My 9d -ch-owls, when not shamming sleep or
death, were irritable, quarrelsome, and ferocious. Between
three-barred owls the: idual diff- ss in disposition,

which are readily learned but not easily described. They srand
out distinctly in my mind as three characters, just as three chil-

328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dren or three horses would be distinguished when I thought of
them. I feel as much attachment for Puffy as I possibly could
for an intelligent and faithful dog. His crippled wing has proba-
bly made him unusually docile and tractable, but, whatever may
be the cause of his goodness, he certainly is a model of patience,
placidity, and birdly virtue. This, in combination with pluck,
which leads him to charge upon and vanquish dogs, cats, and do-
mestic fowls, and a magnanimity which enabled him to roost for
weeks alongside of an old hen, will make him worthy of owlish
canonization when in good time he is gathered to his fathers.

ALMOND CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA.

By HENRY J. PHILPOTT.

DURING the fiscal year ending June 30, 1890, the American
people imported 5,715,858 pounds of almonds, valued at
$813,278. The value of all other nuts imported was $800,376. I
confess my surprise at this fact, that we spend more money for
almonds than for all other imported nuts put together. It would
not be so surprising if this were the cheapest of our imported
nuts. But, on the contrary, it is the highest priced, not only
in the countries of exportation whence we draw our supplies,
but still more so to the consumer in this country, on account
of the higher import duty. The duty on almonds is five cents a
pound if unshelled, and seven cents and a half if shelled. The
highest duty on any other nut is three cents on filberts and
walnuts.

The average import price of the almonds was fourteen cents
and a quarter, and of the filberts and walnuts 5"7 cents. The
almonds imported were almost exactly half shelled and half un-
shelled, which would make the duty average six cents and a quar-
ter ; and so, adding the duty to the import prices, the prices in
this country, duty paid, were 20'5 cents for almonds and 8*7 cents
for filberts and walnuts. Thus our preference for the almonds
seems to be conclusively established, in spite of the fact that our
imports by weight of filberts and walnuts were nearly double
those of almonds.

The home production of all these nuts is still so small that we
have no reliable statistics of it. California produces both almonds
and walnuts, but in small patches only. The southern end of the
State has a considerable walnut belt, but the almond orchards are
widely scattered. The area suitable for almond culture is con-
fined to small spots distributed over the whole length of the State.
It is doubtful whether there is enough of it all told to supply the

ALMOND CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 329

American market. What there is of it, however, is rapidly filling
up with the trees. Not more than half of those already set out
are now in bearing. So it may not be many years before the
California almond-grower will be able to depress a market which
he can never hope to wholly supply, even with the burden of a
high protective tax of five cents a pound heaped upon his foreign
competitor.*

For the past year I have myself been an almond grower, in a
small way, my total product being almost exactly one car-load.
The purpose of this paper is to describe the processes by which
the favorite nut of Americans is produced and made ready for
their holiday tables.

To begin at the beginning, the almond is strictly a budded or
grafted tree. A seedling apple, peach, cherry, or plum is sure to
be good for something and marketable at a fair price, though
it may be far below the grafted stock in quality and product-
iveness. The seedling almond may, like other seedlings, be an
improvement, but it is very apt to be utterly worthless and
unsalable, and may ue deadly poison. It is as if its evolution
were so recent that its type is not well set, and its tendency to
atavism, or " breeding back " to older types, quite strong. This
inclination to " sport " shows itself even in budded and grafted
trees. All except the oldest trees on this ranch were planted
and budded on the ranch, under the careful supervision of the
owner. In selecting the buds and scions he not only paid strict
attention to varieties, but took care to cut from none but the
most prolific bearers of the best nuts among the tested trees of
each variety. In spite of all his care, we have some interest-
ing sports. There are trees that never bear at all ; others bear
worthless nuts. One yields a nearly perfect peach-pit inclosed
in a nearly perfect almond drupe. And the four named varie-
ties, though amply distinct when fairly represented, now and
then shade into one another so gradually that the most experi-

* The table on page 314, Internal Commerce of the United States, 1890, estimates the
" shipment " of almonds as follows :

Tear. Pounds.

1885 1,050,000

1886 600,000

1887 500,000

1888 450,000

1889 600,000

Whence or whither the " shipments " were made is not stated. The connection indicates
that they were from the eight leading fruit and nut shipping points in California. The
figures look like guesses, and no clew is given to the amounts shipped from the other points
to San Francisco, to be reshipped and thus counted twice in the table, which does not in-
clude some important almond-shipping points ; and would not include my 15,000 pounds
sent from a point not named in it direct to Chicago.

33Q THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

enced pickers have difficulty in deciding which box to empty
their baskets into.

Of the many varieties of almonds four only are cultivated on
this ranch, and their most important difference is in the weight
and hardness of shell. None of them is a hard-shell, but the
standard is a rather hard soft-shell ; the Languedoc is the regular
soft-shell, so quoted in the market reports ; the paper-shell is the
nut regularly quoted as "paper-shell" ; and the California paper-
shell is a new and very distinct variety which originated within a
mile of here, and has made this ranch famous among the nursery-
men of the State. The trees grown from its buds and scions prob-
ably number at this writing half a million. At any rate, enough
has been cut from it to produce a far greater number. It was a
purely accidental seedling, not a premeditated hybrid. But its
good size, plump kernel, extraordinarily thin, light shells, sweet
flavor, and agreeable appearance have won its way in the mar-
kets; and sold alongside of other nuts, hard-shell, soft-shell, or
paper-shell, in San Francisco, New York, or Chicago, it brings
the highest price of all by two or three cents a pound. It is the
truest of all to type, and most distinct in the form of the tree.
Mr. Morrison at first set out a twenty-five-acre orchard entirely of
this variety. But, being disturbed by reports that it had proved
a shy bearer, he sawed off three fourths of the trees and grafted in
the better-known varieties. The new almond certainly has not
borne so well as the others since I have been familiar with it,
and I am afraid the difference in productiveness offsets the dif-
ference in price. Otherwise the California paper-shell would
be a valuable contribution, strictly American, to the improve-
ment of the almond; and Mr. Webster Treat, who has tried it
on a larger scale than anybody else, claims in his paper, read
before the State Board of Horticulture, that it is the hardiest
and most prolific as well as the most salable almond grown. He
confidently predicts that it will drive the foreign almond out of
the market.

The almond is an unpruned apple tree in size and shape, and
in smoothness and color of bark; a peach tree in foliage and
green fruit. The leaf is so exactly like that of the peach, to which
it is most nearly related, that the casual visitor can not distin-
guish them. The same is true of the fruit in a very green state.
The drupe is a peach in taste and smell, both green and dry. The
almond is quite commonly grafted on peach stock, though some
prefer the almond stock on account of its alleged greater hardi-
ness and longevity. An almond orchard in bloom is a thing of
beauty. The first one I ever saw was the one immortalized in the
story of Ramona, and it happened on Washington's birthday.
The date shows what an early bloomer it is. First of all the fruit

ALMOND CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 331

blossoms of spring comes the showy almond, a dense mass of
white with a " hint of a tint " of pink in it.*

The cultivation of the almond is easier than of any other tree,
unless it be the prune. The orchard is plowed and harrowed once
or twice a year, and then the weeds are kept down in any way the
farmer chooses. The amount of work required to do this depends
on the weather, and is just the same for the almond as for any
other tree. But the almond tree, like the prune, is never pruned
in this region. Like the prune, the fruit is never thinned on the
tree, as the peach and apricot must always be, to produce a crop of
good fruit. The heavy pruning and thinning required every
year on our peach and apricot trees is a great expense, the thin-
ning alone often costing fifty cents a tree, for an average of the
whole orchard. Aside from stirring the soil and killing the
weeds, a dozen apricot trees take more care and labor than a dozen
acres of almonds. This is the consideration that makes almond-
growing popular. Equally important is the fact that thus far the
almond has no parasites, such as scales, moths, etc., while almost
every year adds a new recruit to the insect enemies of other
fruits. Our peach-growers are put to the expense of buying cost-
ly machines for spraying their trees, and insecticides with which
to spray them. Insecticides cost money, and spraying costs time
and labor. If the wash is strong enough to kill the scale, it is apt
to kill the new wood of the tree — a very serious matter in the case
of the peach, whose fruit is all on its last year's growth of wood.
Still, the spraying must be done every year, and may even be en-
forced by law in California. All this trouble and expense are
saved to the almond-grower, whose only insect enemy is the red
spider, a semi-occasional visitor easily got rid of, and not formid-
able if left unhindered in his work.

First to bloom in the spring, the almond is last to mature in
the fall. The whole spring and summer long it hangs there, a
green peach for all the world, and after the first few weeks never
increasing in size or changing in appearance. The seam is deeper
than in most peaches, but not deeper than in the ripe apricot.
Late in August this seam will be seen to have opened in a few of
the earliest. The grower's anxiety now reaches its climax. Will
his almonds open and remain open until harvested, or will the
drupe remain closed, or only partially open and then close tight
again ? The whole profit of the crop may depend on this ques-
tion. It may cost half they are worth to pick and husk them.

* The writer in the Encyclopaedia Britannica combats the ancient tradition that almond
blossoms are white. He says they are pink. As I have seen them it is more proper to call
them white than pink, though the whitest contain a suggestion of pink, and some varieties
show it so plainly as to be distinguishable at considerable distances.

332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Just that thing happened this year to my nearest neighbor, and
to several neighbors ; while the nuts on this ranch opened better
and husked easier than ever before in the whole course of its
thirty years of almond-growing. The result was, that our pickers
earned a dollar and a half a day picking at half the cost per pound
incurred by our neighbors, whose men earned a dollar and a quar-
ter a day.

The nuts are knocked off the trees with long poles. Where they
have opened nicely they are allowed to drop on the bare ground,
and are husked as they are picked up. The picker's delight,
if he is working by the bushel or box, is to see the ground cov-
ered with nuts that the stroke of the pole and the impact against
the clods have completely husked, so that he has nothing to do
but throw them into his basket. He is lucky indeed if half of
them come out that way. Those that do not are husked with the
fingers. The new paper-shell above described is one of the freest,
and its drupe often falls off spontaneously before the picking sea-
son, leaving the naked nut hanging to the tree. But the nut so
free from its drupe clings tightest of all to its tree, and is often
quite hard to knock down without injury to the branches. Other-
wise the saving in its harvest expense would be quite an impor-
tant point in its favor.

In the best of seasons there will be a large part of the crop so
badly opened as to require a different process. A canvas is
spread under the tree for the nuts to fall on. When all are
knocked down, the canvas is rolled up and with its load of nuts
carried to any spot near by where it is convenient to heap to-
gether the harvest of several trees. A simple table of loose
boards is made, and around it gather the pickers. One of the
party rubs the nuts to loosen the drupes, and the others husk.
The rubber is an extremely simple machine, exactly like a wash-
ing machine in principle. Practically it is two old-fashioned
wash-boards rubbed together. In appearance it is a flat-bottomed
pig-trough, six or eight feet long and open at one end. Across
the bottom inside, pieces of lath are tacked an inch apart, and
thus the lower wash-board is formed. The nuts are scooped into
it, a few pounds at a time, and a shorter board, likewise ribbed
crosswise with lath, handled like a flatiron or a plasterer's trowel,
is rubbed over them by hand, loosening their husks and pushing
them along to the open end of the trough, where they fall into a
box and are heaped on the table, to be now easily husked. It is a
cheerful thing to see the assembled pickers seated under the shade
of a tree, making their fingers fly and heaping up their boxes with
the precious harvest. The damper on the meeting is the fact that
almost invariably the pickers are Chinamen. Their gay chatter
might as well be that of monkeys, for all the sense you get of it.

ALMOND CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 333

At many kinds of work white men are more profitable to employ
than Chinamen, though they demand much higher wages. At
picking almonds the Chinaman is preferable at the same wages.
Fewer nuts escape his keen eye to be left on the tree or under the
clods. He can pick more in a day, and with less damage to the
tree and the nuts.

In large orchards a more complicated but still crude and un-
satisfactory rubber is sometimes operated by horse or steam
power. But the nuts and drupes must still be separated by hand,
and probably always will be. The drupes are mostly only loos-
ened by the machine, many of them not even that, and but few
of them entirely rubbed off. This last might be done by machin-
ery in the case of quite hard-shelled nuts. But more force is re-
quired to remove the drupe than to break the shell of a large por-
tion of the crop. In some orchards every year, and in many
orchards this year, the only way to market the almond was to
crack it with the drupe on and sell the kernel. Others who did
not deliberately crack were obliged to rub so hard that many of
the kernels came out, and at the close of the harvest they had
barrels of them to sell as shelled almonds. The price per pound
is greater than of unshelled almonds, but my neighbors say that
the addition to the price does not make up for the weight of
shells thrown away, to say nothing of the extra labor and expense
of cracking.

Where the picking was done by hand, and paid for by the box,
it cost this year, in this vicinity, seventy to ninety cents a box.
The box used is what is called the large-sized free apple-box.
That is, it is the box which holds an honest bushel, and goes with
the apples when they are sold in the market. The first boxes I
got from the factory were free apple-boxes, and I supposed that
was all right and sufficient, until the Chinese foreman of our band
of pickers brought out the box he had used in former years, and I
saw that mine were smaller — just enough smaller not to arouse
suspicion in the breast of the final consumer when he buys apples
by the box, and at the same time to save the middle-man, who
buys by the pound and sells by the box, a few pounds in each box
he sells. He prefers that the producer should ship his fruit in
these dishonest boxes, just as the San Francisco butter dealers,
who buy by the pound and sell by the roll, caution the farmers
not to put quite two pounds in a roll. So I found that my apple-
boxes were short-weight boxes, and were losing me the cost of
picking about three pounds out of every box of almonds picked ;
and that this loss would in one season cover, several times over,
the price of the boxes. I put this part of the story in for what-
ever it may be scientifically worth, as a contribution to the study
of commercial ethics. I bought the larger-sized bushel boxes as

334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

quickly as possible. It cost me one dollar and fifty-six cents to
find out the difference between a bushel of apples and a bushel
of apples.

Picking and husking the almonds cost us exactly fifty dollars
a ton, and our neighbors all the way up to twice that. Outside of
my own family we employed a varying number of Chinamen, up
to nine. The task lasted from the 18th of September to the 28th
of October. The boxes picked each day are gathered in the even-
ing and conveyed to the drying-yard, where the nuts are sun-dried
for a few days. Then comes the bleaching, which is done with
the fumes of sulphur, and requires care and some experience.

The bleaching-box is built in various fashions, but covered
with tongued and grooved boards and in other ways made tight,
so as to confine the sulphur-smoke as much as possible. In com-
mon orchards it is about six feet square and six or seven high. It
is a complete inverted box, and often movable. The drying-trays
are slid in on cleats like the draws of a cabinet. Almonds, being
dried before they are bleached, are sprinkled or sprayed with
clean water just before sulphuring, the moisture being necessary
to make the sulphur do its work of bleaching. The proper
quantity of sulphur for one bleaching is put into a pan, ignited,
and set inside the bleaching-box. The doors are closed tightly,
and left so until the sulphur is all burned. The almonds are then
taken out and dried again for a few hours, to remove the moisture
sprayed upon them before bleaching.

If they come out bright and evenly bleached, the grower's
heart beats more quickly. He knows that it is the color that sells
his almonds. Consumers may growl as much as they please, and
preach on the sin of poisoning their fruit with sulphur-fumes,
but they will always buy the poisoned ( ?) fruit and give a much
higher price for it. They may pat the honest grower of unbleached
fruit on the back, but trust them never to give him a penny's
worth of encouragement in the market. To-day my paper quotes
unbleached apricots at two to four cents a pound, and those that
are bleached, or " sulphur-poisoned," at five to six and a half
cents. All these prices preclude living profits. Who knows how
many growers of unbleached fruit this year's ruinous prices will
drive off their farms and out of business, to make room for a like
number of sulphur-poisoners ? And, going back to the apple
merchants and butter dealers, we must admit the full force of
the same apology for their crookedness.

But aside from the fact that the fruit-grower is held, much
against his inclination, by his final consumers to his questionable
trick of trade, the question is still open whether it really does
them any harm. Sulphuric acid, like many poisons, is a medi-
cine in proper doses. Does a tablespoonful or two of well-

ALMOND CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 335

bleached peaches, taken at meal-time, contain a poisonous or a
medicinal dose of the acid ? Remember, they are "not sulphured
ad lib. The consumer and the middle-man set the bounds. A
distinctly susceptible sulphur taste hurts the peach in the mar-
ket, and reacts on the grower. He is obliged to learn the art of
securing a thorough bleach without the sulphur taste. To do
this he must have the right kind of sulphur, and a very tight
bleaching-box properly arranged inside ; and he must know how
much sulphur to put in, and how long to leave his fruit exposed
to its fumes. The most experienced of my neighbors still differ
widely on all these details. But I am convinced that, with
proper facilities and proper skill and care, the bleaching may be
made to entirely satisfy the eye of the consumer without injuring
the rest of his body. I confess I should like to be still better satis-
fied on the point. But I console myself with the reflection that
sulphur-smoke is a famous disinfectant, and must render the fruit-
eater less liable to all those diseases originating in germs, either
microscopic or otherwise. Who knows but that a thorough
scientific investigation, bacteriological as well as chemical, would
prove the sulphur-poisoner to be, on the contrary, a conservator
of the public health?

But whatever guilt the fumes of sulphur fasten upon the fruit-
grower, the almond-grower is clear of ; for he does not sulphur
his fruit at all. What he sulphurs is but the shell that is thrown
away — that is, if he does his work properly. If he sulphurs
while the nuts are green, or wets them too much just before sul-
phuring, the fumes may penetrate to the kernel; especially of
very soft-shelled or paper-shelled almonds. But he gains nothing
by it, not even in the appearance of his nuts, and does it from
ignorance or inexperience rather than from policy. I tried this
thoroughly, and by watching closely the result of each experi-
ment was able to improve on the best advice my neighbors, old in
the business, could give me. First, our old bleacher being too
open, a new one was built. Then the almonds were made a little
drier than they need be to go to market. Then the water was
put on in the finest spray attainable, so that the nut was slightly
but evenly dampened, but little if any more than enough to make
up for the overdrying. Then the time of exposure to the fumes
was regulated, not by the watch, but by the quantity of sulphur
put into the pan, so that, whether we bleached in the daytime and
took out one bleacherful to make room for another, or went to
bed at night leaving the bleacher loaded and the sulphur burn-
ing, the nuts always got the same dose and no more. We kept
on until we found the minimum of moisture and the minimum of
sulphur that would do the business.

The nuts came out of the bleacher looking beautifully, all the

336 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

more so by being laid out in the drying-yard in rows or squares
alongside of the black, ugly things not yet bleached. They never
look so pretty afterward, for the sunlight required to dry off the
moisture artificially put on blackens them to a certain extent.
Here we got the advantage of not moistening too much. Our
overdried nuts absorbed part of this moisture, and they could
soon be removed from the discoloring influence of sunlight, and
the curing finished in the shade. Manipulated in this way, the
kernel of the finest paper-shell can not be hurt by the sulphur.

And this leads us to the observation that, as a rule, the harder
the shell, the whiter the almond bleaches. This rule does not
hold always and absolutely, for, while no paper-shell approaches
the mere soft-shell in whiteness, the whitest of our paper-shells is
also the softest-shelled — narnelv, the new "California." But
while the market pays more for the darkest paper-shell than for
the whitest soft-shell, the tourists who visit our yards are always
most attracted by the " Standard," the hardest of our soft-shells,
because of its showy whiteness. In the market it brings about
two thirds the price of our black, old-fashioned paper-shell — that
is, in the San Francisco market. But just here I had one of my
most interesting experiences in almond-growing. I sent fair
samples of each of our four varieties to San Francisco and also
to Chicago. I was struck by the grotesque difference in the
relative prices quoted from these samples. Thus, in cents per
pound :

Variety.

California paper-shell.
Common paper-shell. .

Languedoc

Standard

San Francisco.

Chicago.

14

18

12*

12

10*

15

9

15

The tawny skin of the common paper-shell, easily cracked by
twisting in the fingers and yielding a large weight of kernel in
proportion to weight of shell, was too much for Chicago, and it
was quoted away below the heavy-shelled, hard-shelled Stand-
ard, requiring the use of the hammer, or the clumsy nut-cracker,
and its weight consisting largely of waste shell.

If any of these varieties had a kernel suitable for the confec-
tioner or the baker, and he bought them unshelled, he could
afford to pay considerably more for the paper-shells ; for he would
be paying for little else but kernels, and these would be easily
extracted. However, the kernel used in candies and cakes is that
of the imported Jordan almond, in San Francisco as invariably as
in Chicago or New York. It is imported shelled, and is longer
and smoother than anything we have yet produced. It comes from
Malaga. Those who buy nuts by the pound for the table, or to

ALMOND CULTURE LN CALLFORNLA. 337

carry in the pocket, would save money by paying a little more
for paper-shells, to say nothing of convenience in cracking — es-
pecially as a pocket nut. Those who buy them for children in-
clined to use their teeth as nut-crackers would save something
worth more than money. The child who disobeys and clandes-
tinely cracked his almonds that way would not be damaging his
teeth as much as if chewing a hard crust of bread or a dry toast.
On the other hand, many persons, after their attention has been
•called to the subject, like, or think they like, the flavor of the
harder-shelled Standards and Languedocs better than of the
paper-shells ; and de gustibus non est disputandum. The writer
hereof has no preference. He never did eat almonds, nor any
other imported nuts except Brazil-nuts, when he could get the
native nuts of the Mississippi Valley.

If this is due to early associations, the almond would by the
same token be the favorite nut of the younger generation of Cali-
fornia almond-growers. They had no eatable wild nuts, their na-
tive walnut tree, transplanted to their homes for its beauty, bear-
ing a worthless nut. The almond, of all their crops, was best
adapted to cultivate and felicitate home life. They harvested it
themselves, knocking the nuts off the tree in the daytime, husk-
ing what they could, and carrying the rest into the house to be
husked by all the nimble fingers of the large, old-fashioned fam-
ilies at night. Prices were high then, and every pound husked
meant twenty, twenty-five, or even thirty cents. With such
prices, never-failing crops, and little or no cash expense, it is no
wonder that almond-growing became popular, nor that the solid-
•est farmers attribute their present comfortable circumstances to
almonds. Well may they turn from these degenerate dime-a-
pound seasons of more than occasional failure, when the inevi-
table Chinaman, whom the Exclusion Act has exalted into a grasp-
ing monopolist of labor, takes half the proceeds of the harvest,
and takes it before the producer gets the first penny of it into his
own fingers, back to those cheery days of old.

Cured ready for market, the nuts are stored or shipped just
like barley, the same coarse gunny-sack being used. Its ca-
pacity is that of the cotton sacks used by Eastern farmers, by them
branded and kept on the farm. The California sack is also often
branded, but goes all the way to the final market and never comes
back. All grain is shipped from Pacific ports in that manner.
And, though the single sack costs but seven to ten cents, the
whole expense is a great burden — estimated for the State at
$2,000,000 a year — on the California producer. He can not escape
it, for there are no elevators. Where grain has to be handled
from five to ten times before reaching its consumer, the sack be-
comes a still more expensive crudity, shaving down the producer's

VOL. XLI. 25

338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

profits. To the grain-grower the average loss by it is officially
estimated at ten per cent of his gross proceeds. The sacks alone
cost me six per cent this year on the gross proceeds of a thou-
sand bushels of the best brewing barley, sold at a price twenty-
five per cent higher than that realized by the average grower of
the common grades. How much I paid the warehouseman at
home, the one in San Francisco, the one in Liverpool, and the
brewer, each of whom handled it twice, for the extra work of the
sack system over the elevator system, I do not know. They may
have done it gratis, but I do not think so. At any rate, long after
the system is universally recognized to be a monstrous and un-
necessary burden, we shall be held to it by the same cause which
binds England to its crude passenger-coach and America to its
deadly hand-coupling and brake on its freight trains — the neces-
sity of changing all at once and on so large a scale when the
change is made.

But the burden on the almond-grower is trifling — one per cent
for sacks in my case — the product being so much more valuable
in proportion to bulk. The sack is altogether an advantage. It
saves the delicate shell, and furnishes a place for the brand of the
orchardist who is proud of his product and wishes to work up a
reputation for it, and also for another brand giving the name of
the variety contained in each sack.

An important practical question confronting every prospective
orchardist is, How soon will my trees come into bearing and pay
their own expenses and interest on my investment ? In these
days of harnessed steam and chained lightning, young America
plants for himself and not for his children. Some old men who
have tried it a little have come to the conclusion that too much
planting for posterity is a mistaken kindness for which poster-
ity, lying in the shade, kicking up its heels and letting its facul-
ties rust for want of planting to do, returns no thanks. The al-
mond is an early bearer. At four years from the seed the orchard
of which I am the lessee yielded, at about average prices, about
eighty dollars per acre gross — say sixty dollars net. This year at
six years old, prices considerably below the average, the gross pro-
ceeds will be about one hundred and twenty-five dollars per acre.
I do not think any other orchard yielded so much per tree, of the
same size; but, on the other hand, these trees are so wide apart
(twenty-eight feet) that there are only about half the usual num-
ber of trees on an acre. While the trees are small, this tells
against the yield per acre, and so in this respect this orchard is
probably only a fair example. It was not an exceptionally early
bearer. In a general way it may be said that an almond orchard
yields as quick returns as an average herd of beef steers, but not
as quick as a herd of heifers. And in the mean time the planter

LEA THER-MAKING.

339

does not lose the use of his land. He plants other crops between
the rows and does not lose a single year. But of course no ordi-
nary annual crop can yield a profitable return on the price he will
have to pay for land known to be adapted to almonds.

The almond, most precious by weight of all orchard products,
involves the least labor, care, anxiety, expense, and skill of all,
except perhaps the prune. In recent years it has never yielded
the fabulous returns occasionally realized by the growers of al-
most every other fruit and nut. It never yields, as the orange
has, a competence for life in a single year from ten acres. Its
reasonable expectations are about one hundred dollars net per
acre.

The old Latin form of the word almond (Amygdala) furnishes
the name whereby botanists designate the genus to which belong
its two species (A. communis, the sweet, and A. amara, the bitter
almond), and the peach (A. persica).

LEATHER-MAKING.

By GEOEGE A. KICH.
XV. DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS.

ZADOCK PRATT, the great leather manufacturer, once gave
as his toast at a notable trade dinner, " There is nothing like
leather." The determined, enterprising spirit indicated by that
sentiment may be said to be the distinguishing mark of the mod-
ern tanner, and it is possible that therein lies the explanation
why one in tracing the course of that industry must look so
largely to recent years for progress and development. But the
course of this development furnishes an interesting commentary
upon the application, or more accurately, perhaps, the lack of
application, of the principles of science to this one of the indus-
trial arts. Now, the art of tanning is one in which a knowledge
of science, especially of chemical science, could be made to do
most effective service. The operation is essentially a chemical
one. Yet, as a matter of fact, since the first demonstration of the
union of gelatin and tannin, chemistry has done almost nothing
to facilitate the operation. It is not to that that the industry
owes its remarkable progress ; rather, it is to the invention of
improved apparatus for hastening old processes. Just estimate,
of course, must be made of the fact that the scientific knowledge
of the principles involved in tanning did much to make these
inventions possible. At the same time, however, as Mr. C. T.
Davis has remarked in his admirable treatise upon leather : " Take

34°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

away our bark and hide mills, improved leaches and vats, hand-
ling and stuffing appliances, and other improved constructions ;
our splitting, scouring, boarding, whitening, polishing, pebbling,
and other modern mechanical inventions, and our steam-power so
economically derived from the use of spent tan as fuel ; turn us
out of doors to work among the rude contrivances of a century
past, and would the result of our labor show an extraordinary
gain either in time or quality over that of our predecessors ? "
Any review of this development, therefore, though it is a record
of splendid achievements, is not one of the discovery or introduc-

es— 3

VI

I

■vJ^v:

if

■ W^wmf^mMm '

WA

*__.j

'/Ssa i ;.

«

I -3

W

M

Fio. 1. — Section of Animal Skin (magnified), a, epidermis ; b, dermis; c, corium, or base of
the skin ; d, fibrous tissue ; e, fat-cells ; f and gr, ducts of the sweat-gland ; h, sweat-glands ;
i, hair ; k, hair-bulb ; I, sebaceous gland.

tion of new principles. It is a record of mechanical improvements
and business economy.

Unfortunately, history gives lis little definite information re-
garding the origin of this one of the industrial arts. Surmises,
however, go for considerable in this case. The skins of birds and
animals formed a large part of the first clothing of man. Now
these would be found to grow hard and horny in their natural
state, and on exposure to moisture to become putrid and offensive.
Efforts to counteract this, and at the same time to render the skins
soft and pliable for use, would be most natural, and to these are
traced the beginning of the leather industry — an industry which

LEA THER-MAKING.

341

Fig. 2. — Divisions of a Hide.
ABCDis termed the " butt,"
and the halves of the butt
marked by the dividing line
E F are known as " bends."
H H are the " cheeks," while
the upper portion of the butt
figures as the " shoulders."

in its inception can properly bear no wider designation than the
" dressing of skins."

Leather, in the broad application of the term, is a combination
of gelatin and mineral salts, oil or tannic acid. The hide or skin
of an animal consists of two layers — the
outer (epidermis), a hard cellular plate
into which neither nerves nor blood-ves-
sels penetrate ; and the inner, or true skin
(dermis), a dense membrane composed of
fibers interlacing in a curiously complex
manner. These connecting fibers consist
almost wholly of gelatigenous tissues.
They will dissolve in boiling water, thus
forming gelatin, will enter into solution
with concentrated acids and alkalies,
and will combine with oil and tannin.
As such this tissue forms the basis of all
leather, and the labor of the tanner be-
comes one of bringing it into chemical
or mechanical combination with these
other components.

The original process of curing skins
was probably the simple one of cleaning

and drying them. Removal of the hair by maceration in water
seems to have been common among the very early tribes, and
one writer has suggested that the idea was obtained from the
natural process of depilation. They must certainly have been
familiar with it in the case of drowned animals, where macera-
tion can be plainly observed. Following this, smoke, sour milk,
oil, and the brains of the animals themselves were found effica
cious. Many of these primitive methods are employed at the
present time, thus bringing into novel conjunction the days of
the roving Massagetse and those of the thrifty American. An
acquaintance of the writer, a Massachusetts tanner, traveling re-
cently through the province of Winnipeg, chanced upon a small
Indian village. The place was in no way interesting except in
the employment of the squaws. They were all busily engaged in
removing the hair and muscles from the skins, largely those of
deer and moose, which the bucks had taken in the chase. This
they did by means of sharpened bones which they plied in a vig-
orous manner, rubbing away both flesh and hair. The skins, it
seemed, had been taken from the animals some time before, and
together with the brains partially dried in the sun. After the
squaws had completed this scraping process, the skins were
steeped in a lather-like mixture made from water and dried
brains, and were then reduced to a soft texture by frequent knead

342

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ing and similar manipulation. Ten days later this same manu-
facturer was in Peabody, Mass., in one of the most complete of
modern tanneries, and, though the space of time intervening was
only a little more than a week, yet in it he had traversed the
whole gamut of the art.

In order of development after these crude methods came the
discovery that certain astringent barks and vegetable substances
possessed the property of condensing and arresting the septic
tendency of animal membranes. This discovery must have been
made very early, however, as the knowledge of it appears among
many of the ancient nations. But, whatever the time, from it

dates the beginning of the tan-
nery. The Egyptians were
probably among the first to
become proficient in this pro-
cess of preparing what had
come to be such an important
article of personal economy.
Among the tapestries and
sculptures that remain to us
from them are several which
picture the operations of cur-
rying, working, and stretching
leather. One in viewing them
might almost imagine himself
in a small country tannery.
Figures are seen using the fa-
miliar awl, polishing - stone,
and the semicircular currier's
knife, while the processes de-
picted are very suggestive of
the present day. But the Egyp-
tians are by no means to be
given all the credit for this

Fig. 3. — Tanner's Beam and Knives. The hide ^, ,^^ rp-i „TT „„^^„U^l,r

was thrown over this beam after the hair had progress. They Undoubtedly

been loosened, and with the working-knives obtained many of their most

(a and C) and the iieshing-knife (6) was scraped val ualjle suggestions f rom the
tree of both hair and refuse. Machinery has c'c' .

very largely superseded these now. Arabs. Those roving Bedou-

ins were by no means botanists
in the modern sense of the word, but they had a thorough knowl-
edge of all the peculiarities of such plants and shrubs as marked
the desert, one of the most common of which was the acacia.
That this knowledge was a practical one is proved by the fact
that they were acquainted with the tanning properties of the pods
of this plant. They were experts, too, in the methods of depila-
tion, so that the Egyptians, by making a short excursion, had at

LEA THER-MAKING.

343

344

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hand a considerable foundation upon which to begin the develop-
ment of their art. But, once known, its extension could not be
hindered. Herodotus states that the Libyans wore leather cloth-
ing, and that the Phoenicians, whose home was a barren stretch
of shore, depended largely upon it in the construction of their

Fig. 5. — Dash-wheel.

ships. Persian and Babylonian leather was long celebrated, and
as early as the beginning of the Christian era the Russians were
famous as skilled tanners. Hungary, too, acquired an early name
for its leather, having learned a peculiar process for making it
from Senegal. Boucher carried the art into France ; while Col-
bert, the enthusiastic patron of all the industries, did all that he
could in the way of personal and public effort to extend it. Thus
it was that leather became more and more an article of general
use, and thus it was that by the time Columbus started on his
hazardous voyages there had already grown up a considerable
industry in England, France, Spain, Germany, and Russia.

But despite all this growth the processes involved in the oper-
ation of tanning were not really understood until the close of the
eighteenth century, when they became objects of scientific study.
Before that time the art was purely an empirical one. The im-
mediate successors of Columbus brought with them to America
such crude knowledge of it as was current at the time. Leather
being a prime necessity, tanneries were started soon after the set-
tlement of each community, either by the men of that craft or by
the large farmers for their own convenience. Leather formed
at that time no small part of people's clothing ; indeed, leather
breeches appeared clear into the eighteenth century, though the
wearing of them was largely confined to servants and laborers.

LEA THER-MAKJNG.

345

It figured in nearly all the arts. It was used for harnesses and
saddles. It was fashioned into boxes and articles of ornament.
It served both as a protection and defense. Nevertheless, but lit-
tle progress could be made until the settlers had obtained a stock
of domestic cattle. Columbus is said to have brought the first of
these animals to America on his second voyage thither in 1493.
By 1610 they had been introduced into Virginia, while Plymouth
and the New Netherlands received a supply a few years later.
Tanneries then were started North and South. In a list of trades-
men to be sent to Virginia in 1620 are enumerated tanners, leather-
workers, and shoe-workers. In 1649 Captain Matthews, an active

(ft)

(«)

Fig. 6. — Hide-mill. The above figures (a and b) represent a working plan of the " Shover"
hide-mill, or ordinary "fulling" stocks for softening hides. It is essentially the same as
the apparatus used for fulling cloth, and is undoubtedly the forerunner of the modern
washing machine.

figure in Virginian history, received legislative commendation
for his enterprise in the building of a tan-house, the manufacture
of leather, and the employment of eight shoe-workers. The Vir-
ginia Assembly, however, a dozen years afterward had to come to
the rescue of the industry, passing a law which required that tan-

346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

houses should be built in every county at the county charge, and
that provision should be made for the employment of tanners and
curriers. The rates of hides and shoes were fixed, and stringent
efforts were made to prevent the exportation of hides. Maryland
adopted similar measures ; but Beverly, writing a few years later,
says of these enterprises that " a few hides were with much ado
tanned and made into servants' shoes, but at so careless a rate
that planters don't care to try them if they can get others."

Fortunately, the industry fared better in its first planting in
New England, and Higginson probably struck the secret of this
good fortune when, in 1630, he called attention to the extraordi-
nary increase of cattle in Massachusetts, and the " store of sumacke
trees, good for dyeing and tanning leather." Cattle continued to
multiply rapidly from 1630 to 1(350, but the prices placed upon
them were so high that few were slaughtered. But in the latter
year the cessation of immigration from Europe caused a depres-
sion in the cattle market, and they began to be killed freely, thus
supplying the tanners with the necessary hides. The Massa-
chusetts General Court, in 1640, recognized the importance of the
industry, and passed a law punishing those who slaughtered cat-
tle and neglected to save the hides and have them tanned. But
Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island thought that they
must take a stronger hand in the pushing of this industry — those
were in truth the days of infant industries, and of detailed trade
regulations — and so special laws were passed for that purpose.
Protection, in the current political sense of the word, was not
known then, but the same ends were attained through the guild
privileges. The general law of Massachusetts, passed in 1642, is
typical of these regulations. This declared that no leather over-
limed or insufficiently tanned, or not thoroughly dried after tan-
ning, should be exposed for sale. Tanners putting leather into
hot or warm " moors," where the leather should heat and burn,
were to forfeit twenty pounds for each offense. Curriers were
not to dress any leather imperfectly tanned or dried, nor use " any
deceitful or subtle mixture, thing, way or means to corrupt or
hurt the leather, nor curry any sole leather with anything but
with good, hard tallow, nor with less than the leather would re-
ceive ; nor dress or curry any upper leather but with good and
sufficient stuff, not salt, and should thoroughly liquor it until it
would receive no more ; they were not to burn or scald any leather
in the currying, on forfeiture for every one marred by unworkman-
like handling, to be judged by the oath of sufficient witnesses."

This law, probably, was of little value to the industry, as some
years later it was repealed, and all efforts to enact similar meas-
ures proved fruitless. It throws an interesting light, however,
upon some of the methods and practices then in vogue, as it was

LEA THER-MAKING.

347

348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stated that these laws were passed in consideration " of the dam-
age or injury which many sustained by the ill-curing of leather,
and by the shoemakers in making it up into shoes and boots."
Thus left to shift for itself, the industry steadily though slowly
progressed with the country until I860, when new inventions and
improvements in processes, and energetic men at the head of it,
gave it a decided impetus which has constantly gained in force
since.

As has been said, the fundamental processes of tanning have
changed very little since the early days. The hides, as they came

Fig. 8. — Union Splitting Machine.

to the tanner, were first washed, and then, in order to remove the
hair, soaked in vats of water and lime or ashes. After having
been thus unhaired, they were put over a beam and scraped until
every remnant of flesh had been removed. After another wash-
ing they were " laid away " — that is, packed in vats in alternate
layers of ground hemlock or oak bark. The object of this was to
bring about the desired union of the gelatin and tannin. The
operation, however, was a slow one, and oftentimes many months
were required to complete it. But study, of course, has been
since given to the details of these various steps, which has re-
sulted in a marked saving of time. In the preliminary process
of depilation there are two methods which are now commonly
followed by American tanners. The first is known as the " liming,"
which is used largely in the preparation of upper leather ; and the
second, known as "sweating," which is used for sole leather. In
the " liming " process the hides are soaked in a solution of lime
and water, as indicated above, until the hair-bulbs are loosened.
In sweating there are two methods also : the warm sweat, with
the temperature of the pit at 100° ; and the cold sweat, with it at
50° or 60°. The former method is in general use in southern
Europe, while the latter is not only American in origin, but is the

LEA THER-MAKING.

349

favorite one with tanners on this side of the water. Again, the
process of depilation is still further hastened by the use of a
mineral acid, like sulphuric, or by the handling of the hides in
the old sour liquors where the tannic acid has become largely
converted into gallic acid. There are strong advocates of both
cold sweating and warm sweating, and of acid and non-acid
methods, but there are no data on which pre-eminence can be
assigned to any one of them. All have played an important
part in abbreviating the tanner's work. Following depilation
the hides are colored or passed through a series of vats contain-
ing liquors of varying strengths, and then laid away. Here, also,
it is a matter of opinion as to what is the proper time that
should be given to each of these operations. The late Hon.
Gideon Lee, in a course of lectures on the art of tanning, de-
clared, that he found quick-tanned leather of firmer and closer
texture, and at the same time heavier and more durable. By
keeping the hides too long in the liquors or vats the gelatin
was disolved. But, whatever the general census of opinion, these
processes have reduced the time required in the tanning of a hide
from twelve and eighteen months to four and six months. Visions
of a still greater abbreviation have been common, and " quick tan-
ning processes" appear about so often. Some of these are his-
torical. They include attempts to force the tannin into the hide by

Fig. '.i. — Belt Splitting Machine.

hydrostatic pressure, and by the pressure of the air under an ex-
hausted receiver. They include the application of the principles
of osmose and kyanizing. The latter experiment was made by a
young English engineer, who in his early life had been engaged
in preserving wood by kyanizing with chemical agents. He came
to this country and spent ten thousand dollars in constructing a
large iron, egg-shaped, copper-lined tank. This was capable of
holding one hundred butts, and of resisting an immense pressure.
He provided pumps so that he could exhaust the air of this tank,

35°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

converting it into an almost perfect vacuum, and at the same
time force liquor into it, producing a pressure of one hundred
pounds to the square inch. Between the hides he placed cocoa
matting, so that the free circulation of the liquor should be in no
way interfered with. In the top of the tank, where it was impos-
sible to put hides, some small blocks of wood were placed. He
afterward exhausted the air in his tank, forced in the liquor, and
then waited several days, but his experiment was a complete
failure. On examining the contents of the tank, he found the
wood thoroughly saturated with tannin, but the hides were
scarcely colored. The pressure that would kyanize wood would
not tan leather. Recently attempts have been made to employ

Fig. 10. — Scouring Machine.

electricity to hasten the operation, but as yet no practical and
satisfactory " quick tanning " process has been found.

Few, if any, of the pioneer tanneries remain. That, however,
which used to belong to Mathias Ogden and Colonel Oliver
Spencer, at Elizabethtown, N. J., in 178-4, was probably a good
example of the original type. That consisted only of forty or
fifty oblong boxes, without cover or outlet below, sunk into a
bed of clay near a small stream. The boxes did duty as vats
and leaches. On one side of them stood an open shed which
fronted a half-dozen more boxes, the " limes " and " pools " of the
beam-house, while on the other side was a circular trough, made
of hewed timber, fifteen feet in diameter, in which the bark was
crushed by alternate wooden and stone wheels propelled by two old
horses. It was essentially a home-made plant. The wind swept
through it without hindrance, and the rain and snow beat un-

LEA THER-MAKING. 3 5 1

challenged upon it, hastening the decay of the vats and boxes,
and giving an air of desolation to the tannery. But despite all
this crudeness, as Bolles has said, and investigation tends to con-
firm, in this way throughout New England and the Middle States,
leather, probably equal to that of any European country except
England, was made even before the separation, to an extent
more nearly approaching a sufficiency than any other article.

As already noted, the tanner owes more to the mechanic and
machinist than to the chemist. In 1793 Deyeux, a French chem-
ist, discovered that tannin was a peculiar body, and two years
later Seguin proved that it was the active principle demanded in
the operation of tanning. This led to something of a study of the
properties of tannin and its distribution. In 1801 Banks, an
English chemist, found that it was contained in terra japonica
or catechu, and since then the list from which it can be extracted,
and profitably, too, has been greatly enlarged. The use of liquor
containing this active principle of hemlock or oak bark, the
" ooze," as it is called, was suggested in England in 1759, but it
was first rendered practically successful by Fay in 1790, and
Seguin, of France, in 1795. The English had rendered their
leather flexible by giving it a thorough beating with hammers
by hand. Switzerland, as early as 1800, used water-power ham-
mers, and subsequently replaced them with stamps. Berendorf,
of Paris, in 1842, invented a pressing stamp, afterward supple-
mented by Harvey and Devergue with a roller which accom-
plished the same thing by passing it back and forth over the
leather.

These advances in Europe were not duplicated in the industry
in this country. They had their counterparts here, however, and
in the end the progress of the Americans, which is measured in
this case by the shortening of the operations and the cheapening
of the product, kept pace with their craftsmen across the water.
Accidents are said to play an important part in the development
of any industry. Analyses of these incidents, however, usually
show that the accident lay simply in the fact that there happened
to be an observing man, of suggestive mind and quick applica-
tion, about when the occurrence took place. Barrels full of apples
probably had fallen before the historic one caught the eye of a
Newton. The steam of the tea-kettle might be making music to-
day without any further results had not fertile-minded Watts, or
his double, heard it and seen it. In the same way these forward
steps in the making of leather came from a combination of ordi-
nary incidents and practical men who saw in them suggestions
for better things. One of the pioneers in bringing about these
changes in this country was Colonel William Edwards. He built
a tannery at Northampton, Mass., about 1790, selecting the

352

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

LEA THER-MAKIXd.

353

clayey side of a hill for its location. There was a fine spring of
water just above his vats, and the natural flow of it was enough
to keep them filled. Colonel Edwards's first improvement on the
tannery of the day was the making of a place beneath the vats
for carrying away the spent liquor. The Ogden and Spencer
tannery, it will be remembered, had no provision for getting rid of

Fig. 12. — Polishing Machine.

Fig. 14. — Pebbling Jack.

Fig. 1-3. — Glossing Jack.

Figs. 11, 12, 13, and 14. — A great variety of machinery has been introduced for finishing the
leather after it has been tanned. Most prominent among them are those figured above.
The object of the boarding machine is to bring up the grain and give a granular appear-
ance to the leather. The other machines are for the details of the process.

that refuse. Colonel Edwards, too, arranged his leaches in tiers,
one above the other, and used a suction-pump for raising the
liquor. He built a mill for grinding his bark, and, instead of the
customary horse as motor power, used water. Perceiving that
his leather tanned faster in summer, the application of heat was
suggested, and the result was the invention of the copper heater.
Dry hides had become very plentiful at that time, and Colonel
Edwards had used a stone wheel to soften them. This, however,
was a slow operation, and as an experiment the colonel took a

VOL. XLI. 2fi

35+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

few of the hides one day to a fulling mill that was near. The
result of that venture was the hide mill. The work of Colonel
Edwards was amplified and supplemented by others, until the
leather industry had become one of the most firmly established in
the country. Of these changes Mr. Pratt, to whom reference has
been made, said in 1859 :

" From 1815 to 1835 tanneries, which had previously been host-
less though not homeless, were provided with roofs and shelter.
From 1830 to 1836 we adopted several improvements in manufact-
uring, among which was a change in the method of unhairing
the hides. Discontinuing the use of lime, we adopted, for sole
leather, the process of sweating, a method which was falsely pat-
ented in this country, having been known in Pennsylvania, Mary-
land, and Germany. Another improvement was the substitution
of fulling or softening in the hide mill in place of the old process
of soaking and breaking over the beam. We also discontinued
the wasteful operation of skiving, and by these improvements we
succeeded in producing at less expense a larger quantity and a
better quality of leather. The old method of thrashing the bark
was replaced by the rotary grinding stone, and this plan in turn
was replaced by the bark mill, invented by Tobey and others,
worked at first by horse-power and afterward by steam and water
power. As the principles of tanning became better understood,
the bark was ground fine, instead of coarse, as before. The old
lever pump made way for the press and screw pump ; the old
slicker of wood, stone, or glass gave place to the rollers made of
brass. The water, also, was no longer applied cold to the bark,
but heat was added to the leaches, by heaters, pan and steam, and
thus the tannin was more effectually extracted. Larger leaches
came into use, and the leather was put through a series of baths
containing ooze of different strengths. Manual labor gave place
to the more economical force of steam and water power. The
change from the tanneries of the past to those of the present may
be described as a change from chaos to system, from waste, confu-
sion, and long delay, to method, economy, order, and dispatch."

These changes are represented in the hide mill, the bark mill,
the splitting machine, the stuffing-wheel, the scouring machine,
and the boarding machine. The hide mill was the invention, or
rather adaptation, of Colonel Edwards, of Northampton, to whom
reference has already been made, and the patent granted him by the
Government bears the date of December 30, 1812. The next patent
on this mill was not taken out until 1867, the patentee being Mr.
J. M. Brown, of Boston, thus showing how comparatively few and
slow were the changes in it. The object of these mills is to soften
the tough, dry hides so as to render them not only easier of
manipulation but readier to absorb the tannin. The mills, as

LEA THER-MAKING.

355

used at the present time, vary in construction according to the
grades of leather desired. Some of them are simply great drums,
the interiors of which have been stuck over with rows of oak pins.
In this way, when these drums are put in motion, the hides, one
hundred and fifty to two hundred in number, fall upon the pins
and are thoroughly beaten and their fibers loosened. The more
common form of the mill, however, consists of a reservoir into
which are projected a number of arms or beaters connected by
rods to a shaft outside, and this latter as it revolves imparts a re-
ciprocatory vibrating motion to the beaters. But how little ad-
vance even this is upon the ancient Egyptian fuller is apparent to

Fig. 15. — Stiffing- Wheel.

one who will take the trouble to look over some of the old prints.
These show the rolls of cloth wetted and manipulated between a
block and concave inclined table, with the water passing into a
trough at the bottom. These all have their counterparts in the
modern fulling or the modern hide mill. The hide mill was in-
troduced among American tanners about 1830, at Salem, but it
did not really come into general use, especially among the hem-
lock tanners of New York, until 1850. Perhajjs the invention
best entitled to the term " epoch-making " is that of the splitting
machine. Indeed, it was the pioneer of the great improvements
in the industry, and the effect of it was no other than to revolu-
tionize the currying and finishing business in this country. Pre-
vious to its invention the tanned hides had been shaved down to

356

THE POPTLAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

LEA THER-MAKING.

357

the desired thickness by hand, entailing obviously a great waste
not only in time but in the large portions of the hide which it was
necessary to throw away. By the use of these machines, however,
these same hides may be split into two, three, or even five parts,
of such thickness as is desired, and each part rendered available.
This machine was not really perfected until about 18G0. As early
as 1800 rough attempts had been made to split leather by ma-
chinery, and in 1809 Seth Boyden, of Newark, N. J., secured a pat-
ent for such an invention. But there were serious obstacles which

Fig. 17. — Bakk Mill.

rendered it impracticable, and it was left to the ingenious mind
and skilled hand of Alpha Richardson, of Boston, to overcome
them. He secured his first patent in 1831, but he continued to
make improvements upon this device until 1856. Then all were
grouped, and what is known as the Union splitting machine was
the result. This machine is the one which is now in common use
among American tanners. Its machinery is somewhat complex.
It consists of a small cylinder upon which is placed the hide or
leather to be split. As this cylinder turns, the leather is drawn
against a sharp knife firmly bolted to the bed of the machine.
Above the knife is a stiff spring which holds the leather closely
to the edge of the blade, and a gauge-roller, which by means of

358

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

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screws regulates the thickness of the side, and by sectional tubes
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wholehides,a stillmore
complicated machine
is employed. This is
known as the belt-knife
splitting machine, and
was invented in 1854
by Joseph F. Flanders
and Jere. A. Marden,
of Newburyport, Mass.
The knife in this ma-
chine consists of an
endless band of steel,
which revolves at a
high speed, with its
cutting edges close to
the sides of a pair of
rollers. Through these
latter the leather is fed
and pressed closely
against the knife. The
lower roller is made up
of a series of rings
which are capable of
yielding so as to ac-
commodate themselves
to the varying thick-
ness of the hides. The
thickness of the splits
is determined by a
small hand-screw, by
which the upper roller
is raised or depressed
as the case may re-
quire. The knife itself
in its course of revolu-
tion comes in contact
with an emery-wheel
and thus is kept keen.
These machines pre-
sent a blade varying
between fifty - seven
and seventy-two inches
in length, and by them an ordinary cow-hide can be split into
three or four distinct parts with the utmost precision.

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LEA THER-MAKING. 3 5 9

It would be impossible to even enumerate the many inventions
that have been made to save hand labor and hasten the various
processes of finishing. Among the most serviceable is the scour-
ing machine. When the leather is taken from the vats it is usu-
ally covered with dust and sediment and stained with resinous
matter. Formerly these defects were removed by hand with
brush, stone, and slicker; now, however, it is done by "scrub-
bers " and scouring machines. There is a variety of these, but in
general they consist of a level table or platform which is freely
movable in all directions. Mounted above it is a reciprocating
frame, in which are fixed brushes and pieces of slate and thin
stone. By the movement of this, with a small jet of water, the
whole surface of the leather is scoured and brushed. Another
invention — this to replace the work of the currier in paring and
evening and bringing out the grain of the leather — is the whitener.
Essentially this machine is like a lawn-mower. It performs its
work through the cutting action of a small cylinder with sharp,
oblique edges. The cylinder itself moves to and fro over the
leather while the knives revolve at the rate of two thousand times
per minute. In the machine invented by Mr. Charles Korn, one
of the most skillful leather-finishers in the country, these knives
are fastened to an endless leather belt, and are set diagonally, so
that when the cut is made on the beam as it passes down in front
of the operator it is a sliding one. The knives are cleared on the
edge by an automatic finger and sharpened by an automatic hand.
In the Union leather whitener the belt contains thirty-two
knives, while the cylinder revolves 2,780 times per minute, and
the pendulum swings to and from the operator at a speed of
ninety a minute. These machines can do the work of from four
to eight men, and do it as well. Still another finishing machine
is the stuffing-wheel, by which the tallow and oil are worked into
the leather. This was patented in this country in 1855 by L. W.
Fiske, of Louisville, Ky., though it had been previously used in
France and Germany. The crude idea of a stuffing-wheel is a
revolving hogshead into which the leather and grease are put
and a current of steam or heated air passed through. The success
of this wheel did much to revolutionize the character of the upper
leather of this country. By it the oil and tallow were worked
into the center of the fiber, thus making the leather soft and
yielding instead of stiff and hard as of old. These devices near-
ly all had their origin about the time of the civil war, when
workmen were scarce in the North, and when manufacturers
had to turn their attention to some means of supplying the de-
ficiency.

In point of importance, next to the invention of the splitting
machine, stands the discovery of a method for utilizing spent wet

36°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

LEATHER-MAKING. 361

tan. Both were economical devices. The New England tanners
had long been accustomed to dry their spent tan during the sum-
mer and store it for winter use. It was then brought into service
to heat liquors, and in some cases to generate steam for general
tanning purposes. It was found, however, that nearly a half of it
was lost in drying. The result was, that attention began to be
given to the problem of utilizing it to greater advantage. In
1852 Joseph B. Hoyt conceived the idea that the wet spent tan
might be burned in a detached brick furnace. He made the
experiment at his tannery in Woodstock, Ulster County, N. Y.
After several trials he was successful, and got from the utilization
of this hitherto useless product enough power to drive his whole
machinery. Since the success of Mr. Hoyt a number of furnaces
have been devised for burning this wet tan. That of Mr. Hoyt,
as perfected by him, consisted of two pairs of ovens, each pair
being connected with three horizontal flue boilers. Each oven,
with its boiler, was independent of the other, and each had a
separate feed-pipe, steam-pipe, and water-tank. The only things
in common between the ovens were the fire-room and the chimney.
The ash-pits were the entire width of the grate, and the distance
from the under side of the grate-bars to the bottom of the ash-pit
was nearly five feet. This permitted a double current of air to.
form in the ash-pit, the cold one entering at the front near the
bottom, passing toward the back end, becoming gradually warmed
by the intense heat from the grate, a part entering the oven
through the grate, and the rest finally passing out of the ash-pit
at the front at a temperature of 300°. By closing the furnace so
as to prevent the return current, the temperature of the ash-pit
could be raised to 500°. The success of these furnaces worked
an immediate change in the whole tannery economy. Hitherto
tanneries had been limited to the banks of streams, where they
could get good water-power. Now such power was not necessary.
Tanneries could be located in the open flats, where access was
easy, and where the inconveniences and expenses of elevations
could be avoided. Fuel was no longer an item of importance.
Tanners, therefore, were not obliged to confine themselves to one
great building, but they could spread out into as many smaller
ones as their convenience and business demanded. They, further-
more, were no longer obliged to consider the cost of generating
steam, and as a result labor-saving machinery commended itself
to all. The discovery of this method of burning wet spent tan
has been the determining element in the construction of the
modern tannery. At the same time it has been one of the
most important factors in reducing the cost of the production
of leather.

From the definition of leather already given — a chemical or

TOL. XLI. — 27

362 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mechanical combination of gelatin and tannin or mineral salts
or oil — it is evident that tanned leather is not the only kind of
leather. Indeed, there may be said to be three kinds, depending
on the constituent elements. There are (1) tanned leather, in
which the gelatin is combined with tannin or tannic acid ; (2)
tawed leather, in which the gelatin is combined with mineral
salts ; and (3) shamoyed leather, in which the gelatin is com-
bined with oils and fatty substances. Sir Humphry Davy has
distinguished between the first of these and the second and third
by the statement that tanned leather is a chemical combination,
its characteristic being that water will not separate its constituent
elements or dissolve their connection, whereas in the case of the
others it will return them to their original components. All
three kinds of leather are made largely in this country. Tawed
and shamoyed leather are used extensively for gloves, clothing,
and domestic purposes. Some of the finer qualities have a wide
use for fancy finish and ornamentation ; but red tanned leather is
the oldest in this country, and overtops the others by far in ex-
tent and importance, and the processes described have been those
pertaining to its manufacture. And there is a wide variety in
that. The heavier grades of leather, such as are used for trunks
and the soles of boots and shoes, are made from the butts or the
back of the hides of the buffalo, ox, and cow. The lighter grades,
such as kip or upper leather, are made from the hides of young
cattle older than calves and from the hides of a small breed of
cattle common to India, Russia, and Africa ; while all the spongy
leather and morocco, or its imitation, is prepared from sheep and
goat skins. These distinctions, however, are only general, but
they indicate the lines along which the various branches of the
industry divide. American tanners, too, have not been slow about
introducing new varieties of leather. Japanned leather, used
largely for fancy work and for certain styles of shoes, was first
made in this country in 1818 by Seth Boyden, of Newark, 1ST. J.
In the manufacture of this the leather is first coated with a com-
pound of linseed oil, umber, and lampblack, applied three or four
times, and then is treated to a varnish made of Prussian blue and
linseed oil. The leather, which had previously been stretched
over frames, is afterward run into ovens heated up to 175° Fahr.
Newark, too, was the original home of the enameled leather in-
dustry, David Crockett having introduced that finish. This is
made much like the japanned leather, except that it is less smooth
and less highly polished, the aim being to bring the grain into
relief. This is used almost wholly in the coverings of carriages,
and it is a branch in which America has always held the lead.
Alligator skins were first tanned in Louisiana about 1855, and a
considerable business has since grown up in some of the States.

LEATHER-MAKING. 363

The leather, however, is to be regarded rather as a novelty than
as a permanent addition to the industry. American tanners, too,
have been quick to learn the methods of making the best of the
foreign varieties of leather, and in some cases they have even im-
proved on the original processes. Among these leathers of for-
eign origin are russia, a strong and pliant variety, generally of a
red or black color, and with a peculiarly penetrating odor due to
the oil of birch ; and Cordovan, a small-grained, soft leather,
which takes its name from the Spanish city of Cordova. It was
from the gradual modification and improvement of this last that
the so-termed morocco leather has resulted. This, with its brill-
iant colors and beautiful finish, has come to be very widely used.
The manufacture of it is carried on in nearly all places where the
leather industry flourishes at all, but the centers of the business
are at Philadelphia, Pa., Newark, 1ST. J., Wilmington, Del., and
Lynn, Mass.

The distribution of the tanneries in this country, and as a re-
sult the centers of the leather trade, has been largely determined
by the distribution of tanning materials. Tannin, the active vege-
table principle of tanning, has been found in a wide variety of
plants and trees. As a matter of fact, however, the only sub-
stances used largely here are the bark of the oak, the hemlock,
and the sumach. Hemlock bark is found generally north of central
Pennsylvania, throughout northern New York, north of Lake
Michigan, and through Maine and Canada. Oak bark, on the
other hand, is found abundantly in the vicinity of the Cumber-
land and Alleghany Mountains, and the lesser ranges of the Blue
Ridge, while the sumach flourishes in Virginia and Maryland.
Southern sumach, however, is not so highly esteemed as that
obtained from Sicily, and much of this is imported. Some other
varieties of tanning materials also are imported, like terra ja-
ponica, but the staff of the tanner in this country is the oak and
hemlock. It is in those sections of the country that the tanneries
are found. New York is the largest general leather market in
the United States, while Boston stands close to it, especially in
upper leather. Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Baltimore,
too, are leading trade centers. The growth of the industry has
been very marked since 18(30. In 1850 the total product of leather
in the United States was valued at $32,861,796, and the capital in-
vested was estimated at $18,900,557. New York State stood at the
head of the list, with an output valued at $9,804,000; while Penn-
sylvania came next, with $5,275,492 ; and Massachusetts third,
with $3,519,123. In 1880 the value of the output had increased to
$113,348,336, and the capital invested to $50,222,034. There were
then 3,105 tanneries in the country. The position of the six lead-
ing States is well represented by this table :

364

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

State.

Establish-
ments.

Capital.

Hides.

Skins.

Total value of
products.

642
386
133
83
34
302

$15,608,635
11,710,415
2,712,130
2,439,700
2,220,114
2,022,990

2,970,680

2,503,855

1,625,344

879,160

395,030

436,015

635,280
4,171,290
3,724,897
2,202,158
1,486,570

434,732

$27,042,068
23,652,366

New York

13,536,721

7,100,967

5,402,070

Ohio

4,357,273

There were, besides this, 2,319 currying establishments in this
country, with a product valued at more than $71,000,000. The cen-
sus figures for 1890 will undoubtedly show even larger increases
in production. This increase is reflected in the importation of
hides, which for the year 1891 aggregated $27,930,759. During
the decade important tanneries have been started in some of the
Southern States, and the industry is constantly expanding. This
fact appears in the extension of the American leather trade abroad,
but this is by no means what it should be. The exports of leather
in 1891 aggregated $12,026,556, a gain of a little more than a
million dollars as compared with the previous year. Sole leather
led, with a sale of 40,084,833 pounds abroad, at a total sum of
$6,430,764. It is interesting further to compare the exports of
leather and the manufactures of it for the past five years :

Year. Value of Exports.

1886 $14,865,087

1887 16,235,922

1888 19,578,489

1889 23,712,814

1890 27,000,134

1891 30,736,319

The gain in the exports of leather, indeed, have kept pace rela-
tively with the sale of the manufactures of it abroad, such as boots
and shoes. But Americans possess certain important advantages
in the making of leather that should give them a stronger hold in
the European markets. The continental tanneries have no better
facilities for getting hides, and they are handicapped by the lack
of oak and hemlock bark which our own manufacturers have at
hand. But, despite all this, the leather industry stands among the
first in this country in dignity, enterprise, and magnitude. Impor-
tant advances are yet to be made : but with the natural advan-
tages of our tanners, their thrift and inventiveness, with a con-
stantly expanding home market and a possible foreign one, there
appears to be no reason why it should lose its relative rank.

PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER. 365

PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER.

By Dr. N. E. YORKE DAVIES.

THE Englishman is very conservative in his ideas and averse
to change in his mode of life, at all events so far as his diet
is concerned, and it would not be going too far to say that he is
averse to change even where the change is for his good in this
respect. The manners and customs of generations gone by with
regard to eating and drinking, are the manners and customs of
the present age, with this exception that, of course, the refine-
ments of cookery have brought into requisition many delicacies
in the way of dishes unknown to our forefathers. The maid of
honor in these days does not drink, or have allowed her, a gallon
of ale, as did those of the time of " Good Queen Bess," for her
breakfast (it is to be hoped she did not consume it), for she
now drinks tea or coffee, then unknown. But though her appe-
tite may be the same as in those days, and doubtless even in
maids of honor is, custom has altered its constituents. The exi-
gencies of season compel the individual to dress differently win-
ter and summer, so as to equalize the warmth of the body; and
to a certain extent most people do this, but it is very apparent
that it is the discomfort of feeling the cold that induces them to
put on in winter a different kind of dress to that worn in summer.
A man would look very absurd if during the summer and the hot
months he was seen out wrapped in furs and thick clothing ; but
though, as I have pointed out in one or two former papers on
diet, the heat of the body is better and more perfectly equalized
by the food that is taken than by its external covering in the way
of clothes, few people adapt their diet to any particular season of
the year or its temperature. The ordinary individual eats the
same breakfast, lunch, and dinner in spring, summer, autumn,
and winter — the same routine of bread, meat, puddings — and the
majority of the more wealthy classes consume almost identically
the same food, only, perhaps, more delicately manipulated in our
time by culinary art. It does not seem to enter into the calcu-
lations of the middle-class cook, or the aristocratic chef, that
there is such a thing as the physiology of dietetics. His aim
seems to be to furnish a substantial or delicate meal, pleasant to
the palate, utterly regardless of the dietetic value of its constitu-
ents, and whether they are more particularly adapted to hot or
cold weather. Eating is considered by many, whose intellectual
attainments ought to teach them better, almost a religious duty,
an irksome one, it is true, as some would say, but one that neces-
sity compels them to perform. My own opinion is that the physi-
ology of food should be taught the rising generation as an

3 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

important item of school life. If this were so, what a vast differ-
ence it would make in the comfort, the health, and the well-
being of the individual; and with what a reserve of strength
he would, if properly nourished in early life, commence his strug-
gle with the world, whether that struggle involved physical or
mental work!

In the first place, his frame would be properly developed, his
brain nourished, his digestive powers in perfect condition, and he
would not have in his daily work, literary or otherwise, or when
old age advances, to fall back upon stimulants to give him the
necessary appetite for his midday or evening dinner. Cicero
says, " To live long, it is necessary to live slowly/' When I say
that the physiology of food should form a part of every man's,
and, I may add, more particularly of every woman's education, I
mean that they should know what particular use each food is
applied to in the economy, and what particular food is suited for
intellectual work in contradistinction to muscular work; and
further, what particular food is best suited to the requirements
of the system in the different seasons of the year. Fewer wives
would be widows and children orphans if the mistress of a house-
hold adapted or ordered her husband's food to meet his require-
ments, and made it, or saw that it was made, tempting and pala-
table. But what obtains now in most middle-class households ?
The husband comes home to dinner weary and hungry to find
warmed-up meat, or a washy stew, awaiting him, or, worse still,
an underdone joint and half-cooked vegetables. Perhaps this
goes on day after day, and year after year, until some day or
other an illness occurs, and his constitution, exhausted for the
want of proper food to nourish his complex organism, succumbs
to it.

In the houses of the very wealthy this state of things seldom
occurs — perhaps it would be better if it occasionally did, for a
life of indolence and ease would be lengthened by occasional
starvation. Half the illness that occurs at one season, I think I
can safely say, is due to improper dieting taken at another. We
hear of people feeling weak in the spring, or suffering from those
different ailments due to malnutrition, such as boils, skin dis-
eases, obesity, or debility. Now this would not be so if the per-
son adapted his diet to his requirements and to the season. No
sensible person would think of keeping a large fire burning in his
room in the summer. If he did, he would undoubtedly soon feel
the effect of it ; but many a man who would feel himself insulted
if he were not thought a sensible person, will eat in the summer
to repletion foods the particular action of which is to supply
heat in excess. Perhaps I can not do better here than to explain
that the foods that are converted into heat — that is, keep up the

PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER.

367

heat of the body — are starches, sugar, and fat ; and those that
more particularly nourish the nervous and muscular system are
the albumen and salts; and a perusal of, or reference to, the
following table will show what these are, and also the amounts
of the different constituents they contain. At a glance the
reader will see that the largest proportion of summer food
should consist of green vegetables, cooked or as salads; white
or lean meats, such as chicken, game, rabbits, venison, fish, and
fruits.

Table showing the Percentage Composition of Various Articles of Food.

Water.

Albumen. St

arch.

Sugar.

Fat.

Salts.

Bread

37

8
15
15
15
13
15
18
75
83
82
91
91

5
23
86
66
88
88

36-8
36
44
72
51
72
53
63
39
24
15
74
68

54
74
78
75
77
74
78
52
15
91

8
15
10

6
12

6
23

*2
1
1
1
2

*4

2

4

4

33

28

44

19

14

18

12

16

9

7

8

18

13

27
21
18
9
16
14
20
16

'o

1 4
6 7
8 6
3 6
6 5
3 7

0 5
8

1 1
3

1
2

0

1

7

0

1

5

4

8

3

8

3

4

5

8

1

8
•9
'2

■6

■o

1

•9
•1

•o

•4

•o
•i '.

7-4
3-4
6-3
9-4
8-4
9-1
5-4
2-0
8-8
8'4
9-6
5-1
5-8

3-6
73-4
4-2
4-9
5-4
0-4
2-0

*3:2
6-1
5-8
2-1
5-8

77-0
5-2
2-8
5-4
6-4

1
1
2

2"

5

0

2

0
0
0

0

3
26

1

0
24
31

6

3
29

4
31
15
48
66
73

4
16

15
3
2

13
5

10

30
83

6
3
0
4
6
7
1

2
2
5

5

9
7
8
7
3
1
3
6
8
9
1
8
9
8
3
1
4

45

8

9
•8

5
•5

:7
•0

2"

r
r

2"
3

0
2

0
1
1
0
0

0
1
0
0
5
4
4
5
4
4
3
4
2
2
2
3
2

2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
0

3

Biscuit

7

Barley-meal

7
0

Oatmeal .

0

Rice

5

Peas

5

Arrowroot

Potatoes

7

0

0

6

Cabbage

7

Sugar

Treacle

8

8

8

Cheddar cheese

8
4
5

9
1

Fat beef ,

4

Lean mutton

8

Fat mutton

5

Veal

7

Fat pork

3

Green bacon

1

Dried bacon

9

Ox liver

0

Tripe

4

Cooked meat, roast, no dripping
being lost ; boiled assumed
to be the same

•95

Poultry

's:'

r

2

White fish

•o

Eels

3

Salmon

■4

Yolk of egg

■5
•6
•3

Beer and porter

•o

•2

I know that I am warring with many established opinions,
and I know that the ideas I am promulgating in regard to diet

368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are a little contrary to those generally received ; but I think I
shall succeed in convincing those who will go carefully into the
matter with me that many preconceived conceptions on the sub-
ject of diet will not bear investigation. Perhaps the particular
condition of the system that I am called upon to treat— obesity-
gives me a greater insight into the exact effect of diet than falls
to the lot of the ordinary physician or specialist. To begin with,
I will assail a time-honored belief— viz., that meat is a heating
food— that is, in the sense of giving warmth, and raising the heat
of the body ; and that farinaceous foods are the reverse. People
believe that the less meat they eat in the summer the better,
" because it tends to heat the system." Now, it is a curious thing
that in dieting people for the reduction of fat by dietetic means
only— and this I have to do at all seasons of the year— I am
in the habit of cutting off farinaceous foods, sugar, and fat,
and giving large quantities of meat, green vegetables, stewed
fruit, and other non-fattening substances, in quantity regulated
according to the height, weight, and physical or mental work of
the individual, male or female, as the case may be; with the
result that in the colder months of the year people tell me that
they do not feel too warm, clothe as they will. To so great an
extent does this sometimes occur, that I am obliged to supple-
ment the non-fattening diet by giving a little heat-forming food,
such as cream, or a slightly increased amount of bread, or a small
quantity of fat. The result is at once apparent. The body
warmth becomes more comfortable. Now, what does this show ?
It shows that the foods that supply heat are more particularly
farinaceous foods, sugar, and fat ; * and this is admitted by all
dieticians now. If this is so— and it undoubtedly is— it naturally
stands to reason that when the external temperature performs
this duty, the individual can not require so much food that will,
by its chemical decomposition in the body, maintain a high tem-
perature, and, if taken, as is usually the case, in excess, become
an incumbrance by being stored as fat. It must be distinctly
understood that the argument which I have used, where the
heat-forming food is cut off by me, is where the surplus fat in
the body is in excess — that is, in corpulency — and when it is
desirable to get rid by dietetic means of the accumulated fat in
the system. In this case the fat is the storehouse from which
the system draws to sustain its warmth, as long as the stored fat
is in excess.

A fat animal will live without food months longer than a thin
one. A pig buried by the fall of a cliff at Dover was dug out
alive one hundred and sixty days after. When it was buried by

* The Eskimo eats twelve pounds of fat a day.

PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER. 369

the fall it weighed about one hundred and sixty pounds ; when
dug out it weighed only forty.

Now, with regard to the proper diet for hot weather. In the
first place, we must take into consideration the occupation of the
individual. A man doing sedentary work or intellectual work
would not require the same diet as a person doing laborious mus-
cular work ; but this article, in nine cases out of ten, would appeal
to the ordinary individual earning his living by the sweat of his
brow, or, if I may so say, by the sweat of his brain. If a man
earns his living by the sweat of his brain he must, if he wishes to
live long, maintain his health by the sweat of his brow, that is, he
must, in some form or other, take muscular exercise. He may do
it by brisk walking, tennis, bicycling, shooting, hunting, or the
thousand and one pursuits that the average Englishman indulges
in ; so that, as I said before, the diet that I should lay down as
suitable for summer will, under these conditions, almost univer-
sally apply.

Nature apparently knows what is good for us, and Nature
furnishes for the different seasons suitable substances in the way
of food. But, of course, Nature assumes that man, being a rea-
sonable being, should study and apply them as he ought to do ;
but Nature in this case credits man with attributes that in this
matter he seldom possesses, or, at all events, does not care to use
if he does possess them. Men do not study Nature as much as
they should, at least the majority do not. If they did, they would
see that in the warm weather fruit should form a considerable
portion of the daily food. The most suitable articles for hot
weather, experience tells me, are fish, such kinds of meat as fowls
and game, green vegetables, salads, and fruit. Farinaceous food,
that is, starches, should be taken in the very smallest quantity
only. Sufficient sugar would be found in the different fruits that
the season of the year produces, and, therefore, should not be
supplemented.

In a former article on The Proper Diet for Cold "Weather, I
illustrated what I meant by giving one or two samples of a day's
dietary for an ordinary individual, and I will here do the same.
Of course, in an article of this kind it would be perfectly impos-
sible to distinctly draw a dietary suitable to each individual.
This can only be done by taking into consideration the mode of
life, the idiosyncrasies, the intellectual work, the peculiarities of
constitution of a particular person ; but in the case of the ordi-
nary healthy person, of course, these distinctions are not neces-
sary. If a man is too fat, he would require certain modifications ;
if he is gouty or biliously inclined, slight change would be neces-
sary ; but, as I said before, to go into this would be unnecessary and
out of place, and every intelligent person must alter and adapt the

370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dietary to his means and to his special requirements. Pope says,
" The proper study of mankind is man," and, undoubtedly, if long-
life and comfort are to be attained, many would do well to lay his
aphorism to heart. In the case of a man of ordinary size doing
ordinary physical or mental work, this would represent an ordi-
nary day's food for hot weather, as far as quantity and constitu-
ents are concerned :

Beeakfast, 8.30 to 9 a.m. — Two cups of tea or coffee, sweetened with saccha-
rine, one or two teaspoonfuls of cream in each; 1 oz. of dry toast, thinly but-
tered; 4 ozs. of grilled or boiled fish, such as plaice, sole, whiting, haddock, cod,
or trout, or 4 ozs. of cold chicken, cold tongue, or of grilled steak or chop.

Lunch, 1.30 p. m. — Two or three ounces of cold mutton, beef, or lamb ; 3 or 4
ozs. of green vegetables, plainly boiled, plenty of green salad, made with vinegar,
but without oil ; 4 or 5 ozs. of stewed fruit ; water, or 2 or 3 glasses of pure dry
Moselles or other Rhine wines.

Afteenoon Tea, 4.30, if desieed. — Two cups of tea as at breakfast; nothing
to eat.

Dinnee, 7 to 8. — Julienne, or clear vegetable soup; 3 or 4 ozs. of fish; 3 or 4
ozs. of any red meat, or of chicken, rabbit, game, or venison ; 6 ozs. of any green
vegetable, with gravy from the meat only ; 4 ozs. of stewed fruit or of raw fruit ;
a little stale or pulled bread, and a small piece of cheese.

This diet may be varied as to hour; but three meals only
should be taken daily, and only sufficient at each meal to satisfy
appetite. Fruit may be taken at other times, and any quantity of
fluid, so long as it does not contain sugar ; any number of pleas-
ant alcoholic and other beverages suitable for the hot weather,
and particularly suitable for those who should not take quantities
of sugar, will be found in a book I wrote two or three years ago.*

Fruit is only beneficial in moderate quantity. If taken in ex-
cess, and out of proportion to other food, it is apt to derange the
bowels and cause diarrhoea ; more particularly is this the case if
it is eaten underripe or overripe — in the former case, from its
undue acidity ; and in the latter, from its strong tendency to fer-
ment and decompose in the digestive tract. Fruit diminishes the
acidity of the secretion of the kidneys, and by virtue of this is
advantageous in gout.

It goes without saying that more fluid is necessary in hot
weather than in cold. Indeed, so long as it is a harmless fluid, I
question whether too much can be taken. Fluid in this way is to
the kidneys what fresh air is to the lungs, and the waste of meat
not used in the system is carried off by its aid.

A meat diet is healthy and life-prolonging if supplemented
with plenty of fluid to carry off its waste. That fluid should be
taken in large quantities in the summer is a wise provision of
Nature, as the skin carries off a large amount of waste from the

* Foods for the Fat : the Scientific Cure of Corpulency.

PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER. 371

system, and therefore its activity should "be stimulated in every
way, and it is most desirable by frequent baths to keep the pores
open. The perspiration drying on the skin leaves a deposit of its
salts and other waste constituents, and these should be washed off
as a matter of health. A very useful appliance for this purpose is
the " massage rubber/' patented by Mr. Crutchloe. This consists
of a serrated India-rubber surface, and when used it cleans the
skin of all scurf as a Turkish bath does, rapidly brings the blood to
the surface, and has the conditioning effect that grooming has on
a horse. The India rubber seems to act on the skin much as it
does in erasing lead-pencil marks from paper, and acts in a way
that no towel or brush can equal. All the old loose scurf of the
skin is cleared off, and a soft and smooth surface results. After
the brisk use of this dry rubber, a tepid bath is a great adjunct to
health in hot weather, to say nothing of its cooling and refreshing
results. I see a well-known man in the Hospital Gazette says the
massage rubber acts like a charm in rheumatism.

It would be no use advising those who take stimulants for the
sake of their stimulating qualities, that spirits and beers, and cer-
tain wines, are too heating in the summer ; and that, however
suitable port, sherry, spirits, and beer may be in the colder months
of the year, the most suitable beverages containing alcohol, for
this reason, are those known as the light, dry Moselle wines.
Even claret and Burgundy contain a large quantity of tannin,
and taken in excess are therefore apt to disagree and derange the
stomach. Where a nice dry Moselle is drunk in fairly moderate
quantity no harm can accrue. Of course, the quantity that would
apply to one person does not apply to another, and a free drinker
would certainly not be satisfied with less than two bottles.

The man who lives to eat, drinks after his soup a glass of pale
sherry ; after his fish, Rhine wine ; with his joint, Burgundy and
champagne ; with the entrees, Bordeaux or Burgundy ; with the
ice, champagne or liqueur, and with his dessert probably some old
crusted port. But the man who eats to live would be satisfied
with one pint of dry and delicate white wine, such as I have pre-
viously indicated, to cover the whole of this menu.

It is a well-known physiological fact that the system can not
assimilate more alcohol than is contained in a pint of dry Moselle
or claret, or in a half -pint of sherry or three pints and a half of
table beer, supposing it to be in that form ; or, if taken in the
form of whisky, about a wineglassful of pure whisky per day.
I do not mean to say that an excess of any of these quantities
would be absolutely injurious to health, and many might and do
exceed them considerably for very many years with impunity ;
but still, in ordinary individuals, this is the quantity that can be
taken with no harm whatever. In some houses people seem to

372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

take stimulants at all hours, and only the other day a nobleman
told me that, visiting a certain house, his valet came into his bed-
room at ten in the morning bringing a pint of champagne. On
his telling him he did not want it, his valet said, " If your lord-
ship does not drink it, they will think you are ill ! " " His lord-
ship " did not drink it, but the champagne did not go down to
frighten his host. I imagine gout must be a permanent institu-
tion in that household, and that the family vault must be as well
stocked as the wine-cellar.

In the summer acidulated drinks are the most grateful to the
palate, and in the August number of this journal last year I gave
a number of these in an article called Beverages for Hot Weather.
There can be no doubt that the most refreshing beverage in sum-
mer, and certainly the most harmless, is the properly made cup of
tea ; but, alas ! how seldom does the ordinary English household
in England get a properly made cup of tea or coffee ! The first
cup may be by chance drinkable, or it may have infused half an
hour, and therefore contain all the tannin and other disagreeable
and injurious products of the leaf. Now, while on the subject of
tea, I should like to give a rational and sensible mode of making
it for breakfast or other meal with which it may be taken. Any
one walking up or down Shaftesbury Avenue, W., will see in a
window half a dozen cups that he might reasonably imagine had
been bequeathed the establishment by Goliath of Gath. These tea-
cups are called magnums, and they hold exactly a pint, and one
of them is sufficient, therefore, or more than sufficient, for a
breakfast. To secure a delicious cup of tea, the proper quantity
should be put into the teapot according to the number of people
requiring a supply, and when it has infused nine or ten minutes
— not longer — the magnum, as it is called, should be filled. This
being sufficient, and equal to two large breakfast cups, is of uni-
form strength and flavor throughout. Its contents will please
the most fastidious taste and suit the most delicate stomach. In
the summer time it should be sweetened with saccharine instead
of sugar, and flavored with a little cream. Some prefer tea with
a squeeze of lemon-juice in it, and in this way it is possibly
more wholesome and suitable as a cooling beverage.

It would occupy too great a space in a short article like this to
give the most suitable fruits and vegetables for the summer
months to the different conditions of the system. In a dietetic
work I wrote some two years ago this subject was fully dis-
cussed,* more particularly in relation to those of corpulent,
gouty, and rheumatic habit of body.

Three quarters of the ailments that humanity is subject to

* Foods for the Fat.

PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER. 373

undoubtedly arise from errors in dieting, that is, in the quantities
of food taken, in its not being adapted to the constitutional re-
quirements and environment of the individual, in its not being
properly estimated in its constituents, or applicability to the sea-
son of the year ; and if, as I said at the commencement of this
article, people would take as much trouble in adapting the food
to suit their needs as they do in so many other things of minor
importance, they would enjoy life more, and see more of it. It is
astonishing what a complete change in diet will do. Change in
diet acts like change in air, and is a potent factor in the treat-
ment of those conditions that indicate exhaustion of the nerv-
ous system, and, as a corollary, general collapse. Man is some-
thing like a steam-engine, and he ■ requires fuel according to the
work he has to do. The driver of an express train does not have
his engine fed as the driver of a slow train does, and so it is with
the human engine. The fuel in this case should be to a certain
extent adjusted as to whether it is to be utilized for intellectual
or muscular work ; and if this is done, a large amount of intel-
lectual or physical work may be accomplished without strain.
But if these facts are ignored, the complex mechanism on which
the happiness and well-being of perhaps even a nation may de-
pend, will collapse like a house of cards.

When the diet is properly regulated for the different seasons
of the year in regard to its constituents, there is seldom any
necessity to take what some people are so fond of doing, that is,
purgative medicines in the spring and in autumn. A little alka-
line aperient, such as the " Franz Josef " mineral water, may be
taken at any season with benefit by people who live well and who
are of sedentary habits, but beyond this it is a mistake to take
irritating and powerful purgatives during the early spring and
summer, as they are sure to set up diarrhoea that may go on for
some time, especially if unreasonable quantities of fruit be in-
dulged in. Fruit in itself is laxative in its effects, and though
beneficial, as before borne out, if not taken in excess, will with
some people, when more is taken than should be, set up persistent
and troublesome irritation throughout the digestive tract. This
was one of the evils attending the "grape cure," so much in vogue
a few years ago.

In every well-appointed household, dinner is unquestionably
the most important meal of the day, and a fashion in regard to
this has lately crept into use, which is neither physiologically
correct nor conducive to its enjoyment. I refer to the custom
now prevalent of commencing dinner with some anchovy toast,
caviare, or sardines on bread and butter, or some other savory of
a like nature. The proper commencement of dinner should be
the old-fashioned dish of good soup, and for this reason : that it

374 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is necessary that the first food taken at dinner should be quickly
absorbed, so as to stimulate the nervous system and give tone
to the stomach. In this way the appetite is stimulated and the
sense of taste made more keen. Nothing acts so beneficially for
this purpose as a small quantity of good soup. The more im-
portant adjuncts are, of course, pleasant surroundings and cheer-
ful companionship.

Contrast the exhilarating effect, say, of a dinner at the
" Grand," at Brighton, under the superintendence of its accom-
plished and obliging manager — with the open sea, and ever-vary-
ing kaleidoscope of life to gaze at — with the same dinner in a
dull country hotel. Addison says, " Health and cheerfulness
mutually beget each other." They undoubtedly do.

To maintain life at its highest standard and for the longest
period should be the aim of every individual, and this can only
be done by adapting our food to the requirements of the system
and the time of the year. If the body is properly nourished,
disease will not attack it; and if it does, will get no foothold. It
is like an impregnable fortress — it may be assaulted, but it can
not be taken.

But to get the economy into this state of perfection, it must
be remembered that no more food should be taken than will be
consumed in the operations of life, and no more stimulant than
the amount previously indicated, so that no surplus of either
shall remain in the body in the shape of excess of fat, or as
waste, in the form of gout poison or acidity.

" Gluttony," says an old writer, " kills more than the sword."
On the other hand, there is no reason why food should not be
made as palatable as possible — in fact, the more palatable it is
the better. It is not excess in variety of food that is injurious,
but excess in quantity. — The Gentleman's Magazine.

In Lis account, in the Australasian Association, of the natives of New Guinea,
Mr. J. P. Thomson spoke of their numerous tribal divisions and of the various
languages and dialects spoken by them. Even in localities separated by only a
few miles, the dialects spoken differ the one from the other in some cases consid-
erably. The Motu, which is the language spoken and taught by the missionaries
at Port Moresby, is understood over a considerable area, but outside of that neigh-
borhood changes and variations occur, so that at the bead of the Great Papuan
Gulf and in the Fly basin, the Motu language is a foreign tongue. In other parts
of the island, also, the philological variations are numerous and conflicting ; and
in the western division neighboring tribes are unable to hold intercourse with each
other, even if friendly, by reason of the incompatibility of language. No doubt
this may in some measure be accounted for by local environment ; constant civil
intertribal war is the means of isolating communities, so that no friendly inter-
course is held ; an incongruity of language may have been unknowingly estab-
lished by reason of this and other causes.

KINDERGARTENS AND MANUAL TRAINING. 375

KINDERGARTENS— MANUAL TRAINING— INDUSTRIAL

SCHOOLS.

By Mks. II. M. PLUNKETT.

IN 1877 a prominent Chicago law firm advertised for an office-
messenger. In response, more than six hundred college-bred
and academy-taught boys applied for the position. In the same
year, in the same city, a man engaged in trade put a very incon-
spicuous advertisement — with no indication that his was a large
and old-established house — into an inconspicuous column of a
daily paper, calling for the services of an office-boy and messen-
ger. More than three hundred answers were received — many of
them from grown men, some of them coming into the category
"educated" as commonly understood. Much later than the
above date, the position of book-keeper and confidential clerk to
a down-town merchant in New York suddenly became vacant.
He advertised ; more than two hundred applicants responded.
" Which one did you take ? " queried the person to whom he was
relating the incident. " Not any of them ; for the fact was that,
on my way to my business, I learned of the sudden death of a
man in a business similar to my own. I knew that his affairs
would have to be closed up, and I knew that he had just the man
I wanted — one who understood the ins and outs of the business to
perfection ; so I just stopped and told the clerk, who was at the
moment closing up and putting crape on the door, that when he
was at liberty I wished an interview with him, and I thought it
might result to his advantage. In a few days he came, and he
suits me to a dot." One of these cities it will be noticed was in
the young and growing West, the other was in the older and pre-
sumably more crowded East.

No doubt these incidents can be matched in most of the large
cities of the country, and what is their moral ? What message
do they convey to the well-wisher of his country or his race ?
What was the matter with these so-called " educated " men that
they could find no place in one of the busiest spots on earth ; and
why did the merchant ignore his two hundred replies ?

Perhaps we need to revise our ideas of what education con-
sists in, and certainly the merchant demanded trained faculty, and
instantly seized upon it because he knew that he was getting it.

College education, simply of itself, no longer gives a man that
pre-eminently superior position that it once did ; in addition, he
must be able to bring his faculties to bear among the practical and
pushing men by whom he is surrounded, or he will be relegated
to the limbo of learned incapables, whose pathetic stories come to
the surface daily in the column " Situations wanted — males."

376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The first step in rectifying an error is to probe and analyze it,
so as to discover its real nature and dimensions, and the inquiry
at once arises, Were those six hundred men really educated, or
had part of their powers, and perhaps the powers best worthy of
cultivation in each individual case, been ignored, or neglected
through giving undue attention to the so-called purely " intellect-
ual faculties " ?

It may be said that this great army of the unemployed ought
to disperse, and betake themselves to the abandoned farms that
are crying out for owners and cultivators ; but they would be just
as helpless and unadapted there, for the simple reason that the
taste and skill for farming need to be acquired in youth, and
these poor creatures are best described by a word used by a coun-
tryman in apologizing for his wife's shortcomings as a house-
keeper, " She means well, but she ain't noways f acidized."

There has been a silent revolution going on for the last fifty
years through which a " college education " has been deposed
from its position of prime fetich among English-speaking people,
and a new set of men — happily named captains of industry — are
making their way to the front rank. Never was it truer than to-
day that " new times demand new measures and new men," while
it is being discovered that, even for the highest development of
what are termed the purely intellectual faculties, book-learning
and those studies that can be pursued in the isolated cloister or
seminary are not all-sufficient. We are standing in the dawn of
a new day, in which the term manual training is coming into uni-
versal use, and we are destined to hear much more of it and learn
much more of its relations to the well-being of individuals and
the body politic in the near future.

Between the years 1800 and 1830 a spirit may be said to have
been moving upon the waters, in several countries at the same
time, to effect a revolution in men's ideas as to the capacities for
improvability in man, and the means by which these capacities
can be developed, till at length, what may be called the gospel of
culture was initiated. Twenty years before the French Revolu-
tion, Rousseau had put forth his Emile, a hand-book on educa-
tion, which was one of those germinal, potent books that, though
burned in France, was a seed that brought forth a hundred-fold
when it was dropped into the minds of Pestalozzi in Switzerland
and Goethe in Germany : it led them to study the human faculties
in a new way — to take cognizance of the physical nature, as the
concomitant if not the basis of sane and profitable action in the
mind. Those men died nearly at the same time, and when Eng-
land was on the verge of a mighty industrial upheaval ; and as
the torch of wisdom fell from their relaxing hands, it was caught
up in England by men who were scourged to action through fear

KINDERGARTEN'S AND MANUAL TRAINING. 377

of a terrific crisis. Its light shot across the Atlantic to safe and
peaceful America, and a new style of teaching was inaugurated —
largely through the influence of Horace Mann ; but this again
was improved upon, and brought more into harmony with the
fundamental laws of mind by Froebel in Germany — one of his
most earnest American propagandists being the venerable Miss
Elizabeth P. Peabody — and now it seems as if his ideas are on the
verge of universal realization.

In 1831-'32 England was in a state of ferment ; incendiaries
kept the country lighted up by a line of blazing hay-ricks from
county to county, cattle were poisoned or mutilated, and every
day brought news of some fine machine broken up by the factory
people, as a devouring monster that had come to eat the bread
out of their mouths, and the real oppressions and fancied injuries
of the factory population had become so unbearable that Parlia-
ment could no longer remain apathetic and supine.

In 1833 a commission was appointed to examine into the con-
dition of the labor of young persons and children employed in
factories. The commissioners found generally that the children
were worked during the same stages as adults — eleven, twelve, or
more hours daily — and this long-time labor had practically ex-
cluded the children from the means of education, so that a
population had been growing up deteriorated morally as well as
physically by excess of labor. Sir Edwin Chadwick was charged
with the work of drawing up a bill that should remedy the evils
of their condition. The commission declared that six hours of
daily labor was all that young children could endure without
permanent bodily harm, and insisted that manufacturers enforc-
ing work during those long hours should do it with double sets
of children, six hours to each set. The provision which Mr.
Chadwick proposed as an efficient protection to these little fac-
tory slaves against exclusion from education was, " that it should
be a condition of the employment of children by the manufact-
urer that every child so employed should produce a certificate
from a competent teacher in a fitting school, certifying that the
child had been under instruction three hours every working-day
during the«week preceding; three hours being half the time then
generally occupied in the working-schools. Hence the name
" half-school-timers," which soon shortened into "half-timers."
These three hours' schooling — much of it in inferior or nominal
schools — was primarily intended as a security from overwork,
for it was reasoned " Three hours in the school-room keeps them
out of the workshop three hours," and the immediate effect, as
testified by competent medical men, was a better growth ; and,
quite unexpectedly, employers admitted, a better quality of work.
But, over and above these results, there came out of these inves-

VOL. XLI. 28

378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tigations and measures some surprising revelations and practical
results, which eventually affected the whole of the prevalent prac-
tice of infantile and juvenile training and education. The graded
school and the trained teacher were partially the incidental out-
come of a work primarily undertaken to rescue mentally and physi-
cally the young factory slaves. There were a few enlightened
and humane employers, permeated with the progressive spirit
of the time, who established schools in connection with their
works, and there were some good schools kept by trained teachers
in the large manufacturing towns, as at Manchester and Oldham,
where the half-timers could be sent. Mr. Chadwick made a careful
study of the best conditions for mental work among twelve thou-
ands pupils, during a period of twelve years, and has left on record
some very surprising but accurately thought-out conclusions. He
thinks that alert voluntary attention is the only profitable atten-
tion, and he is sure that " three hours is as much time as can be
occupied profitably with any subject-matters of instruction, with
very young children," but it was found that the half-timers got a
superior habit of mental activity, so that employers came to
prefer short-timers to long-timers, and the military drill that had
been introduced in the schools resulted in such superior bodily
aptitudes that the stunted pauper boys of town got the prefer-
ence over strong, robust rustics from the coast ; but the most sur-
prising result remains to be stated, for it soon began to appear
that in mental attainments the half-time factory boy was in advance
of the pupils of the board schools of the same age, the factory
boy attaining the fourth standard by his tenth year, while the
" long-time " board scholar reached it in his twelfth or thirteenth
year.

In 1882, after half a century of observation and experiment,
Mr. Chadwick summed up some of the defects of the current
systems in words too apt to be improved upon. He says : " Un-
fortunately, the primary principle of education, the capacity of
the recipient, the mind, is not understood or regarded. . . . The
receptivity of the minds of the great mass of children, for direct
simultaneous class-teaching — the only effective teaching — is less
than three hours, and where these limits are undistinguished
and disregarded, the consequences are displayed in wearisome ef-
forts, as it were, to get quarts into mental capacities of pints and
gallons into quarts, with prolonged sedentary detentions for this
foolish purpose, and with grievous bodily as well as mental injury."
Meantime, educators have now settled these points :
1. The inadequacy of the old-fashioned college education
to enable the average man to take and hold a place among the
world's needed workers — those six hundred applicants in Chicago
prove this.

KINDERGARTENS AND MANUAL TRAINING. 379

2. They have entirely changed their views as to the relation
of the bodily powers to mental training ; and —

3. They have changed their views as to the right time in
which to lay the foundations of moral character.

While these advances were being made in the science of ped-
agogy the human body — as a means of development for the mind
and soul — began to be discovered ; and, instead of its being re-
garded as a mere shell or scaffolding wholly outside and apart
from the unseen nature, it was found out that the " sound body "
in which the wisest of the ancients lodged their " sound mind,"
had much to do with the growth and perfection of the spiritual
nature.

In April of 1891 some of the leading educators of this country
held in Boston a conference on manual training ; and we make no
apology for copious extracts from the phonographic report of
their addresses, as they contain the latest utterances of the per-
sons best qualified to speak on the theme we are considering.

Said President Eliot, of Harvard : " The wisdom of my parents
caused me to be taught carpentry and wood-turning before I was
fifteen years old — while I was yet a member of the Boston Latin
School. It has been of great use to me all my life, and a great
pleasure. Then, later, after graduating at college, I became a
chemist by profession. I studied that difficult science for years,
and then I taught it for years. In every science a great deal of
manual skill is necessary for the student and the teacher. The
progress of the world in natural science during the last century
has been greatly due to the trained senses — eyes, ears, noses, and
fingers — of the experts in those sciences.

" Then for the last twenty years I have seen that one of the
great improvements which have been wrought in education in all
civilized countries has been the individualization of instruction
so as to meet the precise needs and develop the capacities and
powers of each individual, at each stage of his development.

" I am old enough to remember when the brain was supposed
to be the seat of the mind, just as the lungs were held to be the
furnace that warms the body. I remember being taught that the
animal heat was kept up in the lungs, but we all know better
now ; we know now that whenever an atom is consumed, in what-
ever part of the body, there heat is generated, and therefore that
the animal heat pervades the whole organism. It is just so with
regard to the human mind : it pervades the body. It is not in the
head, but it is all over the body, and when you train the hand or
the eye or the ear, you train the mind : manual training is mental
training. Never admit that manual training is anything distin-
guished from or in opposition to mental training. In the skill of
the artist's hand, in the methodical, accurate movement of the

380 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mechanic's arm, in the acute observation through the physician's
eye or ear, there is always mind. We are, in manual training,
simply training another kind of faculty — not memory, but dis-
criminating observation and correct perception. The old-fash-
ioned education was chiefly devoted to the training of mem-
ory ; most of the work in the grammar school to-day is memory-
training. I am thankful for every effort to train our youth to
correct observation, just discrimination, and accurate measure-
ment.

" There is another value in manual training in that it trains
the mind through success, through achievement, through doing
something tangible and visible and doing it well. When a boy
has planed a parallelopiped of iron so well that no light shows
under the edge of his try-square when he applies it to the faces of
the block, he has done something which demands patience and
care and attention, something which he can prove to be well done
— something which he be proud of. There is mind in such work,
and there is also sound morality in it."

Sir Edwin Chadwick says : " It is proved practically that the
physical training in the school stage, giving the use of hands,
arms, eyes, and legs, is giving aptitudes for all industrial occupa-
tions " ; and, also, in commenting on the military drill as introduced
largely through his influence in the public schools in England :
" The physical exercise in the military drill is a visible moral
exercise in all that is implied in the term discipline — viz., duty,
obedience to command, order, self-restraint, punctuality, and pa-
tience. There is good and bad elementary moral education, as
shown by the outcome, and especially by the outcome of the half-
time system of education ; but the half -sedentary or intellectual
and dogmatic education, and the half-physical, has now been
proved to be far more successful than any other system yet known
or practiced."

The eminent manual instructors all over the country echo this
experience, as above set forth, by two of the foremost authorities
among English-speaking people.

During the last twenty years, and especially during the last
ten, the great army of Christian men and women, who have been
striving to uplift humanity, have been revising and modifying
their views as to the best time in which to begin setting young
feet in those right paths that shall lead them to usefulness and
happiness ; .and the general consensus of opinion is that between
the years of three and six is the most precious seed-time for the
implanting of moral principles — that then is the time for " bend-
ing the twig " effectively. One of the men in New York of the
largest experience among the children of the neglected and crimi-
nal classes says, " We find that all we can do for their moral im-

KINDERGARTENS AND MANUAL TRAINING. 381

provement must be accomplished before they are twelve years
old, and we find that the earlier we begin the better."

An instrument seems to be provided in the kindergarten, in
which a thoroughly thought-out science of instruction adapted to
the child-mind is put in practice with children as soon as they
show a longing for the companionship of other children ; it is an
institution which bridges over the chasm between the nursery
and the school.

Philanthropists, looking at human material as a whole, per-
ceive that true economy of force concerns itself with forming,
thus preventing the need of reforming. It can be demonstrated
from the money standpoint alone, leaving out of view the inevi-
table misery involved in the latter process.

In New York city there are now 142,519 children under five
years of age whose homes are in the tenement-houses. The latest
report of the New York Kindergarten Association states the cost
of conducting a kindergarten of fifty pupils at fourteen hundred
dollars per annum — twenty-eight dollars per capita. At the El-
mira Reformatory it costs one hundred and eighty-eight dollars
per annum to support one of these children whose manual and
moral training has been neglected after the commission of some
crime has placed an indelible stain on his name. Mr. Brockway
states that very few of these young burdens on society have " any
acquaintance with any craft requiring skilled labor, and their
parents are just as deficient " ; so that the earnest men and women
who are now striving to lift the metropolis of the nation toward
the level already attained by Boston, San Francisco, St. Louis,
and a host of other cities by the establishment of free kinder-
gartens, are taking possession of the largest and most hopeful
missionary field still lying unoccupied under the broad arch of
heaven. Mr. Gilder truly says, " Plant a free kindergarten in any
quarter of this overcrowded metropolis, and you have begun, then
and there, the work of making better lives, better homes, better
citizens, and a better city."

Pestalozzi saw that the moral forces of the human soul — feel-
ing and will — require to be dealt with in a manner analogous to
the cultivation of the intellectual faculties, that a training school
is needed for the moral side of cultivation — one in which the
power of moral action may be acquired. He said, " There must be
a definite system of rules by which always without exception a
firm will may be produced " ; and the Baroness von Bulow adds,
"The development of children into men and women must be
brought under the laws of a well-considered system, which shall
never fail to accomplish its end, viz., the cultivation in them of a
firm and invariably right will."

In discussing the necessity for the kindergarten, physiology and

382 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

psychology unite in crying out against the waste of the years
from three to six. Says Prof. Bain, in his Education as a Sci-
ence : " The brain grows with great rapidity up to seven years of
age. It then attains an average weight of forty ounces in the
male ; from that time it grows, but at a diminishing rate, till
twenty, when it has nearly attained its greatest size." It would
seem pretty clear that there is some connection between intellect-
ual power and brain-growth. Whatever it can take hold of, it
can fix and ingrain with an intensity proportionate to its rate of
growth, and we begin too late if we allow time to pass by when
good and useful impressions could be made with perfect safety
to physical and mental health, and nearly all thoughtful teachers
and psychologists agree that for certain classes of impressions
the first six or seven years of life are worth all the rest put to-
gether : it is at this period that curiosity to see and to know is at
its intensest."

In the town of Christchurch, England, we hear of children
under six put to making the delicate chains that connect the
mainsprings of watches to the works, because when older their
fingers are too large and clumsy ; and of still smaller ones in
London who are made to rub in the nitrate of silver used in dye-
ing sealskins, because their tiny slender fingers can pass effect-
ively in and out among the hairs ; but there can be no delight in
this work to the poor child-slave, such as is felt in the kinder-
garten, where, seated at a table in company with others of his own
age, the child plaits strips of straw or leather or colored paper, or
models from clay a nest of birds and its eggs, or forms a minia-
ture house and garden and fence, from pretty materials after a pat-
tern of his own designing, in which his mind has passed through
the natural stages of perception, observation, comparison, judg-
ment, conclusion, and production. Then a pretty song, descriptive
of some incident or process, in which all join, is followed by mild
gymnastic exercises adapted to the childish frame, and thus, as
the Baroness von Billow says: "In playful work or workful
play the child finds a relief for, and a satisfaction of, his active
impulses, and receives an elementary groundwork for all later
work, whether artistic or professional." Many of the articles made
are intended as special gifts for some birthday or for Christmas,
or they are sold to procure the means of dressing a Christmas
tree for some poor or sick child, for it is one of the fundamental
principles of the system to teach the child consideration for others,
and also to give him a true respect for useful work — " work which
is at the same time a fulfillment of duty is the only true basis of
moral culture." But it is necessary that such work should satisfy
the child's instinct of love, and the object of it must be to give
pleasure to others, and a system of education such as is demanded

KINDERGARTENS AND MANUAL TRAINING. 383

by modern times should make work suck as shall connect artistic
dexterity with the cultivation of intelligence its basis. A writer
in the Philadelphia Times, commenting on the public-school " edu-
cation " as conducted mostly hitherto, says : " Nine tenths of the
young criminals sent to the penitentiaries have enjoyed school '
advantages, but three fourths of them have never learned to do an
honest stroke of ivorlc. Our children have their poor little heads
crammed full of all kinds of impossible knowledge of names, of
dates, and numbers of unintelligible rules, until there is no room
left to hold any of the simple truths of honor and duty and mo-
rality." The military trainers declare that they obtain in the very
infantile stages (five years) a better drill than they do or can get
afterward, and Chad wick says : " The drill conduces to qualities
of a high moral order and value, denoted by the terms discipline,
patience, order, self-restraint, prompt and exact obedience. Chil-
dren so trained learn to move quickly together and to pull to-
gether, and exert force with fewer hands."

It would thus seem that three of the most valuable years of
a large majority of our children have hitherto been allowed to
run to waste, and, as the educational policy of a country should
be directed toward developing all its intellectual wealth, a move-
ment which seems to be " in the air," that will eventually graft
the kindergarten on to the common-school system of the whole
country, should be hailed with joy by the patriot and philanthro-
pist.

There are already thirty-nine in St. Louis in connection with
the public school, thirty-eight in Philadelphia, twenty-two in
Boston, twenty-two in Milwaukee, and from five to twelve in
other cities. If a good many thousands of the unoccupied young-
women of the land would learn to be first-class kindergartners, and
each, gathering a dozen or more of the neglected children now
crowded out of the schools about themselves, and bestow some of
their unused capacity for " mothering " upon them, what a prophy-
lactic it would be against the corrupting " reformatory " in later
years, and perhaps the penitentiary !

Now that really wise and discriminating educators affirm that,
in the time beyond the kindergarten years, the use of the hand is
not antagonistic to intellectual achievement, but rather promotive
of it, we are beginning to hear the phrase manual training on
every hand, the more because that, for successful pu&r iculture as a
factor in national life, we must, as Chad wick says, " add to the sci-
ence of the physiologist and the psychologist that of the political
economist, by whom man is regarded as an intelligent productive
force " ; and in another stage to which we are advancing — that of
the general use of machinery — Jules Simon defines man as " an in-
telligent director of productive force, valuable to the extent and

384 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

quality of its yield." Five thousand persons are killed by steam
power and machinery in England and Wales annually. Sir Will-
iam Fairbairn says : " These deaths are mostly occasioned by the
ignorance or clumsiness of the hands to whom machines were
intrusted; occurring singly as they do, and making monoto-
nously similar newspaper paragraphs, we become brutalized and
fail to take in the enormity of the destruction." America could
show no better record ; it is as if ten times the number of persons
who make up both Houses of Congress should be brought together
and visibly blown to pieces, scalded, and crushed, by bodily clum-
siness and defective training. In England, for lack of the kinder-
garten or infant school, fifteen hundred children are scalded or
burned to death each year, and probably more in America.

What is manual training ? It is the subjugation of the hand
and arm (an appendage of the head) to the direction of the brain,
so that they shall touch some definite point, or exert some defi-
nite measured force, in obedience to the will, at the exact instant
desired.

When should it begin ; and what are likely to be its effects on
the common weal ?

The human hand is, of all instruments, the most wonderful.
Sixty years ago Sir Charles Bell, the great anatomist, who discov-
ered that the nerve filaments of sensation are distinct from those
of motion, wrote a volume on The Hand, its Mechanism and
Endowments, as evincing Design. In the intervening years so
much has been learned of the relation of the nervous elements to
the muscular fibers which they animate and control, and so much
of the effects of the interaction of the brain and hand in those
processes which we call " reflex," that another and most interest-
ing volume might now be written on the hand in these aspects.
It has been definitely ascertained that there are certain limited
areas of the brain which control and direct the motions of certain
limbs and no other ; and as in the production of certain definite
motions — e. g., those used in sewing or piano-playing — this definite
related area of the brain is called into exercise, why may not its
repeatedly being aroused to action promote its growth and per-
fection as surely as exercise of the blacksmith's muscle causes its
growth and the perfection of its finely compacted fibers ?

But, speculations aside, experience proves that the education
of the hand can be begun at three years in the kindergarten, so that
the child, whose supple and growing fingers have been taught to
move in definite directions for definite ends, has at six a long start
in manual dexterity ahead of the child whose maturing joints
have been neglected. Our great-grandmothers taught their daugh-
ters to make " fine shirts for papa," neatly and thoroughly, at
what seems to us an incredibly early age ; and now that the hand

KINDERGARTENS AND MANUAL TRAINING. 385

as an element in human development is again being discovered, it
is interesting to find that the highest specimens of plain sewing,
shown as "prize exhibits" in the public schools where sewing is
taught, is a tiny pair of old-fashioned shirt sleeves, made with
straight, doubled and stitched wristbands, gussets overhanded
on and felled, and neat gathers, made by the formula " skip four,
take up two," and " smoothed " secundem ariem. The girl who
never uses a needle till twelve years old can not become a facile
seamstress. Every one is familiar with the early age at which pro-
fessional acrobats commence the training of their children. There
may be an inherited muscular aptitude, but the parents do not
rely upon that to make their son into an " infant prodigy." No
one needs be told that musical performers must get the music
"into their fingers" before they are stiffened and full-grown.
These persons illustrate best of all the subtle, inexplicable connec-
tion between brain and hand. What undivided attention does
the neophyte give to the striking of each separate note on the
piano. Those who have listened to much " practicing " know how
tiresome it is, until by unremitting iteration and repetition there
comes a day when, lo ! the fingers glide over the keys, touching
each minutest fraction of a note perfectly — each in obedience to
its own nervous impulse — while perhaps the performer is answer-
ing your questions on an entirely irrelevant subject. Mozart had
absorbed a knowledge of music by listening to the lessons given
his sister Maria, and had undoubtedly experimented by himself
till at four he played the piano with ease and expression ; and his
father having given him a small violin at six, he learned by him-
self how to play it, so that before he was seven he played his part
in a trio, reading at sight without mistakes or hesitation. The
musicians certainly know the value of manual training and give
a fresh emphasis to the old adage " practice makes perfect." Rev.
Dr. Parkhurst, in commenting on the accuracy of aim with which
David's stone " smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone
sunk into his forehead," an aim that presents itself to many minds
as supernaturally aided, said : " But it wasn't Ms first stone; he had
practiced while out there on the plains of Bethlehem watching his
father's sheep, and the unerring shot was the legitimate result of
long training."

There is another aspect in which the introduction of machinery
needs to be considered by his country's well-wisher. In the Bos-
ton Conference on Manual Training, Colonel C. W. Larned, of
West Point, said : " There are altogether too few men in the
world who are skillful to do with their hands — not to talk, or to
write, or to imitate — but to perform with skilled faculties ; the
eye of that much-traduced creature, the average man, is becom-
ing more and more dull and indiscriminating, the hand increas-

386 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ingly unapt and inexpert. The more machinery and the arti-
ficialities of life relieve the individual from the responsibilities of
physical action, the more the faculties will suffer from atrophy,
for the reign of the machine has a dulling effect upon the general
acuteness of the physical faculties that must be progressively
felt, unless education systematically counteracts its influence ;
and it is the function of industrial training to do this for the
hand-worker."

But the greatest injury which comes to the body politic
through neglect of training in the most impressionable years is
the failure to impart moral ideas, and to secure habitual obedience
to moral laws — lack of character-building. The half-time schools
of England have been so long in operation that their statistics
furnish conclusions of the highest value ; and, that book-learning
is no guaranty of the moral worth of its possessor, look at the
criminal returns for London for one year. The education of some
was " superior " ; among the criminals there were more than a
thousand clerks, forty-two ' lawyers, and many more who had
received the usual middle-class, long-time education. The appear-
ance of a half-timer trained on the mixed principle of physical
and mental training is exceedingly rare, that of persons from
some of the religious denominations equally so — showing the
thoroughness of their moral teaching ; while the governor of one
prison said, " The greatest rascal I have in custody can write out
our Lord's prayer in seven languages." The ancient Jews —
while still living in Palestine — had a maxim, " He who does not
teach his son a trade teaches him to be a thief." Mr. Chadwick
collected some facts that should bring great encouragement to
those who have been moved to labor for the salvation of the slum-
born children of the criminal classes. It was shown that in some
of the long-time middle-class schools twenty per cent of the pu-
pils were disqualified from obtaining positions by misconduct;
while among pupils of low parentage in good half-time schools,
these dismal failures averaged only two or three per cent ; and
that, too, where, before the establishment of such schools, the
average had formerly been as high as sixty ; and a manager of
one of the district half-time schools stated that he had had cases
of habitual criminality to treat— that in a few months a great
alteration in their characters had taken place through their indus-
trial training. I asked if, say, a hundred such were committed to
your charge, how many could you undertake to send to the
good ? " He said, " With fair support, I would undertake to send
ninety per cent to the good."

Under the restraints of separate confinement in the prison the
thoughts of the young criminal are not compunctious visitings
for wrong-doing, but of his ill luck, and the chances of escaping

KINDERGARTENS AND MANUAL TRAINING. 387

detection in ill-doing when he gets out ; and this child of the beg-
gar or thief, with no skill in hand or arm for work, sees no way
but to do as he has done before. In the half-time industrial school
he is placed under new conditions, by which good thoughts are
impressed from day to day to the exclusion of bad ones : he
becomes grounded in the primary moral principles of attention,
patience, self-restraint, prompt and exact obedience ; hope springs
up in his poor crushed soul, as he gets interested in his work and
does it with a will. There is enough accumulated experience in
England and America to warrant the statement that the most
profitable investment that can be made in " futures " is in those
of the living children of the country by making the kindergarten
and manual training part of the public-school system throughout
the broad land. It would undoubtedly add much to the cost of
education, but it would be more than offset by lessening the cost
of reformatories and the support of criminals. More, it would
afford useful and congenial employment for thousands of women —
for it is really impossible to imagine a man's becoming a success-
ful kindergartner ; the teacher in that school needs to be endowed
with the divine instinct of motherhood, and succeeds because she
follows it, just as a good trained nurse succeeds through her in-
herent I-must-care-for-somebody characteristic. A doctor of wide
experience predicts that the movement for the training of mascu-
line nurses will be a comparative failure, siniply from lack of this
foundation element in the pupils. There are now good training
schools for kindergartners, where all that can be imparted by
teaching, to supplement natural ability can be learned ; and we
venture to declare that the most promising missionary field in
the world is to be found on the outer fringe of our large cities,
where in a narrow tenement the mother has her creche on her lap
and her " kindergarten " and her " primary " and " secondary "
pupils at her side, all under the age to be admitted in the public
school. What more natural, when the smallest goes to sleep, than
to send the others into the street, where they must perforce learn
its evil lessons ? In the city of New York there are many thou-
sands of these children. Suppose that one thousand young women,
well instructed in the art of teaching according to Froebel's sys-
tem, should each gather about her a score of these undisciplined
waifs, teach them till they were six, and then pass them on to a
school where manual training is mixed with " book-learning " in
the measures experience has demonstrated is wisest, to be taught
till twelve — it would result in the greatest salvation from evil,
and in the greatest addition to the working capacity of the gen-
eration, that could be made.

In 1870, at the solicitation of Miss E. P. Peabody, the Boston
School Board established a kindergarten and conducted it for sev-

3 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eral years ; "but it was to another woman's enthusiasm and her
private munificence that the cause was to owe its conquering
impulse. In 1877 Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw opened two ; and from
time to time others were added, till in 1883 she had established in
Boston and its vicinity thirty-one. In 1887 the Boston School
Board, having become convinced of their value, incorporated four-
teen as part of the public-school system, and others have been
gradually added, till now it has thirty-one, with an attendance of
nearly two thousand children. But this children's crusade is by
no means confined to Boston ; there are kindergartens and man-
ual training schools in St. Louis, in Philadelphia, in San Fran-
cisco, and, in short, they are taking root all over the country.
Nowhere are they so much needed as in New York, where there
is annually so much ignorance dumped from abroad ; but, until
there is not a single score of neglected, untaught children left
unreached by this beneficent agency, let us hear no more wailings
over superfluous womanhood. Where is the practical philanthro-
pist who desires to leave noble men and women as his monument,
who will supply the funds needed to rescue these children, while
the municipal authorities are waiting to be convinced of the util-
ity of not opening the stable-door at all, when thieves are about ?

If there is such a waiting benefactor of his kind, there is
plenty of accumulated experience to guide him in the choice of
instruments. Lest those who have failed in other fields should
fancy that here is a niche that they can fill, let them understand
that it needs a high order of talent to succeed here. Mr. Chad-
wick says, " Those who have given earnest study to primary edu-
cation are aware that the highest training power should be
applied in the most formative period — the infant-class " ; and in
the report of the Boston conference we read, " One strong feat-
ure of Mrs. Shaw's management, perhaps the one which raised
the educational value of the Boston kindergartens, was the ex-
treme care exercised in the selection of teachers"; and when-
ever the kindergarten is to win its way, this care must be exer-
cised. In 1883 she induced two kindergartners of St. Louis, each
excelling in a special line, to come and give advanced courses to
her teachers, and these were supplemented by lectures, teachers'
meetings, etc.

Manual training — still in the dawn of its development — has
come, and come to stay. It will enhance the respect due to hon-
est labor, and go far to cure the disease of " millionism " from
which we are just now suffering ; and those who look to the
Scriptures for guidance will remember that the brilliant reason er
and follower of the carpenter's son, St. Paul, was a tent-maker,
who called the elders of Ephesus to witness that " these hands
have ministered to my necessities, and to them that were with me."

TWO RARE MONKEYS. 389

TWO RARE MONKEYS.

By Dr. L. HECK,

DIRECTOR OF THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN IN BERLIN.

THE slender and the short-thumbed monkeys belong, in the
truest sense of the word, to an old simian family. The fact
is demonstrated as to the Indian slender monkeys, for indubita-
ble representatives of this genus (the Semnopithecus) lived in
the Tertiary period.

The form of the skull gives the slender and short-thumbed
monkeys a peculiar appearance. It is roundish, the snout ad-
vancing but little in front of the forehead, and the bony crests
and edges, which often give the skull of the male an appearance
like that of a beast of prey, are hardly distinguishable. In a cor-
responding way the jaw is relatively only slightly projecting, and
less obvious in the slender than in the short-thumbed monkeys.
The entire skeleton in both groups is distinguished by the slen-
derness and lightness of its form, from which the slender monk-
eys get their name. The name of the African short-thumbed
monkeys relates to a peculiarity of their bony structure, in that
the thumbs of their fore limbs are not visible externally except as
stumps ; and, while in the slender monkeys, too, the thumb is
behind the other fingers in development, the complete arrest of it
in the others has been held sufficient to mark a distinction be-
tween the two families. On the other hand, I find a peculiarity
of the skeleton of the slender monkeys mentioned in only a few
descriptions, and in those casually, which appears to me as doubly
striking in the monkeys as climbing animals, and is not elsewhere
repeated in them, at least in those of the Old World. It is that
the slender monkeys have much longer and thicker hind legs than
fore legs ; the development of the hind limbs evidently surpasses
that of the fore limbs ; and this occasions characteristic deviations
in the attitudes and movements of the animals, as I have observed
daily with my pets. The slender monkeys run half erect with
their hind legs bent up, and make great leaps from this position
direct. Thus, notwithstanding their great agility, they have some-
thing hasty and angular in their motions, and maintain so pecul-
iar a gait that any one who has studied them continuously in
living specimens can distinguish at a glance whether a picture of
them is made from life, or whether it has been constructed by
adding a few special outward marks of the slender monkey to the
figure of a common monkey. In their inner structure the slender
monkeys and the short-thumbed monkeys have a highly important
peculiarity, unique in its way, in the shape of a composite, divided
stomach, suggestive of the ruminants, or rather of the kangaroo,

TOL. XLI. — 29

39°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Fig. 1. — White-bearded Slender Monkeys.

which is sufficient,
in my opinion, de-
spite some special
differences, to char-
acterize them as
closely related. This
peculiar structure
of the stomach, un-
precedented in a
monkey, naturally
induces the pre-
sumption of a pe-
culiar method of
feeding, and in-
deed shows indubit-
ably that the slen-
der monkeys and
the short-thumbed
monkeys are more
fully and exclusive-
ly vegetable feeders,
or, to be more exact,
greens-eaters, than
the other monkeys.
This inductive con-
clusion is fully con-
firmed by observa-
tion of the animals
in captivity. Our
representative of
the short - thumbed
monkeys, the guere-
zas, as well as the
two species of short-
thumbed monkeys
which I have tamed,
eat regularly but
daintily of the hay
that serves them for
straw and bedding,
and the guerezas eat
with particular rel-
ish the heads of
green salad which
they have learned to
expect eagerly for

TWO RARE MONKEYS. 391

their daily supper. In outer general appearance, which is chiefly
dependent on the character of the hair coating, the slender and
short - thumbed monkeys exhibit some important peculiarities
which distinguish both groups, while the Indian slender monkeys
generally have a short fur and their hair makes a conspicuous
growth only in spots in the shape of head-tufts, manes, whiskers,
and gorgets. The African short-tailed monkeys are distinguished
by a long, luxuriant hair covering over the whole body, the effect
of which is enhanced by handsome and conspicuous markings.
The more delicate differences of hairiness, coloring, and marking
serve, in both groups, to fix the distinctions of a considerable list
of species. We shall confine ourselves chiefly to the species rep-
resented in the pictures.

First, we have the two comrades so pleasantly sitting together
on the limb in Fig. 1. They are White-bearded Slender monkeys
(Semnopithecus leucoprymnus, Desm.) of Ceylon, the single spe-
cies which has been brought to Europe with considerable fre-
quency, and which is therefore easily found in the zoological gar-
dens. This harmless, quiet, gentle animal is easily distinguished
by its external appearance, which is felicitously in harmony with
its name. It has a white cheek-beard, with the tips of the hairs
turned forward. The lower part of the back and the tail are gray-
ish white. The rest of the body is brownish black, while the hair
on the head is longer and more distinct. Sailors can always buy
these monkeys cheaply in the port of Colombo, and they are
probably common on the island.

In Fig. 2 are moving some representatives of a famous species
of monkey, the Hulman or sacred monkey of India {Semnopitlie-
cus eniellus, Cuv.). This monkey is accredited with having per-
formed great acts of heroism in primitive times. It is in the
Indian mythology a kind of Perseus and Prometheus in one, inas-
much as it delivered a goddess from captivity to a giant, and
used its opportunity to give to India, not tire, but the mango. It
extinguished the funeral fire on which it was to have expiated its
rash adventure, and therefore appears now with singed face and
black hands. The rest of its body is colored a whitish gray ; on
its forehead, cheeks, and chin it wears long, stiff, bristling hairs,
out of which, as from a frame, peers the round black face with a
lively and peculiarly droll expression. The pious Hindu, who
will kill hardly any animal, of course does as little harm as pos-
sible to his ardently revered monkey-saint, but gives it freely of
the fruits of his gardens and fields. He even in a literal sense
lets it take the already prepared meal from his own mouth.
Through the credulous simplicity of men, which has permitted
them in quiet acquiescence from time immemorial to do their
pleasure, the hulmans have become so bold and impudent that

392

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

they go into the houses as well as into the gardens and steal,
plunder, and destroy at their hearts' desire. In many parts of
India they have become a real plague, and the English officers are
at times obliged, in order to limit the nuisance, to proceed against
the tail-wearing saints with destructive measures, to the joy of
the enlightened, intelligent natives, but to the disgust of the

Fig. 2. — Sacked Hulhan Monkeys of India.

pious, who are obstinately convinced that the place where
a monkey is killed is unlucky forever afterward.
Another species of slender monkeys is distinguished by
a striking peculiarity which is expressed in their name —
the proboscis monkeys. In their more vigorous and heav-
ier bodily structure they are more like the macacus monk-
eys, the principal and most numerous group of the family
in the Indo-Chinese region, and the one, too, to which the
mass of the population of our monkey-houses belong.

The proboscis monkey (Semnopithecus. nasicus, Cuv.), in the
outer development of its nasal organ, so surpasses all the monkeys
and even all men that it has been set off as a distinct genus solely
on account of this feature. It lives in the island of Borneo. The
longitudinally furrowed, hook-shaped, flexible nose, impending
over the mouth and an inch broad in the middle, is peculiar to
the old male. Females and the young have instead of it only a
small, depressed pug-nose. The tufted monkeys also deserve to be
mentioned on account of their outward resemblance to the short-
thumbed monkeys, which is given them by the long, rich hairi-

TWO RARE MONKEYS. 393

ness of the whole dark-gray body, even of the under side and the
exposed surfaces of the hands and feet. On the head the hair is
prolonged and erected in a peculiar way to form a long, stiff tuft,
or rather mane, which extends down to the neck. Its habitat is in
Farther India (Siam) and the larger Sunda Islands (Java and Su-
matra).

The most prominent members of the group of South African
short-thumbed apes is the guereza (Colobus guereza, Riipp). This
monkey is one of the most famous animals, and one of those
which are most fully and imaginatively described in all special
works and portrayed in plain and in fantastic styles ; so that
every owner of a natural history knows it by name, but nobody
has seen it living. We do no wrong to truth when we say that
the first guerezas which were seen living in the European public
were the three specimens which were carried in a drosky in Au-
gust, 1890, before our offices in the Berlin Zoological Gardens. A
Greek had brought them from Massawah to Berlin, but our privi-
lege of becoming acquainted with them is due chiefly to the dis-
interested intervention of Herr Menges, a much-traveled dealer
and the director of the Somali exhibitions. I paid a considerable
sum for them, and am not sorry for it, for, although none of these
specimens is living now, they made students, artists, and friends
of animals acquainted with one of the handsomest and most re-
markable creatures known, and gave them opportunity to make
the first correct pictures of it from life. The picture makes a more
detailed description of the coloring of the guereza unnecessary ;
and I will only say that the way in which the white appears, as in
a certain sense a border and trimming of the dark ground color,
varies somewhat and might probably afford a means of distinguish-
ing between the geographical varieties of a species that is dis-
tributed over the whole of interior Africa. Hans Meyer, the
hardy conqueror of Africa's giant mountain Kilima Njaro, found
in that region a form which he named caudatus, in which the
whole tail is white ; our specimens belong to a variety called occi-
dentalis in Rocheprune's monograph on the short-thumbed mon-
keys. A considerable number of species of monkeys of western
and central Africa are pictured and described in this special
work ; many of them, including the bear short-thumbed monkeys
(Colobus ursinus, Waterh.), look much like a guereza without a
side-mane; others, like the devil-monkey (Colobus satanas, Og.),
are described as black ; and still others are red. Of all these we
know little except concerning the skins and the skulls, for they
reach us living only exceptionally. I return to the guereza, the
handsomest and most interesting species.

The trio of them which I got, all three young, perhaps half-
grown fellows, were distinguished by something pretty and pleas-

394

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing in their behavior, and a similar account is given of them by
those who have observed them in the wild state. The guereza

Fig. 3. — Guereza Monkets. (From a picture by W. Kuhnert.)

is not one of the hated field robbers, and it has therefore been
hunted in Abyssinia only so much as is necessary to get material
for the adornment of the small, round leather shields formerly in

TWO RARE MONKEYS. 395

use there. These shields have gone out of use since the style of
armor has been changed, and it is now molested but little, and
leads a peaceful life away from the dwellings of men. " In Galla-
land, whence your specimens have come/' Menges writes to me,
" the gucreza lives in the thick woods, especially in deep, moist, and
warm mountain gorges. It prefers a home in the giant sycamore
trees, or wild figs, the fruits of which constitute its principal food.
The Abyssinian juniper, which is from twenty-five to thirty me-
tres high, and forms whole forests there, is also much resorted to
by it." Brehm, relying upon the unanimity of the accounts which
have appeared since the discovery of the guereza by the Abyssin-
ian traveler Riippell, of Frankfort, enthusiastically praises the
beauty, gracefulness, and elegance of the outward appearance of
the animal and the agility and grace of its motions, especially its
colossal leap, in which the body seems to be carried along by its
waving robe. Hans Meyer unconsciously complements this sketch
with a description of the quiet, still life of the societies of four or
five members in the secure height of their tree-top, and in con-
nection with it mentions a habit not to my knowledge observed
before, by which the presence of a band of guerezas can be recog-
nized from a distance. It is a monotonous, sing-song humming,
with an alternating crescendo and diminuendo, proceeding from
the members of the families sitting lazily together, and to all
appearance expressive of complete satisfaction. Perhaps it was
because of the absence of this satisfaction that I never heard this
humming from my pets. They usually kept themselves quite
still, and were accustomed only to greet their beloved greens with
a peculiar cry toned between the whimper of the capuchin and
the crowing of the young mandrill. With this we have come
to the end of our observations on these two peculiar families of
monkeys which have been crowded away into the background in
our zoological gardens by their livelier, more striking, and more
hardy congeners. But we hope that what we have said of their
remarkable organization will be enough to make them seem
worthy of some attention from the animal -loving reader. — Trans-
lated for The Popidar Science Monthly from Die Gartenlaube.

One of the incentives that send explorers so often back to their work was
described by Captain Younghusband after relating to the English Society of Arts
the story of his experiences in the Pamirs. Like most travelers, he said, he bad
often thought he should not go again on such arduous adventures ; but when the
traveler returned to his native country, and saw that an interest was taken in
what he had done, and that people would still be interested in further journeys he
might make, he felt his energies renewed and was quite willing to undergo the
hardships which must necessarily befall him, feeling that he was doing something
for his government and his country.

396 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

"NEW" AND VARIABLE STARS.

Br J. ELLAED GOEE.

TO ordinary observation the light of the stars seems to be con-
stant. Although of various degrees of brilliancy, the bright-
ness of each individual star appears to most people to be invari-
able. This is, of course, true with reference to the great majority
of the stars which deck our midnight sky. There are, however,
many objects the light of which is subject to considerable fluctu-
ations. These are known as variable stars, and form one of the
most interesting classes of objects visible in the stellar heavens.
Over two hundred are now known to be certainly variable in
light, and many others have been suspected of inconstancy. In
some of these stars the changes of brightness can only be detected
by careful watching, but in many the light is variable to a consid-
erable extent. In the variable star Chi Cygni, for example, the
star's light at maximum is about sixteen hundred times the light
at minimum. At its brightest it is sometimes fairly visible to the
naked eye, whereas in its faintest phase a pretty good telescope is
required to see it at all.

These most interesting and mysterious objects have been
divided into different classes, according to the character of the
light- variation and the length of the period which completes the
cycle of their curious changes. The classification now generally
adopted is that proposed by Prof. Pickering, of the Harvard Ob-
servatory, U. S. A. This includes five classes, which are as fol-
lows : 1. Temporary or " new stars " ; 2. Stars with regular peri-
ods of considerable length ; 3. Irregular variables, having no defi-
nite period ; 4. Variables of short period — say, under thirty days ;
and, 5. Variables of the type of Algol, or those which, at regular
intervals, undergo a sudden (or comparatively sudden) diminu-
tion of brightness lasting for a few hours only, the star remaining
constant in light (or nearly so) during the remainder of its period.
A short account of these different classes may prove of interest to
the general reader.

1. " Temporary " or " new stars " are perhaps the rarest phe-
nomena visible in the heavens. Comets — at least, those visible to
the naked eye — are rare celestial visitors. Telescopic comets are,
however, tolerably numerous, and scarcely a year passes without
the discovery of several of these faint objects. Very few " new
stars " have, however, been recorded in the annals of astronomical
history. I refer, of course, to those which can properly be termed
" new " — that is, stars the existence of which was previously un-
known to astronomers, and which, blazing out suddenly, remained
visible for a short time, and then faded away without again obtain-

"NEW" AND VARIABLE STARS. m

ing a maximum of light. Considered from this point of view, these
novce, as they are termed, can not correctly, perhaps, be classed
among the variable stars at all. They appear once only, and then
die out, never to return ; at least, no return of a true nova has yet
been recorded.

A remarkable peculiarity about these temporary stars is their
usually sudden appearance. In all the well -authenticated cases
the stars have blazed out with startling rapidity. Such were the
brilliant stars of 1572 and 1604 ; and in later years, those of I860
in Corona Borealis, and of 1876 in Cygnus. Tycho Brahe's star
of 1572 made its appearance near the star Kappa Cassiopeia, the
faintest of the four stars forming the well-known square in Cassi-
opeia's Chair. It appears to have been first noticed by Cornelius
Gemma, on November 9th of that year, and it seems to have blazed
out very suddenly, as he states that it was not visible on the pre-
ceding evening in a clear sky. The attention of Tycho Brahe,
whose name is generally associated with the star, seems to have
been first attracted to it on November 11th. When first seen, it
surpassed Jupiter and rivaled Venus in brightness, and was visi-
ble at noonday ! At this brilliancy, however, it did not long
remain, but gradually diminished in luster, and in March, 1574,
had completely disappeared, at least to the naked eye. Its curious
changes are thus described : " As it decreased in size, so it varied
in color ; at first its light was white and extremely bright ; it
then became yellowish, afterward of a ruddy color, and finished
with a pale livid color." Tycho Brahe has left an elaborate rec-
ord of his observations of this wonderful object in a work of no
less than 478 pages of printed matter.

" Kepler's nova " of 1604 appeared in the constellation Ophiu-
chus in October of that year. The planets Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn were near each other in this region of the heavens, near
Eta Ophiuchi, and one evening Brunowski, a pupil of Kepler's,
remarked that a new and very brilliant star had joined the plane-
tary group. When first seen the new star was white, and exceeded
in brilliancy Mars and Jupiter, and was even thought to rival
Venus in splendor. It gradually diminished, and in six months
was not equal in brightness to Saturn. In March, 1606, it had dis-
appeared. It was also observed by the famous Galileo. Kepler
wrote a work on the subject, which is still preserved. Only faint
stars are now visible with the telescope near the positions assigned
to these bright stars of 1572 and 1604.

In 1670 a star of the third magnitude was observed by Anthelm
near Beta Cygni. It remained visible for about two years, and
increased and diminished several times before its final disappear-
ance.

A small temporary star was observed by Dr. Hind in Ophiu-

VOL. XLI. — 30

398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

clius on April 28, 1848. When first noticed it was about the fifth
magnitude. It afterward rose to nearly the fourth magnitude,
but gradually faded away. Hind was certain that up to April
3d or 5th no object of even the ninth magnitude was visible in
the position of the new star. This curious object is still visible,
but has become very faint in recent years. In 186G it was of the
twelfth magnitude, and in 1875 not above the thirteenth magni-
tude.

On May 28, 1860, a new star was discovered by the late Mr.
Pogson in the globular cluster known as 80 Messier in Scorpio.
When first seen it was about the seventh magnitude, and nearly
blotted out the nebula by its superior light. On June 10th the
star had nearly vanished, and the cluster again shone out with its
usaal brilliancy, and with a condensed center. Pogson observed
the cluster on May 9th, and noticed nothing remarkable ; and,
according to Schonfeld, it presented its usual appearance on May
15th in the heliometer of the Konigsberg Observatory.

The star of 1866, known as the " Blaze Star," suddenly appeared
in Corona Borealis in May of that year. Although it was subse-
quently found that the object had been previously observed and
registered as a small star by the famous German astronomer, Arge-
lander, it presented at the time of its discovery all the charac-
teristics of a true nova. It seems to have blazed out very suddenly,
for at about 9.30 P. M. on the evening of the 12th of May in that
year Prof. Schmidt, observing the constellation Corona Borealis
at Athens, saw nothing peculiar. Indeed, he afterward expressed
his conviction that at that hour a star of even the fifth magnitude
could not possibly have existed near the position without immedi-
ately attracting his attention. Within three hours afterward —
about midnight — it was discovered by the late Mr. Birmingham,
at Tuam, Ireland, shining as a star of the second magnitude, and
rivaling in brilliancy Alphecca, " the gem of the coronet." Its
light, however, rapidly faded. On May 14th it was of the third
magnitude ; on May 19th, only of the sixth. On May 24th it had
become invisible to the naked eye, and by June 9th had faded
to the ninth magnitude. When near its greatest brightness its
light was examined by Dr. Huggins with the spectroscope, which
showed the bright lines of hydrogen gas in addition to the ordi-
nary stellar spectrum. During the ten years following this ex-
traordinary outburst of light, Schmidt observed fluctuations in its
brightness, which appeared to take place with a certain regular-
ity. It would therefore seem that this object should be considered
as an irregular variable rather than a "temporary star." Its
rejection from the list of " new stars " would remove the only ex-
ception to the rule that all these wonderful objects have appeared
in or near the Milky Way. Even the new star which was ob-

"NEW" AND VARIABLE STARS. 399

served in August, 1885, in the great nebula in Andromeda forms
no exception, for in Dr. Boeddicker's beautiful drawing of the
galaxy, which has just been published, a faint extension of nebu-
lous light is shown stretching from Cassiopeia's Chair to the
nebula referred to.

A better example of a true temporary star is that which ap-
peared in November, 1876, near Rho Cygni. It was first seen by
Schmidt at Athens, soon after sunset, on the evening of Novem-
ber 24th, when it was about the third magnitude, and slightly
brighter than Eta Pegasi. The appearance of this object was
also probably sudden, for between November 1st and 20th
Schmidt observed the vicinity, and was certain that no star of
even the fifth magnitude could have escaped detection. Between
November 20th and 24th the sky was, unfortunately, cloudy, so
that the exact time of its appearance is unknown. This star was
quite new, as it does not appear in any star-chart or catalogue.
Like most of these curious objects, its light faded very rapidly.
In the forty-eight hours following the night of November 27th
it diminished to the extent of one and a half magnitude, and on
November 30th it was reduced to the fifth magnitude. It after-
ward decreased with tolerable regularity, and in September, 1877,
it was below the tenth magnitude. In subsequent years it be-
came very faint. Ward found the star only sixteenth magnitude
in October, 1881, and it was estimated of the fifteenth magnitude,
at Mr. Wigglesworth's Observatory, in September, 1885. It was
examined with the spectroscope a few days after its discovery,
and its spectrum showed bright lines similar to the star in Co-
rona Borealis. Subsequent observations seem to show that this
extraordinary object changed into a small planetary nebula !

The star which appeared in August, 1885, in the great nebula
in Andromeda (31 Messier) has been already referred to. It seems
to have been independently noticed by several observers toward
the end of August. It was, however, certainly seen by Mr. T. W.
Ward, of Belfast, on August 19th, at 11 p. m., when he estimated
it at nine and a half magnitude. On September 3d the star was
observed at "seven and a half magnitude, at Dunecht, by Lord
Crawford and Dr. Copeland, and its spectrum was found to be
"fairly continuous." The star gradually faded away, and on
February 7, 1886, was estimated only sixteenth magnitude with
the twenty-six-inch refractor of the Naval Observatory at Wash-
ington. Dr. Auwers has pointed out the similarity between this
outburst and the star of 1860 in the cluster 80 Messier, and thinks
it very probable that both phenomena were due to physical
changes in the nebulae in which they occurred.

The most recent example of a new star is one discovered by
Mr. T. D. Anderson, of Edinburgh, in the last week of January

4oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in the present year, and still visible with an opera-glass. It lies
about two degrees south of the star Chi Auriga?, in the Milky-
Way, and when first noticed was about magnitude four and a
half. The star seems to have been visible for some time pre-
viously, as it has been found that its spectrum was photographed
at Harvard Observatory, U. S. A., on December 1st, 10th, and
20th, before it was recognized as a new star. The actual time of
its appearance therefore remains unknown, but that it is a new
star there can be no doubt, as it does not appear in any star-
chart or catalogue. The star is a very interesting object, and,
according to observations by the present writer, is subject to
sudden changes of brightness. It seems to be fading slowly, and
on March 1st was still somewhat brighter than the sixth magni-
tude.* Its spectrum is a very remarkable one, showing, it is
thought, both bright and dark lines. The line C and other lines
in the red are visible, the D line of sodium and the series of hy-
drogen lines being also present. Most of the lines are said to be
double, each consisting of a bright and dark component. These
double lines suggest the presence of two bodies, or systems of
bodies, one approaching the eye and the other receding from it,
with a relative velocity of between five hundred and six hundred
miles per second. There is a suspicion that the bright lines char-
acteristic of nebular spectra are also visible. These remarkable
results suggest that the light of this star, and probably that of
all " temporary " stars, is due either to the rush of a solid body
through a gaseous nebula, or the clashing together of two mete-
oric swarms moving in opposite directions. The phenomenon
might also be explained by two bodies forming a binary star
passing through their perihelion, the great increase of light being
due to a " violent grazing collision " at the point of nearest ap-
proach. Whether this new star is a veritable nova, or " tempo-
rary star," or merely represents the maximum of a hitherto unrec-
ognized variable star of long period, like the so-called " Nova
Orionis," discovered by the present writer in December, 1885,
must be left to time to decide. In either case, it is a most inter-
esting object, and its future career will be followed by astrono-
mers with great interest.

Coming now to Class 2, we find regular variable stars with
periods ranging from about 100 to 700 days, and with fluctuations
in their light from about one magnitude to over eight magni-
tudes. Among the most remarkable of these are Mira Ceti, or
the " wonderful star " ; Chi Cygni, already referred to ; R Hy-

* Further observations on March 10th and 11th showed that the star had then faded to
below the seventh magnitude; and on March 16th I could no longer see it through an
opera-glass.

"NEW" AND VARIABLE STARS. 401

drge, R. Leonis, etc. Mira Ceti varies from about the second
magnitude to a little below tbe ninth, with a mean period of
about 331 days from maximum to maximum. Owing to its un-
usual brilliancy at maximum, and the great range of its light-
fluctuations, this is perhaps the most interesting and remarkable
of all the variable stars. The period of Chi Cygni is about 406
days, and its variation from about the fourth to nearly the thir-
teenth magnitude. R. Hydrse varies from the fourth to the
eleventh mgnitude, with a period of about 437 days ; and R. Le-
onis from about the fifth to the tenth magnitude, with a period of
about 313 days. Most of the long-period variables are reddish
in color, and show a banded spectrum, which seems to be a char-
acteristic feature of this type of variable. Various theories have
been proposed to account for the variation of light in long-period
variables, but none of them are very satisfactory. The periodical
outbreak of sun-spots on a large scale has been suggested, and
also the clashing together of meteoric swarms revolving in an
elongated orbit ; but it must be confessed that the subject is still,
to a great extent, a matter of mystery.

Class 3 includes the irregular variables — that is, stars which
are undoubtedly variable, but have no regular periods. Some-
times these stars remain for long periods without any perceptible
change, while at other times their fluctuations of light are very
noticeable. Of these, perhaps the most remarkable are Mu Ce-
phei (Sir William Herschel's "Garnet Star"), Alpha Herculis,
Alpha Orionis (Betelgeuse), and Beta Pegasi. The variation is
usually small, not exceeding one magnitude. Like the regular
variables, these have also banded spectra.

In Class 4 are some very interesting objects — variable stars of
short period. The greater number of these have periods of under
eight days. The variation of light is generally small, but regu-
lar. In but few cases does it much exceed one magnitude, and in
several it is less. In some, as in Beta Lyrse, Zeta Geminorum,
and Eta Aquilse, all the light-changes may be observed with the
naked eye, while in others an opera-glass is necessary to follow
the fluctuations.

In Class 5 are placed stars of the Algol type. These are the
rarest of the regular variables, only ten having been hitherto de-
tected. In these stars the light remains constant, or nearly so,
for the greater portion of the period. A sudden diminution of
brightness then commences, and all the light-changes are com-
pleted in the course of a few hours, after which the star returns
to its normal brightness. The brightest of these remarkable stars
are Algol (Beta Persei), Lambda Tauri, and Delta Librse. The
others are much fainter, only two being visible to the naked eye
when at their normal brightness. A star of this class recently

VOL. XXI. — 31

402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

discovered in the Southern Constellation (Antlia) has the surpris-
ingly short period of only seven and three quarters hours — the
most rapid variation hitherto detected in any variable star. All
the Algol variables are white, or only slightly colored.

It was long since suggested that the periodical diminution of
light in the Algol variables might possibly be due to the interpo-
sition of a dark, eclipsing satellite. Some few years since Prof.
Pickering undertook a mathematical investigation of the case of
Algol, and showed that an eclipsing satellite revolving in a nearly
circular orbit in a period indicated by the light-variations of the
star would satisfactorily explain the observed phenomenon within
the limits, of errors of observation, and he suggested that the
orbit might be determined by spectroscopic observation of the
star's light before and after the minimum. Observations of this
kind made by Prof. Vogel at Potsdam, in 1888 and 1889, leave
little doubt that the decrease of light is really due to an eclipsing
satellite. He found that before the minimum the bright star is
receding from the earth (and therefore the dark companion ap-
proaching), and after minimum it is approaching, thus proving
the eclipse theory to be correct.

Herr J. Plassmann, of Warendorf, Germany, has lately an-
nounced his discovery of a secondary minimum in the light of
Algol and Lambda Tauri. This, if confirmed, would seem to
show that the eclipsing satellite is not absolutely dark, but pos-
sesses some inherent light of its own, this light being cut off
when the satellite passes in its turn behind the disk of its pri-
mary.— The Gentleman's Magazine.

An extensive human settlement, belonging to the stone age, has been discov-
ered near Schaffhausen, Switzerland, by Dr. Euesch, and is being laid bare under
his supervision. It is in a rocky niche, about thirteen metres high and thirty-
seven metres long, and is the first of that period that has been discovered in
Switzerland which is not connected with a cavern. The overhanging rocks
offered a roof as protection against the weather. Quantities of flint knives, chisels,
and lance-heads, bones of the reindeer, roe, stag, hare, cave-bear, and other ani-
mals, and human bones, needles, and the beginnings of drawings, were also found
here.

A suggestion was made in Ciel et Terre, some time ago, that the date be regu-
larly noted, as a climatological fact, of the day, for each place on which certain
agricultural operations, particularly in harvesting, are begun. As the ripening of
the crops depends oil the absolute amount of heat they have received during
the season, the date of beginning the harvest will determine when the amount
of heat required by each plant has been accumulated. Father CI. Buve, cure of
Linsmeau, Belgium, suggests that the measurement of the amount of beet-sugar
produced from a given quantity of beets will serve the same end ; for, other things
being equal, it is entirely dependent on meteorological conditions.

THE WASTE AND GAIN OF THE DRY LAND. 403

THE WASTE AND GAIN OF THE DRY LAND.

THE following letter, respecting a former article in the Month-
ly, has been addressed to the Editor :

Editor Popular Science Monthly :

Does M. A. de L'Apparent's interesting address * on The Fu-
ture of the Dry Land exhaust all the factors of the inquiry ? Is it
certain, for example, that some at least of the greatest mountain-
chains have not in the main risen in elevation faster than the
eroding agencies have depressed them ? Are not some of them,
and those now among the boldest, admitted to have been uplifted
in comparatively recent times, geologically speaking — more recent-
ly, for example, than the advent of some of the rivers which inter-
sect them ? Erosion must have commenced from the very begin-
ning of the upheaval and have continued to the present time ; yet
they grew in stature in spite of it, for no one now supposes that
the upheaval was a sudden one. Indeed, the persistence of the
river's " right of way " proves both the constant action of " the
elements " and the extremely gradual character of the upheaval.
If our planet, as some think, continues to slowly contract from a
once nebulous condition, its advancing age might be expected to
be marked by wrinkles, just as we know it to be.

Again, is there not good ground for the conjecture that our
globe, however slowly, is approaching a state of desiccation such
as is manifested partially in our neighbor Mars and still more
notably in the moon ? f Is there not some lingering continuance
of the once active absorption ? Is there not, for example, reason
to believe that the proportion of sea area has in the main steadily
diminished and that upheaval of the land masses has steadily in-
creased since Silurian times ?

To the lay reader this masterful and interesting paper of the
French savant seems a courteous invitation to one of his compeers
to take up the thread of his discourse at the point at which he
elects to leave it. George Henry Knight.

Temple Court, New York.

Other letters on this subject have been received, all of which
indicate that the matter has attracted more interest than was an-
ticipated. Our correspondents may find on closer examination of
M. de L'Apparent's paper that he avowedly presents it as covering
only one side of the question, and that, while he does not discuss

* Popular Science Monthly, June, 1891.

f Do not northern Africa and western Asia contain vast regions that have passed
from exuberant fertility to hopeless aridity even during the historical period ? — G. H. K.

4o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the compensating forces, he recognizes their existence and their
title to be considered. If we understand him aright, his article
was designed to be tentative, and as opening the way to a discus-
sion in which much may be said on both sides.

The discussion which follows will help to give more light con-
cerning M. de L'Apparent's views and meaning and their value.

M. Jacques Ldotard has written in the Revue Scientifique that
M. de L' Apparent has in his evidently very curious study arrived
at his result only by neglecting several factors of contrary effect.

While it is admitted that the earth is swept by powerful at-
mospheric agents which, if their work was continued without
compensatory action on the other side, would ultimately level and
submerge all the continents, M. Ldotard insists that there exist
other very important causes of increase of the relief, the action
of which now counterbalances and may ultimately surpass that
of the solvent influences.

One of these causes, of which M. de L' Apparent took some no-
tice, is the contribution of volcanic products to the soil It is one
of the most minute of the factors, but M. de L'Apparent's estimate
of one sixth of a cubic kilometre a year seems too small. The
three hundred known active volcanoes on the surface of the earth
ought to give out a much larger quantity of their internal prod-
ucts ; and it should be remarked that the dejections of craters,
besides lavas, comprise various rocks, mud, and ashes. But the
importance of this factor, little at the most, is made still less by
the occurrence of volcanic explosions on the sea-coast, in which
considerable tracts of land have been swallowed up.

The chief essential cause of increase of dry land at the ex-
pense of the ocean lies in the evolution of our planet. During
the geological epochs of thousands of centuries each the up-
heavals which formed existing continents have come in gradual
succession, taking from the primitive sea, which originally ex-
tended over the whole earth, a larger and larger part of its im-
mense domain. These upheavals, under the action of internal
forces, have continued slowly till our own time in many regions,
notably in the north and center of the Scandinavian Peninsula,
Spitsbergen, northern Siberia, Turkistan, Scotland, Sardinia, Tu-
nis, on the coasts of the Red Sea, etc., while the depressions of
vast countries, which must not be confounded with little local
collapses produced by the subterranean work of water, are less
numerous. Besides the increase of continents, new islands of
volcanic origin rise at times to the surface of the seas, and lands
are also gradually formed by the accumulation of sedimentary
matter and organic remains. The deltas which rise at the mouths
of large rivers in consequence of the deposition of mud and sand
transported by the streams, likewise constitute an augmentation

THE WASTE AND GAIN OF THE DRY LAND. 405

of the emerged soil, for the space they occupy is taken from the
sea. The sea, moreover, does not eat away all the shores. There
are coasts where the waves, instead of carrying away parcels of
the dry land, operate to fill up the bays and to add to the littoral
and prolong it in the direction of the sea. Thus the ocean every
year deposits several million cubic metres of sand along the
shores of the Gulf of Gascony.

Another accrement which has a right to be regarded as con-
siderable is contributed by the legions of polyps constructing
resfs and atolls of coral, to which is due the building up of whole
archipelagoes in Oceania and the Indian seas. The islands formed
by these minute zoophytes are growing continually in extent and
number, and are probably destined ultimately, by joining, to give
rise to vast lands, real continents, which will gradually occupy
the immense voids of the Pacific.

The shells of numerous species of animals and other remains
of dead organisms, meteorites and cosmic dusts falling from celes-
tial space, certainly produce further sensible augmentations of the
continental mass.

Another essential cause of increase of dry land that might be
added is the decrease of the ocean itself in consequence of infil-
trations of water through the crust of the earth, which is a kind
of porous mass, into which the liquid element percolates by in-
numerable fissures, taking possession of the depths and directing
itself slowly toward the center, as the internal fire diminishes
and the crusts crack open in consequence. It is understood that
the activity of volcanoes and many earthquakes is largely due
to this inevitable penetration of the water, which internal heat
transforms into vapor under pressure. Some geologists think
that the primitive ocean has already diminished in this way one
fiftieth of its volume.

The water is all destined to disappear from the surface of the
globe by being absorbed by the subterranean rocks, with which
it will form chemical combinations. The heavenly spheres ex-
hibit sufficiently striking examples of such an evolution. The
planet Mars shows what will become of the earth in some thou-
sands of centuries. Its seas are only shallow Mediterraneans of
less surface than the continents, and these do not appear to be
very high ; and in the appearance of the moon, all cracked and
dried up, we have a view of the final state of the earth — for the
absorption of the water by the solid nucleus will be followed by
that of the atmosphere.

We see, therefore, M. Ldotard continues, that not only is there
no equilibrium in the struggle between the oceans and the conti-
nents, but that, inversely to the conclusions of M. de L' Apparent,
the event that may be considered very probable in a future repre-

4o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sented by millions of years will be, not the disappearance of the
dry land, bnt that of the sea, which, accompanied by all the
fluids, will gradually infiltrate through the crust with which our
planet is covered.

The certain feature in M. de L'Apparent's essay is that, before
the eternal drought comes on, the terrestrial relief will be leveled.
The continental surface will have become an immense plain, in
which the Alps, Himalayas, and Andes will be only little hills.
The fertility of the soil will be augmented by the considerable
formation of vegetable earth, which will at the same time be de-
prived of sufficient watering by the rarity of rain. Climates, lit-
tle as we may suppose them to be modified by the decrease of the
luminous and calorific energy of the sun, will be entirely trans-
formed. It seems to M. Leotard, in short, that the phenomena
contributing to the destruction of the continents will diminish
continuously in intensity, while the natural influences tending to
result in the desiccation of the surface of the globe will gather
energy in the course of ages, preparing for our planet the curious
future just described — a future which will, however, be post-
poned so far that mankind will not be a witness of that end of
terrestrial evolution.

Another writer in the Revue Scientifique (H. S.) has called at-
tention to what the land is gaining, believing, in view of the uni-
versal stability of affairs, that it must be equal to the losses. The
land gains everything, including cosmic dust and meteorites, that
falls from space; it gains all the gases that are continually under-
going solidification in flesh and wood, with which they become
incorporated ; and it gains the shells of all the molluscs, infusoria,
etc. With a very insignificant part of what these infinitely small
beings have left it has been possible to build cities larger than
Paris ; and the Great Pyramid may be said to be the work, not of
King Cheops, but of the nummulites. If a well-informed person
should follow out all the facts bearing on the subject, he would
probably find a complete equilibrium, an admirable compensa-
tion existing between the gains and the losses of the crust of the
earth.

M. de L'Apparent has replied to M. Leotard's criticism that it
rests on a misunderstanding which can be easily dissipated. In
the summer of 1890, he says, " I discussed, in the Geological Soci-
ety of France, the general question of erosion, not to predict the
actual leveling down of the dry land, but simply to arrive at a
method of estimating the duration of the geological periods. My
reasoning was as follows : If the present causes of destruction (me-
chanical and chemical action of running waters and marine ero-
sion) continue to act in the same measure as now, without any-
thing intervening to disturb their working, the continental relief

THE WASTE AND GAIN OF THE DRY LAND. 407

will wholly disappear in four or five million years. Geology
teaches us that the history of the crust of the earth embraces a
period infinitely longer than this. That is enough to prove that
another factor does intervene — that is, manifestations of internal
energy, which disturb from time to time the acquired states of
equilibrium, and restore a new force to the decreasing outer pow-
ers. Thus, instead of assuming a regular process of planing down,
I laid down in principle that things would not go on in this way.
A geologist, besides, could not reason otherwise, except he mis-
took the daily teachings of science which show him at every in-
stant foldings and contortions of strata, certain signs of an order
of things very different from the regular pursuit of external in-
fluences.

" Seeking, then, to place myself under the most unfavorable con-
ditions for my theory, I supposed the ancient history of the globe
divided into tranquil periods, each of four or five million years,
separated from one another by so many ruptures of equilibrium.
How many of these periods would be required to account for all
the known sedimentary formations ? In trying to solve this prob-
lem, I remarked that each period would have cast into the ocean
a cube of debris which, scattered, according to Mr. J. Murray,
through only one fifth of its area (the fraction over which, ac-
cording to the soundings, the sedimentation of detritus extends),
would form a bed of some six or seven hundred metres in mean
thickness. It seemed to me reasonable to suppose that this thick-
ness, null at the extreme further side of the deposits, would in-
crease slowly at first, and then more rapidly toward the neighbor-
hood of the coast, where it might attain a maximum of two kilo-
metres. Dana having estimated at forty-five thousand metres the
united depth of all the sedimentary formations when each is meas-
ured at its point of greatest thickness, I drew the conclusion that
all geological history could be included within a time certainly
less than ninety million years. After the publication of this note
I was called upon by the general secretary of the Geographical So-
ciety to supply the place of a speaker who was unable to fulfill his
engagement. I responded, undertaking to call the attention to the
phenomena of erosion which I had been studying, without elabo-
rating the purely geological considerations. I have recently pre-
sented an extended paper on these details to the Catholic Interna-
tional Scientific Congress, and in it have examined all the phases
of the question. This paper will be published in full, and in it
M. Ldotard will be able to learn how greatly my views differ from
those which he has mistakenly attributed to me.

" I will here only correct a grave error which my critic commits
when he charges me with not having taken account of the accre-
ment which volcanic action brings to the dry land. M. Le'otard

4o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

forgets that all the lava that flows to the surface comes from the
depths of the crust, where its departure leaves a void which cau
be compensated for only by the depression of the adjoining ter-
ritory to such an extent that the emerged relief really gains noth-
ing. More than this — volcanic action, which M. Ldotard would
make creative, is really, above everything else, destructive. I ask
no better proof of this than the great explosions of which the nine-
teenth century has been the witness ; that of 1845, at Temboro,
which covered the neighboring country and the surface of the sea
with a mass of debris estimated at a hundred cubic kilometres ;
and the more recent eruption at Krakatoa, which threw into the
Strait of Sunda eighteen cubic kilometres of debris and formed
an abyss between two and three hundred metres deep, in a place
where there had previously stood a volcanic mountain several hun-
dred metres high. While I have felt called upon to make this rec-
tification, I will add that that does not prevent me from believing,
with M. Le'otard, that the final triumph of the dry land is infinite-
ly more probable than its submersion ; and that by reason of the
considerable movements of the crust and the wrinkles which lat-
eral compression in consequence of the progress of cooling can
not fail to engender from time to time."

SKETCH OF LUIGI GALVANI.

THE experiments of Galvani were the beginning of a new
course of development in physical science, the fruits of which
promise to be infinite in number and of incalculable magnitude
and importance.

Luigi Galvani was born in Bologna, Italy, September 9, 1737,
and died in the same place, December 4, 1798. He exhibited
when very young a fervent zeal for the Catholic religion, of
which he was exact in observing the most minute rites. He even
thought of going into a monastery, but was diverted from his
intention, and, while his religious inclinations were still promi-
nently marked, he became interested in scientific pursuits. En-
tering upon the study of medicine, he gave his attention chiefly
to anatomy and physiology — human and comparative. Having
successfully maintained a thesis on the Bones, their Nature and
Formation, he was appointed, in 1762, public lecturer on anatomy
at the University of Bologna, where he became known as a skill-
ful and accurate teacher, though not eloquent in address. Along
with his professorship he gained high repute as a surgeon and
childbed doctor. He produced during the earlier period of his
professional career a number of memoirs of considerable merit,

SKETCH OF LUIGI GALVANI. 409

among the most important of which were those on the urinary
organs and kidneys of birds and on the ears of birds. In the
former paper he treated the subject with remarkable accuracy,
showing the position of the kidneys of birds in the abdomen,
their situation with respect to the vertebral column, and how
they are adapted, as in quadrupeds, to the secretion of urine.
The descriptions, all drawn with equal care, contained various
curious facts, some of which had then the merit of novelty.
Three years after this Galvani had prepared a large work em-
bodying the fruits of his studies of the organ of hearing, when
he was anticipated by the publication of Scarpa's Observations
on the Fenestra Rotunda. He was astonished to find in this book
the facts which he had announced at special sessions of the in-
stitute, and which he had believed to be his own exclusively,
and, giving up the publication of the larger book, satisfied him-
self with imparting in a short sketch such facts as were not
mentioned in Scarpa's treatise. He gave interesting details re-
specting the chord of the tympanum, the membranous labyrinth,
the semicircular canals, and on the single little bone which in its
own body and appendices performed the functions of the three
little bones found in the ears of mammals. His most important
work, the one on which his enduring fame is based, was pub-
lished in 1791, under the title De Viribus Electricitatis in Motu
Musculari Commentarius, or Commentary on the Forces of
Electricity in Muscular Motion. It embodied, in a small volume
of only fifty-five pages, the account of his experiments with the
frog's leg, in which the kind of electrical manifestation to which
Galvani's name is attached (galvanism) was first remarked by him.
Previous to the publication of this little book Galvani suffered
his greatest grief by the death of his wife, Lucie Galeazzi, with
whom he had lived happily for thirty years, and who, according
to some of the versions of the story, had no little to do with his
great discovery. This loss was followed by other troubles, which,
although they did not so nearly touch his heart, were severe
enough, and eventually perhaps hastened his death. The Cisal-
pine Republic required an oath from all persons in its service,
which, it being repugnant to his political and religious convic-
tions, Galvani refused to take. The Government deprived him
of his position, and he, nearly reduced to poverty, went to live
with his brother Giacomo. Soon afterward he fell into a decline,
from which he could not be raised even by the skill and careful
attention of the eminent physicians Uttini and Cingari. The
Government of the republic, recognizing the eminent worth of his
scientific achievements, notwithstanding he persisted in refusing
to take the oath, ordered him restored to his chair in the univer-
sity, but he never took advantage of the act.

410 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Various stories are told of the manner in which Galvani's dis-
covery of galvanic action, or " animal electricity," as he called it,
was brought about. According to one version, he was preparing
a frog-broth for his invalid wife, and some skinned frogs were
lying on a table by the side of an electrical machine. One of his
assistants accidentally touched the crural nerve of one of the
frogs with the point of a scalpel, when all the muscles of the
limbs seemed to be taken with strong spasms. Madame Galvani,
a bright, thoughtful woman, who was present and witnessed the
shock, was struck with the novelty of the phenomenon, and thought
that she noticed along with it a disengagement of the electric
spark. She informed her husband at once, and he lost no time in
verifying the extraordinary fact. The point of the scalpel being
again applied to the frog, while a spark was drawn from the ma-
chine, the contractions were resumed. To determine whether they
were not due to the simple contact of the scalpel, Galvani touched
the same nerves of other frogs without turning the machine, and
got no contractions. Repetitions of the experiments were accom-
panied with corresponding results. Another account makes Gal-
vani himself the chief actor in the incident ; while, according to
a third account, Galvani, having dissected some frogs, in a study
of their nervous system, hung them on an iron railing with a
copper hook thrust in their lumbar nerves, and the contractions
took place whenever, in the vibration of the specimens, these
nerves touched the iron too. According to the documents in the
possession of the Museum of Bologna, the discovery was not all
a matter of accident, as these stories would make it appear, for it
is shown there that Galvani had been engaged, for twenty years
before the publication of his Commentary, in investigations of
the action of electricity on the muscles of frogs. The thought in-
volved in these experiments had also been more or less vaguely
suggested by other writers. Sulzer, in his Nouvelle Thdorie du
Plaisir, published in 1767, had spoken of the peculiar taste pro-
duced when two pieces of different metals were put, under certain
precautions, into the mouth. A pupil of Cotugno, Professor of
Medicine at Naples, in dissecting a mouse about 1786, perceived a
movement at the moment when his scalpel touched one of the
animal's nerves. Galvani described his experiments, and claimed
that he had discovered a kind of electricity having remarkable
peculiarities, in the Commentary (De Viribus Electricitatis in
Motu Musculari) already mentioned, which was published in
1791 and 1792. One of the immediate results of his discovery
was the invention of his metallic arc, the first experiment with
which is described in the third part of the Commentary, with
the date September 20, 1786. This arc was constructed of two
different metals, which, placed in contact, one with a nerve and

SKETCH OF LUIGI GAL VAN I. 411

the other with a muscle of a frog, caused contraction of the
muscle.

Galvani recognized a great similarity between the phenomena
he had observed and electricity, but denied their identity. He
thought an electricity of a peculiar nature was concerned in the
manifestations, and that he had discovered the nervous fluid. In
his view, all animals possessed an electricity inherent in their
economy, which resided especially in the nerves, and was com-
municated by them to the whole body. It was secreted by the
brain ; the interior substance of the nerves was endowed with a
conducting power for this electricity, and facilitated its move-
ment and its passage through the nerves ; at the same time an
oily coating of these organs prevented the dissipation of the fluid
and facilitated its accumulation. The principal reservoirs of this
electricity he supposed to be in the muscles, each fiber of them
representing a small Leyden jar, from which the nerves were con-
ductors. In the mechanism of the movements the electric fluid
was drawn out and attracted from the interior of the muscles into
the nerves in such a way that each discharge of the muscular
electric jar corresponded with a contraction of the muscle. This
theory had many partisans for a considerable time, but was re-
futed by Volta, who showed, as has been related in our recent
sketch of him, that the supposed nervous fluid was only ordinary
electricity, to which the animal organs served as conductors, and
of which they might even be generators. Galvani did not yield
to these arguments of Volta's, but held to his own unsound hy-
pothesis ; and thus the glory of making a scientific explanation
and application of his great discovery fell to Volta. An account
of Galvani's discoveries was published in the Philosophical Trans-
actions for 1793. A quarto edition of his works was published at
Bologna by the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of that city
in 1841-'42. Perhaps the best and most appreciative accounts of
Galvani's life and works are by M. Arago, in Alexandre Volta, in
the first volume of Arago's CEuvres Completes, and the eulogy
by J. L. Alibert, Bologna, 1802.

Mr. A. Wilkins, of Tashkend, central Asia, had a specimen of the typical
desert hird of the country (Podoces panceri), which, on the first day of its life with
him, buried a part of the food given it in the sand with which the floor of the
cage was covered. On the next day, and afterward, the bird abandoned the habit
on perceiving that the supply given it did not fail. Another correspondent of
Nature had a fox-terrier puppy, seven weeks old, which had not seen any other
dog but its mother, that buried bones in the garden with great skill. It dug a
hole with its fore paws, put in the bone, pushed it down with its nose, and cov-
ered it with garden soil which was pushed in with its nose. He had never seen so
young a puppy bury bones, or any other dog do it so well.

412

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

CORRESPONDENCE.

GENESIS OF THE DIAMOND.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

SIR: An excellent notice of Prof. A. E.
Foote's paper on Diamonds in Meteor-
ites has newly been forwarded to me, and, as
it has apparently aroused no little interest in
the general public as well as in scientific
circles, may I take the liberty of calling at-
tention to the following facts through the
pages of The Popular Science Monthly, to
which I have for some years past been a sub-
scriber ?

In September, 1886, my husband, the late
Prof. H. Carvill Lewis, read before the Bir-
mingham meeting of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science a paper on
A Diamantiferous Peridotite and the Genesis
of the Diamond, a small specimen of which
he had recently discovered, in situ, in a piece
of the peridotite rock underlying the tena-
cious " blue clay " of the Kimberley mines.
He further stated that this " blue clay " was
found upon subsequent analysis to be merely
the same peridotite rock in a high state of
decomposition. The process of freeing the
diamonds from the " blue clay," in which
they are scattered about like plums in a pud-
ding, is so well known that it need not be
dwelt upon.

The peridotite in question is an altered
lava, filling the neck of an ancient volcano,
which burst its way through a rich deposit of
carbonaceous shales. Numberless fragments
of this shale, of varying size, were found
scattered throughout the peridotite, and Prof.
Lewis held that it was the pure carbon from
these, which, liberated by the intense heat,
and crystallizing slowly out under enormous
pressure, had formed the diamonds.

In September, 1887, my husband deliv-
ered another address at the Manchester
meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, entitled The Matrix
of the Diamond, in which he described in
full the chemical changes and metamor-
phoses which the peridotite and its constitu-
ents had undergone in passing into the " blue
clay." An abstract of this paper was dis-
tributed among the geologists present, and
was afterward published in the Report of
the Association for 1887.

At the close of this paper Prof. Lewis re-
marked that "if his hypothesis concerning
the origin of diamonds was correct, they
would certainly be found in meteorites " ; but
it was not until December of the same year
(1887) that he received, through the courtesy
of Mr. George Frederick Kunz, of New York,
a small fragment of meteoric ore, in the
larger portion of which two Russian geolo-
gists had newly reported the finding of sev-

eral minute diamonds. Mr. Kunz found thir-
teen diamonds, I believe, in his share of the
meteorite, and my husband found three ; but
in both cases all were microscopic. This dis-
covery was soon after announced at the Acad-
emy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and
a short notice of it was published with the
title Diamonds in Meteorites.

To Prof. A. E. Foote, therefore, belongs
the honor of finding the first diamonds in
American meteorites, and not of discovering
that abstract possibility or its first realiza-
tion.

The manuscript for a comprehensive ar-
ticle on The Origin and Matrix of the Dia-
mond, embodying Prof. Carvill Lewis's Bir-
mingham and Manchester addresses, and the
subsequent investigations made by him as
to the origin of that gem in the southeast-
ern portion of the United States, is now in
the hands of Prof. G. H. Williams, of the
Johns Hopkins University, and will, it is
hoped, soon be ready for the press.

In view of the foregoing statements, it
seems open to question whether the position
of the meteoric fragments on the side of an
old volcanic crater was not an accidental one,
which at all events calls for further inves-
tigation before those outside the charmed
circle of scientific workers are willing to ac-
cept so remarkable a hypothesis as to the
origin of our terrestrial diamonds.

I am, with respect,

Faithfully yours, Julia F. Lewis.
Heidelberg, January 29, 1892.

MORE ABOUT THE PENIKESE SCHOOL.
Editor Popular Science Monthly :

President Jordan's interesting article on
Agassiz at Penikese forms a valuable contri-
bution to the history of marine laboratories
in this country, in giving a list, unfortunately
incomplete, of those in attendance at the
school during its first session. Might it not
be possible to complete the list for both
years during which the school was in exist-
ence? Such a list would form a valuable
appendix to the interesting account of the
school given by Mrs. Agassiz in her Life
and Letters of Louis Agassiz.

President Jordan does not mention in his
article the fact that the laboratory building
no longer exists. It was destroyed by fire
during last summer. A week before its de-
struction I visited Penikese with a small party
from the Marine Biological Laboratory of
Wood's Holl, Mass., and had the pleasure of
meeting the present owner of the island, Mr.
G. S. Horner, of New Bedford, who kindly
gave us permission to carry away for the Ma-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

4J3

rine Biological Laboratory anything we might
find of interest or of use. We took advan-
tage of this kind permission to detach from
the walls the inscriptions which decorated the
laboratory, and to which President Jordan re-
fers. They were written on heavy paper and
were in perfect preservation ; they will here-
after adorn the walls of the linear descendant
of the Penikese school — the Marine Biologi-
cal Laboratory.

The inscriptions were not written upon the
blackboard, as President Jordan states, on the
authority of Prof. Eigenmann. This was oc-
cupied by some notes and drawings apparent-
ly used in illustration of a lecture on the ver-
tebrata, said, I know not on what authority,
to have been delivered by Prof. Wilder. The
inscriptions themselves are not quite correct-
ly quoted by President Jordan. They are as
follows :

" Study Nature, not books."
" Learn to say, I do not know."
" A laboratory is to me a sanctuary, and
I would have nothing done therein unworthy
of the great Creator."

I quote these from memory, and am not
quite sure as to the completeness of the sec-
ond one, though what I have given contains
the gist of it. It is advice which all young
teachers, for whom it was primarily intended,
should conscientiously heed.
Yours respectfully,

J. Playfair McMurrich.
University of Cincinnati, April 7, 1892.

FLOWERING HABIT OF THE AMERICAN
ALOE.

Editor Popular Science Monthly.

Sir : In Grant Allen's very readable
paper in the May issue — A Desert Fruit —
mention is made of the American aloe (Agave
arnericana) in a way to mislead as to its
flowering habit. Permit me to say that the
plant in question does not, as the writer
says, " flower . . . once in some fifteen years

or so " ; it Jloivers once only, and then dies.
In this city it is somewhat the exception for
a summer to pass without one or more speci-
mens of the agave throwing up an immense
flower-stalk — not a spike but upanicle — to the
height of twenty-five feet or more, with large
clusters of flowers on the ends of its two- to
six-foot branching pedicels ; but, after the de-
velopment of the flowers and ripening of the
fruit, nothing remains of the previous tall
rosette of fleshy leaves but a lot of withered
and empty skins. And, by the way, the house-
leek (Sempervivum tectorum), which takes
several years to flower — five or six in these
parts — has the same trick of dying as soon
as it completes the process. It is doubtless
on account of the habit which both these
plants have, of multiplying by suckers or
stolons, that many have overlooked their
monocarpous nature, and have supposed that
the new plants standing around were the
same as flowered fifteen years ago.

George Pyburn.
Sacramento, Cal., May 1, 1892.

[We are glad to have the above particu-
lars about the habit of the aloe, but we do
not find in Mr. Allen's casual words any as-
sertion that the same plant flowers more than
once. — Editor.]

A CORRECTION.

Editor Popular Science Monthly:

Sir : On page 13V of your May number you
inadvertently do a great injustice to Mr. Nicola
Tesla, by styling him " the able lieutenant of
Mr. Edison."

Mr. Tesla is an independent investigator,
whose path has been the development of the
alternating current, while Mr. Edison has fol-
lowed the course of the direct current. I
venture to suggest a note of correction.
Yours faithfully,

Charles Paine.
Century Club, New York, April 23, 1892.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

MOTHERHOOD.

MUCH advance has been made with-
in the last generation in the mat-
ter of the education of women ; bat even
the ambitious programmes of the present
day do not make as full or as distinct pro-
vision as might be desired for instruction
in the elementary duties and responsi-
bilities of motherhood. We are very
ready to allow that not every woman is

called to be a mother, and we sympa-
thize to a considerable extent with those
who object to holding up marriage as
the only goal at which women should
aim. At the same time we incline very
strongly to the opinion that the educa-
tion of no woman can be complete un-
less it embraces the best obtainable
knowledge as to how children should be
brought up and trained, and as to the

4H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

qualities, physical and moral, which
their proper nurture and culture de-
mand of the mother. The woman who
is not called to he a mother may be
called to he an aunt, and as such may
have a large share in the education of
children. We are not all called upon to
rescue or resuscitate drowned persons ;
but most of us would willingly possess
the knowledge necessary for such a pur-
pose. It may be said, Why teach the
duties of motherhood more than those
of fatherhood? If so, the answer is, We
should teach them more because they are
more comprehensive than those of fa-
therhood, and because the relation be-
tween mother and child is so much
closer than between father and child.
But we fully recognize the necessity for
teaching the duties of fatherhood also ;
and, when moral culture receives due
attention in our schools, the duties
which a father owes to his children will
not be overlooked.

Meanwhile, however, let us consider
the other and more important question.
Surely it would be a most suitable thing
to impress upon every girl of proper age
the sacredness of the maternal function.
How impressively might we apply to the
expectation either of fatherhood or of
motherhood the words, " He that hath
this hope purifieth himself." What
stronger argument for purity of life
could be urged than that derivable from
the duty of giving sound and cleanly
parentage to one's offspring? Why are
so many marriages unhappy? Mainly
because they are entered upon without
any thought of duty or responsibility, or
any sense of the restraints upon indi-
vidual caprice and impulse which are
essential to subsequent happiness. It
would not be difficult to show in a for-
cible manner the actual misery which
ignorance or disregard of physiological
laws entails not alone on the offenders
but on their progeny as well. Passing
to the important question of the hygiene
of the nursery, there is much that could
be taught on sure grounds of science ;

and the subject, in the hands of a com-
petent teacher, could hardly fail to prove
most interesting. What more satisfying
object can there be to a normally con-
stituted woman than a healthy, well-
conditioned, intelligent child ? The re-
sult of due instruction in matters per-
taining to a mother's duties would be to
make the mothers of the future happier
in their children and the children hap-
pier in their mothers. It is science, as
we more and more see, that is chiefly
required in the household. It is the les-
sons of experience that need to be gath-
ered, collated, sifted, systematized, and
brought home to the minds of both fa-
thers and mothers. We constantly hear
of young couples who start off with theo-
ries of their own on the subject of the
treatment of children, just as if there
were no established principles available
for their guidance. Surely this is folly :
the very last matter to which wild ex-
perimentation should be applied is the
bringing up of children ; and we pity
most sincerely the children whose par-
ents think that it has been left for
them to originate the true principles of
child- education.

That thousands of children suffer
from the over-indulgence of their par-
ents and thousands more from their
over-severity, does not admit of dispute.
In any course of instruction such as we
have hinted at a considerable place
should be given to the psychology of the
child, and a considerable place also to
the commoner defects of parents. It is
a wise mother that does not unduly
stimulate the self-consciousness of her
child, and thus lay the foundation for
life-long habits of affectation. If clever
children do not always make clever men
and women, a partial reason may be
found in the way they are commonly
treated. They find grown-up people
constantly on the watch to hear, and
most industrious in repeating, their ori-
ginal speeches; and soon they exchange
the gift of originality which consists in
seeing and expressing things in an uncon-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

4i5

ventional manner, for the very inferior
one of making smart speeches. They
are thus forced by the very admiration
of their elders into taking conventional
instead of unconventional views, and
speaking, as it were, to the "gallery"
instead of uttering spontaneous truths.
Thus—

" Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy "

or girl altogether too soon. The way to
promote originality is to leave the mind
as long as possible in direct and living
contact with things, and, to do that, it
is necessary to avoid any great appear-
ance of interest in or astonishment at
the judgments the child forms or the
phrases it uses. As soon as a child be-
gins to find its own opinions interesting,
instead of, as before, finding things in-
teresting, farewell to originality ! Will
any one say that, if girls were taught
how the minds of children might be kept
fresh, they would not value the knowl-
edge and, when the time came, try to
turn it to account ? We hardly think so.
Too vigorous denunciation could
scarcely be bestowed upon the fashion
so many mothers have of making their
children mere instruments of their own
vanity. Most mothers, we imagine, even
in this advanced age, regard their chil-
dren as gifts from Heaven ; but do they
suppose that Heaven gave them children
that they might turn them into prepos-
terous human dolls, and prematurely age
them with the burden of social follies?
Here we see the need of a strong appeal
to the mother-instinct of those who are
not yet mothers, that they may be led
to conceive a horror of sacrificing inno-
cent children to the Moloch of an artifi-
cial and heartless society. What do we
want — manikins, puppets, little bediz-
ened and bemannered creatures full of
social spites and rivalries, or children
full of healthy impulses, pure, truthful,
and loving, of whom it might conceiv-
ably be said that " of such is the king-
dom of heaven"? Alas, that so many
should deliberately choose the former,

and these not the less but the more re-
ligiously devout members of the com-
munity !

One point on which a judicious
teacher, addressing girls on the duties
of motherhood, would certainly utter a
caution, would be as to allowing the
mere maternal instinct to run to excess
and pass beyond control. The maternal
instinct must be considered as having
for its object the good of the child ; but,
like all instincts and passions, it tends
to become an object to itself, and then
the interest which it is meant to sub-
serve suffers ; the child is worried and
hampered by the over-abundance of ma-
ternal caresses and attentions, to the
injury sometimes of its regard for the
mother. We are well aware that a per-
fectly balanced human being is more
than the most careful education can be
expected to produce ; but that is no rea-
son why we should not aim at a desira-
ble and possible balance of faculties — of
reason and imagination, of thoughts and
emotions, of judgments and impulses.
A woman who is all mother does not
make the best kind of mother. Cases
are not wanting in which an unrestrained
excess of the maternal instinct injures
the relation between husband and wife
and mars the harmony of the household.
All this could be illustrated by numer-
ous and varied examples ; and this is
the kind of knowledge which we main-
tain might with great advantage be im-
parted to the rising generation of girls.
Why should human happiness be wrecked
for want of knowledge which so many
could supply from their own experience,
and of scientific principles which are
the commonplaces of all who think ?
The time has surely come when mother-
hood should be redeemed from the au-
tomatism of blind instinct and wedded,
for its own high purposes, with the force
of intellect. We shall be happy if these
few words should incite to thought on
this most important subject, and cause
attention to be paid to it in quarters
where, as yet, it has been neglected.

4i 6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

LITERARY NOTICES.

TnE Discovery of America. By John Fiske.
Cambridge : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
1892. In two volumes.

Prof. Fiske opens his subject with a dis-
cussion of the question of the grade of cult-
ure reached by the inhabitants of the Ameri-
can continent at the time of the discovery.
The gorgeous accounts given by the Span-
iards of the civilization of Mexico and Peru
have survived until quite recent times, not
only in the popular imagination, but in the
writings of sober-minded authors. Careful
research has, however, dissipated these earlier
conceptions of American culture and put it
in the right relation to the condition of ad-
vancement reached by the Old World peoples.
Prof. Fiske gives the chief credit to the clear-
ing up of this question to the late Lewis Mor-
gan, whose generalizations he in the main ac-
cepts. According to Mr. Morgan's classifica-
tion, the three well-marked stages in culture
are savagery, barbarism, and civilization,
the dividing line between the first two being
the invention of pottery, and that between
barbarism and civilization the invention of
the alphabet.

According to this classification, none of
the American peoples at the time of the voy-
age of Columbus had reached a higher stage
of culture than the middle status of barbar-
ism. In the Old World this stage of culture
was marked by the domestication of animals
other than the dog, but nowhere in America
outside of Peru were there any domesticated
animals except the dog, and in the latter
those of the Old World were unknown. The
social development reached by the aboriginal
American was in keeping with that in the
arts. The Spaniards, with their notions of
society derived from mediaeval Europe, nat-
urally interpreted the social arrangements
they found in terms of their experience, but
nowhere on the American continent, save in
Peru, was there anything approaching a na-
tion. The organization of the Aztecs in
Mexico was similar to that of the more ad-
vanced Indians to the north — viz., that of
the clan. Montezuma, whom the Spaniards
mistook for a king, was simply the chief of
the clan. The living was communal in
structures the property of the clan, and
there was no development of the idea of pri-

vate property except in things purely per-
sonal. Peru had passed beyond this stage,
and had acquired the position of a rudiment-
ary empire, but in some things was less ad-
vanced than Mexico. Neither country had
yet acquired the art of smelting iron, and be-
tween both and the beginnings of civilization
there lay the vast tract which terminates with
the invention of the phonetic alphabet.

Prof. Fiske follows his survey of the in-
habitants of the American continent by a dis-
cussion of the visits of the Northmen to the
American coast, and then takes up the rela-
tions of Europe with the East, which com-
pletes his survey of the subject, preliminary
to the memorable voyage of Columbus. In
his chapter on pre-Columbian voyages he
sums up what is known of the voyages of the
Northmen. Far from being mythical, these
voyages were very real. These northern sea-
men settled Iceland, and from there spread
over to Greenland, where two settlements were
made which lasted for four hundred years.
From these settlements voyages were made
down the American coast as far south proba-
bly as Massachusetts. An attempt was made
to found a settlement in Vinland, which was
the name they gave to a part of the coast
visited, but this came to no result, and they
did nothing beyond visiting the place to cut
timber. None of these voyages did anything
toward altering the relations of the Eastern
and Western world. The two streams of life
flowed on as they had for centuries, unknown
to each other. It was not until the epoch-
making voyage of Columbus and those who
followed after that the two worlds were
brought into contact. Prof. Fiske, therefore,
rightly considers that the voyages of the
Northmen were in no sense anticipations of
Columbus.

In order to understand the meaning of
the voyage of Columbus, we must understand
the economical condition of the Europe of
the fifteenth century and its relation to the
East — or Cathay, as it was termed. We
must also, as Prof. Fiske insists, banish
from our minds the modern map, and try to
put ourselves in the place of the people of
that time. A rich trade had for some centu-
ries been carried on between Europe and
the East, in spices, gums, and fine fabrics.
Genoa and Venice were rival centers of this
trade, and had each overland routes to the

LITERARY NOTICES.

4i7

fabled land of the East. The traders did
not actually pass from Europe to India and
China, but met the Eastern traders and made
exchange of products. Their knowledge of
the East was therefore mostly hearsay knowl-
edge, and, as is generally the fact in such a
case, much fable was mixed with the truth.
It was not until the middle of the thirteenth
century that it became known in Europe that
there was an ocean to the east of Cathay,
and it was not until the close of the century,
when Marco Polo published an account of
his long sojourn in the East, that there was
any definite information of these far-off
countries accessible to Europeans. This
Eastern trade, which had been steadily grow-
ing, had reached large proportions by the
middle of the fifteenth century. But just at
this juncture political events occurred which
threatened its destruction by cutting off the
routes heretofore used. The overthrow of
the Mongols and the coming in of the native
Ming dynasty in China had resulted in the
exclusion of foreigners from that country.
The rise of the Ottoman Empire and the
conquest of Constantinople had cut off the
northern route used by Genoa, and the Vene-
tian route by way of Egypt was threatened
by the same power. Men's minds, therefore,
turned with ardor to the question of finding
an outside route to the Indies. The signifi-
cance of an ocean to the east of China be-
gan to be apprehended, and by the time of
the first voyage of Columbus the European
mind was ripe for projects for the finding of
a water route to the Indies. Very little
faith, however, was put in any scheme to
find the Indies by sailing west. The hope
and expectation were all in the direction of
finding a route down the west coast of
Africa and then east. No one had any idea
of the extent of Africa, and, though many
voyages were undertaken by Portugal, it was
not until after the voyage of Columbus that
Africa was entirely circumnavigated and an
easterly route to the Indies discovered.

Prof. Fiske details very fully the strug-
gles of Columbus to interest, first Portugal
and then Spain, in his project of finding the
Indies by sailing westward. The only
ground upon which such an expedition could
be based was the one that it would furnish
a shorter route to the Indies than that
which Portugal was seeking — down the west

vol. xxi. — 32

coast of Africa. Columbus calculated that
the distance from the Canaries to Japan, the
wonderful island kingdom to the east of
Cathay, could not be much more than twenty-
five hundred miles. As Prof. Fiske points
out, this was a case where a little knowledge
was helpful instead of dangerous. The per-
ils of the voyage seemed great enough with
this estimate of the distance; they would
have been prohibitory had the real distance
to Asia been known. Columbus died in the
belief that he had reached land just off the
Asiatic coast. He did not dream that he
had landed upon a new world separated from
Asia by a vast ocean. Years were to elapse
before this fact should be appreciated by
Europe, and the labors of many able naviga-
tors, extending through a period of two hun-
dred years, were necessary to completely map
out the vast new continent to which Colum-
bus led the way.

Prof. Fiske, in recounting the many voy-
ages and explorations by which the New
World was brought within the domain of
accurate knowledge, is very successful in
grouping them so as to preserve the histori-
cal perspective. The reader appreciates the
gradual growth of knowledge in Europe as
successive voyages furnish new data, until at
last there is the rounded out and completed
whole. The text is supplemented by maps
made from time to time by European cartog-
raphers, which are more vividly illustrative
of the state of European ignorance than any
amount of description could be.

Prof. Fiske devotes considerable space to
clearing up the obscurity that surrounds the
naming of the New World America. From
this it appears that this name was pro-
posed by a German cartographer for the land
discovered by Americus Vespucius on his
third voyage, when he was blown westward
to the extreme eastern coast of South Amer-
ica. It was not known until long afterward
that this land had any connection with that
discovered by Columbus. The latter was
supposed to be Asia, and the place occupied
by the land visited by Americus was sup-
posed to be open sea. It was therefore felt
to be a proper thing to give to this new land,
which was not Asia, the name of its discov-
erer. Later, when it became known that
this was part of a land of continental dimen-
sions, which extended far to the north as

4i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

well as to the south, the name had become
so fixed that it was applied to the entire con-
tinent.

The conquests of Mexico and Peru are
given a large share of attention, and a very
vivid and interesting picture is drawn by
Prof. Fiske of these first considerable con-
flicts between the two orders of culture of
the Eastern and the Western worlds.

The author closes his account of the dis-
covery with the story of the navigators and
explorers who, for two centuries after Co-
lumbus, were busy with the detailed explo-
ration of the great American continent.

To those familiar with Prof. Fiske's writ-
ings, it is needless to say that the work is
thoroughly well done. It is drawn from
original sources, and, while here and there
points remain to be cleared up, we have in
the present volumes in graphic and vivid
form the story of the great chain of events,
in their true historic proportions, which won
for civilization a New World.

Natural Science. Monthly. London and
New York : Macmillan & Co. Price, one
shilling a number.

We have the pleasure of welcoming a
new scientific magazine, the first number of
which appeared in England in March. It is
to be primarily a record of new observa-
tions and discoveries in the field of natural
history adapted to the needs of amateur in-
vestigators. " It will be our constant aim,"
say its conductors, " to expound and deal in
a critical manner with the principal results
of current research in geology and biology
that appear to be of more than limited ap-
plication. Original articles referring to the
existing status of certain special branches of
natural science, with suggestions for further
development, will be a prominent feature.
Periodical summaries of the latest results in
the various departments are contemplated.
Reviews of the more important new books
will be not merely critical but also descrip-
tive. Special attention will be given to the
latest news concerning the work of all the
principal societies and institutions through-
out the world devoted to scientific and edu-
cational matters."

The magazine will have also a polemic
tendency, for it starts with the avowed pur-
pose of combating professionalism. " Half

a century ago," it says, " scientific research
was almost entirely in the hands of amateurs
— independent workers, as Humboldt, Dar-
win, Lyell, Murchison, Hugh Miller, Water-
ton, and others." But a change has been
wrought, mainly by the very rapidity of
scientific progress. The more rigorous re-
quirements of scientific work in recent years
have operated to discourage amateurs, and
hence to produce a wide gap between the
scientific workers and the general public.
Both science and the public have suffered in
consequence; hence it is to be one of the
aims of the new magazine to promote a bet-
ter state of affairs.

The first number opens with a few pages
of Notes and Comments, which are followed
by articles dealing with Some Recent Obser-
vations upon Mimicry, by Frank E. Beddard ;
Deep-sea Deposits, by J. J. H. Teall (being
a review of the Report on the Challenger
Specimens, by John Murray and A. F. Re-
nard) ; The Evolution of Fins, by A. Smith
Woodward, illustrated ; Some Salient Points
in the Study of Mammals during 1891, by R.
Lydekker, illustrated; English Lake Dwell-
ings, by James W. Davis ; Marine Snakes, by
G. A. Boulenger, illustrated; The Explora-
tion of Coral Reefs by Borings, by J. W.
Gregory; Some Recent Researches on In-
sects and Arachnids, by G. H. Carpenter;
Relationship of Sigillaria and Stigmaria, by
Thomas Hick ; and The Mammals of India,
by R. Lydekker, illustrated. There are also
review, news, and obituary departments.

The Philosophical Review. Bimonthly.
Edited by J. G. Schuriian. Boston:
Ginn & Co. $3 a year.

Cultivators of philosophy have now the
promise of a well-conducted and regularly
appearing magazine devoted to metaphysics
and the allied subjects — psychology, logic,
and aesthetics. Its prospectus announces
that the review " will be an open forum alike
for those who increase the stock of positive
data and for those who strive to see new
facts in their bearings and relations, and to
trace them up to their ultimate speculative
implications. An equal hearing will be
given to both sides of every unsettled ques-
tion. The attitude of the review is non-
partisan. Writers alone will be responsible
for their articles, which in all cases must be

LITERARY NOTICES.

419

signed." The initial number of this review
opens with a paper on The Critical Philoso-
phy and Idealism, by Prof. John Watson,
of Queen's University, taking Caird's work
on Kant as a starting-point. Prof. George
T. Ladd follows with a review of James's
Principles of Psychology, under the title
Psychology as So-called " Natural Science " ;
and Benjamin I. Gilman contributes the first
part of an essay on Psychological Aspects
of the Chinese Musical System, with extended
examples. There is a carefully edited de-
partment of Reviews of Books, and another
department in which are given summaries
of articles on philosophical topics in other
periodicals.

The Journal of Comparative Neurology.
Quarterly. Edited by Prof. C. L. Her-
rick. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.
$3 a year.

Prof. Herrick has undertaken the pub-
lication of a periodical which shall make
known the results of researches upon the nerv-
ous systems of man and the lower animals.
The two numbers now before us contain con-
tributions to the Comparative Morphology of
the Central Nervous System, by the editor,
and Morphology of the Avian Brain, by C.
H. Turner, both papers being continued, ac-
companied by plates. There is also a con-
tribution dealing with Recent Investigations
on the Structure and Relations of the Optic
Thalami, by Henry R. Pemberton. The
other matter in the numbers consists of
notes on laboratory technique, editorials, and
literary notices. In addition to the physio-
logical topics treated in the journal, the ed-
itor intends to give increasing attention to
the problems of comparative psychology.

A Guide to Electric Lighting. By S. R.
Bottone. London and New York : Mac-
millan & Co., 1892. Pp. 189. Price, 75
cents.

This little manual essays to give in con-
cise form the information necessary to ac-
quaint the non-scientific reader with the
principles of electric lighting. The author
first treats of the electric battery, and then
of the dynamo as a source of the electric
current, and explains the meaning of series
and multiple arc distribution. A chapter is
given to lamps, arc, incandescent, and the
now obsolete form known as semi-incandes-

cent, or incandescence in the open air. In
the arc lamps figured and described the only
one in extensive commercial use is the Brush,
of which there is a diagrammatic sketch. As
the book is designed as a guide to house-
holders and amateurs, and is not meant to be
historical, the description of apparatus that
have ceased to have a commercial place does
not seem to be called for, and only serves to
confuse the reader by presenting a multi-
plicity of appliances. This remark applies
as well to the storage battery as to obsolete
forms of lamp. Whatever the possibilities
of the storage battery for power uses, it has
no place in electric lighting, and there is but
little probability that it ever will have. A
chapter is devoted to fittings, in which is in-
cluded a brief description of voltmeters and
ammeters, and also one to the electric motor.
Mr. Bottone seems to have but little concep-
tion of the predominating position which is
being taken by alternating-current distribu-
tion, to which he gives but a couple of
pages, which contain little information. The
subject of meters is treated very cursorily.
This would seem to be a subject of especial
interest to the consumer, and a full descrip-
tion of the principles involved and somewhat
detailed descriptions of the meters actually
employed in commercial work might properly
find a place in a book of this kind.

Of the volume as a whole very little can
be said in commendation. It is too brief to
be of much use to one wholly unacquainted
with the subject, and the salient features
which would be of importance and interest
to the householder are not brought out with
sufficient clearness. The book is printed on
good paper, in clear type, but the cuts, with
a few exceptions, are wretched.

The Three Circuits. A Study of the Pri-
mary Forces. By Tatlor Flick. Pub-
lished by the author. Washington, D. O,
1892. Pp. 268. Price, $1.50.

This is one of those pseudo-contributions
to science which make their appearance once
in a while, written by men who, without any
thorough grasp of the fundamental concep-
tions of modern physics, undertake to re-
model our views of molecular and planetary
forces. The domain of elemental forces is
sufficiently vague and obscure to give scope
to attempts of this character, and not a few

420

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

essays have therefore been made into it by
men ill fitted to add anything of a useful
character to our current conceptions.

The author's thesis is that all worlds as
well as the ultimate particles of matter are
magnets, and that the planetary and stellar
motions are the expressions of magnetic at-
tractions and repulsions. According to his
idea, light and heat are not transmitted from
the sun, but are formed in our atmosphere by
the interaction of magnetic forces. The au-
thor has some good ideas, and in some things
he is in line with the most advanced views
of modern physics, but what is good is so
mixed up with a lot of insufferable rubbish
that it is nearly if not quite impossible to
disentangle the two. The book as a serious
philosophical work is greatly marred by the
flippant style of treatment and the introduc-
tion of a hypothetical personage from whom
the author derives the views he offers.

University Extension. A Monthly Journal
devoted to the Interests of Popular Edu-
cation. Philadelphia : J. Haseltine Shinn.
$1.50 a year.

The first number of this magazine ap-
peared in July, 1891, and already, before its
first volume is complete, its circulation has
become so large as to warrant a reduction to
half the original subscription price. The
contents of the numbers so far issued con-
sist of outlines and suggestions for carrying
on the new and popular form of educational
work to which the magazine is devoted, with
accounts of what has been done at the vari-
ous centers for this work. In the number
for April are articles on Class Work in Uni-
versity Extension, Extension Teaching in
Wisconsin, University Extension Work in
Mathematics, and An Unknown Quantity and
One Possible Value. The last article advo-
cates an extension of our free high-school
system by means of evening sessions, so as
to bridge the gap between the elementary
schools and the university-extension work.
The magazine is conducted by the American
Society for the Extension of University
Teaching, in Philadelphia.

G. Masson, of Paris, has begun the pub-
lication of the Encyclopedic Scientifique des
Aide-memoire, or Memory-help Scientific En-
cyclopaedia, the volumes of which are pre-

pared under the direction of M. H. Leaute,
member of the Institute of France. While the
publication is expected to be marked by a
practical character, it will at the same time
be truly scientific. It will be composed of
eight hundred volumes in small octavo, which
are expected to cover the entire domain of
the applied sciences. Each of the volumes
will be by an author who is an authority, and
will give in a condensed form the precise
present condition of science on its special
subject and of the practical conditions relat-
ing to it. The eight volumes which were to
have appeared on the first of April include
works on Chronic Delirium, by Dr. Magnan ;
Gynaecology, by M. A. Auvard ; Transmis-
sion of Force by Compressed or Rarefied Air,
by M. Al. Gouilly ; A Calorimetric Study of
the Steam-Engine, by M. V. Dwelshauvers
Dery ; Disease of the Respiratory Organs, by
Dr. Faisans ; Electrophysiology, by Dr. G.
Weiss ; Distribution of Electricity by Isolated
Installations, by M. R. V. Picou ; and Resist-
ance of Materials, by M. Duquesnay.

A book by Julian Ralph, entitled Along
the Bowstring, is a guide-book to the south
shore of Lake Superior. The Bowstring which
gives it its name is the Duluth, South Shore
and Atlantic Railroad, which runs (on the
map) in a marvelously exact straight line from
Sault St. Marie to Duluth. Special descrip-
tions are given of Marquette and Presque Isle
and of Mackinaw ; and Dr. M. E. Wadsworth
contributes an interesting scientific chapter
on the Geology of the Marquette and Ke-
weenan Districts. Published by the Duluth,
South Shore and Atlantic Railroad.

How to reduce your Weight, or Increase
it, a vivacious monograph by Celia Logan,
chatty and personal while intended also to be
practical, is defined as " an exposition of the
Salisbury plan." Its purpose, as outlined by
the author, is to make plain to every one how
an easy and sure deliverance from the burden
of corpulence is in his own hands ; and, inci-
dentally, to point out a way by which the
meager may, readily and agreeably, attain a
pleasing roundness of outline. The author
professes herself to have used her prescrip-
tion with [advantage. William A. Kellogg,
publisher, 1023 Sixth Avenue, New York.
Price, 50 cents.

Notes on Beauty, Vigor, and Develop-
ment, published by Fowler & Wells Co., is a

LITERARY NOTICES.

421

booklet of practical directions for acquiring
plumpness of form, strength of limb, and
beauty of complexion, with rules for diet and
bathing, and a series of improved physical
exercises, based on the text of William Milo,
of London. It gives much sound and inter-
esting hygienic lore for ten cents.

The President's Annual Report of Colum-
bia College for 1891 presents a record of a
very full year of changes and progress inci-
dent to a lively growth. The College of Phy-
sicians and Surgeons, which has been affili-
ated since 1860, is now fully consolidated as
a part of the institution. An important ad-
dition to the faculty is the institution of the
Da Costa Professorship of Biology, with Prof.
H. F. Osborn as its incumbent, and Dr. Bash-
ford Dean as instructor. Prof. Osborn has
been appointed Curator of Mammalian Pale-
ontology in the American Museum of Natural
History, and the first important step has been
taken toward co-operation of that institution
and the college. Another movement in the
direction of co-operation has been made in
the arrangement with the Union Theological
Seminary for interchange of privileges. The
Law School has been reorganized, with a new
course of three years, and a new chair of In-
ternational Law and Diplomacy. The De-
partment of English has also been reorgan-
ized, and a Department of Literature created,
with Mr. George E. Woodberry as professor.
The faculty of philosophy, philology, and let-
ters has been further strengthened by the
creation of the chair of Experimental Psy-
chology, with Prof. J. McK. Cattell as pro-
fessor. Other changes, rather incidental than
fundamental, are noticed in the report.

The Ninth Annual Report of the Massa-
chusetts Agricultural Experiment Station rep-
resents that a favorable season has aided
materially in a successful termination of a
variety of field experiments as well as in a
satisfactory general management of the farm-
work. The introduction of a vegetation-house
for the purpose of studying, under well-de-
fined circumstances, the influence of special
articles of plant-food on the growth and char-
acter of plants and other intricate questions
of vegetable physiology, is mentioned as an
important addition to the resources of the in-
stitution. The report embodies detailed ac-
counts of feeding experiments, field experi-
ments and observations in vegetable physi-

ology and pathology, special work in the
chemical laboratory, and meteorological ob-
servations.

The work of the Connecticut Experiment
Station, as presented in its report, has includ-
ed analyses of commercial fertilizers ; test-
ing samples of butter, oleomargarine, molas-
ses, and vinegar ; analyses of feeding stuffs ;
various tests and analyses of milk, cream,
etc. ; experiments on the continuous growth
of Indian corn on the same land ; tests of the
relative yield, in the course of years, of pota-
toes from tubers of different sizes ; studies of
the albuminoids or proteids of the seeds of
the oat, flax, and cotton; and experiments,
chemical and other, on the curing of to-
bacco.

The Indiana Experiment Station has suf-
fered some changes in the personality of its
staff, but its efficiency has not been impaired
thereby. A study has been made for several
years bearing upon the suitability of Indiana
as a sugar-beet producing State, with encour-
aging results under certain conditions and in
certain parts of the State. Investigations are
in progress on the application of nitrogenous
fertilizers to wheat. The plant diseases of
grain, smut, a bacterial affection of the sugar-
beet, and maladies of carnations have been
studied. The lumpy jaw of cattle is under
investigation. The feeding experiments re-
late to the influence of the physical condi-
tion of the rough food on meat production
in steers ; comparative rations of whole and
skim milk for calves ; different forms of feed-
ing corn, and rations designed for producing
lean or fat meat in pigs.

The Nebraska experiment station is grad-
ually becoming recognized as an important
factor in the agriculture of the State. The
number of farmers who turn to the office for
information is rapidly increasing ; and the
demand for the bulletins, which go regularly
into the hands of more than five thousand
actual farmers, is very great. The bright
promise of the beet-sugar industry has led to
giving it prominence in the shaping of in-
vestigations and in the report. Besides ac-
counts of field experiments and meteorologi-
cal observations, the report also contains a
catalogue of the native trees and shrubs of
Nebraska and " farm-notes " on many sub-
jects.

The report of S. A. Forbes, State Ento-

422

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mologist of Illinois, On the Noxious and
Beneficial Insects of the State for 1889 and
1890, mentions as among the most note-
worthy events of the entomological record
the almost complete disappearance of the
worst outbreak known of the chinch-bug, the
very destructive development of the grain-
louse, and the appearance of the European
fruit-bark beetle, which is injurious to stone
fruits. Besides these insects the report con-
tains papers on experiments with arsenical
poisonings, the American plum-borer, the
common white grubs, the Hessian fly, the
corn-root aphis, and diseases of the larger
corn-root worm and the chiuch-bug. An ap-
pendix to the report comprises an analytical
list of the entomological writings of William
Le Barron, second State Entomologist of Illi-
nois.

Good Roads is a new illustrated monthly
magazine devoted to the improvement of the
public roads and streets, edited by Isaac B.
Potter, and published by the League Roads
Improvement Bureau. Its general aim will
be to stimulate the interest of the public con-
cerning the advantages of good roads and
streets, and the best methods of constructing
and maintaining them ; and it is intended to
make the magazine of interest and value to
every person who travels the common roads.
It will give news of all events bearing on the
improvement of roads, and a series of articles
on leading subjects pertaining to it. The four
numbers of the journal before us conform to
the standard set up in announcing these pur-
poses.

An account of The Fourth International
Prison Congress has been prepared by the
Hon. C. D. Randall, at the request of the
Commissioner of Education, at whose office
it is published, in Washington. Besides the
proceedings and addresses at the Congress
last held, a summary of the proceedings and
results of the three previous International
Congresses is presented. In the appendix
are further given an account of the enter-
tainments and excursions tendered to the
Congress, papers with reference to John
Howard, an abstract of a conference of the
managers of the reformatory and industrial
institutions of Great Britain, and information
concerning Russian and Siberian prisons.

" Brochure " 2, Volume I, of the Proceed-
ings of the Rochester Academy of Science con-

tains a variety of papers, among which are
botanical, geological, and zoological section
reports ; special geological and archaeological
articles ; a list of the indigenous ferns in
the vicinity of Rochester ; notes on aborigi-
nal implements recently found in Ironde-
quoit; Peru, its people, productions, and
physical characteristics ; the Grand Canon of
the Colorado ; the Economic Minerals of the
Ancients ; Cetaceans, etc.

The American Journal of Morphology,
Volume V, No. 3, C. 0. Whitman and E. P.
Allis editors, contains papers on the Osteolo-
gy of Mesohippus and Leptomeryx, with Ob-
servations on the Modes and Factors of Evo-
lution in the Mammalia, by W. B. Scott ; The
Growth and Metamorphosis of Tornaria, by
T. H. Morgan; A Human Embryo Twenty-
six Days Old, by F. Mall ; On the Precocious
Segregation of the Sex Cells in Micrometrus
Aggregates, Gibbons, by Carl H. Eigenmann ;
Some Points in the Development of the Toad-
Fish (Batrachus Tau), by Cornelia M. Clapp ;
Development of the Epiphysis in Coregonus
Albus, by Charles Hill ; and Notes on the
Development of some Sponges, by Henry V.
Wilson. Boston : Ginn & Co.

Le Poildes Animaux et les Fourrures (The
Hair of Animals and Furs) is a pendant to a
work by the same author, Lacroix-Danliard,
on the feathers of birds. In it the struct-
ure, form, and color of hair are considered ;
hairs are classified according to their origin
and consistence, and uses to which they are
applied, as fine hairs and downy fur; hairs
that are spun, woven, carded, or combed ;
felting and hats ; and silks, horse-hairs, and
their uses in brush-making and upholstery.
Further, the author describes the habitation,
ways, and hunting of the animals which fur-
nish the raw material of hair and fur ; the
places of production, markets, and prices ;
and, finally, gives some useful information
concerning the parasites of hair and the
means of contending against them. Paris :
J. B. Bailliere et Fils.

The Journal of Physiology, edited by
Michael Foster and other eminent- physiolo-
gists, among whom are four Americans, is the
leading organ of original physiological inves-
tigation in the English language. The double
number, 1 and 2 of Volume XIII, contains
three articles with, in all, seven plates of curve
tracings. The articles are on Some of the In-

LITERARY NOTICES.

423

fluences which affect the Power of Voluntary
Muscular Contractions, by Warren P. Lom-
bard ; The Influence of Temperature and of
Endocardiac Pressure on the Heart, and par-
ticularly on the Action of the Vagus and Car-
diac Sympathetic Nerves, by G. N. Stewart ;
and The Blood-Corpuscles of the Crustacea, to-
gether with a Suggestion as to the Origin
of the Crustacean Fibrin Ferment, by W. B.
Hardy. Cambridge, England : Cambridge En-
graving Company. Price, 12s. ; $5 a volume.

Humanity and Health is a monthly jour-
nal, of which we have received the first num-
ber, published by E. A. Jennings, M. D., at
18 Clinton Place, New York. It is devoted
" to the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual
health of mankind " ; the just and humane
treatment of all men, women, and children ;
the inculcation of charity, of judgment, and
the spirit of forgiveness, to equal rights, the
cause of the oppressed, and other objects
pertaining to the welfare of mankind ; and we
observe that it has kind words for animals.
Pp. 14. Price, 10 cents ; $1 a year.

Part I, Volume XXVI, of Annals of the
Astronomical Observatory of Harvard Col-
lege, relates to the Preparation and Discus-
sion of the Draper Catalogue, and is by Prof.
E. C. Pickering. The Draper Catalogue is
named from Dr. Henry Draper, who took in
1872 the first photograph of a star in which
the characteristic lines are visible. The
work, interrupted by his death in 1882, is
now continued at the Harvard Observatory
under the Henry Draper Memorial Fund
which was established by his widow. The
history and progress of the Memorial are de-
scribed in the introduction to the present
volume. The portion of Part I which fol-
lows this account gives a description and dis-
cussion of the Draper Catalogue and of the
other work done with the Bache telescope
from 1885 to 1889. Accounts of other divis-
ions of the work are promised in Part H,
which is yet to be published.

The second part of the twentieth volume
of the Annals of the Observatory of Harvard
College gives an account, by A. Lawrence
Rotch, of the Observations made at the Blue
Hill Meteorological Observatory in 1889 — a
history and description of the Observatory,
with an account of its instrumental equip-
ment and the methods of observation and
reduction, having been previously given in

Part I of the volume. To the tables of the
year's observations are added appendixes
containing observations at Boston and at
Blue Hill during the five years 1886-1890,
with a summary of the diurnal and annual
periods at Blue Hill as shown by the tables.

The first number of the Engineering and
Mining Journal for 1892 (January 2d) is the
annual statistical number, and contains the
Mineral Statistics for 1891. These statistics
have been collected with great pains and at
heavy expense, and are claimed to be the
only statistics of the whole mineral industry
published until the Government reports,
which are not likely to appear for a year.
We are further told that the highest and best
known authorities in every part of the world
have contributed, each in his specialty, to
this record. Besides the official returns of
nearly all the important minerals and metals,
it gives statements of the sources of produc-
tion, the occurrence of the minerals, the use
and values of their products, and in many
cases the stocks of metal on hand at the
close of the year.

The Elementary Algebra of Dr. Charles
Davies has for many years held a high place
among mathematical text-books. It is so
arranged as to conduct the pupil by easy and
simple gradations from the arithmetical pro-
cesses to the more abstract methods of analy-
sis, and to be introductory to the best works
of higher algebra. The new edition which
the American Book Company now publish
has been edited and brought up to date by
Prof. J. H. Van Amringe, of Columbia Col-
lege. Among its peculiar features are the
expansion and simplification of the subject
of factoring, with the greatest common divi-
sor and least common multiple ; the exten-
sion of evolution to embrace any root ; and
greater simplicity and thoroughness in the
treatment of series and logarithms.

The volume Consumption ; how to Pre-
vent it and how to Live viith it, has grown out
of the preparation by the author, N. S. Davis,
Jr., M. D., of a series of hygienic rules for his
patients, with brief explanations of the effect
of their execution. The author has faith in
the power of hygiene, and expresses the be-
lief that consumption could be reduced every-
where to very moderate limits if the bodies
of children and growing youths were prop-
erly developed physically, and if the hygiene

424

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

of our homes, offices, and factories were
more perfect than it is. In this book the
accounts of the modes of action of climates,
forms of exercise, kinds of labor, etc., are
brought together and presented in intelligible
shape. Published in Philadelphia by F. A.
Davis.

The third of the Studies in History, Eco-
nomics, and Public Law, published by Co-
lumbia College, is a History of Municipal
Land Ownership on Manhattan Island, by
George Ashton Black (Prof. E. R. A. Selig-
man, 50 cents). Mr. Black describes the
transactions and policy of the city of New
York concerning land from 1654, when, un-
der the name of New Amsterdam, it acquired
its first piece of real estate, down to the be-
ginning of sales by the Commissioners of the
Sinking Fund in 1844. Sixteen maps of
parts of the city accompany the monograph.

The U. S. Artillery School at Fort Mon-
roe, Va., has begun the publication of a
quarterly magazine called the Journal of the
United States Artillery. The first number
contains articles on the motion and velocity
of projectiles, our artillery organization, and
the Chilian Navy. The subscription price is
$2.50 a year.

The New World is a quarterly review of
religion, ethics, and theology, the first num-
ber of which has been issued recently (Hough-
ton, $3 a year). It is under the charge of
an editorial board consisting of Profs. C. C.
Everett and C. H. Toy, of Harvard Univer-
sity, President Orello Cone, of Buchtel Col-
lege, and Rev. N. P. Gilman, author of The
Laws of Daily Conduct, the last named be-
ing the managing editor. The prospectus
states that " the new quarterly will be open
to able and constructive thinkers, without
regard to sectarian lines. The New World
which its editors have in mind is that which
is developing under the light of modern sci-
ence, philosophy, criticism, and philanthropy
— all of which, rightly viewed, are the friends
and helpers of enduring religious faith. To
positive and constructive statements of such
an order of things, as distinguished from the
old world of sectarianism, obscurantism, and
dogmatism, the New World is pledged."
Each number will contain 200 pages. In
the first number the opening article is on
The Evolution of Christianity, by Lyman Ab-
bott ; and other contributors are C. C. Ever-

ett, J. G. Schurman, W. R. Alger, C. H. Toy,
J. E. Carpenter, T. R. Sheer, E. H. Hall, and
C. B. Upton. There is a department of Book
Reviews, and in future it is intended to have
in each number a survey of current periodi-
cal literature on religious subjects. The New
World frankly admits the influence which
the doctrine of evolution and the scientific
method of research are exerting in the field
of religion, and promises well to become a
force that shall carry this influence onward
to a more perfect freedom and to an unre-
stricted acceptance of the truth.

The poems by H. L. Gordon, in the hand-
some volume entitled The Feast of the Vir-
gins and other Poems, having been printed
for the author's friends rather than for the
public, are hardly subjects for criticism.
They were for the most part composed dur-
ing the author's life in the Northwest — on
the frontiers of civilization — and bear the
marks of the personal acquaintances which
he says he has had with Indians of the Da-
kota and Ojibway nations. A considerable
proportion of them relate to Indian subjects,
and, in versifying Dakota legends, the at-
tempt has been made to present faithfully
many of the customs and superstitions and
some of the traditions of that people. While
very little poetic license has been taken with
their traditions, none has been taken with
their customs and superstitions. These poems
may therefore be regarded as contributions to
Indian lore. Published in Chicago by Laird
& Lee.

Simeon Pease Cheney, author of the Amer-
ican Singing-Book, was a musician and music
teacher, who lived thirty summers in a bird-
haunted grove, and who took notice of bird
songs in Vermont, New Hampshire ; St. Law-
rence County, New York ; and southern Mas-
sachusetts. In his sixty-seventh year, with
no authorities but his own observations — for
he never read but four books about birds,
and these not till more than half the work
he accomplished was done — he undertook the
collection of New England bird-songs. His
intention was to write a book for the young
people of New England, to be made up of
bird-songs and observations on the domestic
animals, with special reference to their sev-
eral forms of utterance, and of notices of the
music of inanimate things. He died with
his work unfinished in May, 1890. His notes

LITERARY NOTICES.

425

have been collected and edited by Mr. John
Vance Cheney, and are published, with much
supplementary matter in the appendix, as
Wood Notes Wild, by Lee & Shepard, Boston.
The author warmly controverts the assertion
of a modern English writer that there is no
music in Nature, and in contradiction of it
presents a transcript of the song of water
dropping into a bucket, and the melody of a
whirling clothes-rack. Following these, he
gives his observations and transcriptions of
the notes — some of them forming various
melodies — of forty-one birds, beginning with
the bluebird and robin, and closing with owls
and the hen — all of which, he avers, contain
the essential elements of true music. In the
appendix, the editor presents all that he has
been able to find, by citation or reference,
tbat has been said by other authors on the
music of birds, and has combined much valu-
able information on the subject.

The Financial History of Massachusetts,
from the Organization of the Massachusetts
Bay Company to the American Revolution, is
a volume of the Columbia College Series of
Studies in History, Economics, and Law, by
Charles A. Douglas. It is presented as a
necessary antecedent to an intelligent inves-
tigation of the financial phenomena of the
later period of the history of the State,
which are regarded as far more complex,
as well as fuller of interest, than those
embraced within the scope of the present
essay. In his treatment the author has given
space to the exposition of administrative
features, rather than to numerical state-
ments— very properly, we think, in view of
the close relation of such features to funda-
mental principles, and of the fragmentary
and unsystematic character of the financial
records. We are sorry to observe the author
apologizing for involved style in some parts
of his work. With a language so capable of
giving clear and simple expression to every
thought as the English, we can recognize no
sufficient excuse in a careful work for the
want of it.

Opposite views of the money question are
taken in two pamphlets that are before us —
Two Essays in Economics, by John Borden
(S. A. Maxwell & Co., Chicago), and a lecture
by Alfred B. Westrup on Citizens' Money
(The Mutual Bank Propaganda, Chicago).
Mr. Borden's essays are on Wealth and

American Money, and are well-reasoned and
well-tempered presentations of the sound
financial view that the circulation must have
a basis of real value. Wealth is defined, its
different kinds are distinguished, false defi-
nitions of it are exposed, and it is considered
with reference to its sum and its owners. In
American Money are discussed the standard,
tokens, the medium of exchange, the volume
of the currency, money as a store of wealth,
and paper money. In his lecture on Citizens'
Money, Mr. Westrup insists that sufficient
volume and facilities must be provided to en-
able all wealth to be represented by money ;
that this representative should be loaned at
cost ; that absolute security must be given to
the holder of paper money; and that the
present system of control and restriction of
the currency by Government is wrong.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Abbott, Lyman. The Evolution of Christian-
ity. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 358.
$1.25.

American Society of Naturalists. Report on
Science Teaching in the Schools. Boston : Rock-
well & Churchill. Pp. 14.

Arizona, University of, Tucson. Bulletin of
School of Mines, No. 2. Pp. 10.

Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Publica-
tions. Vol. Ill, No. 15. Pp. 72.

Baker, Charles. Patti Waltz. Tyrolienne.
New York : Baker & Helmick. Pp. 3. 40 cents.

Beardmore, W. Lee. The Drainage of Habi-
table Buildings. New York : Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 89. $1.50.

Benedict, W. R., Cincinnati. Psychological
Table. Chart.

Bernard, Henry Mayness. Tire Apodidaj : A
Morphological Study. New York : Macmillan &,
Co. Pp.316. $2.

Booth, Charles. Pauperism and the Endow-
ment of Old Age. New York : Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 355. $1.25.

Boston Public Schools. Report for 1891. Pp.
74.

Brinton, D. G. Anthropology as a Science and
as a Branch of University Education. — Studies in
South American Native Languages. Philadel-
phia : McCalla & Co. Pp. 88.

Carlyle, Thomas, The Last Words of. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 383. $1.75.

Cathcart, George R. Cathcart's Literary Read-
er. New York : American Book Co. Pp. 541.
$1.15.

Chicago Manual Training School. Catalogue,
1891-'92. Pp. 32.

Churchill, Lord Randolph S. Men, Mines,
and Animals in South Africa. New York : D. Ap-
pleton & Co. Pp. 937, with Map. $5.

Conn, Dr. H. W., Middletown, Conn. Some
Uses of Bacteria. Pp. 28.

Cowperthwait, J. Howard. Money, Silver,
and Finance. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pp. 242. $1.25.

Cushing, Frank H. A Zufli Folk-tale of the
Underworld. Pp. 18.

Dawson, G. M. Notes on the Shuswap People
of British Columbia. Pp. 44, with Plate.

426

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Devil's, The, Visit. New York : Excelsior
Publishing House. Pp. 448.

Dominion, The. Illustrated Monthly. May,
1892. Montreal. Pp. 64. 15 cents. $1.50 a year.

Durfee, W. F. In Memoriam. Charles Alfred
Hobbs. Pp. 12.

Falkener, Edward. Games, Ancient and Ori-
ental, and how to play them. New York : Long-
mans, Green & Co. Pp. 366. $6.

Gill, Theodore. Notes on the Tetraodontoidea.
Pp. 10, with Plate. — On the Genus Chonerhimes
or Xenopterus. Pp. 3.— On the Genus Gnatbana-
canthus of Bleeker. Pp. 4.

Ginn & Co., Boston. Catalogue and An-
nouncements for 1892. Pp. 163.

Gordon, E. M. A Warning to all the Inhabit-
ants of this World. Philadelphia. Pp. 35.

Greswell, Rev. W. P. Geography of Africa
South of the Zambesi. New York : Macmillan &
Co. Pp. 400, with Three Maps. §2.

Gunton, Prof. George. Taxation and Reve-
nue. The Protectionist View. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 20. 10 cents.

Halsted, Byron D., New Brunswick, N. J.
Some Fungi Common to Wild and Cultivated
Plants. Pp. 6.— A Century of American Weeds.
Pp. 8.— Report of the Botanical Department, New
Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. Pp.
108.— Syllabus of Lectures on Botany. Pp. 16.

Henry, M. Charles. Les Odeurs (Odors). Paris,
France : A. Hermann. Pp. 68.

Holbrook, M. L., M. D. The Hygienic Treat-
ment of Consumption. New York : M. L. Hol-
brook & Co. Pp. 219. $2.

Humanity's Spreading Curse. The Scribes
and Pharisees. By One of them. Dallas, Texas :
E. H. Andrae. Pp. 106. 35 cents.

Hurst, George H. Silk Dyeing, Printing, and
Finishing. New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp.
226, with 166 samples. $2.

Illinois State Board of Health. Eleventh An-
nual Report. Springfield. Pp. 236.

Ingersoll, Robert G. Thomas Paine. Buffalo,
N. Y. : H. L. Green. Pp. 10. 10 cents.

James, U. P., Cincinnati, Ohio. Catalogue of
Scientific Books. Pp. 24.

Landauer, J., and Taylor, James. Blowpipe
Analysis. New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 173.
$1.10.

Leverett, Frank. On the Correlation of Mo-
raines with Lake Beaches of Lake Erie. Pp. 20.
—Pleistocene Fluvial Planes of Western Pennsyl-
vania. Pp. 14.

McGuire, J. D. Materials, 'Apparatus, and
Processes of the Aboriginal Lapidary. Pp. 12.

Mackenzie, Alexander. Implements, Weap-
ons, etc., from Graham Island, Queen Charlotte
Islands. Pp. 16, with Plates.

Marshall, Alfred. Elements of Economics of
Industry. New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 416.

$1.

Michigan, University of. University Record,
April. 1892. Quarterly. Pp. 24. 12 cents, 50
cents a year.

Morris, R. Anna. Physical Education in the
Public Schools. New York : American Book Co.
Pp. 192. $1.

Monroe, W. S. A Pedagogical Library. Pp.
12. Oakland, Cal.: Philip M. Fisher. Pp. 12.

Naegeli, Prof. Carl, and Schwendener, Prof. S.
The Microscope in Theory and Practice. New
York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 382. $2.60.

Parmalee, Mary. Who ? When ? and What ?
Famous Men and Events of Six Centuries. Wall-
chart. 50 cents.— Answered in the Negative. Pp.
203. 50 cents. New York : Parmalee & Chaffee.

Patterson, H. J. Report of Chemist, Marvland
Agricultural Experiment Station. Pp. 48.

Pennell, Joseph. The Jew at Home. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 105. $1.

Physical Education. Vol. I, Nos. 1 and 2.
Springfield, Mass. The Triangle Publishing Co.
Pp. 18 each. Monthly. $1 a year.

Pierce, Newton B. A Disease of Almond
Trees. Pp. 12, with Plates.

Pillings, J. C. Bibliography of the Algonquian
Languages. Washington : Bureau of Ethnology.
Pp. 614.

Poor, Laura E. Life and Writings of John
Alfred Poor. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pp.400. $3.

Potts, William. The Monetarv Problem. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 36. 10 cents.

Ramsey, Samuel. The English Language and
English Grammars. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 570. $3.

Redding, Jacob, M. D. Physiology, its Sci-
ence and Philosophy. New Castle, Ind. Pp.
632.

Reid, H. F. Studies of the Muir Glacier, Alaska.
Washington : National Geographic Society. Pp.
84. $1.

Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terre Haute, Ind.
Catalogue, etc., 1892. Pp. 50.

Salter, W. M. Freedom of Thought and of
Speech. Chicago : C. H. Kerr & Co. Pp. 29.

Sampson, Z. Sidney. The Immigration Prob-
lem. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 24.
10 cents.

The Sanitary Inspector. Monthly. Pp. 12.
Augusta, Me. 25 cents a year.

Schwahn, J. G. The Tableau ; or, Heaven as
a Republic. Los Angeles, Cal. : Franklin Print-
ing Co. Pp. 233. 50 cents.

Shearman, Thomas G. Taxation and Revenue.
The Free-Trade View. New York : D. Appleton
& Co. Pp. 32. 10 cents.

Smithsonian Institution. Report for 1890.
Pp. 808.— Report United States National Museum.
1888-'89. Pp. 930.

Spencer, Herbert. Social Statics ; or, Man vs.
the State. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp.
420. $2.

Thomas, A. R., M. D. Evolution of the Earth
and Man. Philadelphia. Pp. 30.

Trelease, William. Revision of Rumex. St.
Louis. Pp. 98, with 33 Plates.

The Treasury of Religious Thought. J. San-
derson, LL. D., Editor. New York : E. B. Treat
& Co. Monthly. Pp. 92. 25 cents, $2.50 a year.

United States Artillery Journal. Quarterly.
Fortress Monroe, Va. : Artillery School Press. Pp.
86. 25 cents, $2 a year.

United States Geological Survey. Mineral
Products. Chart.

United States Signal Service. Normal Tem-
perature Charts by Decades. 71 Charts.

Wadsworth, M. E. The South Trap Range of
the Keweenaw Series. Pp. 3.

The Wool Book for 1892. Compiled by S. D.
North. Boston : National Association of Wool
Manufacturers ; S. D. North, Secretary. Pp. 122.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

The American Tea Plant. — The Ilex cos-
sine, or youpon, is a shrub or small tree
which grows in the Southern States, along
the sea-coast, to not more than twenty or
thirty miles inland, from Virginia to the
Rio Grande. Its leaves and tender branches
were once used by the Indians in the same
way that the Chinese tea and the Paraguay

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

427

tea are used. But the drinking of this tea
has been nearly if not quite abandoned. A
study of its history has been made by Dr. E.
M. Hale, who has examined all the references
to it he could find, and has started an in-
quiry into the reason why it has been aban-
doned, and the expediency of reviving its
use. Its leaf, according to the analysis by
Prof. Venable, of the University of North
Carolina, contains caffeine. It is not so
pleasant in odor and taste as the Chinese tea ;
but it seems to have some salutary proper-
ties which the latter does not possess, and
may perhaps be more cheaply obtained. Dr.
Hale estimates the extent of the land over
which it grows as about forty thousand square
miles, and suggests that careful experiments
in cultivation and manipulation might result
in furnishing our markets with a product
that would be found in many cases an ac-
ceptable and useful substitute for the more
expensive imported teas.

Many-toed Horses. — The derivation of
the recent horse's foot with one digit from
ancestors with polydactyl feet has been care-
fully traced by Prof. 0. C. Marsh in his pub-
lished papers on that subject. Several in-
stances have come to the author's knowledge
of existing horses presenting more than one
toe. Julius Caesar's horse had this peculiari-
ty. Its feet are described by Suetonius as
having been almost human, with the hoofs
cleft like toes. " It was born in Caesar's own
stables, and, as the soothsayers declared that
it showed that its owner would be lord of the
world, he reared it with great care, and was
the first to mount it. It would allow no oth-
er rider." The main functional toe of each
foot of the horse is the third digit, corre-
sponding to the middle finger of the human
hand. In addition to these, two "splint-
bones," one on each side of the main cannon-
bone, are present beneath the skin — the
remnants of two other toes possessed by an-
cestors of the horse. One or more of these
splint-bones may become enlarged below and
support phalanges, forming another digit be-
side the main one, or, more commonly, de-
veloping into a small external toe, with hoof.
The occurrence of such extra digits in the
recent horse is much more frequent than is
generally supposed. Prof. Marsh has exam-
ined several living animals presenting this

peculiarity, and has received photographs,
drawings, and detailed descriptions of others.
The extra digit may appear on one foot, when
it is smaller than the main digit, and is usu-
ally on the inner side on the fore foot. It
may often be entirely under the skin, with
the only external evidence of it a promi-
nence, in which its form may be made out.
A corresponding extra toe may be present on
the other fore foot ; a second extra digit may
exist with the others, but outside the main
digit ; with the extra inner toes of the fore
feet, another of equal or smaller size may be
present on one or both of the hind feet, al-
most always on the inside ; in rare cases, both
fore and hind feet may each have two extra
digits fairly developed, and all of nearly equal
size ; or sometimes, besides the extra toes al-
ready described, which appear to be the sec-
ond and fourth, the first digit, or pollex, may
be represented by its metacarpal, supported
by a distinct trapezium, all beneath the skin.
A large majority of the polydactyl horses
known to Prof. Marsh in this country have
been raised in the Southwest, or from ances-
try bred there, so that their connection with
the mustangs or semi-wild stock of that re-
gion becomes more than probable. The fact
that the tendency to reversion is much
stronger where animals run wild must be
taken into consideration in discussing the
question of the origin of these animals.

Temperature of Lake Waters. — The in-
vestigations of Mr. A. T. Drummond on the
temperatures of some Northern lakes and riv-
ers have shown him that the Georgian Bay
is, in its main expanse, a large body of cold
water whose temperature, at its greater
depths, is not much influenced by the heat
of summer, while the central and southern
basins of Lake Huron, although also receiv-
ing surplus waters from Lake Superior, stand
in the line of inflow of the warmer waters
from Lake Michigan and of their ultimate
exit by way of the river St. Clair to the lower
lakes, and are consequently somewhat warmer
basins. Among the details of observations
recorded in his papers, we find that tests at
the rapids of the Richelieu River at Chambly
seem to show that the motion of the water
during the mile of continuous rapid raises the
temperature of the water perceptibly. Rapid
currents have, however, the effect of equal-

428

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

izing the temperature of the water. Under
conditions appearing to be the same, and at
points relatively near to each other, the water
on the surface of the lakes and rivers is not
uniform in temperature, but seems to flow in
areas of different temperatures. It is impos-
sible to lay down any general rule regarding
the changes of temperature varying with the
increase in depth. Apart from variations re-
sulting at the different seasons, surface read-
ings are affected by sunlight and cloud, gusts
of wind, channel currents, the inflow of afflu-
ent streams, and the physical features of the
surrounding land. Readings beneath the sur-
face are affected by the depth of the water,
by ordinary currents resulting from changes
of level, by evaporation at the surface creat-
ing an upward flow of the water underneath,
by the contour of the bottom, and by high
winds which drive the surface waters before
them, creating return currents underneath to
take their place. The general rise of the
temperature of Lake Ontario waters as the
summer advances is at first slow, compared
with the general rise of the temperature of
the air, but, as midsummer is reached, the
rise is more rapid both at the surface and at
the bottom. The absorption and retention
power of the sun's heat is most noticeable in
the small streams and quiet pools. In the
case of rivers, the air in direct contact with
the warm surface of the water has its tem-
perature in early August raised to from 1° to
5° above that of the air directly above, but
in more exposed positions ; and this increase
in temperature, which is greatest at the point
of contact, is, at one foot above the surface
of the water, already to a considerable extent
lost.

The Valne of Human Testimony. — The

argument of a book by Mr. Thomas Fitzar-
thur on the Value of Human Testimony is,
according to the summary of The Spectator,
that the value depends in a great measui'e on
the importance attached by the witness to
the facts to which he testifies. If the fact
is insignificant, if his interest in it is languid,
and it has no real bearing on his life, it is not
to be supposed that he will take the trouble
to attend to the matter with the care and the
anxiety to be sure of what he sees or hears
which is necessary to make his testimony of
real weight for other people. But if it is a

fact on which a great change in his own ca-
reer depends, if it alters his whole life, his
whole character, if it involves him in much
labor and suffering, if it kindles in him an
altogether new ideal of purpose, then we may
be sure that his testimony is both honest and
careful, and that, if it is supported by a great
deal of other testimony of the same nature, it
is in the highest degree trustworthy. Fur-
ther, the author insists that its transmission
through a long line of tradition does not in-
validate its authority. We should not attach
much value to details so transmitted. If we
were dependent on testimony transmitted
from generation to generation as to the num-
bers and character of the forces engaged in
the battle of Hastings, we should not attach
much weight to it. But such a long line of
transmission would not diminish the value of
the testimony as to the reality of that battle,
and its result in the defeat of the Saxon and
the victory of the Norman army. We should
be well aware that that testimony must have
been transmitted through a great many un-
willing as well as a great many willing and
triumphant witnesses. We should be well
aware that all those witnesses must have had
before their eyes the amplest evidence of the
actual event, and of the revolution it brought
about in the history of England. And we
should never think of supposing anything so
absurd as that at some specific date there was
a deliberate conspiracy formed by hundreds
of thousands of living Englishmen to alter
the whole drift of the testimony they had re-
ceived from their fathers, and invent a bat-
tle which never took place, or reverse its
issue, and that that conspiracy should have
succeeded in persuading the unborn genera-
tions to believe a gigantic lie. There could
be neither machinery nor motive for such a
successful conspiracy, and consequently the
common sense of mankind at once rejects a
hypothesis so audacious and absurd, with con-
tempt.

Miss North's Animal Friends. — Miss Ma-
rianne North relates, in her Recollections, that
while sketching an old Hindu temple at
Blaune Watu, Java, she felt hungry and be-
gan eating a biscuit as she went on with her
work. Shortly she was disturbed by a pull
at her dress, and found a large monkey sit-
ting beside her and looking reproachfully at

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

429

her, " with the expression of ' How can you
be so greedy ? why don't you give me a bit ? '
Of course he did get it, and then departed
and hid himself in the leaves overhead." At
a place in California, where she stayed after all
the other visitors had deserted it, " a stag,"
she says, " with great branching horns was
my only companion ; he had a bell round his
neck, and used generally to live in front of
the house, but liked human company ; and
when I appeared with my painting things he
would get up and conduct me gravely to my
point, and see me well settled at my work,
then scamper off, coming back every now and
then to sniff at my colors."

The Succession of American Floras. — No

strongly defined line can be drawn, says
Prof. Warren Upham, in a paper on the
flora of the basin of the Red River of the
North, "between different portions of the
flora and fauna of the country from the At-
lantic to the Rocky Mountains and from the
Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Sea. But
great contrasts exist between the Eastern
region, with its plentiful rainfall, and the
dry Western plains, as also between the al-
most tropical Southern margin of the United
States and the tundras beneath the Arctic
Circle. In traveling from the once wholly
forest-covered country of the Eastern States,
across the prairies, to the far Western
plains bearing cacti and sage-brush, there is
observed a gradual change in the flora, until
a very large proportion of the Eastern
species is left behind, and their places are
taken by others capable of enduring more
arid conditions. Likewise, in going from
St. Augustine or New Orleans to Chicago, St.
Paul, Winnipeg, and Hudson Bay and Strait,
the palmettoes, the evergreen live-oak, bald
cypress, Southern pines, and the festooned
Tillandsia, or Spanish moss, are left in pass-
ing from the Southern to the Northern
States ; and instead we find in the region of
the Laurentian lakes the bur or mossy-cup
oak, the canoe and yellow birches, the tama-
rack, or American larch, the black spruce,
balsam fir, and the white, red, and Banksian
pines ; while farther north the white spruce,
beginning as a small tree in northern New
England and on Lake Superior, attains a
majestic growth on the lower Mackenzie in a
more northern latitude than a large part of

the moss-covered barren grounds which
reach thence eastward to the northern part
of Hudson Bay and Labrador. Thus, al-
though no grand topographic barrier, like a
high mountain range, impassable to species
of the lowlands, divides this great region,
yet the transition from a humid to an arid
climate in passing westward, and the ex-
change of tropical warmth for polar cold in
the journey from South to North, are accom-
panied by gradual changes of the flora, by
which in the aggregate its aspect is almost
completely transformed."

Timber-testing. — The Forestry Division
of the Department of Agriculture is engaged
in making tests of timber, for the purposes
of obtaining a better knowledge of the quali-
ties of our commonest commercial timbers ;
of devising means of relating qualities to
physical structure and appearance; and to
establish, if possible, the influence which
divers conditions of growth exercise upon
the quality — all conditions affecting the
usefulness of the specimens in service. The
records, which are preserved in duplicate,
include the definition of the locality where
the piece was cut, with its geological and
climatological features ; an exact descrip-
tion of the site and exposure, the soil, and
the surrounding growth and undergrowth ;
the origin of the tree, its age and dimensions ;
the positions in the tree of the various test-
pieces submitted ; and other points. It is
expected to submit to the regular series of
tests between one and two thousand test-
pieces of each species. It is hoped that
when the work is done means will be
afforded the engineer and architect to speci-
fy for timber of given quality, and also, by
a rapid macroscopic and microscopic exami-
nation, to pass on each stick as to its coming
up to the specification ; and, further, of
acquainting ourselves with the conditions of
growth that produce given quality.

The Preservation of Historical and In-
teresting Scenery. — At the instance of the
Appalachian Mountain Club, a law has been
enacted in Massachusetts incorporating a
Board of Trustees of Public Reservations,
with authority to acquire, hold, arrange,
maintain, and open to the public, under suit-
able regulations, beautiful and historical

430

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

place3 and tracts of land within the Com-
monwealth. The property thus acquired,
which can not, with its appurtenances, ex-
ceed two million dollars in aggregate value,
is exempt from taxation, unless it is held
longer than two years without being opened
to the public. While the corporation enjoys
these privileges, it is forbidden to own any
capital stock or to make any division of
property or income among its members, or
any dividends. Mr. George F. Hoar has
been chosen President of the Board. The
trustees received last year several recommen-
dations or offers of property as coming within
the category of the purposes for which they
are acting, and have considered the expe-
diency of purchasing them ; and Mr. J. B.
Harrison, their agent, has made an inspec-
tion of the sea-coast towns of the State, with
a view to the provision of public access to
the beach and the establishment of sea-
shore parks. The establishment of the
board will enable the admirers of the
scenery or history of any spot in the State
to make that spot a reservation and to pro-
vide for its perpetual care, and will enable
the proprietors of pleasure resorts and the
people of communities which make money
from the attractiveness of fine scenery to
insure the perpetuation of such attractions
and of their profits. Similar provisions
should be made in all the States.

Characteristics of Star Spectra. — The

general conclusion derived from the study of
the spectra of the stars, says Prof. E. Picker-
ing, in his account of the Henry Draper Me-
morial, is the marked similarity in constitu-
tion of different stars. A large part of them
— the stars of the " first type " — have a spec-
trum which at first sight seems to be continu-
ous, except that it is traversed by broad dark
bands, due to hydrogen. Closer inspection
shows that the K-line is also present as a fine
dark line. If the dispersion is large and the
definition good, many more dark lines are
visible. These lines may be divided into two
classes: First, those which predominate in
many stars in the milky way, especially in
the constellation of Orion ; and, second, those
present in the solar spectrum. Nearly all the
brighter stars may be arranged in a sequence,
beginning with those in Orion, in which the
auxiliary lines are nearly as intense as those

due to hydrogen. Other stars may be found
in which these lines successively become
fainter and fainter, till they have nearly dis-
appeared. The more marked solar lines then
appear, become stronger and stronger, and
the hydrogen lines fainter, till they gradually
merge into a spectrum apparently identical
with that of the sun. Continuing the se-
quence, the spectra pass gradually into those
of the third type. Certain bands become
more marked, and the spectra of the third
type may be divided into four classes, in the
fourth of which the hydrogen lines are bright
instead of dark. This spectrum appears to
be characteristic of the variable stars of long
period when near their maximum. It has led
to the detection of several new variable
stars, and has been confirmed in many of the
known variables. Slight peculiarities are
noticed in the spectra of many stars, but
these deviations are not sufficient to affect
the general law. Stars of the fourth type,
whose spectra appear to be identical with
the spectrum of carbon, are not included in
this classification. Other stars, whose spec-
tra consist mainly of bright lines, like those
of the planetary nebula?, may be included
with them in a fifth class.

The Reason of the Slave Trade. — A Mos-
lem view of the slave trade is presented in
the Saturday Review — not to excuse the traf-
fic, but to show why it is carried on. The
slaves are mostly children, " black, uncomely,
and unpromising." They are not sought
for the harem, in the conventional sense
of that word. "The truth is, that certain
conditions of domestic life among civilized
Moslems exact a supply of slaves without re-
gard to beauty or even to physical strength.
The interruption of that supply has caused
as much dismay and confusion as a law to for-
bid the employment of unmarried girls for
household service might effect in England.
It would be found at once that there were
not matrons or widows enough to do the
work, that few of them would undertake it,
and fewer still were competent. Such a law
would be evaded at every peril. No class of
women in a Moslem community has the tra-
dition of domestic service, as it may be
called. Very commonly a free girl was
taken into the household of some matron
as a child, and there brought up ; but she

NOTES.

43i

never dreamed of changing. One of the con-
ditions was, and is, that her patroness shall
provide a husband for her. Often enough,
also, the child of such a protegee succeeds to
her place when old enough, and thus very
pleasing relations are established between
families of different status. . . . The practice
of adopting girl-children to train as servants
becomes more and more common as slaves
become scarcer. ... A class of domestic
servants is being formed which, in due time,
will replace the slaves. But transformations
of the sort are very, very slow in the East.
Meanwhile the process is very disagreeable,
even shocking, to Moslem housewives, and it
is not at all surprising that they should pay
heavily and run some risk to obtain a negro
who is all their own."

Lake Beaches. — In his discussion of the
beaches and their correlative moraines of
Lake Erie, in the American Journal of Sci-
ence, Mr. Frank Leverett shows that the be-
lief of geologists now is that the phenomena
do not demand a submergence of the land
during the closing stages of the Glacial epoch ;
that, instead of a depression, there was a
greater altitude than in the earlier part of
the period ; and that the result of investiga-
tion has been to reduce the noteworthy lakes
connected with the closing stages of glacia-
tion in Ohio to the one bounded by the beach
lines that were recognized by the Ohio Geo-
logical Survey. The examination of the phe-
nomena in detail leads to the conclusion that
Lake Erie, in its earlier stages, was but a
small body of water, its size being conditioned
by the position of the retreating ice-sheet and
by the height of the western rim of the basin
it occupied.

NOTES.

The arrangements for the meeting of
the American Association, to be held in
Rochester, N. Y., in August, are nearly com-
pleted. The meeting will be opened on
Tuesday evening, the 17th, with an address
by Secretary F. W. Putnam. President Jo-
seph Le Conte will deliver an address on
Wednesday evening, the 18th ; a reception
will be given the Association by the ladies
of the city at the Powers Art Gallery on
Thursday, the 19th ; and a public lecture
will be given on Friday evening. The busi-
ness meetings will be held in the university.

The Saturday excursions will include visits
to Niagara Falls, Portage, Mount Morris,
Canandaigua Lake, and Watkins Glen, and
the long excursion will be to the Adirondack
region.

The second annual session of the School
of Applied Ethics will be held at Plymouth,
Mass., July Gth to August 17th. The pro-
gramme of instruction includes six courses
of five lectures each in the History of Relig-
ions ; seven courses in Economics ; and a
series of fifteen lectures by Prof. William
Wallace, of Oxford, on Variations of the
Moral Standard, illustrated by the History of
Ethical Theories ; with four other courses in
Ethics. Applications may be made to the
secretary, S. Burns Weston, 118 South 12th
Street, Philadelphia,

In Uruguay, according to Admiral Ken-
nedy, of H. M. S. Ruby, barbed wire has
played a part in suppressing revolutions, as
it is not easy to march troops over a country
intersected by it.

A Postschide is to be established at Leip-
sic for the special training of post-office as-
sistants, and eventually also of postmasters.
The course of instruction will embrace, be-
sides the usual branches, the subjects be-
longing to the postal service.

According to Dr. R. W. Shufeldt's ob-
servations of the Navajo belt-weavers, curves
are never found in the figure-patterns on the
belts or blankets, but horizontal stripes,
diagonals, and the lozenge are interwoven
with a variety that appears to be almost end-
less in the matter of design. The leading
colors used are red, brilliant orange-yellow, a
blue, and by combination a green, and black,
white and gray.

The results of the observations of Mr. H.
C. Russell, of Sydney, on the Grouping of
Stars in the Southern Part of the Milky Way
were described by him at the Australasian
Association as tending to diminish the value
of the rifts in the discussion of stellar distri-
bution.

The detailed meteorological observations,
made under the direction of H. B. de Saus-
sure simultaneously on the Col du Geant, at
Geneva, and at Chamounix, in July, 1788,
have been published in the memoirs of the
Physical Society of Geneva. Only the means
of a part of the observations were pub-
lished by De Saussure in his Voyages dans
les Alpes.

The nest and egg of a bird-of-paradise
have been found by two Australian gentle-
men on an island off the coast of Queens-
land, and have been described by Mr. A. J.
Campbell in the Victoria Field Naturalists'
Club. The hen was watched till she flew
into the crown of a pandanus tree, where her
head could be seen as she sat on her nest.

432

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The nest was about ten feet from the
ground, and was somewhat loosely con-
structed of broad, dead leaves and green
branchlets of climbing plants and fibrous
material. Inside were two large concave
dead leaves underneath pieces of dry ten-
drils, which formed a springy lining for the
egg or young to rest upon. The nest con-
tained a single egg; was nineteen centi-
metres broad and nine deep; and the egg
cavity was nine centimetres by four.

A proposition to establish a marine bio-
logical station in Jamaica as a memorial of
Columbus is approved by Prof. Huxley and
Prof. Ray Lankester, who regard the situa-
tion as a most excellent one for the study of
intertropical life.

A small axe of nephrite found at Ohlau,
in Silesia, has been identified as to the specific
gravity, microscopic structure, and chemical
composition of the stone, as the same with a
mineral occurring near Jordansrnuhl, in Sile-
sia. This is the only prehistoric object found
in Europe of which the source has been sat-
isfactorily determined.

Among the items of progress in chemistry
in Australia, Mr. W. M. Hamlet mentions the
discovery of the alkaloids brucine and strych-
nine in the fruits of Strychnos pilosperma, by
Prof. Rennie and Mr. Goyder ; and the work
done by Mr. J. H. Maiden in the examination
of Australian kinos, gums, and barks. Chief
among this chemist's researches was his work
on wattle bark, which he found contains from
fifteen to forty-six per cent of tannic acid.
As the wattle "tree is easy of cultivation, it
thus promises to be valuable. Mr. Kirkland
has discovered gallium and indium in some
specimens of blende. Some work has been
done toward determining the actual state of
combination in which elements occur in dif-
ferent ores.

The first part of an account of the origin
and development of the Royal Gardens at
Kew has been published by Mr. Thiselton
Dyer, in the Kew Bulletin. The present in-
stallment of the story relates the earlier period
of the history, when the gardens were a
purely private possession of the crown, and
closes with the time when, in 1841, they be-
came a national institution, with Sir William
Hooker as director. For this early period
there are hardly any authentic records, and
the author has had " to fall back on local
traditions, on local histories, the statements
of which are often confusing and inaccurate,
and on such scattered notices as could be
gathered from contemporary literature."
The history of the last half-century of the
gardens will be given in another number of
the Bulletin.

In a lawsuit recently decided in London,
a householder had two poplar trees near a
railway, which the railway company wished

removed. He was willing to shorten the
branches, but not to cut the trees down. The
company sent in its men, who felled the trees,
and then offered to settle with the owner,
first by giving him two hundred and fifty,
and later by offering him five hundred dol-
lars. He carried the case to the court, which
gave him fifteen hundred dollars for the trees
and additional damages of a thousand dollars
for the injury caused by their removal.

Violets of highly intensified colors have
appeared on the streets of Paris, where
curiously colored lilacs and narcissuses are
likewise offered for sale. According to M.
Gaston Tissandier, in La Nature, the flowers
sold in Paris are artificially colored by plac-
ing the stems in water containing an aniline
dye of the tint desired.

Mr. Smee, of the Gresham Insurance
Company, is credited with having declared
that the company has paid out during the
past two years, on account of deaths caused
directly by influenza, two and a half times as
much as it paid in forty-three years for
deaths by cholera.

An exhibition of weeds at the World's
Columbian Exhibition is projected by Prof.
Byron D. Halsted, who suggests that each
person assisting secure at least three speci-
mens each of the worst weeds in his State or
section. Regard should be had, in collecting
them to the seeds, which are especially de-
sired ; seedlings in various states of develop-
ment ; the root system ; the flower and flower
cluster ; and the seed-vessel. To avoid un-
necessary duplication, persons designing to
collect for this enterprise are invited to com-
municate with Prof. Halsted at the State
Experiment Station, New Brunswick, N. J.,
when their work will be arranged for them.

A curious custom is described by Dr. J. C.
Evans as having prevailed at Oakham, Rut-
landshire, England, by which a horseshoe, or
payment in lieu thereof, was exacted from
every peer passing through the town. The
author exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries
an iron horseshoe of super-equine dimensions,
which had been deposited in the hall at Oak-
ham in 1693, by Richard Cumberland, Bishop
of Peterborough.

OBITUARY NOTE.

Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp, a famous
German chemist, died at Heidelberg, Febru-
ary 20th, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
He joined Liebig in 1813 at Giessen, where
he labored for nearly twenty-five years ; be-
came a privat-docent in the university in
1841, an extraordinary prof essor in 1843, and
an ordinary professor in 1853 ; and was called
to Heidelberg in 1864, where he remained
till his death. His specialty was physical
chemistry.

■ '

W///M

m

mm

Wii

mm

I

JOHN COUCH ADAMS.

MEIOtillLLliSKAR '
THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

AUGUST, 1892.

NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME.

By Pkof. EDWARD S. MORSE.

" Find out what the law of God is with regard to a man ; make that your human law,
or I say it will be ill with you, and not well ! If you love your thief or murderer, if Nature
and eternal Fact love him, then do as you are now doing. But if Nature and Fact do not
love him ? If they have set inexorable penalties upon him, and planted natural wrath
against him in every god-created human heart — then I advise you, cease, and change your
hand." — Carlyle.

THE appearance of General Booth's work, entitled In Darkest
England, was followed by a deluge of opinions, articles, and
reviews on crime, vagabondage, tenement-houses, slums, etc.
The serious spirit of these utterances showed an earnest awaken-
ing of the public mind in regard to the ominous character of the
submerged classes.* To meet this baleful increase of vagabond-
age and crime we have had, first, punitive measures, even to
mutilation, with no effect whatever, except perhaps as a deter-
rent to a few of the many thousands implicated ; next, indiscrimi-
nate charity — public and private — still active in all but a few
enlightened cities, with the effect of causing an alarming increase
in the number of paupers and tramps; later, organized relief,
which, being selective in a measure, results in some good being
accomplished ; and, finally, the Salvation Army, with rank and
file mostly filled from the very classes demanding relief and
reform. It would be strange indeed if such an organized force
should not leave its impress on the chaotic material of the slums.
That a great deal of temporary good, at least, is being accom-
plished by this organization there can be no doubt.

* Concerning General Booth's scheme, we commend a very just and temperate article in
Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1891, entitled The Problem of the Slums.
vol. xxi. — 33

434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The subjects of crime and insanity have often been discussed
under a common title. In the law courts the plea of insanity is
often raised in defense of the criminal. A review of the treat-
ment of maniacs in past times, and criminals at the present time,
shows many curious analogies. For these several reasons let us
briefly examine the attitude of society toward these unfortunates
who are animated in their behavior by the possibly related con-
ditions— insanity and crime.

Insanity was formerly looked upon as evidence of demoniacal
possession. The idea that a disordered intellect could be the
result of physical disease — of lesions of the brain — was only
established after centuries of observation. In the mean while,
every torment that misguided man could inflict was frantically
suffered by untold thousands of chained and caged victims.
Now, thanks to science, a thin section of diseased brain may, by
means of the lantern, be projected upon a screen, so that audi-
ences of thousands can realize for themselves the pathological
nature of certain forms of insanity.

Dr. Andrew D. "White, in his chapter on Demoniacal Possession
and Insanity,* says : " If ordinary diseases were likely to be at-
tributed to diabolical agency, how much more diseases of the
brain, and especially the more obscure of these ! These, indeed,
seemed to the vast majority of mankind possible only on the
theory of satanic intervention."

It would be difficult to find a more ghastly page of history
than is embodied in the two chapters on insanity by Dr. White in
his New Chapters in the Warfare of Science. One becomes
transfixed with horror at the merciless and ignorant brutality
exercised in the treatment of the insane. Patients who required
the tenderest care and long-continued sleep were forcibly kept
awake for days to drive out the devil that was believed to pos-
sess them. Science, long thwarted by the Church, finally wrought
a marvelous change in the treatment of these unfortunate creat-
ures, by substituting gentleness, airy rooms, and sunny fields
for dungeons, exorcisms, prayers, and blood-curdling cruelties.
To one at all familiar with the external aspects of insanity, in
its various forms, it seems incredible that its physical nature was
not sooner realized.

The writer has had some slight knowledge of insane asylums,
not only in America but in Japan, China, and Java, and in all
these places, with their different nationalities and consequent
facial peculiarities, one could easily recognize melancholia, de-
mentia, and certain other forms of mental disease. The asylum
at Buitenzorg, in Java, was of special interest, for here one

* Papular Science Monthly, vol. xxxiv, p. 434.

NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME. 43 5

might see in the different wards Sundanese, Javanese, Chinese,
Hindoos, various Europeans, and peoples from other countries,
with widely varying features, yet the " cachet/' so to speak, of
the mental disease could in many cases be recognized at a glance.
Had the laws of heredity, even, been earlier understood it would
have been seen that mental derangements, like physical diseases
and tendencies, were transmitted.

If insanity was formerly considered the evidence of satanic
possession, how much more reason was there to believe that de-
linquencies of a criminal nature were the result of satanic insti-
gation. While demoniacal possession, as an explanation of in-
sanity, is discredited on all hands,* criminal acts are still looked
upon as the instigation of the devil. It may be safely asserted
that to-day the vast majority of mankind fully believe that an
external influence for evil is at war in the individual with an
external influence for good.

Atrocious crimes are especially referred to as the result of
diabolical suggestion; and the same procedures, though in a
milder form, which obtained in former times for the treatment
of the insane are in full force to-day in the treatment of the
criminal. In the one case, however, torture was used to drive
the devil out, in the other the victim is punished for yielding to
the devil's persuasion. The criminal is imprisoned, chained,
immured in a dark cell, forced to severest labor, and in many
prisons abroad subject to physical torture. Under some govern-
ments he is transported to torrid climates and compelled to work
under a broiling sun, or, hidden from the sun altogether, to delve
in mines. This much for the punishment. Similar methods are
resorted to in attempting reform, as were formerly used in exor-
cising the devil from the maniac. The minister and priest, hav-
ing at all times free access, exhort and pray for the criminal, that
he may have strength to resist the evil spirit, and if some sud-
den revulsion of feelings animates him to struggle against his
criminal impulses, as many an insane man succeeds in control-
ling his maniacal impulses, then it is believed that a new spirit
has shed its beneficent influence upon him, or, in other words,
the evil spirit has been exorcised. Those who strenuously pro-
test against such an interpretation of sin and crime are branded
with obnoxious names. Dr. White says that perhaps nothing
did so much to fasten the term " atheist " upon the medical pro-
fession as the suspicion that it did not fully acknowledge diabolic
interference in mental disease.

* This holds good for the present time, but a firm belief in the existence of demoniacal
possession in past times is still held by the Church, as lately witnessed in the discussions
between Huxley and Gladstone, Dr. Wace, and others, regarding the Gadarene pigs.

436 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A further analogy may be seen between the treatment of the
lunatic in past times and the treatment of the criminal in recent
years. It will be admitted without question that the former
treatment of the insane could only result in driving the victim
to utter madness. In an interesting work, entitled Old Bailey
Experience (1833), the writer, who shows himself far in advance
of his time, in reflecting on the treatment of criminals in Eng-
land, says, "So convinced am I that the manner in which the
laws are administered, under the discretion of the judges at the
Old Bailey, has been one of the chief causes of the increase of
crime, that it is a perpetual source of concern to me, that the
subject has not been taken up by some one more able than myself
to awaken the attention of the public." And he proves his posi-
tion by an overwhelming mass of evidence.

Of late years there has sprung into existence a school of crimi-
nal anthropology, with societies, journals, and a rapidly increasing
literature. A most admirable summary of the work thus far
accomplished has recently been given by Dr. Robert Fletcher, in
his address as retiring President of the Anthropological Society
of Washington. In his opening paragraphs Dr. Fletcher graphi-
cally portrays the scourge of the criminal and his rapid increase.
" In the cities, towns, and villages of the civilized world, every
year, thousands of unoffending men and women are slaughtered ;
millions of money, the product of honest toil and careful saving,
are carried away by the conqueror, and incendiary fires light his
pathway of destruction. "Who is this devastator, this modern
' scourge of God,' whose deeds are not recorded in history ? — The
criminal ! Statistics unusually trustworthy show that if the car-
nage yearly produced by him could be brought together at one
time and place it would excel the horrors of many a well-contested
field of battle. In nine great countries of the world, including
our own favored land, in one year, 10,380 cases of homicide were
recorded ; and in the six years, extending from 1884 to 1889, in the
United States alone, 14,770 murders came under cognizance of
the law.

" And what has society done to protect itself against this ag-
gressor ? True, there are criminal codes, courts of law, and that
surprising survival of the unfittest, trial by jury. Vast edifices
have been built as prisons and reformatories, and philanthropic
persons have formed societies for the instruction of the criminal
and to care for him when his prison gates are opened. But, in
spite of it all, the criminal becomes more numerous. He breeds
criminals ; the taint is in the blood, and there is no royal touch
which can expel it."

Certain results of the modern school of anthropology, as pre-
sented by Dr. Fletcher, may be briefly summed up by stating

NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME. 437

broadly that in studying the criminal classes from the standpoint
of anatomy, physiology, external appearance, even to the minuter
shades of difference in the form of the skull and facial proportions,
the criminal is a marked man. His abnormities are characteristic,
and are to be diagnosticated in only one way. That these propo-
sitions are being rapidly established there can be no doubt. As
an emphatic evidence of their truth, the criminal is able to trans-
mit his criminal propensities even beyond the number of genera-
tions allotted to inheritance by Scripture.

William Douglas Morrison, in his Crime and its Causes, while
denying these propositions, admits that degeneracy and disease
are transmitted, and in these conditions seeks for the origin of
crime.

A very significant relation is shown between crime and in-
sanity in figures given by Malcolm Morris, as quoted by Dr. Emily
"White, in her address on Hygiene as a Basis of Morals.* She says :
" The intimate relationship between nervous diseases and crime
is conspicuous. In England, the ratio of insane to sane criminals
is thirty-four times as great as of the insane to the whole popula-
tion, and criminal lunatics are in excess in the high proportion of
seventeen to one." The persistence of criminal and vagabond
taints is even more pronounced than that of lunacy ; the latter
condition often yields to benign treatment, and there is reason to
believe that in time it may be eradicated, though confinement and
consequent prevention of offspring will be the main cause of its
disappearance. Whether criminal propensities can be obliterated
is a grave question. Certainly the irrational and unscientific meth-
ods in the treatment of criminals to-day are as much responsible
for the increase of crime as were the superstitious and unscien-
tific ways of dealing with contagious diseases in earlier times
responsible for their wide dissemination.

The repeated association of certain abnormities of the body
with the criminal character suggesting simian features has led to
the idea that congenital criminals are instances of reversion.
Eminent students in this branch of study call attention to the
resemblances of many minor details of structure to features in
the higher apes. Dr. Fletcher admits that, while this view may
be correct, it is purely hypothetical. The presence of certain
abnormal muscles in man have been justly looked upon as evi-
dence of reversion, and certainly the atavistic view clears up many
points of structural difference seen in the criminal class which
would otherwise be obscure. It is possible, however, that if the
antecedents of all criminals were known, retention of ancestral
traits and not reversion would be the more probable explanation

* Popular Science Monthly, May, 1887.

438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the continuance of the congenital criminal. He has always
existed; his presence is apprehended just in proportion to the
sensitiveness of the public conscience. Morrison, in his instruct-
ive book, says, in regard to the confirmed vagabond and criminal,
that " most of them are not adapted to the conditions of existence
which prevail in a free society. Some of them might have passed
through life fairly well in a more primitive stage of social devel-
opment, as, for example, in the days of slavery or serfdom; but
they are manifestly out of place in an age of unrestricted free-
dom, when a man may work or remain idle just as he chooses.
. . . All men are not fitted for freedom, and, so long as society
acts on the supposition that they are, it will never get rid of the
incorrigible criminal."

The persistence of those acts which, as society has evolved,
have been deemed criminal, are acts natural to all animals. In
the decalogue half the commandments, significantly grouped to-
gether, refer to acts and impulses inherent in the animal king-
dom, from the lowest to the highest. Murder and adultery, of
course ; ..covetousness precedes the act of stealing ; theft, in its
various forms, from the simplest act to stock- watering ; and
lying, from the deceptive behavior of a bird to the lies embodied
in the advertisements of the modern newspaper — are all part and
parcel of man's inheritance.

Dr. Bruch Thomson, Surgeon of the General Prison, Scotland,
says, "Habitual criminals are without moral sense — are true
moral imbeciles." Carl Vogt advanced the idea that certain cases
of congenital idiocy were evidences of reversion. Let one spend
a few hours only in the worst wards of an asylum for the feeble-
minded, and attentively study the movements and desires, the
wanton mischief, the shocking impulses which animate these un-
fortunate creatures, and he is forced to admit the possibility of
such a condition.

Whatever view prevails does not concern us at present. The
important truth to realize is that overwhelming and incontestable
evidence shows that the criminal, as a type, not only exists, but
that his criminal taints are transmitted, and that this transmis-
sion may run through many generations. It is proved by volu-
minous evidence, easily accessible, that children are born crimi-
nals. They are, as Dr. Fletcher says, not only reared, nurtured,
and instructed in it, but the habit becomes a new force — a second
nature — superinduced upon their original natural depravity. In
speaking of this class he says, " These communities of crime,
we know, have no respect for the laws of marriage, are regard-
less of the rules of consanguinity, and, connecting themselves only
with those of their own nature and habits, they must beget a
depraved and criminal class, hereditarily disposed to crime."

NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME. 439

It should be understood that in speaking of criminals the
modern classification of criminals is recognized, and only the
instinctive or congenital criminals are here considered. In this
presentation, however, we must include the vast army of tramps
who move with the snow-line back and forth across the country ;
a horde continually increasing because, as with the criminal, the
vagabond strain is continually being bred. This startling truth
of inheritance must be emphasized again and again, till the pub-
lic mind — slow to understand — shall finally realize the fact and
take the same stern measures for suppression that it would in
the case of polluted water-supply and contagious disease. When
these matters were fully understood health boards came into ex-
istence, and with such arbitrary powers are they now endowed
that a family can be imprisoned in its own house ; the house may
be destroyed; the dead, if necessary, denied the ordinary funeral
observances. The public fully acquiesce in these heroic measures,
for the death-rate figures, year after year, become too significant
to be neglected.

Vagabonds, like criminals, spring largely from a degenerating
stock. The persistence of the vagabond strain, the hopelessness
of reform among those blasted with the taint, is strikingly por-
trayed by the lamented Rev. Oscar C. McCulloch, in an address
read before the National Conference of Charities and Corrections
(1888), entitled The Tribe of Ishmael, a Study in Social Degrada-
tion. Traces of this tribe have been found as far back as 1790,
but from 1840 the record is quite made out for some twigs of this
baleful stock. Mr. McCulloch says: "The individuals already
traced are over five thousand, interwoven by descent and mar-
riage. They underrun society like devil-grass. Pick up one, and
the whole five thousand would be drawn up. Over seven thousand
pages of history are now on file in the Charity Organization
Society " (Indianapolis), and he asks : " Do any of these get out of
the festering mass ? Of this whole number, I know of but one
who has escaped, and is to-day an honorable man. I have tried
again and again to lift them, but they sink back. They are a
decaying stock; they can not longer live self-dependent. The
children reappear with the old basket. The girl begins the life
of prostitution, and is soon seen with her own illegitimate child."

The tramp horde is a nidus from which apparently a vast
number of criminals spring. The appalling character of the
fruits of this nidus may be faintly realized by reference to Dr.
Seaman's paper on the Social Waste of a Great City (Science,
vol. viii, p. 283). Referring to New York, he says: "It seizes
upon and subsidizes the fairest string of islands that grace a
metropolis the world over. Where there might have been, under
a shrewder, better providence, parks, groves, museums, art-gal-

440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

leries, zoological gardens, -wholesome games, exhilarants for hon-
est industry and useful thrift, stretching at little intervals from
Governor's to Hart's Island, full eighteen miles, the Nemesis of
penalty and retribution has planted her growing colonies of so-
cial waste, of broken, degraded, repulsive, dangerous human de-
tritus: and this baleful colonization has pushed its way along
those beautiful eastern waters, keeping step with the advancing
city, until its entire line of eastern frontage, far up into West-
chester County, is sentineled by these menacing excrescences of a
moribund civilization." Dr. Seaman truly says: "This waste
shows a deadly apathy, a dying out of purpose, a fatal estrange-
ment from home, family, and society, for which there has, as yet,
been found neither remedy nor cure. This tramp class grows
and grows dangerous and desperate too, and is chargeable with
an increasing number of outrages, assaults, and crimes against
both property and person. The island, the almshouses, and work-
houses do not reach or touch their cases, for they gather physical
endurance and resources from fresh campaignings across country,
until rounded up again by winter weather in the great cities."

Indeed, the daily accounts of innocent women murdered, rail-
road trains invaded, pitched battles between hordes of these vaga-
bonds and law-abiding citizens, attest to the insidious and rapid
spread of this class, and not until some town is burned, and plun-
der and rape follow the burning, will the people realize what they
have for so many years deliberately encouraged by free lunches
at their kitchen doors. Indiscriminate charity has been encour-
aged by religious teaching. Powerful as the Church has been and
still is in support of this practice, it is astonishing how rapidly
the evils of this pernicious custom are being recognized by
charity boards. Mr. McCulloch says the "so-called charitable
people who give to begging children and women with baskets,
have a vast sin to answer for. It is from them that this pauper ele-
ment gets its consent to exist. Charity — falsely so'called — covers a
multitude of sins, and sends the pauper out with the benediction,
' Be fruitful and multiply.' Such charity has made this element,
has brought children to the birth, and insured them a life of mis-
ery, cold, hunger, and sickness." And he asserts that so-called
charity joins public relief in raising prostitutes and educating
criminals. Though these are strong words, they but repeat the
testimony of others who have made the subject an attentive
study. In an article on London Charities, by Elizabeth Bisland
(Cosmopolitan, July, 1891), is quoted the words of an eminent
London citizen, who says that London is the scandal of the age
by reason of its pauperized and demoralized condition, and yet
825,000,000 is given each year in alms to the unfortunate. " It is
a gigantic laboratory of corruption and crime, and while it as-

NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME. 441

pires to Christianize the heathen, it exercises a far more direct
and effectual influence in heathenizing Christians, and in drag-
ging the rest of England down to its own low level/' And he
goes on to declare that " the enormous facts of London charity
are to a lamentable extent responsible for this state of things/'

Whether the law-abiding man is abnormal, according to Al-
brecht, and the criminal is normal — slaying and robbing without
compassion, as do the animals below him — does not now concern
us, for it has come to pass in the progress of the races that the
moral man has formulated laws for the good of society, and insists
upon obedience to their establishment. Intelligence and not brute
force has become the main factor in man's selection. This has
been foreshadowed in past geological times where it has been
shown that in the progressive development of the various groups
of mammals the brain increased in size out of all proportion to
the size of the body. An ignorant man in civilized countries,
and even in savage and barbarous countries, occupies the lowest
position.

Among the dominant races ignorance, poverty, and crime are
often associated. The association of poverty and crime has no
immediate relation, as shown by Morrison, though poverty pre-
supposes a low intellect, and this implies an inability to acquire
an education, which in a hundred ways in civilized life leads to
degeneracy and crime. It can probably be shown that nations
that are in the worst plight politically and financially are those
where general education is or has been at the lowest ebb, where
superstition takes the place of knowledge. In Italy, for example,
where an attempt to disinfect cholera districts results in the mur-
der of the officers engaged in this beneficent work — where priestly
processions and holy water take the place of quarantine and car-
bolic acid in fighting cholera — natural selection runs riot and mer-
cifully removes priest and peasant alike. One word in that fa-
mous encyclical, in which half its anathemas were hurled against
human reason and the sciences,* might have changed all this, but
the Church's attitude on these questions is one of the great factors
in the selective category.

In this operation of the law of natural selection we have plainly
indicated to us the principle with which to fight crime and pau-
perism. Let us pause for a moment and observe a few of the
many ways in which this selective action is working in regard to
man, and the suggestions to be derived from it. That the princi-
ple of natural selection works in Nature, no intelligent man doubts
to-day. The discussion between Prof. Weismann and his adher-

* See Draper's Conflict between Religion and Science, for convenient reference to these
anathemas, p. 350.

442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ents and the Neo-Lamarckians, as to whether acquired traits are
transmitted, only tends to bring out more vividly the simplicity
of the law of selective action. Man, as regards himself, has ap-
parently thwarted this law. The humane impulses of man often
interfere with selective action; sentimental women and sympa-
thetic magistrates assist in the freeing of criminals who usually
find themselves " serving " time by an immediate repetition of their
offenses, often in aggravated forms (vide Sawtell), having, how-
ever, while free, united, out of wedlock, with the lowest of their
kind, to perpetuate and possibly accentuate their criminal taint.

The indiscriminate giving of alms and promiscuous feeding of
tramps thwarts, in a measure, the work of selective action. Were
it not for these interferences the diminution in number of the
vicious, incompetent, and lazy would be as marked from year to
year as is the decreasing death-rate in cities where sanitary meas-
ures are rigorously enforced. What, then, are the unfavorable
conditions against which the uneducated vicious class have to
contend ? In nearly all the essays written on crime and its causes,
authors finally unite in agreeing that the slums of a city are the
main roots of the evil, or, more correctly, the culture element
which fosters this mass of social corruption. Mr. B. O. Flower,
in the Arena, says, " The slums of our cities are the reservoirs of
physical and moral death, an enormous expense to the state, a
constant menace to society, a reality whose shadow is at once
colossal and portentous/'

As a class, these people live under the worst sanitary con-
ditions, in districts of the city having the highest death-rate. Miss
Besant, in a lecture, says : " In London the population is between
three and four millions, and of it one person in every five dies in
jail, prison, or workhouse. Fifty-five years is the average of
citizens of the comfortable class, while twenty-nine is that of the
manual laborers. ... Of one hundred babies born, fifty lie in the
cemetery before they are five years old, while of the upper classes
but eighteen of every hundred die." (In one city in Europe, where
a long series of observations has been made, it is found that the
death-rate is higher on the shady side of the street.)* The hot
blasts of summer and the chills of winter mark their quota ; their
ignorance of all medical science leads them to employ a quack, or
languish and die without medical aid. If inclined to work, their
unrestrained appetite for alcohol shuts them out from all positions
of trust, and drives them to the roughest of manual labor often
fraught with danger. Their carousals and fights, innutritious
and unwholesome foods, violations of all sanitary laws, and many

* Some of the following paragraphs have already been published by the writer in the
Boston Herald, under the signature of C. B. D.

NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME. 443

other agencies are at work in destroying those least capable of
surviving. As among the animals below man, where many indi-
viduals best adapted to live perish with the thousands unfitted to
survive, so with man does this ruthless but beneficent law take in
its grasp many deserving ones, and these are the ones that all the
impulses of charity and love should animate us to save.

In combating crime, then, the line of effort should be along
those paths indicated by Nature. It is a curious commentary on
man's intelligence that, while exercising the selective function on
his domestic stock by careful feeding, proper housing, and ju-
dicious crossing, and for his plants selecting the best seed, etc.,
while ruthlessly destroying the noxious weeds, yet when he comes
to his own kind he fancies that different laws operate with him,
or, swayed by sentiment, looks for different methods to cope with
crime. He exterminates the noxious weed, kills his vicious dog,
puts under restraint the maniac until cured ; no definite terms of
banishment will do in these cases, yet he formulates laws in which
there is apportioned a definite number of days or years for definite
offenses against society !

Colossal organizations, with lavish appropriations, are in the
field for the purpose of suppressing crime and pauperism. Until
within a few years this great army has been officered by the
Church, and plans of campaign have been mapped by it. Slowly
the public intelligence is awakening to the fact that these meth-
ods have been ridiculously inadequate, as proof exists that crime
and pauperism are steadily increasing. The law of indefinite
terms of imprisonment for criminals committed for a third offense
has been the wisest prison law ever passed, for, by such a law,
criminals are the longer prevented from the chance of perpetuat-
ing their evil traits ; and yet in Massachusetts there are misguided
sentimentalists who oppose the enactment of this law.

In this view of the subject the death-penalty — so odious to
thousands— may be abolished. The sentence of life-imprison-
ment may be passed instead, but this must be beyond the inter-
ference of any pardoning power. How far the prison-cell may be
made attractive, as apartments and corridors in lunatic asylums
are made to-day, depends upon the necessity of punitive methods.
If punishment, even to flogging, is deemed necessary, criminals
must not have offered them such allurements as should lead them
to violate the law for the sake of a recommital.

The conditions favorable to crime having been apprehended in
the slums of the cities, the law of natural selection having been
shown to be as relentlessly at work with man as with the lower
animals, it would seem that the line of work is very clearly de-
fined. We are to aid the law of selective action with all our
might. Public outdoor relief is in most cities suppressed ; indis-

444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

criminate charity lias still full sway. We are individually and
unitedly to suppress the idle, incompetent, and vicious, and at the
same time we are to help in every way the industrious and well-
intentioned. The congenital criminal and the vagabond we are
to imprison for an indefinite time; in this confinement they
should be made to work. Paul said that " if any would not work,
neither should he eat." Tasks that do not compete with honest
labor should be devised for them — breaking stone, sawing and
cutting wood for the deserving poor ; in certain districts, working
on the road, filling malarious tracts, etc.

These are the suppressive and punitive methods, on the one
hand ; the selective method, on the other hand, is to be found in
the erection of wholesome tenement-houses. These should have
amusement halls ; gardens, if possible ; reading-rooms and libra-
ries ; halls, where instructive lectures should be given — not on the
Holy Land or Babylonian antiquities, but on bread-making, the
chemistry of common life, hygiene, and cognate subjects. Tal-
ented men and women will be induced to give their services
occasionally to entertain or instruct.

Adopting the deed of trust under which the Peabody buildings
in London were given,* we should apply the selective action by
letting the apartments at the lowest possible rate to all those who
are temperate, industrious, and are willing k) work, while the
vicious and the evil disposed should be rigorously excluded.
"Cruel!" you say; but we should recognize the far-reaching
mercifulness of this plan in preventing the bringing of vicious
children into the world, to live a life of misery and shame, or, if
brought in, to find such unfavorable conditions as shall remove
them while still young.

Quarantine the evil classes as you would the plague, and plant
on good ground the deserving poor. Those who talk about the
liberty of the individual before the law are not to include those
who are endangering the liberty, perhaps the lives, of others, and
are transgressing the law at every step.

Having established the means by which selective action may
be brought into play, and in so just a manner, too, that even a
vagabond could not complain of its injustice, we are to establish
conditions by which the offspring of such colonies may have
every chance of continuing in the life of sobriety and industry

* Secondly. It is my intention that now, and for all time, there shall be a rigid exclu-
sion from the management of this fimd of any influences calculated to impart to it a char-
acter either sectarian, as regards religion, or exclusive in relation to party politics.

Thirdly. It is my wish that the sole qualification for a participation in the benefits of
the fund shall be an ascertained and continued condition of life such as brings the indi-
vidual within the description (in the ordinary Bense of the word) of the poor of London,
combined with moral character and good conduct as a member of society.

NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME. 44 5

under which they were brought into the world. For this pur-
pose industrial schools, in all lines of work, should be estab-
lished. The crying need in all trades to-day is for boys who will
industrially continue their apprentice term. During this time
the boy must be induced to live at home, caring to live there
from the attractiveness of the surroundings. Music, lectures,
thanksgiving dinners, flowers, etc. — the outflow of compassionate
impulses, which make certain penal institutions so alluring to
many criminals — will find a better destiny in making pleasanter
the lives of deserving tenement dwellers. Cooking schools, train-
ing schools for nurses and servants, should be instituted for the
girls. With such co-operating appliances, our charity committees,
instead of the often despairing tramps through noisome regions,
to be deceived by the wary, or horrified at the treachery and lies
of others, will have a keen stimulus to seek out the deserving
poor ; to find those that are willing to work, knowing that, when
once rescued and placed on firm ground, they are to remain there
— in many cases self-supporting. The response to appeals for aid
will be more prompt and bountiful when it is known that worthy
ones only are to be helped. The cost of such a project will be
great. If private munificence will not do it, cities may.

In Boston, museums of art and of natural history, though
free to the public, are, nevertheless, sustained by private help.
In New York the State and city are repeatedly called upon
for contributions to similar institutions. What municipality
of any intelligence has hestitated to spend millions for pure
water-supply and sewer system, after it has been clearly demon-
strated that local cesspools menace the health of the commu-
nity by vitiating the local water-supply ? It is possible that,
when a community fully realizes the moral pollution that comes
from the slums, an agitation may result that shall lead a city
to construct tenement-houses as it now does its school-houses.*
The question is sure to arise, What shall be done with the
incompetent, though not necessarily vicious or intemperate ?
They must not be allowed to starve, surely not ; but it is to be
observed that, when such incompetents tumble overboard, they
make strenuous efforts to save themselves, and if caught in a
burning building they appear active, even boisterous, in their
attempts to escape. The simplest manual labor is within their
power, and for this they should be paid ; their chances for qual-
ity of food, quantity of tobacco, etc., should depend upon their
efforts to help themselves. If they will not work, and insist upon
being vagabonds, they come under cognizance of the law, and

* The pauper, the imbecile, the lunatic, and in some cities those afflicted in other ways,
are provided for in appropriate public institutions.

446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

their liberty may be abridged, and for an indefinite time if need
be. By this curtailment of their freedom their line of descent is
arrested, and this is the important object to accomplish. In a
very inadequate manner, but with illustrations familiar to all,
Nature's way has been appealed to as worthy of trial. This is the
ringing lesson of natural selection as applied to this great prob-
lem, and we commend it, in all earnestness, to those who have
the welfare of the submerged classes at heart.

+«»

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.

XVII.— GEOGRAPHY.
By ANDEEW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L. H. D.,

EX-PRE9IDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

PART I.

IThe Form of the Earth. — Among various rude tribes we
• find survivals of a primitive idea that the earth is a flat
table or disk, ceiled, domed, or canopied by the sky, and that the
sky rests upon the mountains as pillars. Such a belief is entirely
natural ; it conforms to the appearance of things, and hence has
entered into various theologies.

In the early civilizations of Egypt and Chaldea it was very
fully developed. The Egyptians considered the earth as a table,
flat and oblong, the sky being its ceiling ; a huge " firmament "
of metal. At the four corners of the earth were the pillars sup-
porting this firmament, and on this solid sky were the ' ' waters
above the heavens." They believed that, when chaos was taking
form, one of the gods by main force raised the waters on high
and spread them out over the firmament ; that on the under side
of this solid vault or ceiling or firmament the stars were sus-
pended to light the earth, and that the rains were caused by the
letting down of the waters through its windows. This idea and
others connected with it seem to have taken strong hold of the
Egyptian priestly caste, thus entering into their theology and
sacred science : ceilings of great temples, with stars, constellations,
planets, and signs of the zodiac figured upon them, remain to-day
as striking evidences of this.

In India and Persia we have theories of geography based
upon similar conceptions and embalmed in sacred texts. The
Chaldeans also believed that a firmament was spread out over the
earth, and that it supported the ocean of celestial waters, from
which fell dew and rain.

From these sources came geographical legacies to the Hebrews :

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 447

various passages in their sacred books, many of them most noble
in conception, and most beautiful in form, regarding the " firma-
ment," the "corners of the earth," the "pillars of heaven," the
"waters above the firmament," and the "windows of heaven,"
point us back to these ancient springs of thought.*

But as civilization was developed, there were evolved, espe-
cially among the Greeks, ideas of the earth's sphericity. The
Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle especially cherished them.
These ideas were vague, they were mixed with absurdities, but
they were germ ideas, and even amid the luxuriant growth of
theology in the early Christian Church these germs began
struggling into life in the minds of a few thinking men, and these
men renewed the suggestion that the earth is a globe, f

A few of the larger-minded fathers of the Church, influenced
possibly by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by Aristotle
and Plato, were willing to accept this view, but the majority of
them took fright at once. To them it seemed fraught with
dangers to Scripture, by which, of course, they meant their inter-

* For survivals of the early idea, among the Eskimos, of the sky as supported by
mountains, and, among sundry Pacific islanders, of the sky as a firmament or vault of
stone, see Tylor, Early History of Mankind, second edition, London, 1870, chap, xi ;
Spencer, Sociology, vol. i, chap, viii ; also Andrew Lang, La Mythologie, Paris, 1886,
pp. 68-73. For the early view in India and Persia, see citations from the Vedas and the
Zend-Avesta in Lethaby, Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth, chap. i. For the Egyptian
view, see Champollion ; also, Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne, Maspero, and others. As to
the figures of the heavens upon the ceilings of Egyptian temples, see Maspero, Arch6ologie
Egyptienne, Paris, 1890 ; and for engravings of them, see Lepsius, Denkmaler, vol. i, Bl. 41,
and vol. ix, Abth. iv, Bl. 35 ; also the Description de l'Egypte published by order of
Napoleon, tome ii, PI. 14 ; also Prisse d'Avennes, Art ^gyptien, Atlas, tome i, PI. 35 ; and
especially for a survival at the Temple of Denderah, see Denon, Voyage en Egypte, Planches
129, 130. For the Egyptian idea of "pillars of heaven," as alluded to on the stele of
Victory of Thotmes III, in the Cairo Museum, see Ebers, Uarda, ii, 175, note, Leipsic, 1877.
For a similar Babylonion belief, see Sayce's Herodotus, Appendix, 403. For the belief of
Hebrew scriptural writers in a solid "firmament," see especially Job, xxxviii, 18; also
Smith's Bible Dictionary.

f The agency of the Pythagoreans in first spreading the doctrine of the earth's sphe-
ricity is generally acknowledged, but the first clear and full utterance of it to the world was
by Aristotle. Very fruitful, too, was the statement of the new theory given by Plato in
the Timseus ; see Jowett's translation, New York edition, 62, c. Also Phajdo, pp. 449
et seq. See also Grote on Plato's doctrine of the sphericity of the earth ; also Sir G. C.
Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients, London, 1862, chap, iii, section i, and note. Cicero's
mention of the antipodes, and his reference to the passage in the Timasus are even more
remarkable than the original, in that they much more clearly foreshadow the modern
doctrine. See his Academic Questions, ii ; also Tusc. Quest, i and v, 24. For a very full
summary of the views of the ancients on the sphericity of the earth, see Kretchmer, Die
physische Erdkunde im christlichen Mittelalter, Wien, 1889, pp. 35 et seq.; also, Eicken,
Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887, Dritter Theil, chap. vi.
For citations and summaries, see Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, vol. i, p. 189, and St.
Martin, Hist, de la Geog., Paris, 1873, p. 96 ; also, Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori
popolari degli antichi, Firenze, 1851, chapter xii, pp. 184 et seq.

448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pr •elation of Scripture. Among the first who took up arms against
it was Eusebius. In view of the New Testament texts indicating
the immediately approaching end of the world, he endeavored to
turn off this idea by bringing scientific studies into contempt.
Speaking of investigators, he said, " It is not through ignorance
of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their
useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our
souls to better things." Basil of Csesarea declared it " a matter of
no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a
disk, or concave in the middle like a fan/' Lactantius referred to
the ideas of those studying astronomy as " bad and senseless," and
opposed the doctrine of the earth's sphericity both from Script-
ure and reason. St. John Chrysostom also exerted his influence
against this scientific belief ; and Ephrem Syrus, the greatest man
of the old Syrian Church, widely known as the " lute of the Holy
Ghost," opposed it no less earnestly.

But the strictly Biblical men of science, such eminent fathers
and bishops as Theophilus of Antioch in the second century,
Clement of Alexandria in the third, and others in centuries follow-
ing, were not content with merely opposing what they stigmatized
as an old heathen theory; they drew from their Bibles a new
Christian theory, to which one church authority added one idea
and another another, until it was fully developed. Taking the sur-
vival of various early traditions, given in the seventh verse of the
first chapter of Genesis, they dwelt on the scriptural declaration
that the earth was, at creation, arched over with a solid vault, " a
firmament," and to this they added the passage from Isaiah in
which it is declared that the heavens are stretched out "like a
curtain," and again " like a tent to dwell in." The universe, then,
is like a house : the earth is its ground floor, the firmament its
ceiling, under which the Almighty hangs out the sun to rule the
day, and the moon and stars to rule the night. This ceiling is
also the floor of the apartment above, and in this is a cistern,
shaped, as one of the authorities says, "like a bathing-tank,"
and containing " the waters which are above the firmament."
These waters are let down upon the earth by the Almighty and
his angels through the " windows of heaven." As to the move-
ment of the sun, there was a citation of various passages in Gen-
esis, mixed with metaphysics in various proportions, and this was
thought to give ample proofs from the Bible that the earth could
not be a sphere.*

* For Eusebius, see the Prcep. Ev., xv, 61. For Basil, see the Hexameron, Horn, ix,
cited in Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 96, note. For Lactantius, see his Inst. Div., lib. iii, cap. 3 ;
also, citations in Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, London, 185*7, vol. i, p. 194, and in St.
Martin, Histoire de la Geographie, pp. 216, 217. For the views of St. John Chrysostom
Eph. Syrus, and other great churchmen, see Kretschmer as above, chap. i.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 449

In the sixth century this development of theory culminated in
what was nothing less than a complete and detailed system of the
universe, claiming to be based upon Scripture, its author being the
Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes. Egypt was a great treas-
ure-house of theologic thought to various religions of antiquity,
and Cosmas appears to have urged upon the early Church this
Egyptian idea of the construction of the world, just as another
Egyptian ecclesiastic, Athanasius, urged upon the Church the
Egyptian triune idea of the gods ruling the world. According to
Cosmas, the earth is a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by four
seas. It is four hundred days' journey long and two hundred
broad. At the outer edges of these four seas arise massive walls
closing in the whole structure and supporting the firmament or
vault of the heavens, whose edges are cemented to the walls.
These walls inclose the earth and all the heavenly bodies.

The whole of this theologic-scientific structure was built most
carefully and, as was then thought, most scripturally. Starting
with the expression applied in the ninth chapter of Hebrews to
the tabernacle in the desert, Cosmas insists, with other interpret-
ers of his time, that it gives the key to the whole construction of
the world. The universe is, therefore, made on the plan of the
Jewish tabernacle — box-like and oblong. Going into details, he
quotes the sublime words of Isaiah : "It is He that sitteth upon
the circle of the earth ; . . . that stretcheth out the heavens like a
curtain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell in " ; and the
passage in Job, which speaks of the "pillars of heaven." He
works all this into his system, and reveals, as he thinks, treas-
ures of science.

This vast box is divided into two compartments, one above the
other. In the first of these, men live and stars move ; and it
extends up to the first solid vault, or firmament, above which live
the angels, a main part of whose business it is to push and pull
the sun and planets to and fro. Next, he takes the text, " Let
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters," and other texts from Genesis ; to
these he adds the text from the Psalms, " Praise him, ye heaven
of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens " ; then casts
all these growths of thought into his crucible together, and finally
brings out the theory that over this first vault is a vast cistern
containing " the waters." He then takes the expression in Genesis
regarding the " windows of heaven " and establishes a doctrine
regarding the regulation of the rain, to the effect that the angels
not only push and pull the heavenly bodies to light the earth, but
also open and close the heavenly windows to water it.

To understand the surface of the earth, Cosmas studies the
table of show-bread in the Jewish tabernacle. The surface of this

VOL. XLI. 34

45 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

table proves to liiin that the earth is flat, and its dimensions prove
that the earth is twice as long as broad ; its four corners sym-
bolize the four seasons ; the twelve loaves of bread, the twelve
months ; the hollow about the table proves that the ocean sur-
rounds the earth. To account for the movement of the sun, Cos-
mas suggests that at the north of the earth is a great mountain,
and that at night the sun is carried behind this ; but some of the
commentators ventured to express a doubt here; they thought
that the sun was pushed into a great pit at night and pulled out
in the morning.

Nothing can be more touching in its simplicity than Cosmas's
summing up of his great argument. He declares, " We say there-
fore with Isaiah that the form of the heaven that embraces the
universe is that of a vault, with Job that it is joined to the earth,
and with Moses that the length of the earth is greater than its
breadth." The treatise closes with rapturous assertions that not
only Moses and the prophets, but also angels and apostles, agree
to the truth of his doctrine, and that at the last day God will con-
demn all who do not accept it.

Although this theory was universally considered as drawn
from Scripture, it was really, as we have seen, the result of an
evolution of theological thought begun long before the texts on
which it nominally rested were written. It was not at all strange
that Cosmas, Egyptian as he was, should have received this old
Nile-born doctrine, as we see it indicated to-day in the structure
of Egyptian temples, and that he should have developed it by the
aid of the Jewish Scriptures. But the theological world knew
nothing of its more remote pagan evolution ; it was received as
virtually inspired, and was soon regarded as a fortress of script-
ural truth. Some of the foremost men in the Church devoted
themselves to buttressing it with new texts and throwing about
it new outworks of theological reasoning ; the great body of the
faithful considered it a direct gift from the Almighty.*

* For a notice of the views of Cosmas in connection with those of Lactantius, Augus-
tine, St. John Chrysostom, and others, see Schoell, Histoire de la Litterature Grecque, vol.
vii, p. 3*7. The main scriptural passages referred to are as follows : (1) Isaiah xl, 22 ; (2)
Genesis i, 6 ; (3) Genesis vii, 11 ; (4) Exodus xxiv, 10 ; (5) Job xxvi, 11, and xxxvii, 18 ; (6)
Psalm cxlviii, 4, and civ, 9 ; (7) Ezekiel i, 22-26. For Cosmas's theory see Montfaucon,
Collectio Nova Patrum, Paris, 1706, vol. ii, p. 188 ; also pp. 298, 299. The text is illus-
trated with engravings showing walls and solid vault (firmament), with the whole apparatus
of " fountains of the great deep," " windows of heaven," angels, and the mountain behind
which the sun is drawn. For reduction of one of them see Peschel, Geschichte der Erd-
kunde, p. 98 ; also article " Maps," in Knight's Dictionary of Mechanics, New York, 1875.
For a good discussion of Cosmas's ideas, see Santarem, Hist, de la Cosmographie, vol. ii, pp.
8 el seq., and for a very thorough discussion of its details, Kretschmer, as above. For
still another theory, very droll, and thought out on similar principles, see Mungo Park,
cited in De Morgan, Paradoxes, 309. For Cosmas's joyful summing up, see Montfaucon)

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 451

From this old conception of the universe as a sort of house,
with heaven as its upper story and the earth as its ground floor,
flowed important theological ideas into heathen, Jewish, and
Christian mythologies. Common to them all are legends regard-
ing attempts of mortals to invade the upper apartment from the
lower. Of such are the Greek legends of the Aloidae who sought
to reach heaven by piling up mountains, and were cast down ;
the Chaldean and Hebrew legends of the wicked who at Babylon
sought to build " a tower whose top may reach heaven," which
Jehovah went down from heaven to see, and which he brought to
naught by the "confusion of tongues"; the Hindoo legend of
the tree which sought to grow into heaven and which Brahma
blasted ; and the Mexican legend of the giants who sought to reach
heaven by building the Pyramid of Cholula, and who were over-
thrown by fire from above.

Myths having this geographical idea as their germ developed
in luxuriance through thousands of years. Ascensions to heaven
and descents from it, " translations," " assumptions," " annuncia-
tions," mortals " caught up " into it and returning, angels flying
between it and the earth, thunderbolts hurled down from it,
mighty winds issuing from its corners, voices speaking from the
upper floor to men on the lower, temporary openings of the floor
of heaven to reveal the blessedness of the good, " signs and won-
ders" hung out from it to warn the wicked, interventions of
every kind, from the heathen gods coming down on every sort of
errand, and Jehovah coming down to walk in Eden in the cool of
the day, to St. Mark swooping down into the market-place of
Venice to break the shackles of a slave — all these are but features
in a vast evolution of myths arising largely from this geographi-
cal germ.

iSTor did this evolution end here. Naturally, in this view of
things, if heaven was a loft, hell was a cellar ; and if there were
ascensions into one, there were descents into the other. Hell be-
ing so near, interferences by its occupants with the dwellers of
the earth just above were constant and form a vast chapter in
medieval literature. Dante made this conception of the location
of hell still more vivid, and we find some forms of it serious
barriers to geographical investigation. Many a bold navigator,
who was quite ready to brave pirates and tempests, trembled at
the thought of tumbling with his ship into one of the openings
into hell which a wide-spread belief placed in the Atlantic at some
unknown distance from Europe. This terror of the sailors was
one of the main obstacles in the great voyage of Columbus. In an

Collectio Nova Patrum, vol. ii, p. 255. For the Egyptian Trinitarian views, see Sharpe,
History of Egypt, vol. i, pp. 94, 102.

452 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Anglo-Saxon tract, giving science the form of a dialogue, occur
the following question and answer : " Why is the sun so red in
the evening ? " " Because he looketh down upon hell."

But the ancient germ of scientific truth in geography still
lived, and a hundred years after Cosmas it gets new life from a
great churchman of southern Europe, Isidore of Seville, who,
however fettered by the dominant theology in many other things,
braved it in this. In the eighth century a similar declaration is
made in the north of Europe by another great church authority,
Bede. Against the new life thus given to the old truth, the sacred
theory struggled long and vigorously but in vain. Eminent
authorities in later ages, like Albert the Great, St. Thomas
Aquinas, Dante, and Vincent of Beauvais, felt obliged to accept
the doctrine of the earth's sphericity, and as we approach the
modern period we find its truth acknowledged by the vast
majority of thinking men.*

2. The Delineation of the Earth. — Every great people of
antiquity, as a rule, regarded its own central city or most holy
place as necessarily the center of the earth.

The Chaldeans held that their " holy house of the gods " was
the center. The Egyptians sketched the world under the form of
a human figure, in which Egypt was the heart, and the center of
it, Thebes. For the Assyrians, it was Babylon ; for the Hindoos,
it was Mount Meru ; for the Greeks, so far as the civilized world
was concerned, Olympus or the temple at Delphi ; for the modern
Mohammedans, it is Mecca and its sacred stone ; the Chinese, to
this day, speak of their empire as the "middle kingdom." It
was in accordance, then, with a simple tendency of human
thought that the Jews believed the center of the world to be
Jerusalem.

The book of Ezekiel speaks of Jerusalem as in the middle of
the earth, and all other parts of the world as set around the holy
city. Throughout the "ages of faith" this was very generally
accepted as a direct revelation from the Almighty regarding
the earth's form. St. Jerome, the greatest authority of the early
Church upon the Bible, declared, on the strength of this utterance
of the prophet, that Jerusalem must stand at the earth's center ;
in the ninth century Archbishop Rabanus Maurus reiterated the
same argument ; in the eleventh century, Hugh of St. Victor gave
to the doctrine another scriptural demonstration ; and Pope Ur-
ban, in his great sermon at Clermont urging the Franks to the
crusade, declared, " Jerusalem is the middle point of the earth " ;

* For a discussion of the geographical views of Isidore and Bede, see Santarem, Cosmo-
graphie, vol. i, pp. 22-24. For the gradual acceptance of the idea of the earth's sphericity
after the eighth century, see Kretschmer, pp. 51 et seq., where citations from a multitude of
authors are given.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 453

in the thirteenth century, another of the mediaeval Church au-
thorities, Caesar of Heisterbach, declared, "As the heart in the
midst of the body, so is Jerusalem situated in the midst of our in-
habited earth " ; " so it was that Christ was crucified at the center
of the earth." Dante accepted this view of Jerusalem as a cer-
tainty and wedded it to immortal verse.

Ezekiel's statement thus became the standard of orthodoxy to
early map-makers. The map of the world at Hereford Cathedral,
the maps of Andrea Bianco, Marino Sanuto, and a multitude of
others fixed this view in men's minds, and doubtless helped dur-
ing many generations to discourage any scientific statements tend-
ing to unbalance this geographical center supposed to be revealed
in Scripture.*

Nor did mediaeval thinkers rest with this conception. In ac-
cordance with the dominant view that physical truth must be
sought by theological reasoning, the idea was evolved that not
only the site of the cross on Calvary marked the geographical
center of the world, but that on this very spot had stood the tree
which bore the forbidden fruit in Eden. Thus was geography
made to reconcile all parts of the great theologic plan. This
doctrine was hailed with joy by multitudes ; and we find in the
works of mediaeval pilgrims to Palestine, again and again, evi-

* For the beliefs of various nations of antiquity that the earth's center was in their most
sacred place, see citations from Maspero, Charton, Sayce, and others in Lethaby, Architecture,
Mysticism, and Myth, chap. iv. As to the Greeks, we have typical statements in the Eumeni-
des of ^Eschylus, where the stone on the altar at Delphi is repeatedly called " the earth's
navel " — which is precisely the expression used regarding Jerusalem in the Septuagint
translation of Ezekiel (see note below). The proof texts on which the mediaeval geogra-
phers mainly relied as to the form of the earth were Ezekiel, v, 5, and xxxviii, 12. The
progress of geographical knowledge evidently caused them to be softened down somewhat
in our King James's version ; but the first of them reads, in the Vulgate, " Ista est Hierx-
salem, in medio gentium posui earn et in circuilu ejus terrce "/ and the second reads, in the
Vulgate, " in medio terrce," and in the Septuagint, i-rrl rbv b^<\>a.Khv tt}s yrjs. That the
literal center of the earth was understood, see proof in St. Jerome, Commentar. in Ezekiel,
lib. ii ; and for general proof, see Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, pp.
207, 208. For Rabanus Maurus, see his De Universo, lib. xii, cap. 4, in Migne, tome cxi, p.
339. For Hugh of St. Victor, see his De Situ Terrarum, cap. ii. For Dante's belief, see
Inferno, canto xxxiv, 112-115:

" E se' or sotto l'emisperio giunto,

Ch' e opposito a quel che la gran secca
Coverchia, e sotto il cui colmo consunto
Fu l'uom che nacque e visse senza pecca."

For orthodox geography in the middle ages, see Wright's Essays on Archaeology, vol. ii,
chapter on the map of the world in Hereford Cathedral ; also the rude maps in Cardinal
d'Ailly's Ymago Mundi ; also copy of maps of Marino Sanuto and others in Peschel, Erdkunde,
p. 210; also Miinster, Fac Simile dell' Atlante de Andrea Bianco, Venezia, 1869. And for
discussions of the whole subject, see Santarem, vol. ii, p. 295, vol. iii, pp. 71, 183, 184,
and elsewhere. For a brief summary with citations, see Eicken, Geschichte, etc., pp.
622, 623.

454 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dence that this had become precious truth to them, both in the-
ology and geography.*

Nor was this the only misconception which forced its way
from our sacred writings into mediaeval map-making ; two others
were almost as marked.

First of these was the vague terror inspired by Gog and Magog.
Few passages in the Old Testament are more sublime than the
denunciation of these great enemies by Ezekiel; and the well-
known statement in the Apocalypse fastened the Hebrew feeling
regarding them with a new meaning into the mind of the early
Church : hence it was that the mediaeval map-makers took great
pains to delineate these monsters and their habitations on the
maps. For centuries no map was considered orthodox which did
not show them.

The second conception was derived from the frequent men-
tion in our sacred books of the " four winds." Hence came a
vivid belief in their real existence and their delineation on the
maps, generally as colossal heads with distended cheeks, blowing
vigorously toward Jerusalem.

Even at a period after these conceptions had mainly disap-
peared we find here and there evidences of the difficulty men
found in giving up the scriptural idea of direct personal inter-
ference by agents of Heaven in the ordinary phenomena of Na-
ture : thus in a noted map of the sixteenth century representing
the earth as a sphere, there is at each pole a crank, with an angel
laboriously turning the earth by means of it. f

* For the site of the cross on Calvary, as the point where stood " the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil " in Eden, at the center of the earth, see various Eastern travelers cited in
Tobler ; but especially the travels of Bishop Arculf in the Holy Land in Wright's Early
Travels in Palestine, p. 8 ; also, Travels of Saewulf, ibid., p. 38 ; also, Sir John Maundeville,
ibid., pp. 166, 167 ; and for one narrative in which the idea was developed into an amazing
mass of pious myths, see Pilgrimage of the Russian Abbot Daniel, edited by Sir C. W. Wil-
son, London, 1885, p. 14. (The passage deserves to be quoted as an example of myth-mak-
ing ; it is as follows : " At the time of our Lord's crucifixion, when he gave up the ghost
on the cross, the veil of the temple was rent, and the rock above Adam's skull opened, and
the blood and water which flowed from Christ's side ran down through the fissure upon the
skull, thus washing away the sins of men.")

f For Gog and Magog, see Ezekiel, chaps, xxxviii and xxxix, and Rev. xx, 8 ; and for the
general subject, Toy, Judaism and Christianity, Boston, 1891, pp. 373, 374. For maps show-
ing these two great terrors, and for geographical discussion regarding them, see Lelewel,
Geog. du Moyen Age, Bruxelles, 1850, Atlas; also Ruge, Gesch. des Zeitalters der Entdeck-
ungen, Berlin, 1881, pp. 78, 79 ; also Peschel's Abhandlungen, pp. 28-35, and Gesch. der Erd-
kunde, p. 210. For representations on maps of the "Four Winds," see Charton, Voyageurs,
tome ii, p. 11 ; also Ruge as above, pp. 324, 325 ; also, for a curious mixture of the
scriptural four winds with the classical winds issuing from the bags of ^Eolus, see a map
of the twelfth century in Leon Gautier, La Chevalerie, p. 153 ; and for maps showing addi-
tional winds, see various editions of Ptolemy. For a map with angels turning the earth by
means of cranks at the poles, see Grynaeus, Novus Orbis, Basilese, 1537.

THE DIAMOND INDUSTRY AT KIMBERLEY. 455
THE DIAMOND INDUSTRY AT KIMBERLEY.*

By LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL.

^VTOTHING in the external appearance of Kimberley suggests
-L^ either its fame or its wealth. A straggling, hap-hazard con-
nection of small, low dwellings, constructed almost entirely of
corrugated iron or of wood, laid out with hardly any attempt at
regularity, and without the slightest trace of municipal magnifi-
cence, is the home of the diamond industry. It seems that when
the diamonds were first discovered, some twenty years ago, many
thousands of persons settled down suddenly on the spot like a
cluster of swarming bees, and established themselves anyhow as
best they could in the most rough and primitive fashion, never
dreaming but that the yield of diamonds would be of limited ex-
tent and of short duration, that their fortunes would be rapidly
acquired, and that they would pass as rapidly away from the
place, having exhausted all its wealth-producing resources. The
reverse has proved to be the case. The diamondiferous resources
of Kimberley are now known to be practically inexhaustible, but
the amalgamation of the mines has restricted employment and
checked immigration, and the town still preserves, and probably
will always preserve, its transitory and rough-and-ready appear-
ance. There are, however, a number of excellent shops, and there
are few articles of necessity, of convenience, or of luxury which
can not here be purchased. A most comfortable and hospitable
club, an admirably laid-out and well-arranged race-course testify
to the thoroughly English character of the settlement. At Kim-
berley the diamond is everything, and the source and method of
its production claim more than a passing mention. My first visit
was to the offices of the De Beers Company, which company repre-
sents the amalgamated interests of the De Beers, Kimberley, Bult-
fontein, Du Toits Pan, and other smaller mines. The amalgama-
tion was the work of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and it was this great work,
accomplished in the teeth of unheard-of difficulties and almost
insurmountable opposition, representing the conciliation and uni-
fication of almost innumerable rival jarring and conflicting in-
terests, which revealed to South Africa that it possessed a public
man of the first order. The scale of the company's operations is
stupendous. On a capital of nearly £8,000,000 of debenture and
share stock it has paid, since its formation in 1888 up to March,
1890, interest at the rate of h\ per cent, and an annual dividend of
20 per cent. In the same period it has given out some 2,500,000

* From Men, Mines, and Animals of South Africa. By Lord Randolph Churchill. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1892.

THE DIAMOND INDUSTRY AT KIMBERLEY. 457

carats of diamonds, realizing by sale over £3,500,000, produced by
washing some 2,700,000 loads of blue ground. Each load represents
three quarters of a ton, and costs in extracting about 8s. 10e£. per
load, realizing a profit of 20s. to 30s. per carat sold. The annual
amount of money paid away in interest and dividends exceeds
£1,300,000. The dividends might have been much larger, but the

Classified for Shipment at Kimberley.

policy of the present board of directors appears to be to restrict
the production of diamonds to the quantity the world can easily
absorb, to maintain the price of the diamonds at a fair level from
28s. to 32s. per carat, and, in order the better to carry out this
policy, to accumulate a very large cash reserve. I believe that the
reserve already accumulated amounts to nearly £1,000,000, and
that this amount is to be doubled in the course of the next year
or two, when the board will feel that they have occupied for their
shareholders a position unassailable by any of the changes and
chances of commerce. In the working of the mine there are em-
ployed about 1,300 Europeans and 5,700 natives. The wages paid
range high, and figures concerning them may interest the English
artisan. Mechanics and engine-drivers receive from £6 to £7 per
week, miners from £5 to £6, guards and tally-men from £4 to £5 ;
natives in the underground works are paid from 4s. to 5s. per day.
In the work on the " floors/' which is all surface work, overseers
receive from £3 12s. to £4 2s., machine-men and assorters from £5
to £6, and ordinary native laborers from 17s. Qd. to 21s. per week.
In addition, every employe* on the " floors " has a percentage on
the value of diamonds found by himself, the white employe's re-

458

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

ceiving Is. G(7., and the natives 'id., per carat. Nearly double these
amounts are paid for stones found in the mines.

Mr. Gardner Williams, the eminent mining engineer who occu-
pies the important post of general manager to the De Beers Com-
pany, was kind enough to accompany me all over the mines, and
to explain in detail the method of operation. The De Beers and
the Kimberley mines are probably the two biggest holes which
greedy man has ever dug into the earth, the area of the former at
the surface being thirteen acres, with a depth of 450 feet, the area
and depth of the latter being even greater. These mines are no

Mr. Gardner Williams. Lord Randolph Churchill. Captain Williams.

In the Rock Shaft of the De Beers Diamond Mine at a Depth of Nine Hundred Feet.

longer worked from the surface, but from shafts sunk at some
distance from the original holes, and penetrating to the blue
ground by transverse drivings at depths varying from 500 to 1,200
feet. The blue ground, when extracted, is carried in small iron
trucks to the " floors." " These are made by removing the bush
and grass from a fairly level piece of ground ; the land is then
rolled and made as hard and as smooth as possible. These e floors *
are about 600 acres in extent. They are covered to the depth of
about a foot with the blue ground, which for a time remains on
them without much manipulation. The heat of the sun and

THE DIAMOND INDUSTRY AT KIMBERLEY. 459

moisture soon have a wonderful effect upon it. Large pieces
which were as hard as ordinary sandstone when taken from the
mine, soon commence to crumble. At this stage of the work, the
winning of the diamonds assumes more the nature of farming
than of mining ; the ground is continually harrowed to assist pul-
verization by exposing the larger pieces to the action of the sun
and rain. The blue ground from Kimberley mine becomes quite
well pulverized in three months, while that from De Beers re-
quires double that time. The longer the ground remains exposed,
the better it is for washing." * The process of exposure being
completed, the blue ground is then carried to very large, elabo-
rate, and costly washing machines, in which, by means of the
action of running water, the diamonds are separated from the
ordinary earth. It may be mentioned that in this process one
hundred loads of blue ground are concentrated into one load of
diamondiferous stuff. Another machine, the "pulsator," then
separates this latter stuff, which appears to be a mass of blue and
dark pebbles of all shapes, into four different sizes, which then
pass on to the assorters. " The assorting is done on tables, first
while wet by white men, and then dry by natives." f The assorters
work with a kind of trowel, and their accuracy in detecting and
separating the diamond from the eight different kinds of mineral
formations which reach them is almost unerring. " The diamond
occurs in all shades of color from deep yellow to a blue white,
from deep brown to light brown, and in a great variety of colors,
green, blue, pink, brown, yellow, orange, pure white, and opaque." J
The most valuable are the pure white and the deep orange. " The
stones vary in size from that of a pin's head upward ; the largest
diamond yet found weighed 428^ carats. It was cut and exhibited
at the Paris Exhibition, and after cutting weighed 228i carats.
" After assorting, the diamonds are sent daily to the general office
under an armed escort and delivered to the valuators in charge of
the diamond department. The first operation is to clean the dia-
monds of any extraneous matter by boiling them in a mixture of
nitric and sulphuric acids. When cleaned they are carefully
assorted again in respect of size, color, and purity." * The room
in the De Beers office where they are then displayed offers a most
striking sight. It is lighted by large windows, underneath which
runs a broad counter covered with white sheets of paper, on
which are laid out innumerable glistening heaps of precious
stones of indescribable variety. In this room are concentrated
some 60,000 carats, the daily production of the Consolidated Mine
being about 5,500 carats. " When the diamonds have been valued
they are sold in parcels to local buyers, who represent the leading

* Report, 1890, General Manager, De Beers. f Ibid. \ Ibid. * Ibid.

460

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

diamond merchants of Europe. The size of a parcel varies from
a few thousand to tens of thousands of carats ; in one instance,
two years ago, nearly a quarter of a million of carats were sold in
one lot to one buyer/' *

The company sustain a considerable loss annually, estimated
now at from 10 to 15 per cent, by diamonds being stolen from the
mines. To check this loss, extraordinary precautions have been
resorted to. The natives are engaged for a period of three
months, during which time they are confined in a compound sur-
rounded by a high wall. On returning from their day's work,
they have to strip off all their clothes, which they hang on pegs
in a shed. Stark naked, they then proceed to the searching-room,
where their mouths, their hair, their toes, their armpits, and every

Ix the Eight-Hundred-Feet Level of the De Beers Diamond Mine.

portion of their bodies are subjected to an elaborate examina-
tion. White men would never submit to such a process, but the na-
tive sustains the indignity with cheerful equanimity, considering
only the high wages which he earns. After passing through the
searching-room, they pass, still in a state of nudity, to their apart-
ments in the compound, where they find blankets in which to
wrap themselves for the night. During the evening the clothes
which they have left behind them are carefully and minutely
searched, and are restored to their owners in the morning. The
precautions which are taken a few days before the natives leave
the compound, their engagement being terminated, to recover
diamonds which they may have swallowed, are more easily im-
agined than described. In addition to these arrangements, a law
of exceptional rigor punishes illicit diamond buying, known in

* Report, 1890, General Manager, De Beers.

THE DIAMOND INDUSTRY AT KIMBERLEY

461

the slang of South Africa as I. D. B.ism. Under this statute, the
ordinary presumption of law in favor of the accused disappears,
and an accused person has to prove his innocence in the clearest
manner, instead of the accuser having to prove his guilt. Sen-
tences are constantly passed on persons convicted of this offense
ranging from five to fifteen years. It must be admitted that this
tremendous law is in thorough conformity with South African
sentiment, which elevates I. D. B.ism almost to the level, if not
above the level, of actual homicide. If a man walking in the
streets or in the precincts of Kimberley were to find a diamond
and were not immediately to take it to the registrar, restore it
to him, and to have the fact of its restoration registered, he
would be liable to a punishment of fifteen years' penal servitude.
In order to prevent illicit traffic, the quantities of diamonds pro-
duced by the mines are reported to the detective department both

Sorting Gravel for Diamonds at Kimberley.

by the producers and the exporters. All diamonds, except those
which pass through illicit channels, are sent to England by regis-
tered post, the weekly shipments averaging from 40,000 to 50,000
carats. The greatest outlet for stolen diamonds is through the
Transvaal to Natal, where they are shipped by respectable mer-
chants, who turn a deaf ear to any information from the diamond
fields to the effect that they are aiding the sale of stolen prop-
erty.* The most ingenious ruses are resorted to by the illicit

* Report, 1890, General Manager, De Beers.

462 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dealers for conveying the stolen diamonds out of Kimberley.
They are considerably assisted by the fact that the boundaries of
the Transvaal and of the Free State approach within a few miles
of Kimberley, and once across the border they are comparatively
safe. Recently, so I was informed, a notorious diamond thief was
seen leaving Kimberley on horseback for the Transvaal. Con-
vinced of his iniquitous designs, he was seized by the police on
the border and thoroughly searched. Nothing was found on him,
and he was perforce allowed to proceed. No sooner was he well
across the border, than he, under the eyes of the detective, de-
liberately shot and cut open his horse, extracting from its intes-
tines a large parcel of diamonds, which, previous to the journey,
had been administered to the unfortunate animal in the form of
a ball.

The De Beers directors manage their immense concern with
great liberality. A model village, called Kenilworth, within the
precincts of the mines, affords most comfortable and healthy ac-
commodation for several of the European employes. Gardens are
attached to cottages, and the planting of eucalyptus, cypress, pine,
and oak, as well as a variety of fruit trees, has been carried to a
considerable extent. A very excellent club-house has also been
built, which includes, besides the mess-room and kitchen, a read-
ing-room, where many of the monthly papers and magazines are
kept, together with six hundred volumes from the Kimberley
Public Library. There is also a billiard-room, with two good
tables given by two of the directors. A large recreation-ground
is in the course of construction. Within the compound where
the native laborers are confined is a store where they can procure
cheaply all the necessaries of life. Wood and water are supplied
free of charge, and a large swimming-bath is also provided, but I
did not learn if the natives made much use of it. All sick natives
are taken care of in a hospital connected with the compound,
where medical attendance, nurses, and food are supplied gratui-
tously by the company. I should not omit to mention that the
entire mine, above and under ground, is lighted by electricity.
There are ten circuits of electric lamps for De Beers and Kimber-
ley mines. They consist of fifty-two arc lamps of 1,000 candle-
power each, and G91 glow lamps of sixteen and sixty -four candle-
power each, or a total illuminating power of G3,G96 candles. There
are, moreover, thirty telephones connecting the different centers
of work together, and over eighty electric bells are used for sig-
naling in shafts and on haulages. Such is this marvelous mine,
the like of which I doubt whether the world can show. When
one considers the enormous capital invested, the elaborate and
costly plant, the number of human beings employed, and the
object of this unparalleled concentration of effort, curious reflec-

STATE INTERVENTION IN SOCIAL ECONOMY. 463

tions occur. In all other mining distinctly profitable objects are
sought, and purposes are carried out beneficial generally to man-
kind. This remark would apply to gold mines, to coal mines, to
tin, copper, and lead mines ; but at the De Beers mine all the
wonderful arrangements I have described above are put in force
in order to extract from the depths of the ground, solely for the
wealthy classes, a tiny crystal to be used for the gratification of
female vanity in imitation of a lust for personal adornment
essentially barbaric if not altogether savage.

♦»»

STATE INTERVENTION IN SOCIAL ECONOMY.

By M. ANATOLE LEROY BEAULIEU.

THE Church has now a social doctrine which some Catholics
assume to impose on the faith as a teaching of infallible au-
thority. The papacy, turning toward the democracy, has pre-
sented a programme of social reform ; * and in the face of the
courtiers and of the people has declared to the age that the first
article of the social reform must be a moral reform. This is a
hard word to many ears, and the wise men of the world hearing
it shake their heads and pass on. " Is that all you have to tell
us ? " the children of the age seem to say ; " we have other things
"to do than stop to hear your wise advice. The time for these moral
lessons has passed. Our progressive age wants something newer
and more substantial, which it will hardly go for to Rome."
Pope Leo XIII seems to have anticipated these sarcastic reflec-
tions, and his language is in marked distinction from that of his
predecessors, by his not talking of religion and morals alone. He
knows that this is not enough for the unbelieving masses ; and
after having reminded us that God alone can save us, he does not
refuse to consider the means proposed by the wisdom or imagina-
tion of men for the pacification of contemporary society ; and he
examines these means with a kindly and patient solicitude, not as
& mystic bent on exposing their vanity, but as a practical man
anxious to find early solutions, and sincerely desiring to amelio-
rate the material position of the working classes.

Two ways to this result are open to our society : one by the
intervention of the state, the other by special associations. Leo
XIII has examined them both very carefully ; and we purpose
to see what he thinks of the first, the broadest one, on which the
masses would cast themselves as if by instinct. Is the Church
in favor of the intervention of the state or against it ? The ma-

* In the Labor Encyclical.

464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

jority believe that, whether we be Catholic or heterodox, we must
be for one or the other ; that there can be no middle ground. But
as a Catholic, Albert de Mun, has remarked, nothing so quickly
leads to inexactness as the passion for arranging men and doc-
trines in separate groups and designating them by special terms.
Such a classification would be especially fallacious in this case ;
for I do not know of any persons who utterly reject the interven-
tion of the state. In one sense everybody is an interventionist, for
we all agree with Leo and the theologians that it is the state's
duty to protect the rights of every one, and that the repression of
abuses belongs to it. But where does the function of protecting
individuals which devolves upon the state begin, where does it
end, over what does it extend ? We do not all form the same con-
ception of the attributes of the public power. This divergence is
more important to our society than the contests of republicans
and monarchists or the quarrels of opportunists and radicals.
This, and not fastidious controversies on forms of government or
the validity of constitutions, constitutes the vital question for
modern nations.

The doctrine of laissez-faire, or let alone, has lately enjoyed in
some states an authority which it does not deserve. It was once
a device of freedom, but it was a negative device, and neither sci-
ence nor society can rest wholly on a negation. Those who have
tried to refer all economical science to it have only succeeded in
discrediting political economy and economists. The let-alone, ap-
plied where it does not belong — to the work of children and girls
in the shop or the mine, for example — becomes inhuman and
murderous, and, as it were, the accomplice of the criminal ex-
ploitation of misery and vice. Hence it has gone into disfavor ;
and, as often happens to our human weakness, which straightens
itself on one side only to lean over on the other, the inevitable
reaction against the famous maxim of Gournay has passed just
bounds.

This phrase was applied by those who invented it to industry,
commerce, and labor. In demanding the let-alone, Gournay and
the economists of the eighteenth century claimed for every French-
man the right to make, sell, buy, and carry agricultural and in-
dustrial products freely. The demand was a protest against the
minute and ruinous regulations of the old regime, against the
pretension to hold in leading-strings everything in the kingdom
that lived by labor. In this sense the laissez-faire is eternally
true. Of all the phrases pronounced in France, it was one of
those which resounded the farthest — the one, perhaps, that has
put French words upon the largest number of human lips. The
brief maxim, of which few know the author, has made the tour of
the globe, and has contributed a good share to the renovation of

STATE INTERVENTION IN SOCIAL ECONOMY. 465

the world. To it is due the emancipation of labor, and the devel-
opment by that of public wealth in the nineteenth century. Be-
cause a generation or two, in two or three countries, have abused
it, is no reason for forgetting its services, especially at a time
when we see the old chains brought back, or new ones in forging,
with which to load industry and labor.

The third part of the Pope's Encyclical is devoted to this im-
portant subject, and, after touching upon several aspects of the
question, he concludes that " equity requires that the state concern
itself with the workmen, and so act that, of all the goods they secure
for society, a suitable part shall return to them, such as habita-
tion and clothing, and that they may live at the cost of the fewest
pains and privations. "Whence it follows that the state should
favor all that closely or remotely appears calculated to ameliorate
their lot." Such is the Pope's theory ; but this is of less impor-
tance than the practice. If the state has a right to intervene,
what should be the conditions and what the limits of its interven-
tion ? The Pope is very careful in expressing himself on this
point, and declares that intervention ought not to be exercised ex-
cept when it is absolutely indispensable, or when there is no other
means of opposing the evils with which society is afflicted, and
should be limited to seeing that every individual's rights are re-
spected and preserved. If it comes to pass, he says, that work-
men, abandoning their work or suspending it by strikes, menace
public tranquillity ; that the natural bonds of the family are re-
laxed among them; that religion is violated by employers not
leaving them time to perform their duties of worship ; if, by pro-
miscuous mingling of the sexes or other excitations to vice, the
factories imperil morality ; if the employer imposes iniquitous
burdens on the workmen, or dishonors their manhood by un-
worthy and degrading conditions; if he endangers their health
by excessive tasks, disproportionate to their sex or age — in such
cases it is necessary to use, within certain limits, the force and
authority of the laws. In the protection of private rights, the
Pope adds, the state should concern itself especially with the
weak and indigent ; and he qualifies his whole expression by say-
ing that the law should undertake nothing beyond what is neces-
sary to repress abuses and remove dangers.

The idea of the state as a Providence appears to us not only
false and pernicious from the social point of view ; it seems to have
about it, too, in these days, something unchristian : it has a pagan
flavor, a scent of sacrilegious usurpation. We discern in it a pre-
tension of the state to erect itself into a divinity which shall take
the place of the invisible God and arrogate to itself his function
on the earth. It is as if there were a revolution in the govern-
ment of the universe, as if another Providence were coming in to

VOL. XLI. — 35

466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

take the place of the old one and dethrone him. We know that
the old churchmen saw something divine in the origin and nature
of the state ; but then there were in those days relations between
the Church and the state that exist no longer. The kings and
emperors of the middle ages never dreamed habitually of deify-
ing themselves, or of attributing to themselves in their own per-
sonalities a divine mission. Even in its highest pretensions and
most impudent usurpations the state of the old regime was never
ashamed to bow before God, it acknowledged that it held its
power from him, and considered itself under obligations to make
his laws respected. The Church never saw an adversary or a
rival in it ; if it rebelled occasionally against the supremacy of
the ecclesiastical power, the Church could always hope to bring
it back to docility and obedience.

But we mistrust the modern state, both as Christians and as
citizens. This modern state, monarchical or republican; the
bureaucratic state, with a hundred arms reaching everywhere ;
the elective state, headless or many-headed, changing, incoherent,
capricious, constantly inclined to usurp the functions of the fam-
ily, of private societies, of individuals — we are afraid to extend
its competence beyond bounds. We know it too well to give our-
selves up to it. We know by experience how heavy and clumsy
its hand is ; how violent, rough, arbitrary, and tyrannical are its
processes, and how presumptuous and costly are its methods. The
Church itself knows something of its character and proceedings.
St. Thomas of Aquinas said the state was the servant of God for
good. But is it God whose minister the contemporary state is ?
Even when it does not sin by doctrinal presumption, or by anti-
religious intolerance, or by usurpation of authority over the
family, the state seems to us morally incapable of assuming the
high mission which some of the sons of the Church seem to claim
for it. It is inspired neither with Christian law nor with the law
of God, nor with the ideal justice which such persons prescribe as
its guides. Its law and rule are not justice, but electoral inter-
ests. Instead of being, as it is invited to be, an impartially serene
authority, lifted above all classes and providing equitably for all,
the state which we know and whose workings we witness is essen-
tially partial. The child of government by party, it is, we might
say, partial by derivation. Instead of the traditional balances of
justice, it has two weights and two measures in everything. It
has none of the qualities of an earthly Providence : not foresight,
or intelligence, or equity, or wisdom. It is always ready to en-
croach upon a domain which is not its own, and in every direc-
tion ; it is careless of the rights of others, and recognizes hardly
any but those which it has established ; it assumes to be the only
law-maker, and imagines that it creates right. It believes that

STATE INTERVENTION IN SOCIAL ECONOMY. 467

everything is permitted it, and vaunts itself on subjecting every-
thing. It wants to be all, and its will is changing, violent, and
weak by turns, like the passionate majorities and the ignorant
crowds whence it emanates ; and so slight is our confidence in the
state that its mobility reassures us more than it scares us.

Yes, we distrust the state, whatever its name or shape ; we dis-
trust its prudence, its lights, its doctrines, and its aims ; its pro-
cesses, its methods, its propensity to regulate, its obstructiveness,
and its self-conceit ; its morality, its conscience, and its probity.
It worries us to see in it the organ of right and the instrument of
justice. We can not arm the state with new rights or fortify its
power on one side without re-enforcing it on all sides. The do-
main of public authority can not be extended over all interests
and private contracts without enslaving the individual and sub-
jecting the family to it. No artifice of political science can find
means to make the state the master of economical life, the om-
nipotent arbiter of the mill and the shop, without our societies
that live by work being taken wholly into its hand. There is
only one way to establish forever the despotism of the state in
the world, but there is one, and it is this.

Even if the modern state should become more equitable and
more enlightened ; if it should become really something else than
an irresponsible collectivity exercising power by changing and pas-
sionate proxies ; if it should put away its sectarian spirit and its
tyrannical processes — we should still doubt its competence and its
capacity to regulate the mill and the shop. The state is a weighty
engine, with slow-running machinery uselessly complicated, which
exacts a considerable expenditure of fuel and manual labor for
the least work. No other instrument makes a feebler return and
wastes so much force. Consequently, the more we extend the
action of the state the more we risk impoverishing the country.
Instead of hastening the development of national wealth, the state
is calculated to hinder it by restraining the free factors of capital
and labor. It is always a reproach which its intervention can
not escape, and a very grave one in social and economical matters,
that the meddling of public authority unnerves private initiative.
This of itself would be a cause of uneasiness, for private initiative
has always been the main-spring of progress ; to break it or para-
lyze it by enveloping it with laws and regulations which would
arrest or restrict its play would be to fetter the progress of indus-
try and of wealth, and to delay the improvement of the condition
of the masses. Further than this, in social questions themselves —
questions belonging to the workmen — the intervention of the
state, with its vexatious processes and its annoying habits, would
generally simply end in depressing instead of stimulating private
forces and living energies, humanitarian philanthropy and Chris-

468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tian charity. We have already proof of this in public benevo-
lence, which seems, at great expense, to have sterilized the field
which private benevolence had fertilized. Beware, lest, instead of
inspiring patrons and capitalists, industrial societies and indus-
trial managers, to fulfill their social duty in a larger sense, the
arbitrary intervention of the state does not dissuade or discourage
them from it ! Symptoms of such discouragement are already be-
ginning to appear in France. We, in fact, slander ourselves when
we represent that private initiative has been sterile in this sphere.
Not so ; on the contrary, it is one of the domains in which our
end of the century has deserved the most from France and man-
kind. I want no better evidence of this than the group of social
economy, or, as it was justly styled, " of social peace," in our Uni-
versal Exposition of 1889, where were represented in fifteen sec-
tions: remuneration for labor and participation in benefits; co-
operative associations for production; professional syndicates;
apprenticeship and patronage societies ; mutual aid societies ;
superannuation and pension funds ; accident and life assurance ;
co-operative consumers' associations; co-operative credit associa-
tions ; workmen's houses ; workmen's circles and people's societies ;
social hygiene and temperance societies ; societies for the protec-
tion of children ; and national institutions. These fifteen sections
of social economy prove by actual specimens that men of means
are not insensible to the ills of the working classes, and that our
society has not waited for the urging of the state before it occu-
pied itself with questions of interest to working-men. The greater
part of the works, foundations, associations, and social enterprises
to which awards were made in 1889 were relatively recent, some
of them entirely new. They have been tending for several years
past to make a rapid advance. Heaven prevent the intervention
of the state which is threatened, inflicting a fatal blow on all these
creations of private initiative ! The state has a heavy hand, not
to call it a paw. It often unwittingly crushes what it touches.
There is something depressing and stifling in administrative regu-
lation; may it not for a long time yet put the brakes upon a
movement from which so much is promised ! — Selected and trans-
lated for The Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux
Mondes.

The emigration of the English agricultural population into the towns is at-
tributed by Mr. T. E. Kebbel, among other causes, to the dullness of village
life. The old feasts, the fairs, and the games have for the most part disap-
peared. Thus, while there is vastly more cricket played in England than fifty
years ago, it is not played by the same class. In the old day-long matches
on the village greens, the elevens were mostly made up of laborers. They are
so no longer.

HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE GOLD-CURE. 469
HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE GOLD-CURE.*

By Prof. H. CAERINGTON BOLTON.

AVOIDING all discussion of the merits or demerits of the so-
called bichloride-of-gold cure, now so prominent in the pub-
lic mind, we propose to show that the use of gold as a medicine is
not so novel as commonly thought ; and by extracts from early
writers on chemistry and medicine to indicate the opinions held
with respect to alleged " tinctures of gold " at different periods
during several centuries.

The precious metal has been employed both externally and in-
ternally, in the metallic state, in solution, and by sympathy, for a
great variety of the ills that flesh is heir to, for over two thousand
years. The train of thought which led the ancients to employ
this highly prized material can be well told in the quaint lan-
guage of the distinguished Dutch physician and chemist, Her-
mann Boerhaave ; writing about 1725, he says : " The alchemists
will have this metal contain I know not what radical balm of life
capable of restoring health and continuing it to the longest period.
What led the early physicians to imagine such wonderful virtue
in gold was that they perceived certain qualities therein which
they fancied must be conveyed thereby into the body ; gold, for
instance, is not capable of being destroyed, hence they concluded
it must be very proper to preserve animal substances and save
them from putrefaction; which is a method of reasoning very
much like that of some fanciful physicians who sought for an as-
suaging remedy in the blood of an ass's ear by reason the ass is a
very calm beast ! " (Shaw's translation, Boerhaave's Chemistry,
London, 1727.)

Something of this sympathetical and mental effect was evi-
dently sought to be attained in the very first instance of the ad-
ministration of gold recorded in history. " And Moses took the
(golden) calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and
ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the
children of Israel drink of it." (Exodus, xxxii, 20.)

Pliny, in his marvelous compilation, " Natural History," writ-
ten about 70 a. d., has a paragraph on the " medicinable virtues of
gold " which in " divers waies is effectual in the cure of many dis-
eases. For first of all sovereign it is for green wounds, if it be
outwardly applied." Pliny describes a form of liniment of gold
" torrefied with salt and schistis " which " healeth the f oule tettar
that appeareth in the face," fistulas, etc. And he alludes to a prep-
aration of gold in honey which " doth gently loose the belly if

* Read, in part, to the New York Academy of Sciences, June 6, 1892.

47o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the navel be anointed therewith." And in conclusion Pliny quotes
Marcus Varro, who " saith that gold wil cause warts to fal off."
(Holland's translation, London, 1634.) Varro was a friend of
Cicero, which carries back this belief in the efficacy of gold to
the first century before Christ.

The Arabian physicians, who for hundreds of years possessed
almost exclusive knowledge of chemistry, often record the virtues
of gold as a remedial agent in disease. Geber, who lived in the
eighth century, wrote : " Gold is a medicine rejoycing and con-
serving the Body in Youth." (Russell's translation, London, 1678,
p. 76.) Avicenna is said to have also written in its praise ; also
Arnald de Villanova (1235-1312).

The preparation of gold in a potable, innocuous form occupied
the attention of the alchemists during several centuries ; they
commonly called it aurum potabile, and ascribed to it not only re-
medial virtues but the power of prolonging life. The quotation
from Geber shows that he shared this opinion.

To this elixir of life they gave many fanciful names : Elias
Ashmole, in his Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, says Saint
Dunstan calls it the " food of angels," and others the " heavenly
viaticum." Ashmole himself adds : " It is undoubtedly the true
Alchochodon or giver of years, for by it man's body is preserved
from corruption, being thereby enabled to live a long time with-
out food ; nay, 'tis made a question whether any man can die that
uses it." (Written in 1652.)

The alchemists argued that this golden elixir is not to be made
of vulgar gold, but only from philosophical gold prepared by
hermetic art. Recipes for manufacturing this panacea abound in
alchemical works, they are mostly very tedious, requiring endless
repetitions and much faith on the part of the operator. One of
the simplest methods of preparing aurum potabile is given by
Samuel Bolton in his curious little 16mo, " Medicina magicatamen
physica," published at London in 1650: "Put foliated gold into a
vessel well sealed with Hermes' seal ; put it into our fire till it be
calcined to ashes ; then sublime it into flores, having his caput
mortuum, or black terra damnata in the bottom. Then let that
which is sublimed be with the same degree of fire united to the
same caput mortuum that it may be revived by it, as that all may
be reduced into an Oyle which is called Oleum Solis. The dose
hereof is two or three grains."

This description leaves much to the imagination, and in this
respect differs little from others that we might quote. For the
benefit of non-chemists we may add that few of the recipes yield
a product containing gold, the metal often remaining in the part
thrown away.

Roger Bacon, the Franciscan friar of the thirteenth century, to

HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE GOLD-CURE. 47i

whom so many wonderful discoveries and inventions have been
ascribed, had deep faith in the virtues of potable gold. Bacon, in
a communication to Pope Nicolas IV, informs his Holiness of an
old man who found some yellow liquor in a golden flask, when
plowing one day in Sicily. Supposing it to be dew, he drank it
off, and was immediately transformed into a hale, robust, and
highly accomplished youth. Having abandoned his day-laboring
he was admitted to the service of the King of Sicily, and served
the court eighty years.

The belief in a life-prolonging elixir, sometimes claimed of the
tincture of gold and sometimes of secret preparations, prevailed
for centuries. Even so great a philosopher as Descartes believed
he had attained the art of living a few hundred years ; this belief
was shared by some of his friends, and when he died before reach-
ing sixty years they were convinced that he had been poisoned.

The alchemist Raymond Lully a contemporary of Friar
Bacon, also experienced the restorative effect of this fountain of
youth, if we can credit the statement in the curious verses of Sir
George Ripley, composed in 1471 :

"An Oyle is drawne owte in colour of Gold,
Or lyke thereto oat of our fire Red Lead,
"Whych Raymond sayd when he was old,

Much more than Gold wold stand hym in stede.
For when he was for age nygh dede,
He made thereof Aurum Potabile
Whych hym revyvyd as men myght see."

(Compound of Alchymie.)

Oswald Croll, a German physician of the sixteenth century,
wrote in 1609 in praise of gold as a medicine. I quote the Eng-
lish translation of his Basilica chymica, published at London in
1670:

" It is the principle part of a Physician that would Cure the
Sick, first to comfort the Heart, and afterwards assault the Disease.
Those to whom the harmonious Analogy of Superiours and Inf eri-
ours hath been known, and who from Suffrages of Astrologers have
learned that to the two greatest Lights of Heaven, the two prin-
ciple parts of Man, viz : the Heart and Brain, in things of Nature
latently rests in Gold. . . . For Nature hath endowed Gold with
no contemptible virtues, which who so knows how to draw out,
and by ingenious Artifice is able rightly to use, he will find Gold,
which seemed dead and barren, so lively and pregnant that it
germinates and of itself progenerates new Gold. . . . Whence the
true Philosophers have exquisitely prepared a wonderful and
greatly to be desired Medicine with which the impurities of
imperfect metals are removed and all vices of affects in uncurable
Diseases of Humane Bodies perfectly exterminated."

472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Croll then says he has tried almost one hundred different
preparations of aurum potabile, and condemns most of them to
recommend his own, fulminating gold, called by him " Calx of
Sol." His process embraces nauseous ingredients, and the prod-
uct is, as usual, free from gold.

Paracelsus, the physician who did so much to improve materia
medica by introducing chemical medicines, does not neglect gold.
Thurneisser, his disciple (both as respects his teachings and his
charlatanism), made his royal dupes pay enormous sums for the
"tincture of gold" which entered into his extraordinary pre-
scriptions. To the use of royal touch pieces (gold coins) in the
reigns of Charles II, James II, and Queen Anne, mere allusion
should be made. Christopher Glaser (1G63) gives among other
preparations a " diaphoretic powder of gold " and prescribes it for
continuous or intermittent fevers, the dose being four to twelve
grains in wine, or in a spoonful of bouillon. (Traite* de la chymie,
Paris, 1663.)

Antoine Lecoq (or Gallus), a physician of Paris (1540), seems
to have been the first to recommend gold for syphilis. He and
his follower Fallopius (of Modena, 1565) described tedious pro-
cesses for making preparations of gold. These processes were
carefully repeated, about the beginning of this century, by Che-
vallier, a French pharmacist, who declares the products contain no
gold at all.

Lamotte's "gold-drops," celebrated throughout Europe for
over half a century (1725 to 1780), consisted of a solution of ferric
chloride in alcohol ; this possessed a yellow color, and was uni-
versally regarded as a tincture of gold, until the secret was
bought and made public by the Russian Government. (Kopp's
Geschichte.)

Frederic Hoffman, a famous German physician (1733), recom-
mends gold for rheumatic fever.

Johann Rudolph Glauber, the German physician whose name
is indelibly attached to " Glauber's salts," thought to improve the
latter by adding gold. " In all diseases and infirmities, of what
name soever, the Spirit or Oil of Salt in which gold is rightly dis-
solved (or the Aurum Potabile with it), giveth present help, and
in all dejections of the vital spirit ... it giveth such relief that
life and vigor may be somewhat farther protracted if two, three
or four drops be administered as occasion shall serve in good
Aqua vita? or Cordiall Water. In like manner if three drops be
administered once a week in generous wine or aqua vitse, or other
fit vehicle, it renovateth a man, makes him youthful, changeth
gray hairs, produceth new nails and skin, preserveth from various
and divers symptoms of diseases, and preserveth the body in such
a state even to the prefixed hour of the Divine appointment."

HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE GOLD-CURE. 473

This is quoted by Glauber from Conrad Khunrath in his Medulla
destillatoria, and he adds : " I some time since administered this
Oil of gold for eight or ten days successively to an Infant for the
freeing his body from mercury." (Glauber's Works, Packe's
translation, London, 1G89.)

Robert Boyle, in his Usefulness of Natural Experimental Phi-
losophy (1663), expresses doubts as to the "strange excellency" of
aurum potabile, remarking that " learned physicians and chym-
ists have pronounced the preparation of potable gold as itself un-
feasible." And he adds : " I should much doubt whether such a
potable gold would have the prodigious virtues its encomiasts
ascribe to it and expect from it ; for I finde not that those I have
yet met with deliver these strange things upon particular experi-
ments duly made, but partly upon the authority of chymicall
books, many of which were never written by those whose names
they bear." He then proceeds to blame physicians for using ex-
pensive medicines and says : " T'were a good work to substitute
cheap ones for the poorer sort of patients."

The change of opinion as respects the therapeutic value of
gold, foreshadowed in the quotation from the astute Boyle, is well
shown by comparing the passages on the subject in two different
editions of Lernery's Cours de Chymie, one published in 1680 and
one in 1730. In the earlier edition of Ldmery's very successful
work we read : " Gold is a good remedy for those that have taken
too much mercury, for these two metals do easily unite together,
and by this union or amalgamation the mercury fixes and its
motion is interrupted." (Page 25.) " Aurum fulminans causes
sweat and drives out ill humors by transpiration. It may be
given in the small pox two to six grains in a lozenge or electuary.
It stops vomiting and is also good to moderate the active motion
of mercury." (Harris's translation, London, 1680, page 9.)

And in the later edition, the eleventh of the series, Lemery or
his editor makes a very different statement :

" Potable gold, so much praised by the alchemists, and sold so
dear by them, is commonly only a vegetable or mineral tincture
of a color resembling gold, and as they make this tincture with
a spirituous menstruum, it sometimes excites perspiration. This
effect they ascribe to the gold, although the metal has rarely any-
thing to do with it." (1730.)

In the works of Caspar Neumann a passage occurs that ex-
presses so clearly the present views of many that it is hard to
realize it was written nearly one hundred and fifty years ago.
Neumann writes :

" Gold has been imagined to be possessed of extraordinary
medicinal virtues, and many preparations, dignified with the
name of this precious metal, have been imposed upon the public ;

474

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

but the virtues ascribed to gold have apparently no other foun-
dation than credulity and superstition, and most of the golden
medicines have no gold in them. Even when gold has been em-
ployed in the preparation there is seldom any of it retained in the
product.

" We may say with Ludovici, ' It is better to make gold out of
medicines than medicines out of gold.' " (Lewis's translation, Lon-
don, 1759, page 38.)

FAMILIES AND DWELLINGS.

VII.— LESSONS FROM THE CENSUS.
By CAEROLL D. WEIGHT, A. M.,

UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF LABOR.

THE statistics of families and dwellings, as shown by a census,
offer opportunities for the study of social conditions in some
very important directions. The ratio of dwellings to families, the
number of persons to a dwelling, and the average size of families
are all facts of the highest importance in considering the con-
dition of the people. Such statistics also answer the question
whether families are holding their own as to size, and allied with
modern facts relative to the number of children born and living
they enable one to determine the composition of the population
and whether its various elements are being preserved with reason-
able integrity.

The following short table shows the total number of families
and persons to a family, by geographical divisions, in the United
States, June 1, 1890 :

. Total Families and Persons to a Family, by Geographical Divisions.

Geographical

NUMBER OF FAMILIES.

PERSONS TO A FAMILY.

Divisions.

1890.

1880.

1870.

1860.

1850.

1890.

1880.

1870.

1860.

1850.

8,712,242
1,687,767
4,598,605
2,071,120
620,418

12,690,152

3,023,741
1,463,361
3,389,017
1,697,550
372,247

9,945,916

2,497,494
1,132,621
2,480,311
1,242,411
226,526

2,048,315
652,396

1,683,190
684,024
143,009

5,210,934

1,582,978

637,857

934,873

499,767

42,765

469
525

4-86
530

4-88

480
5-19
5-12
525
475

492
5-17
5-23
5-18
4-37

5-17
540
534
551
433

5-45
561
569
570
4-18

The United States

7,579,363

3,598,240

4-94

504

5-09

5-28

5-55

The number of families increased, from 1880 to 1890, 27*59 per
cent ; from 1870 to 1880, 21*22 per cent ; from 1860 to 1870, 45*45
per cent ; and from 1850 to 1860, 44*82 per cent.

The question is often asked, when the total number of families
and the size of families under censuses are considered, what the
word " family " really means. For census purposes the word
" family " comprehends not only the real, normal family, as it is

FAMILIES AND DWELLINGS.

475

commonly understood — that is, consisting of the husband, wife,
children, and immediate dependents like relatives and servants —
but it comprehends all persons living alone where they maintain
their own establishments, and all larger aggregations of people
subject to one common supervision, such as the inmates of hotels,
hospitals, prisons, asylums, etc. So in nearly all Federal and
State censuses in this country and all censuses abroad the family
has comprehended hotels, boarding-houses, lodging-houses, penal
and reformatory institutions, and every aggregation of indi-
viduals living under one roof, or has related in some way, either
arbitrarily or otherwise, to one head. The inmates of a great
hotel, or a great college, or a prison constitute, for census pur-
poses, a family. It would seem at first thought that this artificial
extension of the composition of the family would have a dis-
turbing influence upon the average size of the family, but a
careful analysis of results indicates that such influence is very
slight. In the census of Massachusetts for 1885, the census family
in its average size consisted of 4*58 persons. The Massachusetts
State census offered facilities for ascertaining just the effect of
considering institutions and other bodies as families upon the
normal family. Eliminating all families coming under the arti-
ficial designation, it was found that the average size of the actual
normal family of Massachusetts in 1885 was 4'45. The influence,
therefore, arising from the inclusion of the artificial or arbitrary
family, so far as that State taken as a whole was concerned, was
but *13 per cent — that is, the difference between 4'58, the average
for all families of all sizes, and 4'45, the average of the normal
family alone. Practically, it makes but little difference, then,
so far as great bodies of people are concerned — as, for instance,
the population of a State — whether the families are considered
on the basis of the actual normal family or on the ordinary
census basis, which includes all aggregations living under one
roof or having certain relations to one head. It would not do,
however, to consider this as a rule in small aggregations of
people. As an illustration, Danvers, in the State of Massachu-
setts, contains a large asylum for the insane. The number of
families in 1885, including the asylum, was 1,474, representing a
population of 7,061. The average size of families on this census
basis for the town of Danvers in the year named was 4"79 ; but,
eliminating the asylum as a family, the average size of the
families was 4' 17, too large a variation for accurate calculations.
Again, in the town of Concord, in the State named, containing
the reformatory prison, the average size of the family, including
the reformatory, was 5.15 ; excluding it, it was 4"62. Taking a
college town, Wellesley, the average size of the normal family
was 5*10 ; but, including Wellesley College, it was 6'15, or an

476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

increase of more than one person. The rule, therefore, that the
average size of the family is not materially affected by including
the artificial or arbitrary family does not well apply to towns and
cities in which large institutions are located. For the United
States the statements given by the census, which includes all ar-
bitrary families, may fairly be taken as representing the average
family.

The decrease in the size of families is a subject which causes
some alarm. Taking the United States as a whole, it is found by
the census figures that in 1850 the average family consisted of
5'55 persons. There has been a gradual decrease, it being in 18G0
5-28, in 1870 5*09, in 1880 5'04, and in 1890 4'94. Looking at the
different geographical divisions, it is found that this rule holds
true except in the Western division, where the average size of the
family has risen from 4'18 in 1850 to 4"88 in 1890, the increase
having been steady through the intermediate decades. This re-
sult would have been expected, of course, on account of the set-
tlement of the "West in the last few years, the population having
increased rapidly and being more and more brought to the family
basis instead of that of single individuals or young families set-
tling in Western Territories. The small average size of the fam-
ily in Oklahoma, now a Territory just opened for settlement,
shows the influence of new settlements upon the size of the fam-
ily. In Oklahoma the size of the family will increase until popu-
lation becomes fairly dense, when it will follow the rule of older
communities and decrease. When population becomes more or
less urban in character the maximum is reached, and after that a
constantly receding average will probably be shown at each suc-
ceeding census. A study of one hundred of the principal cities
of the country having a population of 25,000 or more, and on the
basis of 1880 and 1890, shows with but few exceptions a decrease
in the average size of the family. The exceptions are chiefly in
the South and West, as might be expected, and as is found re-
garding those two sections generally. In New York city the
average size of the family has decreased from 4*96 in 1880 to 4*84
in 1890, while in Chicago the decrease has been from 519 to 4*99
during the same period.

It would be very gratifying if the Federal census statements
as to size of families and other social features of population could
be carefully verified by independent enumerations. This possi-
bility exists in some cases where States take an independent cen-
sus. I will call attention to one only, and that the State of Mas-
sachusetts, with whose statistics I am more or less familiar. The
United States census just taken gives the average size of fam-
ily in Massachusetts in 1870 as 477. The State census of 1875
gives the average size as 4'60. In 1880 the Federal census shows

FAMILIES AND DWELLINGS. 477

an average size of family of 4*70, and in 1890 of 4*67. The State
census for 1885 gives the average size of family as 4"58. In each
case the size of family as shown by the Federal census is slightly
larger than that shown by the State census. It would be quite
impossible to quarrel with the Federal census so far as this single
comparison is concerned.

In the eleventh census a question entirely novel in Federal cen-
suses was asked on the population schedule. This question was as
follows : " Mother of how many children, and number of these chil-
dren living ? " This inquiry was made concerning all women who
are or have been married, including those widowed or divorced.
The results of this inquiry will be of the very greatest impor-
tance. It was asked in the State census of Massachusetts for 1885.
The question relates to the fecundity of women, and if the tabula-
tions are proper will give this for different nationalities. The ques-
tion involves the comparative growth of the native and foreign-
born population, and is a subject of very vital importance. In the
Massachusetts census for 1875 a beginning was made in the direc-
tion of securing information on this point, but to a limited extent
only. In that census an inquiry was made relating simply to the
number of children born to each mother ; but in 1885, in the State
referred to, the inquiry was extended to the form just quoted.
The statistics presented in the State census for 1885 confirmed the
information secured in 1875 as to the relative fecundity of women,
and also supplied data in the nature of vital statistics bearing di-
rectly upon the question often raised as to whether it is better to
have small families, well reared, as opposed to large families of
children not always brought up under the best and most healthful
conditions. The figures gathered in the State of Massachusetts
showed that foreign-born mothers were more prolific than native-
born mothers, while at the second inquiry it was shown that the
number of children of foreign-born mothers decreased relative to
the time they had lived in this country ; and the general results,
considered on broad grounds, indicated that the mothers having
purely native parentage have relatively a slightly greater pro-
portion of their children living than the mothers having purely
foreign parentage.

The effect of dense population upon the decreasing size of the
family is suggested by these crude results ; but, after the Federal
and State censuses shall have repeated the inquiry quoted, we
may be able to determine with reasonable accuracy the exact
facts relative to the decrease of families. The first results under
the Federal census will be chiefly valuable because from them
comparisons in future censuses can be made, and from them also
can be shown whether more children are brought to mature age
when members of small families than when members of large

478

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

families. This is an exceedingly vital question, and much light
will be thrown upon it under future statistical investigations.

In discussing the number of families and the composition there-
of, it is interesting always to learn the relation of persons to
dwellings. The following table gives the total number of dwell-
ings and persons to a dwelling, by geographical divisions, under
the census of 1890 :

Total Dwellings and Persons to a Dwelling, by Geographical Divisions.

Geographical

NUMBER OF DWELLINGS.

PERSONS TO A DWELLING.

Divisions.

1890.

1880.

1870.

1860.

1850.

1890.

1880.

1870.

1860.

1850.

North Centra]

Western

2,962,345
1,626,372
4,287,480
2,007,279
599,836

11,483,318

2,430,182
1,383,493
3,172,734
1,623,664
345,739

2,103,500
1,102,778
2,405,626
1,197,569
233,360

1,808,435
656,074

1,688,446
668,387
148,350

1,390,005

528,596

911,565

490,280

41,891

3,362,337

5-87
545
5-22
5*47
505

5-97
5-49
5-47
549
5-11

5-85
5-31
5-40
537
4-24

5-86
5 37
5-32

6-21

5-71
5-83
581
427

The United States

8,955,812

7,042,833

4,969,692

545

560

547

553

5-94

An examination of the foregoing table proves that the number
of persons to a dwelling is constantly decreasing, although slight-
ly, thus indicating increased comfort on the part of the population
as a whole. In 1850 there were 5'94 persons to each dwelling in
the country, while in 1890 the average was 5*45. In the West,
however, this statement is reversed, for in 1850 the number of
persons to a dwelling was 4*27, and in 1890 it had increased to 5*05.
This, as in the case of the increased size of family, shows the
effects of the new settlements.

A dwelling, for census purposes, means any building or place
of abode in which any person was living at the time the census
was taken, whether the abode was a room above a warehouse or
factory, a loft above a stable, a wigwam on the outskirts of a
settlement, a hotel, a boarding or lodging house, a large tenement-
house, or the dwelling-house ordinarily considered as such. On
this basis the number of dwellings in 1890 had increased 28*22 per
cent over the number in 1880. In 1890 there were 11,483,318
dwellings and 12,690,152 families, there thus being 10*51 per cent
more families than dwellings, while in 1880 the excess was 11*06
per cent, and in 1850 it was 7*02 per cent.

It should be remembered, in making any comparison between
dwellings and persons from 1850 to 1890, that in 1860 and 1870 the
total number of dwellings included both occupied and unoccupied
dwellings, while in 1850, 1880, and 1890 the total number of occu-
pied dwellings only was reported. Again, in 1850 and 1860 the
number of dwellings stated was for the free population only, the
dwellings of the slave population in those censuses not being re-
turned. Any figures, therefore, for 1850 to 1870, inclusive, do not
afford a very fair basis of comparison. The table just given
should be used in the light of these remarks.

FAMILIES AND DWELLINGS.

479

The excess of families over dwellings in 1890, 1880, and 1850,
both as regards number and per cent, is shown in the following
brief table:

Excess of Families over Dwellings.

Geographical Divisions.

1890.

1880.

1850.

Number.

Per cent.

Number.

Per cent.

Number.

Per cent.

North Atlantic

749,897
61,395

311,119
63,841
20,582

25-31
3-77
7-26
318
3-43

593,559
79,868

216,283
73,886
26,508

24-42
577

682
4-55
7-67

192,973

9,261

23,308

9,487

874

13-88

Sontb Atlantic

1-75

2-56

South Central

194

2-09

The United States

1,206,834

1051

990,104

1106

235,903

7*02

The statistics of dwellings and families already published show
the classification by the number of persons and dwellings for the
different States and by the United States as a whole. The follow-
ing brief summary, however, by geographical divisions, is all that
space will permit. This table shows the total number of persons
to a dwelling, from 1 person to 11 and over :

Persons to a Dwelling, by Geographical Divisions.

Geographical
Divisions.

1 periou.

2 persons.

3 persons.

4 persons.

5 persons.

6 persons.

North Atlantic

71,997
51,364
130,596
55,661
60,449

370,067

342,778
166,833
484,266
203,005
79,854

458,510
223,395
669,220
273,430
87,343

477,258
238,170
723,592
294,503
88,569

432,942
236,164
667,602
294,368
81,449

337,780
200,911
526,535
249,862
60,865

North Central

The United States

1,276,736

1,711,898

1,822,092

1,712,525

1,375,953

Geographical
Divisions.

7 persons.

8 persons.

9 persons.

10 persons.

11 persons
and over.

North Atlantic

249,985
166,054
386,706
208,350
45,194

175,762
127,770
266,911
160,019
32,106

762,568

118,176

89,290

169,576

112,402

21,625

87,393
70,393
115,906
90,315
21,142

385,149

209,764
56,028

146,576
65,364
21,240

South Atlantic

South Central

Western

The United States

1,056,289

511,069

498,972

The facts in the foregoing table, reduced to percentages and to
a classification somewhat briefer than the foregoing summaries,
give the following results :

PERSONS TO

A DWELLING.

1 person.

2 to 6 persons.

7 to 10 persons.

1 1 persona

and over.

Per cent

of
dwellings.

Per cent
of popu-
lation.

Per cent

of
dwellings.

Per cent
of popu-
lation.

Per cen*

of
dwellings.

Per cent

of popu-
lation.

Per cent

of
dwellings.

Per cent
of popu-
lation.

North Atlantic

243
3-16
3-05

2'77
10 08

041

0-58
058
051
2-00

69 18
65-51
7163
65-52
66-37

46-91
49-03
55-31
•48-99
5114

2131

27-89
2190
28-45
20 01

29-27
41-68
33 66
42 40
32 34

7- 08
344
342
326
354

23 41

8-71
10 45

810
14-52

South Atlantic

North Central

Western

The United States

3-22

0-59

68 79

50-78

23-64

35-04

435

13 59

480

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

From this table it is understood that the number of dwellings
having 1 person only represents 3*22 per cent of the whole number
of dwellings in the United States, while the population of such
dwellings is but '59 per cent of the total population. Dwellings
containing from 2 to 6 persons represent over two thirds of all
the dwellings, and about one half of the whole population.
About 4*33 per cent of the dwellings contain more than 10 per-
sons, and represent 13'59 per cent of the total population. Exam-
ining the results in this direction for twenty-eight cities, or those
having a population of 100,000 and over, the Census Office presents
the following tabular statement :

Cities.

New York, N.Y...

Chicago, 111

Philadelphia, Pa. . .
Brooklyn, N. Y. . . .

St. Louis, Mo

Boston, Mass

Baltimore, Md

San Francisco, Cal
Cincinnati, Ohio. . .
Cleveland, Ohio...

Buffalo, N.Y

New Orleans, La. .

Pittsburg, Pa

Washington, D. C

Detroit, Mich

Milwaukee, Wis. . .

Newark, N.J

Minneapolis, Minn
Jersey City, N. J. .

Louisville, Ky

Omaha, Neb

Rochester, N. Y...

St. Paul, Minn

Kansas City, Mo. . .
Providence, R.I...

Denver, Col

Indianapolis, Ind. .
Allegheny, Pa

PERSONS TO A DWELLING.

1 person.

2 to 6 persona.

7 to 10

persons.

11 persona

and over.

Per cent

Per cent

Per cent

Per cent

Per cent

Per cent

Per cent

Per cant

of

of popu-

of

of popu-

of

of popu-

of

of popu-

dwellings.

lation.

dwellings.

lation.

dwellings.

lation.

dwellings.

lation.

1

29

0

07

26 45

6

27

2244

10-16

49-82

88-50

1

00

0

12

45

54

22

85

28

92

27-85

24

54

49

18

1

15

0

20

69

94

51

75

24

52

35-26

4

39

12

79

0

97

0

10

39

30

17

83

30

08

25 42

29

65

56

65

8

46

0

33

49

77

28

54

81

31

34-87

16

46

36

26

1

19

0

14

44

18

22

35

30

40

29-71

24

23

47

80

1

09

0

18

62

22

44

31

30

80

41-37

5

89

14

14

3

65

0

58

64

43

41

18

24

88

32-07

7

04

26

17

1

32

0

15

45

75

22

23

28

03

26- 10

24

90

51

52

1

29

0

21

65

38

46

02

26

80

36 35

6

53

17

42

1

23

0

18

57

31

35

42

28

76

3438

12

70

30

02

3

16

0

56

65

81

47

08

25

81

37-42

5

22

14

94

1

30

0

20

59

41

40

02

30

83

39-72

8

46

20

06

1

96

0

33

64

13

45

38

28

36

38-74

5

55

15

55

1

31

0

23

69

44

51

44

24

19

3486

5

06

13

47

1

56

0

25

60

54

41

12

29

16

3804

8

74

20

59

0

94

0

12

48

67

27

29

30

90

32-58

19

49

40

01

4

07

0

63

57

37

37

55

28

00

34 96

10

56

26

86

1

02

0

12

47

50

23

63

28

71

26-84

22

77

49

41

1

80

0

28

58

64

38

44

29

58

37-54

9

98

23

74

1

29

0

19

59

16

36

27

31

32

37-95

8

23

25

59

1

52

0

27

69

66

51

27

24

15

34-86

4

67

13

60

3

69

0

58

59

20

39

62

27

94

35 73

9

17

24

07

3

43

0

60

66

59

46

79

23

89

3401

6

09

18

60

1

71

0

23

48

32

27

43

31

38

34-58

18

59

37

76

3

87

0

48

68

31

46

28

22

74

31-53

6

08

21

71

2

13

0

43

77

54

61

16

17

71

28 31

2

62

10

07

1

00

0

16

59

23

40

12

31

36

40 15

8

41

19

57

From this table we find that there were in New York city at
the time of the last Federal census a total of 81,828 occupied dwell-
ings. More than 50 per cent of these contain from 1 to 10 per-
sons, and a little less than 50 per cent contain more than 10 per-
sons. The population represented by dwellings in New York city
having 10 persons or less is 250,002, or 16*50 per cent of the whole
population, while the population represented by dwellings having
more than 10 occupants is 1,265,299, or 83*50 per cent of the entire
population.

The population of Chicago is about evenly divided between
the two classes of dwellings, 50'82 per cent living in dwellings
having from 1 to 10 occupants, and 49*18 per cent living in
dwellings containing more than 10 persons each on the average.

In Philadelphia a very different condition of affairs is seen.

FAMILIES AND DWELLINGS.

481

Out of a total of 187,052 dwellings, which is more than twice the
number of dwellings in New York city and about 50 per cent
more than in Chicago, 178,839, or 95'61 per cent, of the dwellings
contain 10 persons or less, and only 8,213 dwellings, or 4"39 per
cent of the whole, contain more than 10 persons. Relative to
population, 913,070 out of a total of 1,040,904 people in Phila-
delphia live in dwellings containing 10 persons or less, and this
is 87*21 per cent of the total population, while only 1279 per cent
of the total population, or, in round numbers, 133,888, live in dwell-
ings having more than 10 occupants.

This is so important a subject, and one which the public de-
sires so much to study, that I repeat one of the tables given in the
recent census bulletin on dwellings and families. This table is
for the twelve cities stated in the preceding one, and it shows the
figures concerning persons in dwellings having more than 10
occupants, the per cent of dwellings having from 1 to 10 persons,
from 11 to 15 persons, from 10 to 20 persons, and 21 persons and
over, each, together with the population by number and per cent
contained in such dwellings :

Cities.

number.

New York. . .

Chicago

Philadelphia.

Brooklyn

St. Louis

Boston

Baltimore . . .
Cincinnati. . .

Buffalo

Newark

Jersey City..
Providence . .

PEE CENT.

New York.. .

Chicago

Philadelphia.

Brooklyn

St. Louis....

Boston

Baltimore . . .

Cincinnati

Buffalo

Newark ,

Jersey City..,
Providence . .

Total

dwellings

81,828
127,871
187,052
82,282
60,937
52,669
72,112
33,487
37,290
23,296
18,562
17,639

DWELLINGS WITH

1 to 10
persons.

41,059
96,493
178,839
57,882
50,907
39,908
67,867
25,149
32,556
18,755
14,336
14,360

50
75
95
70
83
75
94
75
87
80
77
81

•18
•46
•61
•35
•54
•77
11

•10

•30
•51
•23
•41

11 to 15
persons.

10,384
17,760
6,403
12,055
6,668
8,082
3,603
4,189
3,237
2,962
2,011
2,267

12 69

13 89
3 42

14 65
10 94
15-35

5 00
12-51

8-68
12-71
10-83
12-85

16 to 20 21 persons
persons, and over.

6,789

7,509

1,135

5,465

1,987

2,818

384

1,976

894

959

944

672

•30
•87
■61
"64
•26
•35
•53
•90
■40

12
•09

81

23,596
6,H9

675
6,880
1,375
1,861

258
2,173

603

620
1,271

340

28-83
4-78
0.36
8-36
2-26
353
0-36
649
1-62
266
6-85
1-93

Total
population.

1,515,301
1,099,850
1,046,664
806,343
451,770
448,477
434,439
296,908
255,664
181,830
163,003
132,146

POPULATION OP DWELLINGS WITH

1 to 10

persons.

250,002
558,927
913,076
349,532
287,983
234,123
373,031
143,947
178,919
109,085
82,467
82,255

Hi
5d
87
43
63
52
85
48
69
59

62

11 to 15

persons.

133,018

225,123
78,228

152,631
82,976

102,332
43,585
52,632
40,339
37,248
25,428
28,243

20
7
18
18
22
10
17
15
20
15
21

•17
•47
•93

37
•82

03

.SI)

•78
■49
■60

■37

16 to 20
persons.

121,495
132,925
20,000
96,9:30
34,999
49,540
6,727
35,043
15,729
16,857
16,757
11,756

8
12

1
12

7
11

1
11

6

9

10

8

21 persons
and over.

1,010,786

182,875

35,660

207,250

45,812

62,482

11,096

65,086

20,677

18,640

38,351

9,892

66-70
16-63

341
25-70
10- 14
13-93

2-55
21-92

8-09
10 25
23 53

7 49

" From this table it is seen that in New York city 23,590 dwell-
ings, or 28.83 per cent of all the dwellings, have more than 20
persons to each dwelling, and contain in the aggregate 1,010,780
persons, or 0070 per cent of its total population. Of this number
of dwellings it has been found, by a special tally for New York
city, that 8,313 contain from 21 to 30 persons, 9,350 from 31 to 50
persons, 5,400 from 51 to 100 persons, and 473 over 100 persons. In
Brooklyn 2570 per cent, in Jersey City 23*53 per cent, and in Cin*-

vol. xxi. — 36

482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cinnati 21*92 per cent of their total population live in dwellings
containing more than 20 persons. The per cent of population in
Chicago living in dwellings with more than 20 persons to a dwell-
ing is 16*63 per cent, in St. Louis 10'14 per cent, in Boston 13'93
per cent, in Buffalo 8*09 per cent, in Newark 10*25 per cent, and in
Providence 7*49 per cent. In Philadelphia only 3*41 per cent and
in Baltimore but 2*55 per cent of the population are contained in
dwellings with more than 20 persons."

♦»»

VERACITY.*

By HERBEET SPENCEE.

COMPLETE truthfulness is one of the rarest of virtues. Even
those who regard themselves as absolutely truthful are daily
guilty of over-statements and under-statements. Exaggeration is
almost universal. The perpetual use of the word " very," where
the occasion does not call for it, shows how widely diffused and
confirmed is the habit of misrepresentation. And this habit some-
times goes along with the loudest denunciations of falsehood.
After much vehement talk about " the veracities," will come ut-
terly unveracious accounts of things and people — accounts made
unveracious by the use of emphatic words where ordinary words
alone are warranted : pictures of which the outlines are correct
but the lights and shades and colors are doubly and trebly as
strong as they should be.

Here, among the countless deviations of statement from fact,
we are concerned only with those in which form is wrong as well
as color — those in which the statement is not merely a perversion
of the fact but, practically, an inversion of it. Chiefly, too, we
have to deal with cases in which personal interests of one or other
kind are the prompters to falsehood : — now the desire to inflict in-
jury, as by false witness ; now the desire to gain a material advan-
tage ; now the desire to escape a punishment or other threatened
evil ; now the desire to get favor by saying that which pleases.
For in mankind at large, the love of truth for truth's sake, irre-
spective of ends, is but little exemplified.

Here let us contemplate some of the illustrations of veracity
and unveracity — chiefly unveracity — furnished by various human
races.

The members of wild tribes in different parts of the world, who,
as hunters or as nomads, are more or less hostile to their neigh-

* From The Principles of Ethics, vol. i, by Herbert Spencer. New York : D. Appleton
& Co., 1892.

VERACITY. 483

bors, are nearly always reprobated by travelers for their untruth-
fulness ; as are also the members of larger societies consolidated
by conquest under despotic rulers.

Says Burton of the Dakotas— " The Indian, like other savages,
never tells the truth." Of the Mishmis, Griffith writes—" They
have so little regard for truth, that one can not rely much on what
they say." And a general remark, a propos of the Kirghiz, is to
the same effect. " Truth, throughout Central Asia, is subservient
to the powerful, and the ruler who governs leniently commands
but little respect."

Of the settled societies, the first to be named is the Fijian.
Williams tells us that —

"Among the Fijians the propensity to lie is so strong, that they seem to have
no wish to deny its existence. . . . Adroitness in lying is attained by the constant
use made of it to conceal the schemes and plots of the Chiefs, to whom a ready
and clever liar is a valuable acquisition. . . . ' A Fijian truth ' has been regarded
as a synonym for a lie."

Of kindred nature, under kindred conditions, is the trait displayed
by the people of Uganda.

" In common with all savage tribes, truth is held in very low estimation, and
it is never considered wrong to tell lies ; indeed, a successful liar is considered a
smart, clever fellow, and rather admired."

So, too, was it among the ancient semi-civilized peoples of Central
America. De Laet says of certain of them, living under a despotic
and bloody regime — "they are liars, like most of the Indians."
And concerning the modern Indians, who may be supposed to
have preserved more or less the character of their progenitors,
Dunlop writes : —

"I never have found any native of Central America, who would admit that
there could be any vice in lying ; and when one has succeeded in cheating an-
other, however gross and infamous the fraud may be, the natives will only remark,
' Que hombre vivo ' (What a clever fellow)."

A like fact is given by Mr. Foreman in his work on the Philip-
pine Islands. He says the natives do not " appear to regard lying
as a sin, but rather as a legitimate, though cunning, convenience."

The literatures of ancient semi-civilized peoples yield evidence
of stages during which truth was little esteemed, or rather, during
which lying was tacitly or openly applauded. As we saw in a re-
cent chapter (§ 127) deception, joined with atrocity, was occasion-
ally inculcated in the early Indian literature as a means to per-
sonal advancement. "We have proof in the Bible that, apart from
the lying which constituted false witness, and was to the injury
of a neighbor, there was among the Hebrews but little reproba-
tion of lying. Indeed it would be remarkable were it otherwise,

484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

considering that Jahveh set the example ; as when, to ruin Ahab,
he commissioned "a lying spirit" (1 Kings, xxii, 22) to deceive his
prophets ; or as when, according to Ezekiel, xiv, 9, he threatened
to use deception as a means of vengeance.

" If the prophet he deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have de-
ceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy
him from the midst of my people Israel."

Evidently from a race-character which evolved such a conception
of a deity's principles, there naturally came no great regard for
veracity. This we see in sundry cases ; as when Isaac said Re-
becca was not his wife but his sister, and nevertheless received
the same year a bountiful harvest : " the Lord blessed him " (Gene-
sis, xxvi, 12) ; or as when Rebecca induced Jacob to tell a lie to his
father and defraud Esau — a lie not condemned but shortly fol-
lowed by a divine promise of prosperity ; or as when Jeremiah
tells a falsehood at the king's suggestion. Nor do we find the
standard much changed in the days of Christ and after : instance
the case of Paul, who, apparently rather piquing himself on his
" craft and guile," elsewhere defends his acts by contending that
" the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his
glory." (Romans, iii, 7.)

Much regard for veracity was hardly to be expected among
the Greeks. In the Iliad the gods are represented not only as
deceiving men but as deceiving one another. The chiefs " do not
hesitate at all manner of lying." Pallas Athene is described as
loving Ulysses because he is so deceitful ; and, in the words of
Mahaff y, the Homeric society is full of guile and falsehood." *
Nor was it widely otherwise in later days. The trait alleged of
the Cretens — " always liars " — though it may have been more
marked in them than in Greeks at large, did not constitute an
essential difference. Mahaffy describes Greek conduct in the
Attic age as characterized by " treachery " and " selfish knavery,"

* Marvelous are the effects of educational bias. Familiarity with the doings of these
people, guilty of so many " atrocities," characterized by such " revolting cruelty of man-
ners," as Grote says, who were liars through all grades from their gods down to their slaves,
and whose religion was made up of gross and brutal superstitions, distinguishes one of our
leading statesmen ; and, joined to familiarity with the doings of other Greeks, is thought
by him to furnish the best possible preparation for life of the highest kind. In a speech at
Eton, reported in The Times, of 16 March, 1891, Mr. Gladstone said — " If the purpose of
education is to fit the human mind for the efficient performance of the greatest functions,
the ancient culture, and, above all, Greek culture, is by far the best, the most lasting, and
the most elastic instrument that can possibly be applied to it." Other questions aside, one
might ask with puzzled curiosity which of Mr. Gladstone's creeds, as a statesman, it is
which we must ascribe to the influence of Greek culture — whether the creed with which he
set out as a Tory when fresh from Oxford, or the extreme radical creed which he has
adopted of late years ?

VERACITY. 48 s

and says that Darius thought a Greek who kept his word a nota-
ble exception.

Evidence of the relation between chronic hostilities and utter
disregard of truth, is furnished throughout the history of Europe.
In the Merovingian period — " the era of blood " — oaths taken by
rulers, even with their hands on the altar, were forthwith broken ;
and Salvian writes — " If a Frank forswear himself, where's the
wonder, when he thinks perjury but a form of speech, not of
crime ? " After perpetual wars during the two hundred years of
the Carolingian period, with Arabs, Saracens, Aquitanians, Sax-
ons, Lombards, Slavs, Avars, Normans, came the early feudal pe-
riod, of which H. Martin says : —

" The tenth [century] may pass for the era of fraud and deceit. At no other
epoch of our history does the moral sense appear to have been so completely
effaced from the human soul as in that first period of feudalism."

And then, as an accompaniment and consequence of the inter-
nal conflicts which ended in the establishment of the French
monarchy, there was a still-continued treachery : the aristocracy
in their relations with one another " were without truth, loyalty,
or disinterestedness. . . . Neither life nor character was safe in
their hands/' Though Mr. Lecky ascribes the mediaeval " indif-
ference to truth " to other causes than chronic militancy, yet he
furnishes a sentence which indirectly yields support to the induc-
tion here made, and is the more to be valued because it is not
intended to yield such support. He remarks that ' ' where the
industrial spirit has not penetrated, truthfulness rarely occupies
in the popular mind the same prominent position in the catalogue
of virtues " as it does among those " educated in the habits of in-
dustrial life."

' Nor do we fail to see at the present time, in the contrasts be-
tween the Eastern and Western nations of Europe, a like relation
of phenomena.

Reflection shows, however, that this relation is not a direct
one. There is no immediate connection between bloodthirstiness
and the telling of lies. Nor because a man is kind-hearted does
it follow that he is truthful. If, as above implied, a life of amity
is conducive to veracity, while a life of enmity fosters un veracity,
the dependencies must be indirect. After glancing at some fur-
ther facts, we shall understand better in what ways these traits of
life and character are usually associated.

In respect of veracity, as in respect of other virtues, I have
again to instance various aboriginal peoples who have been thrust
by invading races into undesirable habitats ; and have there been
left either in absolute tranquillity or free from chronic hostilities

486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with their neighbors. Saying of the Kois that they all seem to
suffer from chronic fever (which sufficiently shows why they are
left unmolested in their malarious wilds) Morris tells us that —

" They are noted for truthfulness, and are quite an example in this respect to the
civilized and more cultivated inhabitants of the plains."

According to Shortt, in his Hill Ranges of Southern India —

" A pleasing feature in their [Sowrahs] character is their complete truthful-
ness. They do not know how to tell a lie. They are not sufficiently civilized to
be able to invent."

I may remark in passing that I have heard other Anglo-Indians
assign lack of intelligence as the cause of this good trait — a not
very respectable endeavor to save the credit of the higher races.
Considering that small children tell lies, and that lies are told, if
not in speech yet in acts, by dogs, considerable hardihood is shown
in ascribing the truthfulness of these and kindred peoples to stu-
pidity. In his Highlands of Central India, Forsyth writes : —

"The aborigine is the most truthful of beings, and rarely denies either a
money obligation or a crime really chargeable against him."

Describing the Ramdsis, Sinclair alleges that —

" They are as great liars as the most civilized races, differing in this from the Hill
tribes proper, and from the Parwaris, of whom I once knew a Brahman to say :
' The Kunabis, if they have made a promise, will keep it, but aMahar [Parwari] is
such a fool that he will tell the truth without any reason at all.' "

And this opinion expressed by the Brahman, well illustrates the
way in which their more civilized neighbors corrupt these vera-
cious aborigines; for while Sherwill, writing of another tribe,
says — " The truth is by a Sonthal held sacred, offering in this re-
spect a bright example to their lying neighbors the Bengalis," it
is remarked of them by Man that —

" Evil communications are exercising their baneful influences over them, and
soon, I fear, the proverbial veracity of the Sonthal will cease to become a by-
word."

In The Principles of Sociology, vol. ii, §§ 437 and 574, I gave
the names of others of these Indian hill-tribes noted for veracity —
the Bodo and Dhimals, the Carnatic aborigines, the Todas, the
Hos ; and here I may add one more, the Puluyans, whose refuge
is "hemmed in on all sides by mountains, woods, backwaters,
swamps, and the sea," and who " are sometimes distinguished by
a rare character for truth and honor, which their superiors in the
caste scale might well emulate." So too is it in a neighboring
land, Ceylon. Wood-Veddahs are described as "proverbially
truthful and honest." From other regions there comes kindred
evidence. Of some Northern Asiatic peoples, who are apparently
without any organization for offense or defense, we read : — " To

VERACITY. 487

the credit of the Ostiaks and Samoieds it must be said, that they
are eminently distinguished for integrity and truthfulness."

But now we have to note facts which make us pause. There
are instances of truthfulness among peoples who are but partially
peaceful, and among others who are anything but peaceful.
Though characterized as " mild, quiet, and timid," the Hottentots
have not infrequent wars about territories ; and yet, in agreement
with Barrow, Kolben says —

The "Word of a Hottentot " is sacred : and there is hardly any Thing upon
Earth they look upon as a fouler Crime than Breach of Engagement."

Morgan, writing of the Iroquois, states that " the love of truth
was another marked trait of the Indian character." And yet,
though the Iroquois league was formed avowedly for the preser-
vation of peace, and achieved this end in respect of its component
nations, these nations carried on hostilities with their neighbors.
The Patagonian tribes have frequent fights with one another, as
well as with the aggressive Spaniards ; and yet Snow says — " A
lie with them is held in detestation." The Khonds, too, who be-
lieve that truthfulness is one of the most sacred duties imposed by
the gods, have " sanguinary conflicts " between tribes respecting
their lands. And of the Kolis, inhabiting the highlands of the
Dekhan, we read that though " manly, simple and truthful," they
are " great plunderers " and guilty of " unrelenting cruelty."

What is there in common between these truthful and pacific
tribes and these truthful tribes which are more or less warlike ?
The common trait is that they are not subject to coercive rule.
That this is so with tribes which are peaceful, I have shown
elsewhere (Principles of Sociology, ii, §§ 573-4) ; and here we
come upon the significant fact that it is so, too, with truthful
tribes which are not peaceful. The Hottentots are governed by
an assembly deciding by a majority, and the head men have but
little authority. The Iroquois were under the control of a council
of fifty elected sachems, who could be deposed by their tribes ;
and military expeditions, led by chiefs chosen for merit, were left
to private enterprise and voluntary service. Among the Patago-
nians there was but feeble government : followers deserting their
chiefs if dissatisfied. Writing of the Khonds' " system of society "
Macpherson says — " The spirit of equality pervades its whole con-
stitution, society is governed by the moral influence of its natural
heads alone, to the entire exclusion of the principle of coercive
authority."

In the remarks of sundry travelers, we find evidence that it is
the presence or absence of despotic rule which leads to prevalent
falsehood or prevalent truth.

488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Reference to the Reports on the Discovery of Peru of Xeres
and Pizarro (pp. 68-9, 85-6, 114-120), makes it manifest that
the general untruthfulness described was due to the intimidation
the Indians were subject to. So, too, respecting the Mexicans,
the Franciscan testimony was — " They are liars, but to those who
treat them well they speak the truth readily." A clear conception
of the relation between mendacity and fear was given to Living-
stone by his experiences. Speaking of the falsehood of the East
Africans he says —

" Bnt great as this failing is among the free, it is much more annoying among the
slaves. One can scarcely induce a slave to translate anything truly : he is so
intent on thinking of what will please."

And he further remarks that " untruthfulness is a sort of refuge
for the weak and oppressed."

A glance over civilized communities at once furnishes verifi-
cation. Of European peoples, those subject to the most absolute
rule, running down from their autocrat through all grades, are
the Russians ; and their extreme untruthfulness is notorious.
Among the Egyptians, long subject to a despotism administered
by despotic officials, a man prides himself on successful lying, and
will even ascribe a defect of his work to failure in deceiving some
one. Then we have the case of the Hindus, who, in their early
days irresponsibly governed, afterwards subject for a long period
to the brutal rule of the Mahometans, and since that time to the
scarcely-less brutal rule of the Christians, are so utterly untruth-
ful that oaths in Courts of Justice are of no avail, and lying is
confessed to without shame. Histories tell like tales of a men-
dacity which, beginning with the ruled, infects the rulers. "Writ-
ing of the later feudal period in France, Michelet says : — " It is
curious to trace from year to year the lies and tergiversations of
the royal false coiner"; but nowadays political deceptions in
France, though still practiced, are nothing like so gross. Nor has
it been otherwise among ourselves. If with the " universal and
loathsome treachery of which every statesman of every party
was continually guilty," during Elizabeth's reign, while monarchi-
cal power was still but little qualified, we contrast the veracity of
statesmen in recent days, we see a kindred instance of the rela-
tions between the untruthfulness which accompanies tyranny
and the truthfulness which arises along with increase of liberty.

Hence such connections as we trace between mendacity and a
life of external enmity, and between veracity and a life of inter-
nal amity, are not due to any direct relations between violence
and lying and between peacefulness and truth-telling ; but are
due to the coercive social structure which chronic external enmity
develops, and to the non-coercive social structure developed by a

THE PREHENSILE FOOT OF EAST INDIANS. 489

life of internal amity. To which it should be added that under
the one set of conditions there is little or no ethical, or rather
pro-ethical, reprobation of lying; while under the other set of
conditions the pro-ethical reprobation of lying, and in consider-
able measure the ethical reprobation, become strong.

-♦-»-♦-

THE PREHENSILE FOOT OF EAST INDIANS.

By M. F. REGNAULT.

THE traveler who walks in the native quarters of the cities of
India can easily study there all industries in their beginnings,
as they were probably practiced in Europe in the middle ages.
The shops are usually open, and the workmen can be seen inside ;
textile industries, pottery, shoemaking, joinering, armoring, jew-
elry, confectioners — all can be observed in a single street like
Chitpore Street, Calcutta. If we take pains to examine atten-
tively the methods of working, we shall be struck by the enor-
mous function played by the lower limb. Whatever the industries,
the Indian, squatting or sitting on the ground, works with his feet
as well as with his hands ; and it might be said that all four of
his limbs are in constant exercise. The joiner, for example, has
no assistant to hold his plank, but makes his great toe serve that
purpose. The shoemaker does not employ a fixed clamp for the
shoe on which he is sewing, but holds it in his feet, which change
position to suit his convenience, while his nimble hands do the
sewing. The metal-worker holds the joint of his shears on his
feet in cutting copper.

In the making of wooden combs I have seen the comb held
straight up by the feet, while the workmen marked the teeth with
one hand and with the other directed the instrument that cut
them. The wood-turner directs the hand-rest with his great toes ;
so, generally, do Egyptian and Arabian turners. In smoothing
twine or sewing a bridle the Indians hold the article between the
first and second toes. When the butcher cuts his meat into small
pieces, he holds his knife between the first and second toes, takes
the meat in both hands, and pulls it up across the knife. I have
seen a child climb a tree and hold a branch between his toes.
These are enough details concerning the constant, universal use
of the foot.

In considering this property of the lower limb, it is well to dis-
tinguish between the parts that relate, first, to the articulation of
the hip, which, being very loose, permits the Indian to squat in
such a position that his foot shall not be very far from his hands,
so as to make all four participate in the work and permit the whole

49°

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lower limb to engage in wide movements. The position is very
different from that of our tailors or of the Arabs. It brings the
knees to a level with the chest. The man is supported on his ischia
and his feet ; and he keeps in this position for whole hours, while
we can maintain it only for a few minutes. It is their way of rest-
ing, and we can see them by groups squatting in this manner, and
smoking. In the second place, the articulation of the instep and
the medio-tarsal permit wide lateral movements of the foot, as in

Fig. 1. — Showing the Enormous Distance between the First and Second Toes in a

Tamil of Trichinofoly.

the examples of the shoemaker, joiner, comb-maker, and turner ;
and on the toes, which are peculiarly flexible, as with the butcher
cutting meat and the child climbing trees.

The great toe is capable of considerable lateral movements from
the second toe, so that the Indian can easily pick up articles from
the ground with his foot, and even exert some force sidewise.

But great as is their skill, there is no movement of opposition
between the great toe and the other toes, as there is in the monkey.
The great toe has very extended movements of adduction and ab-
duction, and of elevation and depression, but all is limited.* The
property is frequent among savages and half -civilized peoples.
Broca pointed out in 1869 the part which the foot could be made
to serve. Morice has remarked that the great toe of the Annam-
ites could bo used by them in picking up small objects ; and he
saw a boatman take his hand from the helm and steer very cor-
rectly with his foot, while he rolled his cigarette. f

In French and foreign treatises on anthropology I find
Ranke's work, entitled Der Mensch, the only one in which the
function of the toes as organs of prehension is mentioned; and
the feet of Japanese rope-dancers and jugglers have been exam-
ined with reference to this point by Luce. \ But the constant use

* Sir Richard Wallace says that, with all the savages he ever saw, he never observed
movements of opposition.

f Bulletin de la Society d' Anthropologic, session of the 18th of February, 1875.

% Travelers have often mentioned similar facts in their narratives. Horsemen in Abys-
sinia, according to G. Pouchet, hold the straps of their stirrups between the first and sec-

THE PREHENSILE FOOT OF EAST INDIANS. 491

of the foot in the industry of a people advanced in civilization
does not appear to me to have been remarked.

The Ectromelians are able to use their feet after a long and
patient education, but they seem to serve the part of supplement-
ary organs. A report has been made to the Society of Anthro-
pology (Bulletin, 1875) concerning the Ectromelian Ducornet,
who, with only four toes, painted, holding his brush between his
two middle toes. I saw one who was exhibited at Marseilles in
1889. He drank, ate, fired guns, played cards, wrote, and played
on several instruments of music with his feet. On a closer ex-
amination of him it appeared, as is observed in all similar cases,
that there was no movement of opposition of the great toe. A
special anatomical peculiarity is connected with this physiological
function of the foot — the distance between the first and second
toes. Let us look into this feature among the Indians, taking for
our example the extremely remarkable type of Fig. 1. It repre-
sents the foot of a Tamil in Trichinopoly, in which the space be-

Fig. 2. — Nearest Possible Approach of the First and Second Toes in the same Tamil.

tween the first and second toes was very large from birth. Tak-
ing the middle of the extremity of the first and the middle of the
second toe, I measured the two points A and B, the distance be-
tween which, on a foot placed in its usual position on the ground,
was forty-nine millimetres in the right foot and fifty-four milli-
metres in the left foot. This does not depend upon a simple di-
vergence of the ends of the toes ; the base participates in it, and it
seems to go back to the metatarso-phalangeal articulation. This
distance apart of the toes at the base is fifteen millimetres on the
right and sixteen millimetres on the left foot. When this Tamil

ond toes. In New Guinea, says D'Albertis, natives secure themselves in walking by hook-
ing their great toe to a root or a bit of rock.

492

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Fig. 3. — Normal Position of the Foot.

was asked to bring the two toes as near together as possible, he
could not make them touch ; there was still a space between them,
as in Fig. 2. All gradations may be observed between this maxi-
mum of separation and a foot on which no separation can be per-
ceived in ordinary attitudes.

Among thirty-seven persons examined in Pondicherry, I only
found eight in whom there was a separation. It is therefore not

constant in the Indian race. The
distance between the ends of the
toes may vary in the same person
by ten or even by twenty millime-
tres, accordingly as they are drawn
together or apart by the muscles of
the foot alone, and without using
the hand. They may usually be
made to touch when brought to-
gether. But it will be observed
that they only touch at the ends.
At the root the separation per-
sists. The distance between the
toes, there, may be diminished, but does not vanish, when they
are brought together, and it may be increased when they are
spread out.

Figs. 3, 4, and 5 illustrate these facts. They are accurate, being
the traces, taken with a pencil, of the toes in different positions ;
and it should be kept in mind that the separation and the draw-
ing together are due solely to the ac-
tion of the muscles of the foot.

This anatomical disposition may
occur in other Indians as well as in
Tamils. I have found it among the
Bengalis, in three of whom I have
drawn it, but it is not frequent among
them. With none, however, in all my
investigations, have I found it as
strongly accentuated as with the Tri-
chinopolitan whom I have used as a
type. It appears to be rare among

•; r ll ° Iig. 4. — The same, with the Toes

the Singhalese, but their feet have brought together.

the prehensile property.

An interesting point in the feature is the possibility, by means
of it, of using a peculiar patten, which consists of a flat piece of
wood cut in the form of the foot, with a peg between the first and
second toes, by which the shoe is held on. It is used only in the low
castes. Four pairs of these pattens may be seen in the collec-
tion of shoes in the Cluny Museum. In two of them the peg is

THE PREHENSILE FOOT OF EAST INDIANS. 493

tipped with an ivory button, one having four lobes and the other
six, which give them a resemblance to a lotus flower. These
lobes open under the pressure of the foot, and thus form a kind
of fastening. Pattens of this kind are used only in the Indies.
A European would find it very hard to wear them.*

The separation of the "great toe at the base is not special to the
East Indians. M. Manouvrier has reproduced it on two drawings
of the feet of Caribs on exhibition in the Jardin d'acclimatation ;
but this author has not observed that the foot has any special
part with this people as an organ of prehension. Among the nu-
merous casts of feet in the museum of the Societe d'Anthropologie
are some very interesting impressions of the feet of Annamites,
presented by M. Mondiere. The separation on the foot of one of
these Annamites, named Van, is very marked. It measures twelve
millimetres at the base of the
first and second toes, and forty-
one millimetres, taking the
middles of the nails as points
of measurement, at the tips
(Fig. 6). On the impression
of the foot of another Anna-
mite, named Thi-Finhi, the
separation is less notable, but

is Still four millimetres at the Fig. 5.— The same, with the Toes spread out.

base and forty-one millime-
tres at the ends ; while a third impression, still by M. Mondiere,
shows a still different degree of separation. This separation has
been noticed freqmently among the Annamites, as well as the pre-
hensile faculty of the foot. They therefore enjoy that property
in common with the Indians.

It does not follow, however, that this faculty is common to all
peoples that go barefooted, or even to all savages. There are at
the museum castings of three feet of negroes in which nothing
like it appears ; an American Indian foot from the lower Amazon,
the gift of Dr. Crevaux, also normal ; two feet of young Bush-
men, normal likewise; and thirteen feet of Fuegian men and
women, normal. Only in the cast of the right foot of one young

* The pattens worn in China, Japan, and Burmah somewhat resemble these. They,
too, can be seen in the Cluny Museum. Three of the specimens there were held to the
foot by strings, one part of which was fixed to the shoe between the first and second toes,
while the other part, passing over the back of the foot, ended in the side of the shoe.
These sandals resemble those of the ancient Greeks and Romans, as we see them in works
of art. The separation of the great toe from the others in Japanese stockings is explained
by this construction. It is to enable the pattens to be put on. But the abduction force
of the great toe is not utilized in these as it is in the Indian pattens. The shoe is held by
strings to the sole of the foot.

494 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

man did I find a separation of four millimetres at the "base of the
first two toes. The Ecole d'Anthropologie has several traces of feet
taken by M. Manouvrier among Fuegians, Araucanians, Omahas,
and Arabs of Algeria and Morocco, in none of which is there any
example of this anatomical peculiarity. I have not observed it in
any European or in any white child.* The habit of walking bare-
footed may produce a slight divergence of the great toe, but not
at the base. The function of prehensibility must therefore be
considerably developed for such a divergence to exist. Still,

heredity appears to have a part in it ;

^S"""ii Millimeters /^^~X for we do not observe it except among

\ / *■ \ peoples who have exercised the func-

\ / \ tion from a remote antiquity. It

[ would be interesting to dissect a foot

I presenting this formation and com-

1.1 pare it with the foot of a white. "We

rieferaA should most likely find the oblique

^-—J and transverse abductor muscles very

Fig. 6.— The First and Second Toes highly developed. It is a CUrfent fact

OF THE ANNAMITE Van. hi • j_1 xl 1

that exercise strengthens the muscles.
It would also be desirable to learn the origin of the separation at
the base of the first and second toes. It can not be caused, as in
the monkey, by the head of the first metatarsal playing on that
of the second, for there is no movement of opposition here. It all
takes place in the metatarso-phalangeal articulation. M. Testut,
in a work on the Quaternary skeleton of la Chancelade, remarks
that the anterior articular surfaces of the metatarsi which are
destined for the phalanges are more extended, in length as well as
in breadth, than those which have been observed on the metatarsi
of European races. Unfortunately, we have data only for the
articular surfaces of the last four metatarsi — the first, the one
that interests us, having probably been suppressed. M. Testut
concludes that this disposition is related to the mobility of the
toes on the metatarsus — a mobility which has probably been con-
siderably diminished in man since he has made his foot exclusive-
ly an organ of support. Whether the skeleton of the Indian is
like this, and whether the separation of the base of the toes can
be explained in this way, suggest hypotheses which dissection
alone can verify.

The examination of the prehensile foot suggests forcibly the
thought of comparing it with the foot of the monkey. The differ-
ence between the opposable foot of the monkey and the foot of
man has been variously explained. The non-transformists base

* The movements of the toes are well developed in new-born children ; but I have never
observed, in children's hospitals, any trace of opposition.

THE PREHENSILE FOOT OF EAST INDIANS. 49 5

upon it an argument against the application of the transformist
theory to man. Some Darwinians believe that if man used his
foot constantly and generally as a prehensile organ, an opposition
of the great toe would .be gradually evolved in the adaptation of
the organ to that function. The preceding study, however, proves
that this is not the fact. Among a people who have for centuries
commonly used their feet as a prehensile organ no movement of
opposition has been produced ; while in some persons an adapta-
tion to the new function has been observed, namely, a separation
of the great toe and wide and strong lateral movements, but only
lateral — a pincers-foot, not a hand-foot. It will be seen, on re-
flection, that the condition could not be otherwise.

In walking, the weight of the body is borne on the heads of the
five metatarsi, but mostly on the head of the first one. If that
was not united solidly to the second metatarsus, and could turn
around it as is done in the hand, it would give way every time the
foot touched the ground, and the foot would want a sufficient in-
ternal point of support; walking would still be possible, but it
would be hard and laborious — occasional, and not a habitual nor-
mal act. It is thus with the monkey, which is supported solely
on the outer edge of the foot. Even the anthropoid walks rarely
and awkwardly ; its foot, adapted to living in the woods, has the
opposition movement convenient for climbing easily; it has a
foot-hand. The man who, continuing to walk, likewise wants a
prehensile foot, can not enjoy this movement, which is incom-
patible with walking. He satisfies himself with lateral move-
ments between the great toe and the second toe, or a pincers-foot.
All this is simply a consequence of the general biological law of
the adaptation of the organ to the function. — Translated for The
Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scieniifique.

A ouBious, secretive proceeding of swans is described in Nature by Jessie
Godwin-Austen. The cygnets having been just hatched out, the male bird picked
up an empty half egg-shell lying beside the water and carefully carried it to the
edge of the water some twenty feet from the nest, filled it with mud, and pushed
it into the river, where it sank to the bottom ; and then repeated the performance
with the other half egg-shell. On returning to the nest the last time, he placed a
few sticks across the small track he had made. As no other pieces were seen
about the nest, while five cygnets were hatched, it is inferred that the bird had
done the same with all the egg-shells.

A paper by Mr. Edward Dobson, in the Australasian Association, on Human
Habitations in Prehistoric Times, was devoted to showing that, while rectangular
forms prevailed in the early buildings of the East and in North America, the cir-
cular form had prevailed throughout Africa (with the exception of the Nile
Valley) and through Switzerland and northern Europe, in Lapland and Green-
land ; and raised an inquiry as to the causes of these facts.

496 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES.

By GEOEGE A. EICH.
XVI. DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS.

WITH all the uses to which leather is put, that of making
boots and shoes is the most important, and calls for the
greater part of the product of the tanneries of the country. It is
not only the most important in point of magnitude, but it is one
which has opened an unusual field for American ingenuity and
invention. When the late Charles Stewart Parnell was in this
country some years ago, he expressed a desire to see what could
be done in an American shoe-factory. Accordingly, what is known
to the trade as a Polish lace boot was selected by the Lynn manu-
facturer, whose building Mr. Parnell was inspecting, as the pat-
tern to illustrate the processes of the art and the speed of the
work. Mr. Parnell hastened from one part of the factory to an-
other as the boot in its evolution flew hither and thither, and
within twenty minutes after he had seen the pattern placed upon
the leather the finished article was handed to him. That, of
course, was an exhibition not practicable in ordinary, every-day
work. But, compared with the time it would have required to
make the boot by hand, it points to the saving that has been
effected through the introduction of machinery and emphasizes
the mechanical and economical development of the industry. As
in the case of tanning, these advances are of comparatively recent
origin, dating largely from the civil war and the scarcity of labor
consequent upon it. But, though brief the time, the advance from
the shoemaker of forty years ago with his hammer and lapstone,
to the factory of the present day with its multiplicity of machines
and its hundreds of operatives, has been a wonderful one. Indeed,
within that period is crowded more in the way of progress and
development than is to be found in all the centuries which inter-
vene between the time of the Egyptian cobbler and that of our
grandfathers.

There is no article of dress in which more striking changes
have been made in the various ages than in the covering for the
feet. Until the law was invoked, boots and shoes seemed to be the
special field in which the whims of fashion manifested themselves.
Coverings for the feet must have been among the earliest articles
of dress. It is almost impossible to conceive of a time when ever-
recurring injuries from contact with the earth's surface did not
suggest some such protection. The primitive form of foot-cover-
ing was the sandal, which was simply a flat sole under the foot
and secured to it by a thong. These were made of a great variety

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES.

497

of materials. The Egyptians used palm leaves and leather, while
the Hebrews preferred linen or even wood. Brass and iron were
not found objectionable by some, and in a few instances gold was
employed for that purpose. Like the sandal, the shoe grew out
of physical conditions, the fundamental purpose of it being pro-
tection for the whole foot. Among the early Greeks and Romans
shoes were not common, but the wearing of them once established,
an endless variety arose — law and fashion dictating special styles
and finish for the several social ranks and classes. A single hide,
slit and looped into a purse-like pouch by a thong run through it,
seems to have been the primitive form of the shoe in Great Britain.
Boots and shoes became common in Europe between the ninth and
sixteenth centuries, and the fantastic forms which they assumed,

Fig. 1. — Ancient Egyptian Cobblers at Work. The familiar awl, lapstone, and thread
appear in this. Even the method of drawing the thread is not unknown to those who
have ever frequented an old New England cobbler's shop.

and the laws in restraint of them, show the prominent place they
had come to occupy in the wardrobe and fashions of the day.

It was not to be expected that there would be a serious demand
on the part of the early settlers in this country for these more fash-
ionable styles of boots and shoes. Those who could afford to do
so brought with them such articles for holiday and Sunday use,
just as they did their velvet breeches and brocade gowns and bits
of old lace. But there was a need from the first for stout boots
and shoes, both as a protection against the cold and against injury
on the rocks and rough soil. Some of the settlers were quick to
adopt the moccasin of the Indian ; but, though warm and easy to
make, it did not meet the ideas of the Europeans. Accordingly,
the shoemakers were among the first craftsmen to settle here, and
from the privileges that were accorded them from the start their
number and influence may be inferred. The early records of Vir-
ginia, New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts all bear evi-
dence to their presence and to the establishment of their trade.

VOL. XLI.

-37

498

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

But it was in the last State, at Lynn, that the industry had its real
origin and center in this country.

Philip Kertland was the first person of that craft to locate in
what was to develop into the " City of Shoes," coming thither from
Sherrington in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1638. He was joined
soon after by Edmund Bridges, and considerable of a local busi-
ness sprang up. At that time shoemakers went around from house
to house and worked up the family stock of leather, but this itin-
erant system was soon dropped by the Lynn craftsmen as their
business grew into more than a local one. The art of shoemak-
ing, however, was not understood and the workmen were unskilled.
Occasionally some of the more ambitious ones would send to Eng-
land for shoes and take them apart, with a view of learning the
wny of making them. But men who had money and were in a

. v.\» _-- "*>

Fig. 2. — An Eakly Lynn Shoe-shop. These shops marked the intermediate stage in the evo-
lution of the shoe industry. With the introduction of machinery, between 1860 and 1870
they passed out of use and largely out of existence.

position to help on such experiments were shy of the shoe busi-
ness. They preferred to invest in trade and real estate. The re-
sult was that no real progress was made in the business until John
Adams Dagyr, a Welsh shoemaker, moved to Lynn in 1750. Dagyr
was skilled in the methods employed in England, and he proceeded
to instruct all who came to him in the art. His fame spread abroad
through northeastern Massachusetts, and it was only a short time
after his settlement before a notable improvement became appar-
ent in the Lynn product. The Boston Gazette of October 21, 1764,
said : " It is certain that women's shoes, made at Lynn, do now
exceed those usually imported, in strength and beauty, but not in
price." Edward Johnson, of Woburn, in his " Wonder-working
Providence," says of Lynn : " All other trades have fallen into

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES.

499

their ranks and places, to their great advantage, especially coopers
and shoemakers, who had either of them a corporation granted,
enriching themselves by their trades very much. As for tanners

'I". *•• 31

Fig. 3. — A Factory of To-day.

and shoemakers, it being naturalized into their occupations to have
a higher reach in managing these manufactures than other men

500

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

in New England are, having not changed their nature in this, be-
tween them both they have kept men to their stand hitherto, al-
most doubling the price of their commodities, according to the
rate they were sold in England, and yet the plenty of leather is
beyond what they had there, counting the number of the people.
But the transportation of boots and shoes into foreign parts hath
vented all, however."

Inasmuch as this was written only a year after Dagyr's arrival
at Lynn, it is pretty safe to set Mr. Johnson down as something of
an optimist. But it points to the immediate impetus the industry
received under the latter's hand. Yet, by a strange irony, Dagyr,
who did so much to establish the shoemaker's art in this country,

Fir,. 4. — Parts of a Button Shoe. 1, Large quarter; 2, vamp; 3, small quarter; 4, button
piece; 5, drill lining; 6, glove button-piece lining; 7, heel lining stay; 8, button stay;
9, top stay; 10, heel stiflener; 11, sole lining; 12, inner sole; 13, outer sole: 14, heel
lifts (six); 15, steel shank; 16, rand.

died in the Essex County almshouse. The principal part of the work
at that time was done in little, one-story shops. The rooms were
scarcely more than a dozen feet square, with windows at sides and
end and a broad fireplace in one corner. They were good-natured,
industrious, thrifty companies that filled those shops. Fishermen
and farmers and those trained " to the last " were all represented.
Journeyman and apprentice, master and workman, stood on the
same footing and shared alike. These shops stand, economically
and mechanically, between the home and the factory. Shoes were

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES. 501

still sent to the houses of the farmers to be finished, and some of
the shops turned out work enough to entitle them to the more am-
bitious name which is attached to such establishments at the pres-
ent day. Other towns about Lynn followed its lead ; and Marble-
head, Danvers, and Haverhill soon became actively engaged in
the industry. Women's shoes were then — as they have ever con-
tinued— the staple article of manufact-
ure at Lynn. These were made largely
of stuff, the finer qualities with white
and russet rands, stitched firmly with
white waxed thread, pointed at the toes,
and adorned with wooden heels covered
with leather. ^ ^ FlG 5._Section of a Man>s Boot,

That England felt this growing in- «, The upper ; b, in-sole ; c, out-
dustry of the colonies is shown by the 8ol<v di 7elt' f» the stitching

J . . , 01 the sole to the welt; f, the

fact that a commission was appointed stitching of the upper to the
to inquire into the reason why no more welt-
boots and shoes were exported to Amer-
ica. It was with astonishment that the gentlemen composing the
commission reported to their colleagues that the colonists were
supplying their own foot-wear, and apparently, too, with satis-
faction to those concerned. Then came England's desperate ef-
forts to force the trade of the colonies into British channels and
the consequent resistance of the latter to such coercion. Under
the influence of the import duties, the shoe industry flourished
especially, and at the time of the Revolution the manufacturers
were unable to meet the demands which were made upon them
for boots for the Continental army. But following that came a
serious check. The American markets were flooded with English
goods, and trade was paralyzed. A demand was then made on the
part of the shoe manufacturers for some kind of protection, with
the result that, in the first Congress, in 1789, a tariff was arranged
so as to check importations. Hon. John B. Alley, of Lynn, at a
leather-trade dinner in New York in 1859, gave somewhat of a
romantic version to that portion of the tariff affecting boots and
shoes — a version which possibly is not to be accepted in detail as
history, but which is, nevertheless, of interest. He said that this
early duty on imported boots and shoes was due largely to the
efforts of Ebenezer Breed, a young Lynn shoemaker, who had
located in Philadelphia on account of the dull times in his own
town, and of his friend Stephen Collins, a native of the same
place. By their influence with members of Congress and with
Dolly Payne, the young Quakeress, to whom Mr. Madison, then a
rising man in public legislation, was at that time paying atten-
tion, they got this boon for their home industry. Be that as it
may, with the cessation of imports the Massachusetts shoe-shops

;o2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

began to expand rapidly, and goods were shipped not only to Bos-
ton, New York, and Philadelphia, but even to Liverpool. Lynn,
in 1788, exported 100,000 pairs of shoes; while, seven years later,
the volume of transactions had increased to 300,000 pairs, and
there were at that time 200 master workmen and 600 journeymen
and apprentices engaged in the making of them.

But, with all this development of trade, boots and shoes con-
tinued to be made by hand. Spasmodic attempts were made to
abbreviate the processes, but nothing satisfactory resulted from
them for many years. Mr. David Knox, writing in a shoe journal
of his experiences as a manufacturer, says : " In 1855, the year in
which I commenced business, about the only machinery used in
shoe manufacturing were the sewing machines to stitch uppers
and the machines to strip leather and cut it into soles. Even
these were not in general use. Some manufacturers had intro-
duced revolving cutters — in Lynn the Richards and Foster ma-
chines, and in Marblehead the Thompson. With the Foster and
Thompson machines soles could be cut reasonably quick, but such
was the risk of the operator's fingers being chopped off by the

erratic movements of the knives that
the old Thompson or Ingalls beam was
preferred. By very hard work on these
machines about fifteen pairs of soles
could be cut per minute, while on the
modern machines, operated by steam-
power, as many as ninety pairs are cut
in the same time, and with vastly more
accuracy."

The chief tools of the shoemaker
then consisted of his hammer, his awl,
his lapstone, his knives, and his har-
ness for " setting-up " his boots or
shoes. The essentials of a shoe are the
upper, the sole, the counter or heel stiff-
ening, and the heel. These parts are
again subdivided into the " vamp " for
covering the front of the foot, the large
and the small quarters for encircling
the ankles, the button-piece, etc. The
work of the shoemaker is to prepare and close these various parts
of the upper and the linings together, to bring them into the de-
sired shape, to fasten them to the sole which has been previously
cut, to attach the heel, and then to give the various parts the de-
sired finish and style. These processes indicate the lines along
which machinery had to be applied. All the operations have
been subdivided to the minutest detail, and in the performance

Fig. 6.

-McKay Stitching
Machine.

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES.

5°3

of all of them machines — more or less satisfactory in their work-
ings— have been devised. The parts of the uppers are now sewed
together by machinery, and they are pegged, sewed, or screwed to
the sole by machinery. Instead of the lapstone and the hammer
for condensing the leather are now swiftly revolving rollers, and
instead of the patterns for cutting out the soles are dies or sole-
shaped knives set in machines.

But the field of shoe machinery is such a wide and complex
one that it will be impossible to do more than glance at what may
be termed the epoch-making inven-
tions. The first great step was made
when the sewing machine was in-
vented and the alert manufacturers
were able to turn it to their pur-
poses. But the distinction of the
sewing machine does not belong to
the shoe manufacturers. The in-
vention, however, which did deter-
mine their future was that which
led to the fastening of the sole of
the shoe to the upper by machinery.
The solution of this problem had
been the real difficulty in the way
of applying machinery to the work,
and when it had been met the sin-
gle-story shoe-shop had made way

for the factory ; its dozen journeymen had lost their individuality
in the hundreds of operatives, and the pin-money which the wives
of the farmers, or the farmers themselves, had made from the
job-work doled out to them by the manufacturers had become a
thing of the past. From that dates the shoe industry of to-day.
From it also have come the growth and prosperity of important
communities in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, in
New York, Pennsylvania, and the older West. As in the solution
of most such problems, it was not hit upon at once. There were
failures which were the forerunners of nothing, and failures which
were the forerunners of success.

Two of these latter are worthy of note, as they contained
within them the suggestions which, a half-century later, were
put into practical operation. The first of these attempts was
made in 1809 by David Meade Randolph. He devised a way
for fastening the soles and heels to the inner sole by means of
nails. His plan was to use lasts covered at the bottoms with me-
tallic plates, so that the nails, when driven through the soles, were
clinched on this piece of metal. The next year Mark Isambard
Brunei, the eminent engineer, carried this idea a step further. He

Fig. 7. — Goodyear Stitching Machine.
This is one of the machines in what
is termed the Goodyear welt system.

a
o
o
W

o

HI

a
o

E-
H

g

w
o

02

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES. 505

fastened the soles to the uppers by nails, and, in order to do this,
the leather was pressed between clamping plates of the same
shape as the sole, the margin of the plate acting as a guide for a
knife by which the sole was cut to the desired pattern. This sole
was afterward clamped to a last, and there brought under the ac-
tion of an awl and plunger operated by a lever. The sole-fasten-
ings, usually nails, had to be placed in these awl-holes by hand,
and were then driven in by the plunger, the awl at the same time
making another hole for the next nail. Devices were also made
for spacing the holes and clinching the nails on the inside of the
shoe ; but the shoes thus made proved unsatisfactory, the nails
in them working loose.

In the actual solution of this problem two courses were pur-
sued, the extension of the principle involved in the Randolph and
Brunei devices and the application of the principle of the sewing
machine. From the development of the one have come the pegged,
nailed, and screwed boot and shoe ; from the other, the stitched
ones. In point of order the pegging machine came before the sole-
sewing machine, standing as the invention of A. C. Gallahue, and
under the date of 1851. Its operations were essentially the same as
those of the cobbler who pierces the hole through the sole of the
boot before him with his awl, and then, taking a peg from the
generous store with which he has previously filled his mouth,
drives it home with his hammer. Joseph Walker, of Hopkinton,
Mass., had invented the shoe-peg about 1818, and it had com-
mended itself to the craft at once. Machines were made for the
manufacture of the pegs, and so thrifty were some of those engaged
in their production that it is said they were sold in certain sec-
tions of the country not only as shoe-pegs but as a new kind of
oats. Gallahue's machine included a cylinder on which were
wound, like the spring of a watch, ribbons of birch of the same
width as the length of the peg and sharpened on one edge. These
were fed to the machine which, with knife, awl, and plunger, split
the strips into widths of a peg, made a hole in the sole, and drove
the peg into the shoe jacked beneath. Gallahue's invention was
perfected by Messrs. E. Townsend and B. F. Sturtevant, of Boston.
This idea has been still further developed in machines for riveting
the two parts of the shoe together, the nails being clinched by
coming in contact with an iron last, in a way suggestive of Bru-
nei's method, and in machines for screwing them together. The
screw machine, which came into use about 1875, is provided with
a reel of stout screw-threaded brass wire, and this by the revolu-
tion of the reel is inserted into and screwed through the out-sole,
upper edge, and in-sole. Within the upper a head presses against
the in-sole directly opposite the point of the screw, and, when screw
and head touch, the wire is cut level with the out-sole.

506

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The first decisive step in sewing the sole and upper together
was taken by Lyman R. Blake in 1858, his machine being per-
fected as the McKay sole-sewing machine. The machine, as de-
scribed by Blake in his application for an English patent, "is a
chain-stitch sewing machine. The hooked needle works through
a rest or supporting surface of the upper part of a long, curved
arm which projects upward from the table and the machine. This

Fig. 9. — The Cutting Room.

arm should have such a form as to be capable of entering a shoe
so as to carry the rest into the toe part as well as any other part
of the interior of it. It carries at its front end and directly under
the rest a looper, which is supported within the end of the arm
so as to be capable of rotating or partially rotating round the
needle, while the needle may extend into and through the eye of
the looper, such eye being placed in the path of the needle. The
thread is led from a bobbin by suitable guides along the curved
arm, thence through a tension spring applied to the arm, and
thence upward through the notch of the looper. The feed-wheel,
by which the shoe is moved along the curved arm during the pro-
cess of sewing, is supported by a slider extending downward from
the block and applied thereto so as to be capable of sliding up and
down therein. The shoe is placed on the arm with the sole up-
ward." In less technical language, the machine consists of a com-
bination of wheels so arranged as to drive an awl-like needle
through several thicknesses of heavy leather, and feed a waxed
thread in any direction. The shoe itself rests upon the end of the

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES.

507

arm or horn noted in the above description, from the interior of
which is supplied the waxed thread previously heated by a gas-jet
within. But Blake's first machine was very imperfect. A lead-
ing interest in the invention, however, happened to fall into the
hands of Mr. Gordon McKay. Realizing the importance of the
principle, the two set themselves to its improvement. As per-
fected, they got patents on it in 1800, which gave them the
practical control of the machine-made boots in this country for
many years. It is said that nearly two hundred thousand dol-
lars were spent on the invention before anything was realized
from it. But when the return came it was indeed a golden
harvest. None of the machines were sold outright to manu-
facturers, but they were let to them on the payment of royal -

Fig. 10.— Cofeland Rapid Laster.

ties ; and to show what that amounted to is the fact that one
Lynn manufacturer in a single year paid the company fully fif-
teen thousand dollars for the use of McKay machines in his
shop. Under the pressure of the war the demand for boots and
shoes of stout quality but cheaper grade was enormous, and it

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES.

509

was largely to that class of work that the McKay machine was
turned.

The close way in which the McKay machine was held tended
to check further improvements for a time. The suggestions af-
forded by it and its success, however, were open to all, and several
inventions were later offered to the public. Most important
among these were the Goodyear and McKay machines for welted
sewing, the first mechanism for
stitching the soles on lasted shoes.
In Fig. 5, which represents a sec-
tion of a boot, a is the upper, b the
in-sole, and c the out-sole, while d
is the welt, e the stitching of the
sole to the welt, and / the stitch-
ing of the upper to the same. Fol-
lowing the process of lasting — that
is, after the upper has been care-
fully drawn over the last — the welt
is put in position around the sides
up to the heel. The thin edge of
this is then caught together with
the upper and inner sole. The out-
sole is afterward tacked to the in-
sole and, through a narrow chan-
nel made around the edges of it,
sewed to the welt. The difficulties
in the way of getting a machine
which would do this, not simply
as well as the hand, but do it at
all, were many. The method which
finally succeeded originated in a

patent secured in 1862, by August Destory, for a curved-needle
machine for sewing out-soles to the welts ; but the machine did
not work satisfactorily until it was taken in hand by Charles
Goodyear, the son of the inventor of the India-rubber processes.
This machine simply transforms the swinging movements of the
hand and forearm in sewing into lateral and vertical ones, but
the principle in the two operations is identical. There is one dif-
ference which in a way may be said to be even a point in favor of
the machine sewing. In hand sewing the thread is drawn clear
through its full length each time, and thus is weakened by con-
stant wear. In the machine, only so much is drawn through as is
necessary to form the stitch. These machines have been perfected
and multiplied until what is known as the Goodyear system is
the result. This system includes machines for sewing the welt
on, attaching the sole to the upper, for lasting the upper, for

Fig. 12. — In-sole Channeler.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

channeling or making the groove in which the stitching uniting
the sole and upper runs, and for sewing turned shoes or work in
which there is only one flexible sole attached to the upper, and
done with the outside turned in.

Lasting has been the most difficult of all the operations from
which machinery has attempted to rout hand-work. The work of
the laster is to pull the upper tightly over a last, adjust to it the
inner sole, insert the counter-shank, and fasten the upper in place.
He also applies the outer sole to the upper, but does nothing fur-
ther. Now, the irregular shape of the upper, requiring looseness
at one point, stretching here and pinching there, in order to shape
it to the last, makes it exceedingly hard to secure a machine which
will do it with any kind of success. Patents, however, were taken
out in England in 1842 for a machine intended to perform this
work, and these were issued in this country in 1862. Messrs. McKay
and Copeland purchased those rights in 1872, and ten years later
was introduced what is known as the Copeland laster, a machine
for men's work. The shoe in this machine lies in a kind of matrix,
under which are leather girth straps attached to iron fingers. The
shoe is held stationary while these fingers move up, inward, and
down. The toe and heel are lasted by plates which are mounted

on a table that oscil-
lates and adapts its
motion to the last.
But it is not entire-
ly machine-work, as
hand-pincers are used
to bring the uppers to
the 1 ast. For women's
and misses' shoes the
Boston Lasting Ma-
chine Company has
a different invention.
The shoe in that case
is lasted on a jack, the
upper being drawn
over by pincers, and
the shoe itself is after-
ward brought up to the nozzle of the machine, contact with which
starts some automatic tack-driving machinery, and the shoes are
fastened as shaped with great rapidity. But manufacturers say
that there is much to be accomplished yet before the perfection of
hand-work is secured and the fingers and pincers can be entirely
dispensed with.

The making of these lasts is a considerable industry in itself.
Each manufacturer carries a stock of from two thousand to four

Fig. 13. — First Lathe for Turning Lasts.

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES. 511

thousand of them, and they have to be changed with every varia-
tion in the style. Originally shoe-lasts were whittled out of rough
blocks of wood by hand, but in 1815 Thomas Blanchard, well
known in his day as an inventor, devised a lathe for turning them
out by a less laborious process. A pattern had first to be made,
and then this and a block of wood were fixed on the same axis and
made to revolve around a common center in a swinging lathe by
a pulley and belt on one end of the axis. The cutting wheel turned
on a horizontal axis, and to it were attached a number of irregular
cutters which acted like gouges when the wheel was set in motion.
This wheel was placed opposite the block, while opposite the pat-
tern was a friction-wheel of the same size. By the combined
movements of this axis and a sliding carriage the irregular sur-
face of the pattern caused the axis on which the friction-wheel
was to alternately approach and recede, and this motion was in
turn communicated to the knife-wheel. The result was that a
duplicate of the pattern was produced from the block of wood.
The last lathe has been improved since in many ways, but they are
all based on the principles introduced by Blanchard.

It is impossible to more than name some of the other machines
which have been introduced and which have done much to hasten
the manufacture and reduce the cost of foot-wear. The sole-die ma-
chine was introduced about 1851, operated first by foot-power and
later by steam. The buffing machine, a sanded cylinder for the
purpose of giving a velvety finish or " nap " to the bottom of the
sole, followed in 1855, and the eyeleting machine in 1864. Other
machines of more recent date are the beating-out machine, between
the forms of which the sole of the shoe, after the channel groove
has been filled with naphtha cement, is subjected to enormous
pressure ; the trimming machine, whose revolving knives remove
the rough edges of the sole ; the burnishing machine, and the heel-
ing machinery. It can not but be a source of gratification to
Americans that the most of these inventions have had their origin
on this side of the ocean, and that those that did not so originate
have received their greatest development here. The experiments
in England with the sewing and nailing machines had not enough
success to warrant any serious claim to the invention. The Ameri-
can shoe-factory is the triumph of American ingenuity. There is
no better word than " ingenuity " to describe it. It stands for the
discovery of no new principle in mechanics. It represents the utili-
zation of no new force in Nature. But it does contain within it
some of the most remarkable adaptations of mechanical principles
already known and the most marvelous devices for supplanting
the work of the fingers. A modern shoe-factory would make a
fitting monument for the Patent Office.

To realize how the introduction of machinery into the tanning

H

o

s

Oi

S

3

o

MANUFACTURE OF BOOTS AND SHOES.

513

and shoemaking industries has cheapened the products of the
latter, one has only to compare the price of any kind of goods for
a series of years. For illustration, take women's Polish grain
shoes, men's boots and brogans. These are all cheap goods, and
as the prices in the first place would have to be as low as possible
great reductions would not be expected. Yet note :

Ladies Polish shoes per pair: 1865, $2.25; 1868, $1.62£; 1870,
61.37* ; 1875,$1.12|; 1880, $0.95. Brogans: 1865, $1.75; 1870, $1.50;
1880, $1.30 ; 1885, $1.20 ; 1890, $1.05. Men's heavy boots, per dozen
pairs, kip and double half soles in order : 1872, $38 and $25 ; 1880
$2G and $21.50; 1885, $26 and $20; 1890, $21 and $17.

In spite of all competition Massachusetts has retained its early
grip upon the shoe industry, and within its factories are to be seen
the art at its highest and its results at their best. In 1845, in that
State, 45,877 hands made 20,896,312 pairs of boots and shoes, and
in 1875 49,608 made 59,762,866 pairs — that is, an increase of less
than one tenth in the manual force resulted in an output nearly
three times as great. New Hampshire and Maine, however, have
considerable interests in the shoe business, and factories are be-
ginning to spring up in the West and the South. Unfortunately,
the census figures for the last decade have not been completed ;
but the following table will tell the story for the thirty years be-
tween 1850 and 1880:

Whole number of estab- )
lishments [

Persons employed

Capital

Wages

Materials used

Value of product

Wages per employe ,

1850.

11,305

12,487

105,254

123,029

$12,924,919

$23,358,527

$21,622,608

$30,938,920

$23,848,374

$42,729,649

$53,967,408

$91,891,498

$205 43

$251 48

1860.

1870.*

U 3,151

} 23,428

j 91,702

I 135,889

$37,519,019

$48,994,366

$42,504,444

$51,972,712

$80,502,718

$93,582,528

$146,704,055

$181,644,090

j $463 50

I $382 46

1880.

j f 1,959

I 17,972

j 111,152

I 133,819

j $42,994,028

{ $50,995,144

j $43,001,438

I $54,358,301

$102,442,442

$114,966,575

$166,050,354

$196,920,481

j $387 21

I $381 07

The increase in the number of establishments between 1860
and 1870 and the decrease between 1870 and 1880 mean no decline
in the industry. This change results from the tendency toward
consolidation and concentration. Improved machinery has en-
abled large producers to crowd their smaller competitors out of
the business or to force them into combination. The same move-

* Currency.

f The first figures in these columns are special factory statistics,
only in 1870 and 1880.

vol. xli. — 38

These were collected

5i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ment is manifest iu other manufacturing industries, like cotton
and woolen. The decade following the war was a period of
enormous individual expansion, while that succeeding it was one
of corporate extension. This fact appears in the marked increase
in capital and productive capacity in union with a decrease in
the number of separate factories. That the forthcoming census
will show further evidences of this change seems certain from
the reports that have been published from time to time during
the past ten years by those familiar with the progress of the
industry. This development, however, has not been at the ex-
pense of the operatives, as is shown by the increase in their earn-
ings since the introduction of machinery. The gain has been
more than a third, as indicated by the above table. In 1885 the
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor undertook an inves-
tigation of the net profits of the manufacturing industries of the
State, and from returns received from 2,344 private boot and shoe
manufacturing firms, employing 66,800 operatives, the average
yearly earnings of the latter were $385.89 ; and from 22 corpora-
tions, employing 2,731 operatives, the average was $417.06. That
would give for the 2,366 concerns annual average earnings of
$401.47 for the operatives, considerably in excess of the country at
large. The same investigation showed that in the cost of the
production of boots and shoes 27'65 per cent was charged to labor
and in that of leather 17'07 per cent went to it. This compares
with 28*84 in cotton goods, 2072 in woolen goods, and 27'18 in silk
goods. On the side of the manufacturer these returns showed a
net profit of 14"06 per cent on the capital invested in the boot and
shoe industry against 8*13 per cent in leather, 0'65 in cotton goods,
and 5'47 in woolen goods. The American shoe operatives as a
body are thrifty and prosperous, and certainly much better paid
than their fellow-craftsmen abroad. Skilled operatives in this
country earn from $11 to $18 a week, while the same class in Eng-
land obtain only $5.50 to $8.50, and in Germany $5 to $6.50. Mr.
W. L. Terhune, of the Boot and Shoe Recorder, in an account of a
trip among the shoe-factories of England, says that the skilled
operatives at Northampton told him that they averaged only
about $6 a week, so that the annual earnings for the best paid of
them scarcely exceeded $300. With the extension, or rather the
over-extension," of the business, and the consequent competition,
there have come cuts in wages and strikes ; but the same leaven of
unrest prevails in the other old industries, and there is nothing
peculiar about its manifestation, perhaps, except that the opera-
tives and manufacturers in the shoe industry are both better or-
ganized than in other branches.

What the next decade has in store for the boot and shoe indus-
try can be only a matter of speculation. At present the machines

BEGINNINGS IN BOTANY. 515

for the several operations are distinct. "Will some genius combine
them into a single one ? Will it be possible ever to throw into a
hopper a side of leather and take out a finished shoe ? Such a
question appears absurd to-day. But what would our great-
grandfathers have thought of the McKay or Goodyear stitchers ?

♦♦»

BEGINNINGS IN BOTANY.

By BYRON D. HALSTED, Sc. D.,

PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN RUTGERS COLLEGE, NEW JERSEY.

MUCH has been said, largely in a theoretical way, concerning
the general question of university extension. Various
experiments have been made, and by another year definite plans
will be matured for the popular presentation of many of the sub-
jects that come within the scope of the extension movement as
now understood by those who have had the most to do with
the scheme for the education of the masses.

The writer has recently finished a brief course in botany, and,
as the method pursued differed in some features from any pre-
viously followed, there may be sufficient reason, in this, for pre-
senting an outline of the ground covered and the ways and means
employed for bringing the subject to the attention of a popular
audience.

The course consisted of six meetings, and the average attend-
ance was fifty. Each session extended over two hours, namely,
from four until six in the afternoon of successive Fridays for six
weeks in late spring. The first hour of each exercise was devoted
to a lecture, and the following were the subjects considered : (1)
The Seed, its Origin, Structure, and Uses ; (2) the Stem and Root ;
(3) the Leaf, its Structure and Function ; (4) the Flower, its
Form and Use ; (5) the Fruit — Kinds and Functions ; (6) Ferns,
Mosses, Algae, and Fungi.

A full outline of these lectures was furnished each pupil in a
sixteen-page syllabus, and the points covered were fully illus-
trated by means of papier-mache models of various sorts of
plants, by numerous wall-charts, and, best of all, by a large num-
ber of living specimens.

The lecture served as an introduction to the class exercise
which it immediately preceded. In this latter each pupil was
furnished with a seat at a table and provided with specimens
upon which to work. As before stated, the first lecture was upon
seeds. This embraced the whole question of germination, and
for a portion of the class-hour attention was given to the study
of seedling plants, each pupil having specimens of young corn

5i6

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and bean plants for comparison. These two seedlings, because
representing the two great types of flowering plants, namely, the
exogens and endogens, made it possible to illustrate the leading
features of each by contrast. Sketches and descriptions of these
were made during the hour by each pupil. Recognizing the fact

that seeds come from flowers, and that the
time for the course was short, a half-hour was
spent in the study of a very simple flower, the
spring lily (Erythronium americanum). For
this purpose a blank was provided, shown in
part in Fig. 1, and before the session was
through the various parts of a blossom were
learned. Similar blanks were given the pupil
for home study, and, before leaving, each was
handed a box containing five kinds of seeds —
namely, corn, bean, flax, clover, and timothy —
with directions for sowing in a box or flower-
pot for individual home study. In addition
to this the first twenty pages of Gray's Re-
vised Lessons were assigned for study. The
public library of the city was equipped with
a full list of reference-books in botany at the
beginning of the course.

The second lecture embraced a considera-
tion of the stem and root. The chief differ-
ences between these two plant-members were
pointed out and illustrated with specimens.
Buds, as to their nature, structure, arrange-
ment, etc., were dwelt upon, followed by many
illustrations of various kinds of stems, such
as tendrils, spines, and numerous forms of
subterranean stems, like potato tubers, bulbs,
and root-stocks of many plants. Various kinds
of roots were shown, particular attention be-
ing paid to the functions of these underground
portions, followed by an exposition of the way
in which the soil constituents are taken up
by plants.

The first half of the class exercise of the
second day was occupied with a study of the
buds of the horse-chestnut, in connection with
more advanced specimens of the same species in which the buds
have unfolded, and the scales, leaves, and flower-cluster were fully
shown. After drawings were made of these, and a study of the
corn-stem to illustrate the second type of stem (endogen), the re-
maining portion of the hour was occupied with work on two

Student's Name-

1. Is the FLOWER—

Perfect ?
Complete ?
Eegular ?
Symmetrical f

2. IstheCAL^X—

Gamosepalous ?
Polyeepalous ?
Free?
Adherent ?

3. Is the COROLLA—

Gamopetalous ?
Polypetalous ?
Free?
Adherent ?

4. How many STAMENS ?

Free.
Adherent.
Anthers.

Innate.

Adnate.

Versatile.

Filaments.
Shape.
Length.

5. How many PISTILS ?

Free.
Adherent.
Stigma.
Style.
Ovary.
Cells.

Placentation.
Ovules.
Number.
Position.
Fruit.
Seed.

6. INFLORESCENCE.

7. LEAVES.

Arrangement.

Venation.

Shape.

Base.

Apex.

Margin.

Petiole.

Stipules.

8. STEM.

Exogenous.
Endogenous.

9. COMMON NAME.
10. SCIENTIFIC NAME.

Fig. 1.

BEGINNINGS IN BOTANY. 517

flowers of the more simple types gathered from the fields and
furnished in abundance. Specimens of these plants, with blanks
to fill in connection with the study of them, were taken home by
the pupils.

At this session a report of the daily observations of the seed-
ling bean, corn, flax, clover, and grass was submitted, and this
work in the home garden continued. Twigs were assigned for
study during the coming week, including a potato tuber that had
been planted by each pupil the week before.

In the third lecture the subject of leaves was considered as to
parts, arrangement, types of framework (venation), simple and
compound forms, and various peculiar kinds of leaves were
shown, as pitchers, fly-catchers, etc. It was in this lecture that
some of the physiological principles of vegetation were brought
out, including the taking up of the soil-water, its passage to the
leaves, and the manufacture there, under the influence of sunlight,
of the various compounds, as sugar, starch, and oil, that may be
afterward employed in various ways in the economy of the plant.

The microscopic structure of the pulp of the leaf was shown
by diagrams, and an insight was given into the cellular forma-
tion of tissues and their combinations into tissue systems. A
very large number of kinds of leaves freshly gathered were ex-
hibited to illustrate the many terms concerning foliage used in
the j classification of plants. In size and shape these varied
through all gradations, from the mere scales of the asparagus
and conservatory " smilax " to those of the garden rhubarb ; and
of the compound sorts, from the barberry with a single leaflet to
those of the columbine.

The class-hour was devoted to the study of three plants, the
flowers of which illustrated as many widely separated types.
Thus the wistaria gave large peculiar blossoms of the pulse
family, and in this connection a papier-mache model of the pea
was dissected before the class, thus fully illustrating the several
parts, even to the coats and embryo of the forming seeds, by
means of a separate model of an enlarged pea-pod.

In the fourth lecture the flower was considered, and, while the
parts had been previously learned in class-work with specimens,
the functions of the various organs were now explained by means
of diagrams and specimens. The many ways in which the pollen
of one flower is brought to the pistil of another were illustrated,
and the fact that close fertilization is the exception and not the
rule emphasized. The pupils were made familiar with the vari-
ous forms of flower arrangement by seeing the living examples.
Perhaps fifty kinds of plants in bloom were shown to illustrate
not only inflorescence but the form and union of the several parts
of individual flowers.

5i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

During the second hour attention was called to the analytical
key as an aid in classifying plants, and the class as a whole was
instructed by carrying three plants successively through the key
to the species. At the same time blanks were filled which made
a record of each student's results of inspection. Pupils were now
ready to take the simpler plants and classify them at home, which
was done to a large extent by some members of the class.

The fifth lecture was a treatment of the general subject of
fruits. The subject was illustrated by means of a large list of
fruits, freshly gathered from the field, supplemented with several
sorts procured at the store. Various seed-vessels may be found
in the spring that illustrate fully the methods of opening of the
dry fruits for the scattering of seeds, and these were drawn upon
at this seemingly unseasonable time for the study of fruits with
excellent results. The methods of pressing and mounting plants
were practically illustrated at the close of the hour, and a portion
of a herbarium placed within reach for inspection.

During the class-hour fresh specimens were supplied, and each
pupil worked independently in large part in determining the
species. Particular attention was paid to fruits, and the twisting
of the cranesbill awns, for example, was seen by all. The sensi-
tiveness of the stamens of the barberry was likewise observed by
the class during the hour.

For home work, besides the twenty pages in the text given for
each lesson, ten questions were asked in the syllabus, the answers
to which were handed in at the next meeting, along with the re-
ports upon " Topics for Study," likewise given in the syllabus.
Thus, under Fruits, two of the questions were " (4) In what par-
ticular does a strawberry differ from a rose fruit ? (6) Of what
advantage to a plant that its fruit is a highly colored berry ? "
Under " Topics for Study " one requirement was to " make draw-
ings of a cross-section of an orange and an apple."

The sixth and last lecture of the course considered the flower-
less plants, or those forms of vegetation which are propagated
through spores and not by means of seeds.

While upon the ferns, several species in quantity were in the
hands of the members of the class, and the method for classifying
them gone through with while the descriptive terms necessary
for this were being considered. Plates covered with fresh mosses,
some sterile and others in fruit, were passed around, while the
manner of spore-formation was illustrated by a large papier-
mache model of the moss capsule, that was dissected before the
class. Various groups of fungi were considered, some of the
larger forms shown, as the toad-stools, shelf fungi, and the like,
and several rusts were also exhibited. The lecture and the course
closed with a consideration of the various groups of sea- weeds,

MICHAEL SERVETUS. 519

specimens of which were handed around the class. The leading
books upon the several families of cryptogams were shown, espe-
cially those illustrating the subject by means of large plates.

It was announced in the syllabus that the examination for cer-
tificates would be held in the following autumn, and at the close
of the last lecture a conference was held with the candidates,
about twenty-five, and a short preliminary examination given
them upon the matter contained in the syllabus. This portion of
the class was instructed to make a careful study of the whole of
Gray's Revised Lessons, and encouraged to collect specimens,
study and classify them, and make a herbarium of at least fifty
species to in part represent the work done in the field.

Thus in six exercises pupils were more than started in the
study of plants, and there is no question that a groundwork was
laid for an acquaintance with botany that should be one of con-
stantly growing interest as the years succeed each other.

MICHAEL SERVETUS: REFORMER, PHYSIOLOGIST,

AND MARTYR.

By CHAELES McEAE.

THE sixteenth century produced an unusually large number of
famous biologists. To it belonged Andreas Vesalius, the
incomparable anatomist, and his teachers, Sylvius and Winter of
Andernach ; Columbus of Cremona, to whom the discovery of the
pulmonary circulation of the blood was for a century and a half
ascribed; and Fallopius, Eustachius, Arantius, Fabricius of
Aquapendente, and Csesalpinus — men whose names have become
familiar to every student of anatomy. Foremost, perhaps, among
these illustrious workers stands the name of Michael Serve tus,
the physiologist and liberal thinker, who was burned to death as
a heretic at Geneva in 1553, and whose life and tragic end have
ever since excited the interest and sympathy of mankind.

Michael Servetus was born in Aragon or in Navarre about the
year 1509. At an early age he entered the University of Sara-
gossa, from which, in 1528, he was sent as a law student to the
University of Toulouse. Here he may have read some of Luther's
writings, for several of the latter were translated into Spanish soon
after their publication. But whether he saw them or not, after
staying two or three years at Toulouse he acquired certain views
which were antagonistic to some of the generally received dogmas
of the Church, and which influenced the whole of his subse-
quent life.

Quitting the university, he went — in what position it is un-

52o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

known — with a Franciscan friar named Quintana, who was con-
fessor to the Emperor Charles V, to Bologna, to the coronation
of that monarch. And here, in Italy, it is supposed that he
met with opinions which strengthened his desire for liberty of
thought, for about this time he thus expresses himself : " For my
own part I neither agree nor disagree in every particular with
either Catholic or Reformer. Both of them seem to me to have
something of truth and something of error in their views ; and,
while each sees the other's shortcomings, neither sees his own.
God, in his goodness, give us all to understand our errors, and
incline us to put them away/' . . .

Leaving Bologna, the emperor with his suite proceeded to
Germany to hold the Diet of Augsburg. And here Servetus
probably saw and spoke to some of the leading Reformers.

Soon after this, however, he quitted the service of Quintana,
and we find him seeking the friendship of certain of the Reform-
ers, CEcolampadius and Bucer. He must have had the power of
winning friends, for Bucer, in a letter, speaks of him as his dear
son, "filius meus dilectus."

In 1531 Servetus published at Hagenau his first book, De
Trinitatis Erroribus. This production of a young man only
twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, crude as it was, excited
remark from Luther and Melanchthon. In the Table-Talk of
1532 Luther refers to it as "a fearfully wicked book which had
lately come out against the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Vision-
aries like the writer do not seem to fancy that other folks as well
as they may have had temptations on this subject. But the sting
did not hold ; I set the Word of God and the Holy Ghost against
my thoughts and got free."

Melanchthon confesses he has read Servetus much. "I see
him indeed sufficiently sharp and subtle in disputation, but I do
not give him credit for much depth. He is possessed, as it seems
to me, of confused imaginations, and his thoughts are not well
matured on the subjects he discusses."

CEcolampadius wrote : " Our senate have forbidden the Span-
iard's book to be sold here. They have asked my opinion of its
merits, and I have said that as the writer does not acknowledge
the co-eternity of the Son, I can in no wise approve of it as a
whole, although it contains much else that is good."

Servetus now followed this with Two Dialogues on the Trinity,
explanatory and additional to the former work. Thus he pub-
lished two books against the principal dogma of the Church in
less than two years, without hesitating to put his name on the
title-page of both. He was very young, extremely zealous for his
new opinion, and perhaps unacquainted with the principles of
the Reformers. He may have thought that if they wrote freely

MICHAEL SERVETUS. 521

about the doctrine of Transubstantiation, why should he not
inquire into the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. But the
reception afforded to his two works was of such a kind as to con-
vince him that he had committed an imprudent act in allowing
his name to appear as the author, and he accordingly changed his
name and retired to Lyons. The name he now assumed, and by
which he was always afterward known, was Michael Villeneuve,
or Villanovanus, after the town of Villanueva, in Aragon, from
which he probably came.

At Lyons he found work as a corrector for the press, at the
publishing firm of the Brothers Trechsel, and he edited the
Geography of Ptolemy. The description of Palestine which this
book contained, although really an extract and not an original
statement by Servetus, was quoted against him eighteen years
afterward when he was tried for his life at Geneva. It concluded
with these words : " Know, however, most worthy reader, that it
is mere boasting and untruth when so much of excellence is
ascribed to this land; the experience of merchants and others,
travelers who have visited it, proving it to be inhospitable, bar-
ren, and destitute of all charm. "Wherefore you may say that the
land was promised, indeed, but is of little promise when spoken of
in every-day terms."

The latter part of the following description of the Germans,
which is given in this book, looks like an expression of Servetus's
own opinion: "Hungary is commonly said to produce oxen,
Bavaria swine, Franconia onions, turnips, and licorice, Swabia
harlots, Bohemia heretics, Switzerland butchers, Westphalia
cheats, and the whole country gluttons and drunkards. The
Germans, however, are a religious people ; not easily turned from
opinions they have once espoused, and not readily persuaded to
concord in matters of schism, every one valiantly and obstinately
defending the heresy he has himself adopted."

While thus working at Lyons, Servetus formed the acquaint-
ance of Doctor Campeggius, to whose influence it was perhaps
due that he decided to take up the study of medicine. To carry
out this determination he proceeded to Paris, and entered as a
student at the university under Johannes Guinterus (Winter of
Andernach) and Sylvius. Here he had as a fellow-student
Andreas Vesalius, the famous anatomist, to whom, as well as to
Servetus, their teacher Winter makes a laudatory reference some
time afterward. Writing in the preface to his Anatomical Insti-
tutions, published in 1539, Winter informs his readers that he
" had been effectually aided in the preparation of the work, first
by Andreas Vesalius, a young man, by Hercules ! singularly pro-
ficient in anatomy ; and after him by Michael Villanovanus, dis-
tinguished by his literary acquirements of every kind, and

522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

scarcely second to any in his knowledge of the teaching of
Galen."

After taking his degree, Servetus lectured in Paris on geome-
try and astrology. The lectures on the latter subject involved
him in a dispute with the university ; and in March, 1538, we find
him defending by counsel a suit that was brought against him by
the medical faculty on account of these lectures. In 1537 he
wrote a little book, Syruporum Universa ratio, the most popular,
perhaps, of all his writings, containing six lectures on digestion,
with one chapter — the fifth — devoted to the composition and use
of sirups, or tisanes.

In June, 1538, he was at the University of Lou vain study-
ing theology and Hebrew ; and in a letter to his father written
from this place, he explains that he has left Paris, owing to
the death of his master, but hopes to return soon. After prac-
ticing as a doctor for a short time at Charlieu, he continued
his studies for part of 1540 at the University of Montpellier,
where unusual facilities were at that time afforded to medical
students.

At Paris, some years before, Servetus had made the acquaint-
ance of Pierre Paurnier, a man of learned tastes, who was now
Archbishop of Vienne, in Dauphiny. At his invitation the Span-
iard took up his residence at Vienne, and there appears to have
lived in quiet seclusion from 1541 to 1553. His professional work
was not too heavy to allow of his taking up literary pursuits also.
He brought out a new edition of Ptolemy's Geography, and he
annotated the Latin Bible of Pagnini. In his preface to the latter
work he intimates what he considers to be the proper method of
interpreting the prophetical books. He says that people who are
ignorant of the affairs and customs of the Hebrews easily think
the historical and literal sense of no importance ; and in conse-
quence of this they ridiculously follow a mystical interpretation
everywhere. " Wherefore," he adds, " I would desire you again
and again, Christian reader, to get the knowledge of the Hebrew
in the first place, and, after that, diligently to apply yourself to
the study of Jewish history, before you enter upon the reading of
the prophets."

One of the gravest charges brought against Servetus by Calvin
was that by such a method of interpretation " this impostor has
dared to give such a wrong turn to the passages (contained in the
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah) as to interpret them of Cyrus. So
that whatever the prophet has with great perspicuity, and with
the utmost force of expression, discoursed, this perfidious villain
has blotted out (delevit hie perjidus nebulo)."

Here it may be remarked that while no one would pretend
that Servetus was a biblical critic and expositor, yet his method

MICHAEL SERVETUS. 523

of looking first for the historical and literal meaning is the
method of the modern school of scriptural exegesis.

The book which immediately brought about the imprisonment
and death of Servetus was called Christianismi Restitutio — the
Restoration of Christianity. It contained, besides a series of
chapters setting forth the various theological tenets of the au-
thor, thirty letters addressed to Calvin. The views of the writer,
although fantastical, and in many instances unintelligible, often
exhibit a broad and tolerant spirit, and always breathe intense
earnestness. He appears to have felt himself impelled to propa-
gate his opinions on these theological matters, and to have come
to regard this as his mission in life, which must be fulfilled at
any risk. So much, at least, is clear from the invocation to Christ,
with which he closes his introduction. "Thou hast taught us
that the light is not to be hidden, so woe to me unless I evangel-
ize." * He seems even to have thought that he had his vocation
shadowed out to him in his name. The angel Michael led the
embattled hosts of heaven to war against the dragon; and he,
Michael Servetus, had been chosen to lead the angels on earth
against Antichrist !

This book is now one of the rarest in the world. Two copies
only are known to be extant — one at Paris and another at
Vienna. A copy of the latter, printed in 1790, is in the British
Museum.

In this work, while writing on the Trinity (Book V), Servetus
introduces certain physiological statements in order to illustrate
some of his theological speculations. The passage, although lost
to the world for nearly a century and a half, has long ago become
famous. It was first brought to light in Wotton's Reflections
upon Ancient and Modern Learning, published in London in 1694.
It proves that the knowledge which Servetus possessed of the way
by which the blood passed from the right to the left side of the
heart was in advance of his time, and a step beyond that reached
by Galen. The latter had taught that the blood, for the most
part, passed through the septum, from one side of the heart to the
other. Servetus wrote : " This communication " (i. e., from the
right ventricle of the heart to the left) "does not take place
through the septum, partition, or midwall of the heart, as com-
monly believed, but by another admirable contrivance, the blood
being transmitted from the pulmonary artery to the pulmonary
vein, by a lengthened passage through the lungs, in the course of
which it is elaborated and becomes of a crimson color. Mingled
with the inspired air in this passage, and freed from fuliginous

* " Lucemam non esse abscondendam, tu nos docuisti, ut vse mihi sit nisi evangelizem."
Christ. Restit., p. 2.

5 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

vapors by the act of expiration, the mixture being now complete
in every respect, and the blood become fit dwelling-place of the
vital spirit, it is finally attracted by the diastole, and reaches the
left ventricle of the heart." He then goes on to give as proofs of
the accuracy of his statements (1) the various conjunctions and
communications of the pulmonary artery and pulmonary vein in
the lungs, and (2) the great size of the pulmonary artery, and the
great quantity of blood passing through it; both being much
larger than would be required for the mere nutrition of the lungs.
He concludes that the septum, seeing that it is without vessels and
special properties, is not fitted to permit the communication in
question, " although," he adds, " it may be that some transudation
takes place through it." * This unfortunate qualification of what
he has so distinctly affirmed just before — namely, that the com-
munication does not take place through the septum — is not very
intelligible ; for if he believed the blood to soak through the sep-
tum, his theory differs but little from that of Galen, and yet Ser-
vetus calls attention to the fact that what he is declaring was
unknown to Galen, f

Prof. Huxley J points out that Servetus quotes neither observa-
tion nor experiment in favor of the imperviousness of the septum.
But neither does Realdus Columbus,* who correctly described the
lesser circulation in 1559, and to whom the credit of the discovery
was very early ascribed. || It is to be remembered that the work
in which Servetus introduces his discovery is not a treatise on
physiology, and that the whole passage being brought in by way
of illustration is not fully treated.

It is clear, however, that Servetus held (1) that the blood in a
great stream passes from the right ventricle of the heart to the
lungs ; (2) that in the lungs, and not in the left ventricle, it is
purified; and (3) that from the lungs it passes by the pulmo-
nary vein to the left ventricle of the heart and thence into the
arteries.

From these statements of fact Servetus quickly passes to meta-
physical speculations. He has before said : " There are three sorts
of spirits in the human body — namely, natural, vital, and animal —
which are not in reality three, but two distinct spirits only ; the ar-
teries communicating by anastomoses, the vital spirit to the veins,
in which it is called natural. The first spirit then is the blood,
whose seat is in the liver, and in the veins of the body ; the sec-
ond is the vital spirit, whose seat is the heart and arteries ; the

* " Licet aliquid resudare possit" Christ. Eestit., p. 171.
f Christ. Restit., p. 171.

\ Fortnightly Review, February, 1878.

* De Re Anatomica Realdi Columbi Cremonensis, 1559, p. 177.
Opera Chirurgica Ambrosii Parsei, 1594, p. 116.

MICHAEL SERVETUS. 525

third is the animal spirit, whose seat is in the brain and nerves."
Now, he goes on to suppose that the blood, having received in its
passage through the lungs the breath of life, is sent by the left
ventricle into the arteries. The purest part ascends to the base
of the brain, where it is more refined and changed from the vital
to the animal spirit, and acts upon the mass of the brain, which
is incapable of reasoning without its stimulus. From this, and
much more which is unintelligible, it appears plain that Servetus
had read the schoolmen, and was imbued with their methods of
reasoning.

To get published a book filled, as the Christianismi Restitutio
was, with theological opinions repugnant alike to Catholics and
Reformers, was no easy task. And in effecting his purpose Ser-
vetus exercised great caution and ingenuity. At Vienne, where
he had lived for twelve years, was a publisher named Arnoullet,
whom, with the printer Geroult, Servetus took into his con-
fidence. He engaged not only to pay the whole expenses, but
also to add a gratuity of a hundred crowns. It was arranged
that the printing should not be carried on at the ordinary place
of business, but that a small house at some distance should be
used for the purpose. The printing was commenced on St.
Michael's day, and in three or four months one thousand copies
of the book were ready.

No name appeared on the title-page, but at the end of the
book immediately over the date the initials " M. S. V." were
placed, and at page 199, at the commencement of the dialogue
between Michael and Petrus, the latter is made to say : " Here
he is ; Servetus is here, of whom I was speaking/' The reference
made in the preface to former works on the same subject, and the
introduction of Michael and Peter as interlocutors, just as had
been done in the Dialogue on the Trinity twenty years before,
rendered it easy to establish that Michael Servetus and Michael
Villeneuve were one and the same man.

The whole stock of books, when ready, was made up into bales
of one hundred each, and sent away, the greater part to Lyons, to
the care of a type-founder named Pierre Merrin, who believed
that the packets contained nothing but blank paper. It was
probably intended to forward them, as soon as opportunity
offered, to Genoa and Venice.

Meanwhile, unknown to Servetus, a copy of the work, and a
letter giving particulars of the printing of it, were dispatched to
Calvin at Geneva, probably by some one at Lyons, who had
friends at Vienne, and who was in the confidence of both Ser-
vetus and Calvin. Armed with this evidence against the Span-
iard, Calvin caused a letter to be written to Vienne by a young
man named William Trie, denouncing Servetus, and inclosing

526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the first few sheets of the Christianismi Restitutio. By a subse-
quent mail he sent by the same man about twenty letters, which
he had received from time to time from Servetus. On this the
latter was arrested, and conveyed to prison on the pretense of
being required to see some sick prisoner. He was immediately
examined closely as to his early history and the meaning of some
of his writings. Taken by surprise, as he was, he appears to have
prevaricated, and tried to hide his identity with the author of De
Trinitatis Erroribus, by pretending that in his letters with Cal-
vin he had personated Servetus merely for the purpose of discus-
sion. Facts looked very black against him, but he probably had
very powerful friends, and it may have been with the connivance
of some of them that two days afterward he made his escape from
prison. The whole plot was soon ferreted out by Matthew Ory,
the Inquisitor; the books were seized, and Servetus was con-
demned " in a pecuniary mulct of a thousand livres, to be paid
to the King of Dauphiny " ; and the sentence went on, " as soon
as he shall be taken he shall be drawn in a dung-cart, with his
books, on the market-day and hour, from the gate of the Royal
Palace, through the streets and accustomed places, to the common
hall of the present city, and from thence to the place called Char-
neve, and there he shall be burnt alive, with a slow fire, until
his body shall be reduced to ashes. In the mean time the present
sentence shall be executed in effigy, with which the said books
shall be burnt/'

This sentence was duly carried out on June 17, 1553, the effigy
and five bales of books being burned to ashes.

Of such action as Calvin's in thus betraying what had been
communicated to him in the confidence of a letter, into the hands
of a professed enemy of both, Erasmus expresses himself as fol-
lows : " You are not ignorant how abhorrent, I do not say from
virtue, but entirely from all humanity, it is to betray the secrets
of friendship; forasmuch as we detest even those who, after a
breach of friendship, shall divulge what was said in confidence
before ; nor can those of a generous disposition suffer themselves
to betray that which they know, from the confidence of ancient
friendship, will expose one to the resentment of his greatest
enemies."

Having escaped from Vienne, Servetus probably remained in
hiding first at Lyons. But the discovery of the whole matter, and
his subsequent condemnation, made it imperative that he should
get out of France. Many Spaniards were settled at Naples, and
thither he now seems to have determined to push his way. For
some reason or other, probably because he expected more leniency
from Reformers than from Catholics, he preferred to go through
Switzerland rather than Piedmont. He reached Geneva, and

MICHAEL SERVETUS. 527

lodged at the Rose Inn, intending to go by boat to Lausanne on
his way to Zurich. Calvin, however, learned that he was in the
town, and he immediately informed the first syndic, and caused
him to be apprehended; and here he was kept while proceed-
ings were being taken against him, from August 14th to Octo-
ber 27th.

The people of Geneva, in the year 1553, were, and had been for
several years, divided into two hostile parties, struggling desper-
ately with each other for the supremacy. The austerity and
tyranny of Calvin had aroused against him many opponents, and
it seemed now as if these were on the point of attaining the ends
for which they had been so long striving. Calvin's earliest
attempts at ruling the Genevese had soon met with failure. He
had first settled in Geneva in 1536, but so unpopular had he
become in two years that he and his colleague, Farel, were for-
mally banished from the city. Passing from Basle to Strasburg, he
had taken up his residence in the latter city as Professor of The-
ology. But after two years, in response to a deputation which
came and besought his return to Geneva, he consented to go* back,
and in September, 1541, he took up his old position under greater
advantages than before. He then laid before the Council the
draft of his ordinances respecting church discipline, and these
were at once accepted. A consistory was formed, composed for
the most part of clergymen, with the addition of a few laymen,
" to watch over the support of the pure doctrine and of morals."
The tribunal called everybody, without exception, to account for
his slightest words or actions, and referred cases, where ecclesi-
astical censure was not sufficient, to the Council. Thus Calvin
had made himself director of the conduct as well as of the opinion
of the Genevese. His spirit governed exclusively in the Council
as in the Consistory, and no one could hope to succeed who set
himself in opposition to Calvin.

Twelve years of such bondage, however, had not been borne
by the Genevese without indication of discontent and dissatisfac-
tion. The Council declared that clergymen could no 16nger be
admitted to its meetings, although they had not been previously
excluded; men who were under the consistorial ban for some
infringement of discipline were chosen as councilors, and even
open hostility was shown to Calvin, who wrote : " The accumu-
lated rancor of their hearts breaks out from time to time ; so that
when I show myself in the street, the curs are hounded on me."

To the great misfortune of Servetus it was at such a time as
this that he arrived in Geneva. His case became the subject of
dispute over which the two factions fought one of their bitterest
struggles ; and although Calvin had declared some years before
that if the Spaniard ever came to that city he should not escape

5z8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

with his life,* yet probably the relentless Reformer was now bent
on his destruction quite as much by a desire to defeat the opposite
party as by the personal hatred he had for Servetus.

The nominal prosecutor of Servetus was a creature of Calvin's
— a certain Nicolas de la Fontaine — who, in accordance with the
law, had not only to bind himself over to continue the suit to a
conclusion, but also to go to prison with the accused man, and, in
compliance with the requirements of the lex talionis, to engage,
in case his charges were not made good, to undergo the penalty
that would have fallen on the accused had they been established.

Thirty-eight articles of impeachment were advanced against
Servetus. One of these was that he had defamed Mr. Calvin and
the doctrine that he preached. To this Servetus replied that he
had had abusive language from Calvin, and that he had only
answered in the same terms. La Fontaine produced Ptolemy's
Geography, the annotated Bible, the Christianismi Eestitutio, and
certain MS. letters, and Servetus admitted that he was the author
of all. It having been considered now that sufficient evidence
had been furnished to warrant prosecution by the attorney-gen-
eral, the court relieved La Fontaine of all charge, damage, and
interest in the matter, and Servetus was committed for trial.

At the trial, passages from Ptolemy's Geography as to the
character of Palestine were adduced as proofs of the heretical
opinions of the prisoner, and when the latter added that the notes
contained nothing harmful, or that was not true, Calvin himself
warmly interposed. And writing afterward about the event, he
says : " When Servetus stood so plainly convicted of this his im-
piety he had nothing to allege in his vindication. The filthy cur,
laying aside all shame, asserted in one word that there was no
harm in it."

The annotations of the Pagnini Bible were produced again, and
Servetus was examined as to his method of interpreting pro-
phetical passages, and then the meaning of certain extracts from
the Christianismi Restitutio was inquired into, and a letter from
Servetus, written about six years before to Abel Pepin, a preacher
at Geneva, was put in. It contained two remarkable passages :
" It is perhaps far from agreeable to you that I should concern
myself with Michael's war in the Apocalypse, or that I should
desire to bring you into the strife. But do so much as consider
that passage narrowly, and you will soon perceive who the men
were to be who would engage in that quarrel, namely, such as
were resolved to expose their lives to death for the blood and the
testimony of Jesus Christ. . . . That I must die for the cause I
have espoused I certainly know ; but I am not at all cast down

* In a letter from Calvin to Farel, dated Ides of February, 1546. Now in Paris Library.

MICHAEL SERVETUS. 529

on that account, since by that I shall be a disciple made like to
his master."

Some days afterward Calvin came into court attended by all
the ministers of Geneva, and undertook to prove that the teach-
ing of the early fathers of the Church was opposed to that of
Servetus. After Calvin and the prisoner had had a long dispute
as to the meaning of the word persona, the court adjourned, but
before doing so the judges gave permission for Servetus to be
provided, at his own cost, with such books as he needed, which
could be obtained in Geneva or Lyons. Some paper and ink, with
which the prisoner was now for the first time furnished, enabled
him to send in a petition on the following day. In this he pointed
out that the prosecution, as a criminal, of a man on account of
the views he held on doctrine was contrary to the Scriptures and
to the ancient Church ; and he begged that, as he was a foreigner,
wholly unacquainted with the customs of the country, and of how
he should proceed, he might be allowed an advocate. But to this
very reasonable request, although subsequently repeated more
than once, the judges did not accede.

The Syndics and Council of Geneva now addressed a letter to
the authorities of Vienne, asking that the documents connected
with the trial of Michael Villeneuve might be sent to them ; and,
three days after, they received a letter saying that these docu-
ments could not be forwarded, but that, if the prisoner were
delivered over to them, the sentence already passed on him would
be carried into effect. Servetus was hereupon asked if he pre-
ferred remaining in the hands of the Council or to be sent back to
Vienne. Knowing full well that a cruel death most certainly
awaited him in France, and hoping that no such punishment was
in store for him here, he fell on his knees and besought the Coun-
cil to do what they would with him, but in no case to send him
back to Vienne.

The trial was accordingly continued.

Meanwhile, Servetus lay in one of the foul cells set apart for
criminals of the lowest class, and we find him writing in a peti-
tion, dated September 15th : " Calvin is resolved that I should rot
in a prison to please him. I am eaten up with lice. My hose are
worn to pieces and I have no change, nor another doublet, and
only one shirt, and that in tatters."

Another petition, dated a week later, ends with the words:
" Wherefore, my lords, I desire that my false accuser should be
punished pcena talionis, and confined to prison as I am, till he
or I be condemned to death or to some other punishment. I am
willing to die if he is not convicted both of this and other things
which I shall lay to his charge. I beg of you, my lords, to do me
justice. Justice, my lords, justice ! "

VOL. XLI. — 39

530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Finally, on October 10th, comes his last appeal : " It is now three
weeks since I desired to have a hearing, but could not obtain it.
I beseech you, for the love of Jesus Christ, not to deny me what
you would not deny a Turk, when I beg you to do me justice. I
have several things to tell you that are very important and neces-
sary. As to what you may have ordered to be done for me in the
way of cleanliness, I have to inform you that nothing has been
done, and that I am in a more miserable condition than ever. In
addition to which, I suffer terribly from the cold and from colic,
and my rupture, which causes me miseries of other kinds that I
should feel shame in writing about more particularly. It is very
cruel that I am neither allowed to speak nor to have my pressing
wants supplied. For the love of God, my lords, either in pity or
in duty, give some orders in my behalf."

During this time a letter was sent by the Council of Geneva to
the different Swiss churches, asking for an expression of opinion
on the case of Servetus. The answers came back in due course,
and the Spaniard was declared to be an intolerable monster of
impiety, and to have revived the wicked errors "with which
Satan did formerly disturb the Church." The Church of Zurich
was more vehement than the rest in exhorting the magistrates to
deal severely with him.

On the morning of October 27th, Servetus was summoned " to
learn the pleasure of my lords the Councilors and Justices of
Geneva," and before the porch of the Hotel de Yille he heard his
condemnation : " To be burned alive, along with thy books, printed
as well as written with thy hand, until thy body be reduced to
ashes. So shall thy days end, and thou be made an example tc
others who would do as thou hast done."

The sentence was immediately carried into execution. In a
few hours Calvin's most subtle disputant had forever ceased to
trouble him, and the world was the poorer by one loving, faithful
spirit. — The Gentleinan's Magazine.

The two main things required in anthropological study, said the Rev. Lorimer
Fison, sectional president in the Australasian Association, are a patient continu-
ance in collecting facts and the faculty of seeing in them what is seen by the
natives themselves. But the natural tendency to form a theory as soon as a fact
is seized, and looking at facts from the mental point of view of civilized man, may
lead investigators into fatal mistakes. The best way to gain information is to live
with the natives, learn their language, and get their confidence, or get information
from the men living among them. References to aborigines, their manners and
customs, in books might be collected and classified by many readers (as has been
done in Spencer's Descriptive Sociology), and thus facilitate investigation. The
speaker dwelt on the magnificent and all but untrodden field afforded by British
New Guinea and its outlying groups of islands.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 531

THE ROYAL SOCIETY; OR, SCIENTIFIC VISIONARIES
OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Br MAEY DAVIES STEELE.

DURING the English Commonwealth period two little com-
panies of natural philosophers were in the habit of meeting
for study and experiments — one in London, and the other at the
lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, warden of Wadhani College, Oxford.
At a later day these small clubs of virtuosi, as the scientists of
that age were called, were united, and the society held all its
sessions in London, at a tavern or private house ; and when finally
it attained such dimensions that a large room was necessary,
it established itself in the parlor of Gresham College. It was
originally called the Philosophic Assembly ; but when, soon after
the restoration of Charles II, Evelyn, in his dedicatory epistle,
prefixed to Naude's Treatise on Libraries, spoke of the Philosoph-
ic Assembly as the Royal Society, the name was immediately
adopted by the members, with a vote of thanks to him for sug-
gesting it. Charles was gratified, and declared himself their
founder, giving them, as Evelyn records, August 21, 1662, " the
armes of England, to be borne in a canton in our armes ; and sent
us a mace of silver gilt of the same fashion and bigness as those
carried before his Majesty, to be borne before our president on
meeting days/' Evelyn, besides writing several books, at the
request of the society, procured for it from the Howard family
the noble Arundelian Library, adding, on one of his birthdays, his
table of the lungs, liver, veins, and arteries ; the first chart of the
kind that was ever made. A rare print, designed by Evelyn,
probably as a frontispiece to Spratt's History of the Royal So-
ciety, and beautifully engraved by Hollar, represents Lord Bacon
as the founder of the society ; for, as Disraeli says, he " planned
the ideal institution in his philosophical romance of the New
Atlantis." The picture contains fine portraits of Charles II,
patron of the society; Lord Brouncker, its first president, and
Lord Bacon, its founder, inscribed Artium instaurator. The
library, statutes, journals, and mace of the Royal Society, and
numerous philosophical instruments are represented in the en-
graving.

One peculiarity of the association was that men of all nations,
religions, and professions were admitted to membership ; for, as
their historian, Bishop Spratt, said, they did not wish " to lay the
foundations of an English, Scotch, Irish, Popish, or Protestant
philosophy, but a philosophy of mankind." When the Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge desired to hold its meetings
in the Royal Society's rooms, Sir Isaac Newton made the follow-

532 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing protest against their admission : " It is a fundamental rule of
the society not to meddle with religion ; and the reason is that we
may give no occasion to religious bodies to meddle with us";
nor did the Fellows wish to " dissatisfy those of other religious
bodies" who did not share the views of the Christian Knowl-
edge Association. In the early days of the Philosophic Club,
when only a few intimate friends belonged to it, Robert Boyle, on
account of its smallness and lack of influence, often sportively
called it the Invisible College — a name which, when this learned
junto had become large and important, was recalled with terror
by the enemies of the association, whether Aristotelians or re-
ligious bigots, who alike considered " the new experimental phi-
losophy subversive of the Christian faith." The newly invented
telescope and microscope were regarded by others besides igno-
rant fanatics with hatred and dread, as " atheistical inventions
which perverted our sight, and made everything appear in a new
and false light."

The opponents of the Royal Society asserted that the principal
object that its supporters had in view was the extinction of uni-
versities, which were the strongholds of scholasticism and the-
ology. Yet this association was one of the chief interests in the
lives of many of the most devout and scholarly men of the seven-
teenth century. " Our holy religion " held the first place in their
hearts, though they considered the "new philosophy" second
in importance to Christianity. The imaginations and plans of
the society were magnificent, but they were never carried out.
The Fellows were fond of talking of their " universal correspond-
ence," which, in the near future, would keep their ten secretaries
— who, however, were never elected, though the constitution pro-
vided for them — hard at work ; and they loved to throw an air
of secrecy over their deliberations. These harmless vaunts and
concealments added to the panic which the virtuosi excited in
people who were ever dreading the establishment, openly or by
the treachery of the Jesuits, of popery and arbitrary power, and
led to the most unfounded suspicions and accusations.

One of the most injurious things said against the society was
that its members were of the school of the Italian Campanella,
who, it was claimed, wished to identify church and state through-
out the world, and bring all nations under the power of a single
tyrannical ruler, and to that end would divert men from theol-
ogy and politics by occupying them with experimental philoso-
phy. Campanella's universal king, as soon as by trickery or by
some unaccountable and unexplained means he had firmly seated
himself on his throne, would, it was asserted, carry out the dear-
est object of the philosopher, and substitute everywhere the an-
cient pagan philosophic for the modern Christian sects. Probably

THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 533

Campanella and the more intelligent F. R. S. would alike, instead
of advocating despotism in any shape, have asserted that if men
were allowed to experiment, analyze, dissect, and philosophize
" with the utmost freedom, the despotism of religion and politics
would dissolve away in the weakness of its quiescent state." The
truth is, the scholastics who opposed the experimental philosophy
considered novelty of speculation, without regard to character or
tendency, as heresy and treason. Perhaps Evelyn inadvertently
raised this specter of Campanellaism. Maude" — whose book on
libraries he translated for the Royal Society — was not only a
skeptic and an advocate of absolute monarchy, but he was a
warm friend and defender of Campanella, whose religious and
political views are not very clearly defined.

Spratt, in his History of the Royal Society, eulogized Charles
II for his interest in science ; but Stubbes, his opponent, perhaps
not wholly unmindful of the ignorant popular prejudice against
Campanella, retorted that the natural philosophers were likely to
demoralize the king (was anybody capable of that!), for "never
prince acquired the name of great and good by any knickknacks,
but by actions of political wisdom, courage, and justice."

It seems strange, when reading the literary and scientific his-
tory of the seventeenth century, to find Sir William Temple
among the scoffers at the virtuosi. Personal dislike of some of
the founders of the Royal Society was, no doubt, the reason in
part of his opposition to experimentalists. He fancied the Fel-
lows a " set of Sir Nicholas Gimcracks," and, with the wise men
of Gotham probably in his thoughts, " contemptuously called
them, from the place of their first meeting, ' men of Gresham.' "

In a letter to Cowley, urging the poet to write his poem in
praise of the society — an ode described by Macaulay as " weighty
in thought and resplendent in wit" — Evelyn indignantly ex-
claims : " There be those who aske, What have the Royal Society
done ? Where their colledge ? I neede not instruct you how to
answer or confound these persons, who are able to make even
these informe Blocks and Stones daunce into order, and charme
them into better sense. Or if their insolence presse, you are ca-
pable to shew how they [the F. R. S.] have layd solid foundations
to perfect all noble Arts, and reforme all imperfect sciences. It
requires an History to recite onely the Arts, the Inventions, and
Phaenomena already absolved, improved or opened. In a word,
our Registers have outdone Pliny, Porta, and Alexis, and all the
Experimentalists, nay, the great Verulam himself e, and have made
a nobler and more faithfull Collection of real seacrets, usefull
and instructive than has hitherto been shewn. Sir, we have a
Library, a Repository, and an assembly of as worthy and greate
Persons as the World has any ; and yet we are sometimes the

534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

subject of Satyr and the songs of Drunkards. We have a king
to our founder and yet want a Macaenas ; and above all a Spirit
like yours to raise up Benefactors and to compell them to thinke
the Designe of the Royall Society as worthy of their reguards and
as capable to embalme their names, as the most heroic enterprise,
or anything Antiquity has celebrated ; and I am even amaz'd at
the wretchednesse of this Age that acknowledges it no more.
But the Devil, who was ever an enemy to Truth and to such as
discover his praestigious effects, will never suffer the promotion
of a designe so destructive to his dominion, which is to fill the
world with imposture and keep it in Ignorance, without the ut-
most of his malice and contradiction. But you have numbers
and charms that can binde even these spirits of darkenesse, and
render their instruments obsequious ; and we know you have a
divine Hyme for us ; the luster of the Royall Society calls for an
Ode from the best of Poets upon the noblest Argument. To con-
clude, you have a field to celebrate the Greate and the Good, who
either do or should favour the most august and worthy designe
that ever was set on foot in the world ; and those who are our
real Patrons and Friends you can eternize, those who are not you
can conciliate and inspire to do gallant things."

Evelyn's indignant defense of his beloved association is not
surprising when we read the abuse the F. R. S. received from
some of the most talented writers of the seventeenth century.
The witty Dr. South said that the members of the Royal Society
" could admire nothing but fleas, lice, and themselves." Hobbes,
the philosopher of Malmesbury, considered them so many labor-
ers, apothecaries, gardeners, and mechanics, who " might now all
put in for and get the prize." Cross, Vicar of Chew, wrote ribald
pamphlets and ballads, which he got sung about the streets,
against the new philosophy. Stubbes, a man of perverted gen-
ius, accused the F. R. S. of atheism and treason, and they greatly
feared his formidable series of attacks. Dr. King burlesqued
their published volumes of Transactions, and ridiculed alike their
grammar, style, and the inventions and discoveries they de-
scribed. Wotton, who was a less sensitive F. R. S. than Evelyn,
treats King, in his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learn-
ing, with " great good humor." He says : " A man is got but a
very little way [in philosophy] that is concerned as often as such
a merry gentleman as Dr. King shall think fit to make himself
sport." Sir John Hill published a quarto volume of satire in the
form in which the Transactions of the society were issued, and
other books against the Fellows. But he did them good, for his
parodies and ridicule taught them to be more cautious in the se-
lection of papers for their printed reports.

In his preface to his Sylva the usually amiable Evelyn scolds at

THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 535

a rate we should have thought impossible to him, at " the ignorant
and comical buffoons who, with an insolence suitable to their un-
derstanding, are still [as he repeats] crying out, ' What have the
society done ? ' " And he prophesies that the society " will sur-
vive the triumphs of the proudest conquerors; since when all
their pomp and noise is ended, they [the F. R. S.] are those little
things in black, whom now in scorn they term philosophers and
fops, to whom they must be obliged for making their names out-
last the pyramids, whose founders are as unknown as the heads
of the Nile."

Unfortunately, though Evelyn's claim for the society was sub-
stantially correct, the virtuosi laid themselves open to ridicule by
their many trifling, useless, and ludicrous questions, researches,
and experiments, and much of their labor was wasted, and its
results are now forgotten. The great Mr. Boyle is represented as
mortified by the absurd investigations of trivial subjects in which
some of his colleagues engaged, and as on one occasion tendering
to a friend, with blushing and confusion at the simplicity of the
society, their paper "giving instructions for inquiries." That
" pleasant rascal," the witty Charles II, whom Evelyn could
hardly have numbered among the scorners whom he described as
" magnificent fops, whose talents reach but to the adjusting of
their perukes," set the example of making fun of the Fellows on
the very day that he constituted them a society. He dined with
them on this occasion, as he did afterward; when he was not
present they feasted on venison sent them by his Majesty. Toward
the close of this first meeting, after expressing his satisfaction at
being the only King of England who had founded a scientific
society, he added, with that " peculiar gravity of countenance "
which he assumed when preparing to mystify or hoax his com-
panions with some witty but apparently grave and sincere remark
or question, that he had no doubt the learned men before him
could solve a problem that had long puzzled him. This was the
question : Suppose two pails of water of the same weight were
placed in two different but equally balanced scales, and that two
live bream were put in either of the pails, why would not the
pail to which the fish were added weigh more than the one to
which no addition had been made ? The Fellows were eager to
satisfy the king's curiosity ; but everybody gave a different an-
swer. " One at length offered so ridiculous a solution that another
of the members could not refrain from a loud laugh ; when the
king, turning to him, insisted that he should give his sentiments
as well as the rest. This he did without hesitation, and told his
Majesty, in plain terms, that he denied the fact ! On which the
king in high mirth exclaimed : ' Odds fish, brother, you are in the
right.' The jest was not ill designed. The story was often use-

536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ful to cool the enthusiasm of the scientific visionary, who is apt
often to account for what never has existed."

The king could, however, discuss soberly the topics beloved by
the F. R. S., who had many a long scientific talk with him. He
tried experiments himself, and Pepys speaks of going down at
Whitehall " into the king's little elaboratory under his closet ; a
pretty place ; and there saw a great many chymical glasses and
things but understood none of them." Pepys was accompanied
by his fellow-members, Lord Brouncker and Sir R. Murray. Un-
der date of May 3, 1G61, Evelyn writes : " This evening I was with
my Lord Brouncker, Sir Robert Murray, Sir Pa. Neill, Monsieur
Zulichem, and Mr. Bull (all of them of our society and excellent
mathematicians) to show his Majesty, who was present, Saturn's
annulus very neere eclipsed by the moon ; also Jupiter and sate-
lites, thro' his Majesty's great telescope, drawing 35 foote; on
which were divers discourses." Another day Evelyn accompanied
Charles "to Mons. Febure, his chymist (and who had formerly
been my master in Paris), to see his accurate preparation for the
composing Sir Walter Raleigh's rare cordial ; he made a learned
discourse before his Majesty in French on each ingredient."
Another scientist of high rank was Prince Rupert, who with his
own hands (which the jeering courtiers said too often bore the
stains of the laboratory) taught Evelyn to engrave mezzotinto,
and whom Evelyn introduced to the Royal Society, where, in spite
of smoke-begrimed linen and fingers stained with acids, the sol-
dier chemist was warmly welcomed as an agreeable companion
and scientific brother. The well-known " Prince Rupert's drops "
may be numbered among the scientific toys invented in this age.

Pepys gives an amusing account of an encounter between
Charles II and the celebrated scholar, wit, and inventor, Sir
William Petty. " Thence to Whitehall," he says, " where in the
duke's chamber the king come and stay'd an hour or two, laugh-
ing at Sir William Petty, who was there about his boat (one of
his inventions) ; and at Gresham College in general ; at which
poor Petty was, I perceived, at some loss; but did argue dis-
cretely, and bear the unreasonable follies of the king's objec-
tions and other bystanders with great discretion, and offered to
take odds against the king's best boats ; but the king would not
lay, but cried him down with words only. Gresham College he
mightly laughed at for spending time only in weighing ayre and
doing nothing else since they sat.'\

Some time before this Evelyn wrote : " I went with that ex-
cellent person and philosopher, Sir Robert Murray, to visit Mr.
Boyle. At Chelsy I saw divers effects of the Eolipile for weigh-
ing aire!" Boyle was the discoverer of "the law of the air's
elasticity."

THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 537

Pepys, no doubt, while the king teased and jeered at Sir
William Petty, was indignantly recalling the society's many fine
experiments with colors, fire, loadstones, microscopes, the air-
pump, thermometer, liquors, musical sounds, vibrations of the
air, blood injected into a dog to prove Harvey's theory of circu-
lation, and "one that did turn a piece of roasted mutton into
pure blood, which was very rare " ; and another, when the blood
of a sheep was transfused into a man.

He would have liked to remind his Majesty of the plans for
planting the royal forests with oaks and other trees; abating
London smoke, and making artificial fuel, which had emanated
from the society ; of how they had promoted new physiological,
surgical, medical, botanical, chemical, physical, astronomical,
agricultural, horticultural, and sanitary methods and discover-
ies ; patronized art. literature, architecture, and mechanical in-
ventions, and were doing all in their power to tc disperse," as
Macaulay said of them, " the phantoms which had haunted the
world for ages, and destroy the belief in witchcraft, astrology,
and alchemy."

Yet, alas ! Charles might have retorted that many of their
leaders were either seeking the philosopher's stone and the elixir
of life, endeavoring to fly in the air, to collect the feathers of the
wing of a phoenix, or catch " the disjointed syllables of an old
doting astrologer." The contents of their museums were often
no more valuable than the toys in the baby-house, and amusing
rather than useful or really curious. Yet with these playthings
they expected to work wonders in science.

The distinguished Sir Samuel Morland, who was reputed to
have invented the steam-engine, the speaking-trumpet, drum cap-
stans for weighing heavy anchors, arithmetical wheels, quench-
fires, a new kind of harp, valuable bridges, a machine for throw-
ing water to a great height, and other useful things, prided
himself on his coach, which contained a kitchen with a fireplace,
pots, frying-pans, and a machine for roasting meat by clock-
work.

Evelyn visited Sir Samuel when the inventor was very old
and blind, and was shown his " invention of writing, which was
very ingenious ; also his wooden Kalender, which instructed him
all by feeling, and other pretty and useful inventions of mills,
pumps, etc. He has newly buried £200 worth of music-books
six feet under ground, being, as he said, love-songs, and vanity.
He plays himself psalms and religious hymns on the theorbo."
Sir Samuel believed in spells and witchcraft, and hesitated to
prosecute a lawsuit because he was firmly convinced that the
defendant had used, or was capable of using, charms to gain
the victory over him. One of the fantastic wonders of the

538 ' THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

age was the home of Winstanley, who built the first Eddystone
lighthouse. If you kicked aside an old shoe, flung purposely in
your way, " up started a ghost before you. If you sat down in a
certain chair, a couple of gigantic arms would immediately clasp
you in." The house was a perfect knickknackatory, as the peo-
ple of that day would have said. The instant you seated yourself
in an arbor built in the garden near a canal you " were sent out
afloat into the middle of the canal, whence you could not escape
till this man of art and science wound you up to the arbor."
Evelyn gives an interesting account of the singular inventions
of " that most obliging and universally curious " Bishop Wilkins,
whose lodgings at Oxford he visited when the bishop was warden
of Wadham College. Dr. Wilkins had contrived a talking statue,
which was hollow, and connected with a tube through which a
man a long distance off spoke the words which seemed to be
uttered by the figure. With the assistance of that " prodigious
young scholar, Mr. Christopher Wren," he had filled a gallery
above his lodgings with a variety of shadows, dials, perspectives,
and many other artificial, mathematical, and magical curiosities ;
a way-wiser, a thermometer, a monstrous magnet, conic and other
sections, a balance on a demi-circle, marble curiously colored by
Wren, and other scientific toys and instruments.

A favorite experiment in the seventeenth century was produc-
ing the apparition of a rose or other flower, and was called the
process of the Palingenesis. " Having burnt a flower, by calci-
nation, disengaged the salts from its ashes, deposited them in a
glass vial, a chemical mixture acted on it, till, in the fermenta-
tion, they assumed a bluish and a spectral hue. The dust, thus
excited by heat, shoots upwards into its primitive forms ; by sym-
pathy the parts unite, and while each is returning to its destined
place, we see distinctly the stalks, the leaves, and the flower
arise ; it is the pale spectre of a flower coming slowly forth from
its ashes. . . . This vegetable phoenix lies thus concealed in its
cold ashes till the presence of heat produces this resurrection."
When the ashes again cool it returns to death. " A corpse may
give out its shadowy re-animation when not too deeply buried in
the earth. Bodies corrupted in their graves have risen, particu-
larly the murdered ; for murderers are apt to bury their victims
in a slight and hasty manner." Another scientific theory, as well
as popular superstition, proved beyond peradventure by experi-
ment!

Some members of the society were " impatient for romantic

discoveries ; miracles were required, some were hinted at, while

, others were promised." Of these wonders, Glanville, a man of

acute and original intellect, who, though a firm believer in and

defender of witchcraft, was yet somewhat skeptical in scientific

THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 539

matters, wrote in his work on the progress of knowledge since
the days of Aristotle : " Should these heroes [the F. R. S.] go on
as they have happily "begun," he said, " they will fill the world
with wonders ; and posterity will find many things that are now
rumors verified into practical realities. It may be, some ages
hence, a voyage to the southern unknown tracts, yea, possibly, the
moon, will not be more strange than one to America. To them
that come after us, it may be as ordinary to "buy a pair of wings
to fly into remotest regions, as now a pair of boots to ride a jour-
ney ; and to confer at the distance of the Indies, by sympathetic
conveyances, may be as usual to future times, as to us in a liter-
ary correspondence. The restoration of grey hairs to juvenilty,
and renewing the exhausted marrow, may at length be effected
without a miracle ; and the turning the now comparative desert
world into a paradise, may not improbably be expected from late
agriculture. Those that judge from the narrowness of former
principles and successes will smile at these paradoxical expecta-
tions. Antiquity could not have believed the almost incredible
force of our cannons, and would have as coldly entertained the
wonders of the telescope." Disraeli smiles at these dreams at
the dawn of philosophy. "What would he have thought had
Glanville prophesied of steamships, railroads, telegraphs, sewing-
machines, telephones, and other inventions of the nineteenth
century, which were unknown in Disraeli's lifetime ?

Gold-making was a favorite pursuit in the seventeenth cent-
ury with our scientists. Sir Kenelm Digby's devotion to alche-
my, which he regarded as science, led him to lavish money on
impostors, and seek knowledge from very unlikely sources. He
once went in disguise to consult the philosopher Descartes, and,
hoping to obtain from him the secret of making durum potdbile,
complained that life was too short for the accomplishment of the
designs of a scientist. Descartes, though he did not give Digby
the recipe for the golden elixir, replied that he had considered
that matter ; " to render a man immortal was what he could not
promise, but that he was very sure it was possible to lengthen out
his life to the period of the patriarchs." Sir Kenelm's well-
known weapon, salve, or powder of sympathy, was recommended
by him as a valuable remedy, though it was, of course, the most
ridiculous quackery. " The wound was never to be brought into
contact with the powder, which was merely powdered vitriol.
A bandage was to be taken from the wound, immersed in the
powder, and kept there till the wound healed." He was a firm
believer in astrology, and attributed his happy marriage to the
beautiful and talented Yenetia Stanley, after a somewhat pro-
tracted courtship, to astrological influences. Digby gave Evelyn,
at Paris, in 1651, some water which he " intended for a disolvent

540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of calx of gold/' and which, though it smelled like aqua fortis,
and tasted like vitriol, he insisted was " only raine water of the
autumnal equinox exceedingly rectified, very volatile " ; an asser-
tion which led Evelyn to the conclusion that " Sir Kenelm was an
arrant mountebank." Some time afterward, mentioning Digby's
account of Lady Selenger's antipathy for roses, which he said she
had to that degree that " laying but a rose upon her cheek when
she was asleepe, it raised a blister," Evelyn remarks, " But Sir
Kenelm was a teller of strange things."

Yet Digby had in Evelyn a not incredulous listener. In the
winter of 1G52 there lived in Paris, in extraordinary splendor and
seeming wealth — the source of which was not apparent — an im-
postor, who nearly succeeded in selling Evelyn and his scientific
friends a pretended secret for multiplying gold; but they dis-
covered before the bargain was completed that the man was an
egregious cheat. Not long afterward Evelyn visited Mark An-
tonio, a celebrated artist in enameling, from whom he heard
strange tales concerning a Genoese jeweler, who, according to
Antonio, "had the greate Arcanum, and had made projection
before him severall times. He mett him at Cyprus travelling
into Egypt, on return from whence he died at sea, and the secret
with him, that else he had promised to leave it to him " — a legacy
which the enameler believed would have enabled him to manu-
facture gold. Mark Antonio also told a marvelous story about a
dwarfish person whom he saw come into a goldsmith's shop in
Amsterdam, and ask the master to melt him a pound of lead,
which, being done, the visitor threw into the crucible of molten
metal a pinch of powder that he carried in the hollow pommel of
his sword, and, after a few moments, pouring out a gold ingot
from the crucible, he carried it off, saying, as he left the shop,
" Sir, you will be paid for your lead in the crucible," where, sure
enough, the goldsmith found four ounces of good gold ; but he
could never hear of the little transmuter of metals again, though
he sought him throughout the city. " This," says Evelyn, who
had seen so many wonderful new inventions during his travels in
France and Italy, that he was in a continually expectant frame
of mind, and almost ready to believe that projection powder was
a scientific discovery — "this Antonio asserted with great obtesta-
tion, nor know I what to think of it, there are so many impostors
and people who love to tell strange stories as this artist did, who
had been a greate rover and spoke ten different languages." In
May, 1653, Evelyn mentions in his diary the death from apoplexy
of his "servant Hoare," meaning his private secretary, who
" wrote those exquite severall hands," his illness being, it was
supposed, caused by " tampering with mercury about an experi-
ment in gold." The same year he records the receipt from Mon-

THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 541

sieur Roupel of " a small phial of Aurum potabile, with a letter
showing the way of administering it and the stupendous cures it
had done at Paris." But the bottle was empty when Evelyn re-
ceived it, the potable gold having by some accident all run out.
A drop of liquid gold was regarded as a sovereign remedy for
every disease in France in the seventeenth century, as we may
learn from Moliere's Physician in Spite of Himself, and was called
the universal heal-all.

In June, 1705, Evelyn speaks of going to see Dr. Dickinson,
the famous chemist, and having a conversation with him about
the philosopher's elixir, which the doctor believed attainable,
having seen projection himself by "one Mundanus, who some-
times came among the adepts, but was unknown as to his country
and abode." •

Ashmole, of museum fame, though rather a theoretical than
practical alchemist, also had faith in potable gold as well as in
other superstitions. He writes in his diary, April 11, 1668: "I
took early in the morning a good dose of the elixir, and hung
three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague away."
He says that the alchemist, if he would succeed, must carry on
his labors in secret, and not let any one know of his undertak-
ings but his good angel and himself. Sir W. Petty told Pepys
that he had left in his will sums of money to be given as prizes to
persons who should make certain inventions, among others " to
him that could invent proper characters to express to another
the mixture of relishes and tastes. And says that to him that
invents gold he gives nothing for the philosopher's stone; for
(says he) they that find out that will be able to pay themselves ! "

The Fellows of the Royal Society were much interested in
anatomy, and sometimes witnessed dissections of men or animals.
Pepys writes, July 3, 1668 : " To an alehouse ; met Mr. Pierce, the
surgeon, and Dr. Clerke, Waldron, Turberville, my physician for
the eyes, and Lowre to dissect severall eyes of sheep and oxen,
with greate pleasure and to my greate information. But strange
that this Turberville should be so greate a man, and yet to this
day had seen no eyes dissected, or but once, but desired Dr. Lowre
to give him the opportunity to see him dissect some." Turber-
ville was a celebrated oculist, and was recommended to Pepys by
that illustrious philosopher, Mr. Boyle.

The Royal Society were in the habit of inviting distinguished
foreigners who visited London to attend their meetings. Evelyn
writes, August 30, 1680 : " I went to visite a French gentleman,
one Monsieur Chardine, who, having ben thrice in the East In-
dies, Persia, and other remote countries, came hither in our re-
turne ships from those parts, and it being reported that he was a
very curious and knowing man, I was desir'd by the R. Society

542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to salute him in their name, and to invite him to honour them
with his company. Sir Jo. Hoskins and Sir Christopher Wren ac-
companied me. . . . He was sorry he could not gratify the curi-
osity of the Society at present, his things not being yet out of the
ship, but would wait on them with them on his return from Paris,
whither he was going next day, but with intention to return sud-
denly and stay longer here, the persecution in France not suffer-
ing Protestants — and he was one — to be quiet." Chardine went
to the East in search of jewels and had become very rich. They
"found him at his lodgings in his Eastern habit, a very hand-
some person, extremely affable, a modest, well-bred man, not in-
clin'd to talke wonders. He seem'd about 36 years old." Char-
dine was the author of the excellent and well-known volume of
travels.

Frequently scientific parties visited the homes of English vir-
tuosi who had cabinets of scientific or historical curiosities or
inventions of their own to exhibit. Pepys mentions, May 1,
1665, meeting and joining Lord Brouncker, Sir Robert Murray,
" the heart and soul of the Royal Society " ; Dean Wilkins, and
Mr. Hooke, curator of the society, who were going by boat and
coach to dine with the inventor, Colonel Blount, and witness " the
trial of some experiment about making coaches easy/' After ad-
miring their host's "long spring coach" and dining with him,
the party went to Deptford, and "into Mr. Evelyn's (Sayes
Court), which is a most beautiful place. ... A lovely and noble
ground he hath indeed. And among other varieties a hive of
bees, so as being hived in glass, you may see the bees making
their honey and combs mighty pleasantly. ... It being dark
and late I stayed not; but Dean Wilkins and Mr. Hooke and
I walked to Redriffe; and noble discourse all day long did
please me."

The transparent apiary to which Pepys alludes was a present
from Dr. Wilkins, who invented it, to Evelyn. It was regarded
as so great a curiosity that Charles II made an excursion to Sayes
Court expressly to see it. Evelyn described the hive as built like
a castle or palace, adorned with little statues, dials, and vanes,
and so contrived that the honey could be removed without injur-
ing the bees. Evelyn was a scientific horticulturist, and his gar-
dens and orchards were the wonder and admiration of his con-
temporaries, one of whom described his grounds as a " garden ex-
quisite and most boscaresque, and as it were an exempler of his
book of forest trees " — the famous Sylva written for the Royal
Society at the request of the Admiralty Board. August 4, 1665,
Evelyn writes : " I call'd at Durdans, where I found Dr. Wilkins,
Sir William Petty, and Mr. Hooke, contriving chariots, war rig-
ging for ships, a wheele for one to run races in, and other

THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 543

mechanical inventions ; perhaps three such persons together were
not to be found elsewhere in Europe for parts and ingenuity/'
Petty made fame and fortune by his inventions. Evelyn writes
in 1G55 : " Came that renowned mathematician Mr. Oughtred to
see me, I sending my coach to bring him to Wotton, being now
very aged; Among other discourse he told me he thought water
to be the philosopher's first matter, and that he was well per-
swaded of the possibility of their elixir ; he believed the sun to be
a material fire, the moone a continent, as appears by the late sele-
nographers ; he had strong apprehensions of some extraordinary
event to happen in the following yeare, from the calculation of
coincidence with the diluvian period ; and added that it might
possibly be to convert the Jewes by our Saviour's visible appear-
ance or to judge the world." Such was the mixture of sense and
nonsense which occupied the minds of superior men in the seven-
teenth century !

September 10, 1676, Evelyn mentions dining with the first
astronomer royal, "Mr. Flamstead, the learned astrologer and
mathematician, whom his Majesty had established in the New
Observatorie in Greenwich Park furnished with the choicest in-
struments. An honest, sincere man."

Evelyn believed that diseased children had been healed by bap-
tism, and that there were other well-attested modern miracles, and
is careful to state that he planted the orchard at Sayes Court in
the full of the moon ; yet he was less credulous than many of his
learned colleagues. In 1670 "a plaine, ordinary, silent working
wench," whose arm three different times in July was powdered
with red crosses arranged in a diamond-shaped figure, was brought
to Sayes Court by friends who regarded this poor girl's malady
as the result of a miracle, and wished the opinion on the case of
an P. R. S. Evelyn was reminded of the " impostorious nunns "
of Loudune, France, whom he had seen, and remembered that M.
Monconys " was by no means satisfied with the stigmata of those
nunns because they were so shy of letting him scrape the letters,
which were Jesu, Maria, Joseph, as I thinke, observing they began
to scale off with it, whereas this poor wench was willing to sub-
mit to any trial ; so that I profess I know not what to think of
it, nor dare I pronounce it anything supernatural." " Curing by
the touch," animal magnetism, or hypnotism, was not unknown in
London in the seventeenth century, and " Gretrex and Stroaker "
is mentioned in the Transactions of the Royal Society.

The members of the Royal Society considered themselves " in-
tolerable losers " when prevented from attending the profitable
and desirable meetings at Gresham College. " I now and then,"
one complains, " get a baite at Philosophy ; but it is so little and
jejune, as I despair of satisfaction 'till I am againe restor'd to the

544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

society, where even your very fragments are enough to enrich
any man that has the honour to approach you." He calls heaven
the Royal Society above, " where those whose refined and excel-
lent natures make them capable of the sublimest mysteries, and
aspire after experimental knowledge, truly so called, shall be
fiird ; and there without danger taste of the fruit of the tree
which cost our unhappy parents so dear, shall meet with no pro-
hibition of what is desirable, no serpent to deceive, none to be
deceived."

Many of the members of the Royal Society, while distinguished
for their patient industry, could not philosophize on the facts
they had collected, and their grammar and literary style were
open to criticism. Their published works were consequently ridi-
culed by their ever- watchful opponents. One chief victim of the
wits was Sir Hans Sloane, noted, like Ashmole, for his museum.
The brilliant Dr. King produced a parody or travesty on Sloane's
valuable history of Jamaica (quoting verbatim his bulls and blun-
ders), which is " one of the severest and merriest satires that was
ever written in prose." Yet we find the society, as early as 1665,
appointing a committee to consider the improvement of the Eng-
lish language. And in Evelyn's correspondence appears a long
letter addressed to Sir Peter Wyche, Knt., chairman of the com-
mittee, in which he says that they ought to prepare manuals of
grammar, orthography, and punctuation, and a lexicon of current,
obsolete, and technical words. Out of this grew a project for the
establishment of an institution similar to the French Academy.
"And, indeed," writes Evelyn to Pepys, in 1689, "such was once
designed since the Restauration of Charles II (1665), and in order
to it three or four meetings were begun at Gray's Inn by Mr.
Cowley, Dr. Spratt, Mr. Waller, the Duke of Buckingham, Matt
Clifford, Mr. Dryden, and some other promoters of it. But by
the death of the incomparable Mr. Cowley, distance and incon-
venience of the place, the contagion and other circumstances in-
tervening, it crumbled away and came to nothing ; what straw I
had gathered towards the bricks of that intended pyramid (hav-
ing the honor to be admitted an inferior laborer) you may com-
mand and dispose of, if you can suffer my impertinences ; and that
which I have not shew'd you, the plan I drew and was laying
before them for that designe, which was, I say'd, the polishing of
the English tongue, and to be one of the first intentions and chief-
est subjects of the Academists."

The mental act of associating colors with words, etc., was observed in 1848
by Thoreau, who wrote to Emerson that his Ellen said that she could tell the
color of a great many words, and amused the children at school by so doing.

SKETCH OF JOHN COUCH ADAMS. 545

SKETCH OF JOHN COUCH ADAMS.

ONE of the most striking illustrations of the value and range
of man's reasoning faculty is afforded by the substantially
simultaneous calculation, on a purely mathematical basis, of the
elements of the then unseen and unknown planet Neptune, and
the prediction of the place in the sky where it would be found
on a given day, by the Englishman Adams and the Frenchman
Leverrier. While Leverrier succeeded in first attracting public
attention to his work, Adams anticipated him in beginning the
calculation and in bringing it to a satisfactory result.

Prof. J. W. S. Glaisher treats Adams's first paper, by means of
which the new planet might have been discovered, as furnishing
the final and inexorable proof of Newton's law of gravitation;
and the day when it was taken to Greenwich — October '21, 1845 —
as therefore marking a distinct epoch in the history of gravita-
tional astronomy.

John Couch Adams was born at Lancast, seven miles west of
Launceston, Cornwall, England, June 5, 1819, and died at the
observatory in Cambridge, January 21, 1892. His father was a
tenant farmer ; his mother had a small landed estate of her own,
and had inherited her uncle's library, in which were a few books
on astronomy. He was interested in these books, and made rapid
progress at the village school, and was learning algebra before he
was twelve years old, at which age he went to a private school at
Devonport, where he had Mr. Grylls, a cousin of his mother's, as
his teacher. While he studied, as usual, the classics and mathe-
matics, astronomy was his favorite branch, and he was mak-
ing notes and drawing maps of the constellations when fourteen
years old ; he read eagerly all the astronomical books he could
find, and soon became interested, by the perusal of Vince's Flux-
ions, in the higher mathematics. In 1837 it was contemplated to
send him to the University of Cambridge ; in October, 1839, he
entered St. John's College of that university. During his under-
graduate career, according to Prof. J. W. L. Glaisher, he was inva-
riably the first man of his year in the college examinations. In
1843 he was graduated as senior wrangler, being also first Smith's
prize-man. The occurrence of a small constellation of mathemat-
ical senior wranglers at Cambridge about this time is noted in
one of the biographies of Adams, viz. : Stokes in 1841, Cayley in
1842, and Adams in 1843 — all three of whom have since been pro-
fessors, and famous. Adams was elected a Fellow of his college
on the year of his graduation, and continued in that relation till
1852, when, he not having taken holy orders, his fellowship ex-

TOL. XLI. 40

546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

pired. In the next year he was elected to a fellowship in Pem-
broke College.

It was while still an undergraduate that Adams began the
investigation of the irregularities of Uranus, that culminated in
the discovery of the new, remote planet Neptune. The possibility
of the existence of such a planet, acting upon the motions of
Uranus, had been suggested by Bouvard in 1821. Mr. Adams's
attention was drawn to the subject, according to Prof. Glaisher,
by reading Airy's report upon recent progress in astronomy in
the British Association volume for 1832-33. On July 3, 1841,
at the beginning of his second long vacation, when he was in his
twenty-third year, he made the memorandum, " Formed a design
at the beginning of this week of investigating, as soon as possible
after taking my degree, the irregularities in the motion of Ura-
nus which are yet unaccounted for ; in order to find whether they
may be attributed to the action of an undiscovered planet be-
yond it; and, if possible, thence to determine the elements of
its orbit, etc., approximately, which would probably lead to its
discovery."

Prof. Glaisher further relates the history of the calculations :
" In 1843, the year in which he took his degree, he attempted a
first rough solution of the problem, on the assumption that the
orbit was a circle with a radius equal to twice the mean distance
of Uranus from the sun. The result showed that a good general
agreement between theory and observation might be obtained.
In order to make the data employed more complete, application
was made, through Prof. Challis, to the astronomer royal, for
the results of the Greenwich observations of Uranus. When they
were obtained, Adams undertook a new solution of the problem,
taking into account the most important terms depending on the
first power of the eccentricity of the orbit of the supposed dis-
turbing planet, but retaining the same assumption as before with
respect to the mean distance. In September, 1845, he communi-
cated to Prof. Challis the values which he had obtained for the
mass, heliocentric longitude, and elements of the orbit of the
assumed planet. The same results, slightly corrected, he took
with him to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, on October 21,
1845. The paper which he left at the observatory on this occa-
sion also contained a list of the residual errors of the mean longi-
tude of Uranus, after taking account of the disturbing effect of the
new planet, at dates extending from 1690 to 1840." Prof. Challis
began the search for the planet on July 29, 1846, three weeks be-
fore it was in opposition, and continued the observations for two
months. His plan was to sweep a zone covering the computed
place of the body, and extending over 30° of longitude and 10° of
latitude. et For the first few nights the telescope was directed to

SKETCH OF JOHN COUCH ADAMS. 547

that part of the zone in the immediate neighborhood of the place
indicated by theory. Unfortunately, the observations were not
immediately compared with each other, or Prof. Challis would
have discovered, what he afterward found to be the case, that he
had actually seen the planet on August 4th and August 12th, the
third and fourth nights of observation. ... On September 3, 1846,
Adams communicated to the astronomer royal a new solution of
the problem, supposing the mean distance of the planet as origi-
nally assumed, to be diminished by about the thirtieth part. The
result of this change was to produce a better agreement between
the theory and the later observations, and to give a smaller and
therefore a more probable value of the eccentricity."

Leverrier's first paper relative to the subject was presented to
the French Academy on November 10, 1845, and concerned the
perturbations of Uranus produced by Jupiter and Saturn ; but in
it he also pointed to irregularities which could not be accounted
for by the existing theory. In his second paper, June 1, 1846, he
expressed the conclusion that the unexplained irregularities were
due to an undiscovered planet exterior to Uranus. He calculated
the longitude, but did not give the elements of the orbit of the
disturbing planet. The place assigned by him to the supposed
body differed by only one degree from that given by Adams in
the paper which he had left at the Greenwich Observatory seven
months earlier.

"Adams's researches," says Prof. Glaisher, " therefore preceded
Leverrier's by a considerable interval ; and in spite of the delay in
carrying out the search, it had been carried on at Cambridge
for nearly two months before the planet was found at Berlin.
Adams's investigation may be regarded as having been completed
on October 21, 1845, when he left his paper at the Royal Observa-
tory. This was three weeks before Leverrier's memoir, showing
that the irregularities could not be attributed to any of the known
planets, was presented to the French Academy, and more than
seven months before the presentation of Leverrier's second mem-
oir. It is to be noticed that in this second memoir Leverrier did
not give the elements of the orbit or the mass of the planet, which
were contained in Adams's paper of October 21st."

A bitter controversy ensued over the question of priority in
discovery, in which Mr. Adams took no part. He felt and ex-
pressed a warm appreciation for Leverrier ; met him with great
pleasure at Oxford in 1847 ; and was visited by him in the same
year at Cambridge. A story was told of him for the first time by
Dr. Donald MacAlister at the commemorative meeting at St.
John's College, February 20, 1892, to the effect that several years
ago, when a memorial volume was prepared to be presented to M.
Pasteur as a testimonial of the appreciation of English men of

548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

science for his labors, Prof. Adams subscribed bis name, writing
beneath it the motto, " Hommage au compatriote de Leverrier."

The small number and volume of Prof. Adams's publications,
after his calculations for the planet Neptune, have been remarked
upon. He was, however, an industrious worker, calculating in
every quarter of the mathematical field and in mathematical as-
tronomy, and is said to have left a large mass of manuscript
work, much of which is expected to prove valuable. The Adams
prize, of about four hundred dollars a year, to be awarded every
two years to the author of the best essay on some subject of pure
mathematics, astronomy, or other branch of natural philosophy,
was instituted by members of St. John's College soon after the
discovery of Neptune, as a testimonial to the honor conferred on
the college and the university by the investigation. In 1848 Mr.
Adams began the determination of the constants in Gauss's theory
of terrestrial magnetism. He resumed the work and was occupied
with it in the later years of his life, but had not completed it at
the time of his death. In 1852, having been elected in the previous
year President of the Royal Astronomical Society for two years,
he communicated to the society new tables of the moon's parallax,
to be substituted for those of Burckhart. These tables were
printed in the appendix to the Nautical Almanac for 1856.

His memoir explaining the secular variation of the moon's
mean motion was communicated to the Royal Society in 1853.
The problem baffled solution. The French Academy had at dif-
ferent times given prizes for explanations to Euler and Lagrange,
but neither of these mathematicians had been able to discover
any secular term ; and Euler, considering it established that such
a term could not be produced by the principles of gravitation, had
recourse to the supposition of a resisting medium. Laplace an-
nounced in 1787, as the true cause of the phenomenon, the gradual
diminution in the mean action of the sun produced by the secular
variation of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. Theories were
also proposed by Damoiseau and Plana, agreeing in principle
with Laplace's, but differing slightly in the numerical values as-
signed to the acceleration. Adams found that Laplace's explana-
tion of the phenomena was essentially incomplete, and suggested
corrections to all the theories. Some controversy ensued, at the
end of which Prof. Adams was sustained. A calculation of the
same problem, made by Prof. Airy in 1880, was also corrected by
Prof. Adams.

Mr. Adams was appointed, in the fall of 1858, Professor of
Mathematics in the University of St. Andrews, where he con-
tinued his lectures till the end of the session, in May, 1859 ; and
late in 1858 he was made Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and
Geometry at Cambridge. He held the last position till his death.

SKETCH OF JOHN COUCH ADAMS. 549

A part of his work in it was to lecture during one term in each
year, generally on the lunar theory, but sometimes on the theory
of Jupiter's satellites or the figure of the earth.

In 18G7 he published an account of the results he had obtained
with respect to the orbit of the November meteors, in the investi-
gation of which he had co-operated with Prof. H. A. Newton, using
the data and observations furnished by him. These calculations
took notice of all the perceptible effects produced by the planets,
and established the correctness of the period of thirty-three and a
quarter years for the revolution of the meteoric body. In order
to obtain a sufficient degree of approximation, it was necessary to
break up the orbit of the meteors into several different parts,
for each of which separate calculations had to be made. Prof.
Adams afterward subdivided certain parts of the orbit of the
meteors into still smaller portions, with a view of obtaining a
closer approximation. The calculations on this subject have not
been published, but they exist among his papers, and seem to be
fairly complete.

A paper communicated to the Astronomical Society, in No-
vember, 1877, embodied a review of a memoir by Mr. G. W. Hill,
of Washington, on the part of the motion of the moon's perigee,
which is a function of the mean motions of the sun and moon.
This paper is pronounced by Prof. Glaisher peculiarly interest-
ing, because in it the author expresses his own views with respect
to the mathematical treatment of the theory of the moon's mo-
tion. He seems to have preferred to treat the subject by its
special problems ; while he had great admiration for Delaunay's
general theory.

Prof. Adams also paid much attention to pure mathematics,
and treated many abstruse problems in a highly technical man-
ner, in papers the very titles of which are an unknown language
to all but accomplished mathematicians.

A large mass of papers which Sir Isaac Newton had left at his
death, having been left to the University of Cambridge by Lord
Portsmouth, it became Prof. Adams's task to arrange and cata-
logue the mathematical part of the collection. The work lasted
many years, but proved very interesting to Prof. Adams, by cast-
ing light on the methods by which Newton had worked out his
results.

On the resignation by Prof. Challis of the directorship of the
observatory at Cambridge in 1861, Prof. Adams was appointed to
succeed him, while he still continued in the Lowndean professor-
ship. In 1870 the observatory began to co-operate in the scheme
of the Astronomisclie Gesellschaft for the observation of all the
fixed stars in the northern hemisphere down to the ninth magni-
tude, the observations being put under the charge of the first

550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

assistant, Mr. Graham. The zone assigned to the observatory
was that between 25° and 30° of north declination. As related to
this work, Prof. Adams gave, in an appendix to one of the vol-
umes of the Cambridge Observations, the formulae and instruc-
tions which he had drawn up many years before for the forma-
tion of a proposed new fundamental catalogue, together with the
mean places of the eighty-four fundamental stars from 1830 to
1870.

Prof. Adams was President of the Royal Astronomical Society
in 1851-1853, and in 1874-1876, and had the honor of delivering the
addresses in presenting the gold medal to Dr. Peters, Dr. Hind,
D'Arrest, and Leverrier. In 1870, as vice-president, he delivered
the address on the presentation of the medal to Delaunay. He
himself received the medal in 1866 for his contributions to the
development of the lunar theory. He received the Copley medal
of the Royal Society in 1848. In 1881 he declined an offer of the
position of astronomer royal. In 1884 he was one of the British
delegates to the International Prime Meridian Conference, which
met in Washington. He received honorary degrees from Oxford,
Dublin, Edinburgh, the University of Bologna, and his own uni-
versity ; and he was a correspondent of numerous foreign learned
societies.

Among his peculiar tastes in work Prof. Glaisher mentions
the enjoyment he took in making calculations that called for long
lines of figures, as illustrated in his calculation of Euler's constant
to 263, and of some logarithms to 273, places of decimals. Few of
his papers were produced spontaneously. In the majority of cases
he was induced to give an account of some investigation of his
own by the publication of a paper by some one else in which the
same subject was treated. He was able to map out beforehand in
his head the whole course of an investigation ; and he rarely be-
gan to write till he had carefully thought out his subject, when he
wrote straight on without interruption.

While astronomy and mathematics were his professed studies,
he was interested in other branches of knowledge, was a man of
most extensive general reading, was much attracted to special
pursuits, and made a valuable collection of early printed books.
His moral and intellectual qualities were well balanced.

Prof. Adams was attacked by a severe illness in October, 1889,
but recovered and continued his mathematical work for several
months. He was again attacked in June, 1890, by an illness from
which he never fully recovered.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

55*

EDITOR'S TABLE.

PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY.
TTTE note with great pleasure the
VV issue by Messrs. Houghton, Mif-
flin & Co., of Boston, under the title of
The New World, of a theological peri-
odical which seems to us to be designed
on truly progressive lines — to be, that is
to say, rather an organ for the discov-
ery of truth on all matters connected
with theological belief than for the prop-
agation or defense of the views of any
particular theological school. The maga-
zine is under the editorial management
of Messrs. 0. C. Everett, 0. H. Toy,
Orello Cone, and N. P. Gilman, names
which of themselves vouch for the broad
and liberal spirit in which the new en-
terprise is conceived, and for the scholar-
ship which will be placed at its service.
These gentlemen, in an editorial note,
state that they " have no distrust of the
scientific temper which, in many spheres
of investigation, has accomplished such
great results, or of the critical spirit
which has led the way to a better un-
derstanding of every literature to which
it has been applied." The number be-
fore us contains articles by Lyman Ab-
bott, C. C. Everett, J. G. Schurman, W.
R. Alger, C. H. Toy, J. Estlin Carpenter,
Thomas R. Slicer, Edward H. Hall, and
Charles B. Upton, as well as book-re-
views by various hands. In all we note
a liberal spirit worthy of this new de-
parture in theological literature. Here
and there, perhaps, there is a little lack
of scientific exactness, as where Dr. Ly-
man Abbott professes to discover the
" evolution of Christianity " in the fact
that, while Jesus succeeded in feeding
" five thousand men, besides women and
children, seated in serried ranks on the
ground," in our own day, " an organized
benefaction, through the consecrated
channels of commerce, so distributes to
the needs of man that, in a truly Chris-

tian community, a famine is well-nigh
impossible." Other articles, however,
furnish a guarantee that, within the new
review itself, such weak and, we must
say, delusive analogies will not pass un-
challenged. For example, in discussing
The New Orthodoxy, Mr. Edward H.
Hall deals in a very thorough-going
manner with the evasions of what may
be called the pseudo-liberal school —
those who welcome criticism so long as
it is not " destructive " : as if the func-
tion of criticism were never to destroy
— and who, in a general way, take back
with one hand what they seem to give
with the other. Mr. Hall might be fully
trusted to point out to Dr. Abbott that,
if the feeding of the multitude by Jesus
was a mere matter of commissariat, the
vaster distributions of to-day point to an
evolution in social organization, not to
an evolution of Christianity ; while if the
multitude were fed by a miracle, as the
Christian world has hitherto believed,
what we see to-day has no relation to
it whatever. Mr. Hall contends, and
rightly, that if the aid of criticism is to
be invoked at all, it is vain to attempt
to circumscribe its action. " Whoever,"
he says, " invokes the name of Science,
invokes a great name. He calls to his
aid a master, not a servant. Science
has its own domain and, in that domain,
its own laws and its own rights. It can
not be dictated to ; it dictates. It suf-
fers no one to assign its limits, but goes
wherever there is work for it to do.
Wherever there is question of evidence,
argument, testimony, or proof, there the
scientific method belongs; and, once ad-
mitted, it must be given full play."
These are brave words, and, if The New
World shall present a selection of arti-
cles written in frank acceptance of these
principles, it will deserve well of all
lovers of the truth, even though some of

552

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

its writers may cling to less defensible
positions. There is a great work for
our new contemporary to do in freeing
the religious sentiment from delusions
which only serve to check its free ex-
pansion and development. Many now
think that, in some mysterious manner,
they ingratiate themselves with higher
powers by disparaging and abusing their
reasoning faculty ; but The New World,
if we do not mistake its mission, is pre-
pared to teach a different lesson — name-
ly, that the fullest development and
greatest activity of the reasoning faculty
are absolutely essential to the highest
religious life. When man is a free being
in the largest sense of the word, and has
reconciled himself, once for all, to the
conception of all-pervading law, his re-
ligious nature may then reach out for
its own satisfactions, not only without
dread of aught which it may be in the
power of Science to reveal, but with a
glad confidence that all further discov-
eries can only tend to a deepening of
that spirit of reverence and self -rever-
ence in which religion essentially con-
sists. Science at last is coming into its
own in this world in which its mission
has so often been ignored or misunder-
stood, and in which the labors and sac-
rifices of its votaries have so often been
repaid with persecution and reproach.
The New World is a hopeful sign of the
times, and we bespeak for it a liberal
support from those who believe that, in
religion as in science, there are better
things in store for us than the world has
yet seen.

COMMON SENSE WANTED.

Evket day some new law is passed
somewhere or other to protect people
against the results of their own igno-
rance and folly ; but it is comparatively
seldom that we hear of any proposition
of a serious or comprehensive kind to
do away with the ignorance and folly
which render, or seem to render, so
many laws necessary. Popular educa-

tion is believed by some to be doing this
work about as fast as it can be done ;
but this we hold to be a serious error.
There never was a time, we believe,
when so many people were trading on
the thoughtlessness and credulity of the
masses as at present. The Post-Office
Department spends a considerable per-
centage of the energy which it should
devote to perfecting the mail service of
the country in unsuccessful efforts to pre-
vent the mails from being used to pro-
mote fraudulent schemes. The result,
doubtless, is to more or less embarrass
some swindling businesses ; but as fast as
one is suppressed another takes its place,
and some that seem to have been sup-
pressed have only changed their name
and perhaps their base of operations.
But, in addition to schemes that are un-
mistakably fraudulent, there are hun-
dreds of at least dubious character that
spread their nets in the advertising (some-
times even in the editorial) columns of
the press. No offer is too grossly ex-
travagant to captivate and delude some
persons who might be supposed able to
take care of themselves in an ordinary
business transaction. We have known
a man who could write a fair business
letter send a dollar in response to an ad-
vertisement which stated that, for that
sum, the advertiser would send a com-
plete set of parlor furniture in black
walnut and crimson plush to any ad-
dress, carriage paid. This intelligent
gentleman was very angry because, in
return for his dollar, he got a few toy
articles made of chips and rags and in-
closed in a pasteboard box about six
inches long by three broad, the whole
thing weighing only a few ounces. The
protests which he addressed, as we are
informed, to the postal authorities were
conceived in a fine tone of moral indig-
nation, though the only part which the
post-office had taken in the matter had
been to convey to him a most harmless
consignment of goods. So far as we
could learn, it never occurred to him to
pronounce himself an ass of high degree,

LITERARY NOTICES.

553

and not only an ass but an actual aider
and abettor of fraud, seeing tbat it is
just tbe silly persons who expect to get
something for nothing who keep the army
of cheats in provender.

This idea of getting something for
nothing is indeed the main-stay and sup-
port of far the larger part of the fraud
that exists in the world ; and the first
lesson in practical wisdom is to learn
that the thing is impossible, and that
nobody professes to give something for
nothing, or large value in exchange for
small value, except for some selfish and
dishonest purpose. "We have discussed
the subject before in these columns, and
again we ask, Why could not a special
effort be made in our educational insti-
tutions, not merely to put the young on
their guard against being deceived, but
to call forth their contempt for all the
dishonest and semi-dishonest devices
which now exercise so great an attrac-
tion over the masses? "Why should not
the lesson be taught with iteration that
the best way to get what we want is to
give an honest equivalent for it, and that
if this principle were more generally
recognized everybody would get better
value for his money or his labor than is
now the case ? The promoters of fraud-
ulent enterprises are mere social para-
sites ; they give no value, or at least no
decent value, for the money they rake in,
and the real workers of society have to
tax themselves that these men may flour-
ish. As to the word-making, text-find-
ing, bean-guessing plans and devices
which are so freely advertised, they
ought to be beneath the contempt of all
but the very weakest intellects in the
community ; yet how many people who
can not be placed in that category take
more or less interest in such things!
" With all thy gettings," said one of
old, "get understanding." Doubtless he
meant common sense ; and, if he spoke
at all in the spirit of prophecy, he prob-
ably foresaw the time when, under a
state-stimulated system of education,
the intellectual gettings of people would

be greatly increased in number, and yet
common sense be very frequently left
out.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Social Statics, abridged and revised ; to-
gether with The Man versus The State.
By Herbert Spencer. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 420. Price, $2.

Social Statics was Mr. Spencer's first
book. As originally issued, in 1850, it bore the
title Social Statics : or, the Conditions essential
to Human Happiness specified, and the First
of them developed. It was put forth as, in
the words of the author, " a system of politi-
cal ethics — absolute political ethics, or that
which ought to be, as distinguished from
relative political ethics, or that which is at
present the nearest practicable approach to
it." Mr. Spencer affirms at the outset that,
living as they do in the social state, men can
attain the greatest happiness only by seek-
ing it indirectly. He then reasons out as a
first principle controlling the pursuit of hap-
piness that " every man has freedom to do
all that he wills, provided he infringes not
the equal freedom of any other man." Ap-
plications of this first principle constituted
the rest of the original volume. Many of
these applications, in a matured and com-
pleted form, have been comprised in the
division of Mr. Spencer's Synthetic Philos-
ophy dealing with Justice, hence they have
been omitted from the new edition of the
present work, or presented only briefly. The
last eight chapters of the book, however,
which treat of the regulation of commerce,
education, currency, postal arrangements,
and some similar functions commonly per-
formed by governments, remain substantially
as first published.

Besides the duplication of a large part of
this work in Justice, another reason for re-
vising Social Statics was that, in the years
that have passed since it first appeared, Mr.
Spencer had relinquished some of the con-
clusions drawn from its first principle, and
had given up also one of the bases upon
which he had formerly made that principle
to rest. The omission of some parts was ac-
cordingly necessary in order to check mis-
representations of the views which he now
holds.

554

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Interesting indications of the direction
in which Mr. Spencer's thought was tending
forty years ago may be found scattered
through this volume. Thus, on page 32
he declares that civilization is a part of
Nature, hence its progress is all of a piece
with the development of an embryo or the
unfolding of a flower; and, provided that
the constitution of things remains the same,
this progress must result in the perfection
of mankind. Again, on pages 121, 122 is a
paragraph illustrating the specialization of
functions and the adaptation of parts to
their duties which goes on in the develop-
ment of various kinds of organisms. This
paragraph shows that in 1849, when it must
have been written, Mr. Spencer had already
entered upon the line of thought which led
him up to the general law of evolution. Sev-
eral passages give evidence that he had then
discovered the operation in Nature of the
process that has since become known under
the name " natural selection." Thus on
pages 203, 204 he says, " Partly by weeding
out those of lowest development, and partly
by subjecting those who remain to the never-
ceasing discipline of experience, Nature se-
cures the growth of a race who shall both
understand the conditions of existence and
be able to act up to them."

The Man versus The State consists of four
essays combating paternalism, which were
originally published as magazine articles, and
are among the most able and vigorous of Mr.
Spencer's miscellaneous writings. A post-
script and a note have since been added.

Outlines of Lessons in Botany. Part II.
Flower and Fruit. By Jane H. Newell.
Boston : Giim & Co. Pp. 399. Price, 90
cents.

The leading aim in this work is to direct
pupils to the study of plants themselves.
With the very practical purpose of securing
sufficient material for study, the successive
lessons deal with the flowers in season in
New England and vicinity, to which region
the book is specially adapted, from March to
early summer. A few house-plants are in-
troduced to help out the scanty blossoms of
March. Later, wild flowers, the blossoms of
forest trees and fruit trees, and the flowers
of garden vegetables all receive attention.
While the analysis of flowers occupies the

greater part of this volume, attention is given
also to the leaves, stem, and roots of the
specimens studied. An appendix contains a
schedule for plant description, with some
fifty or sixty descriptions following this
form. There are also a glossary, an index
of plants, and a chart comprising sixty fami-
lies designed to introduce pupils to the use
of Gray's Manual. There are thirty-seven
illustrations.

A History of Epidemics in Britain (664-
1666). By Charles Creighton, M. A.,
M. D. New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp.
706. Price, $4.50.

The pestilence of 664 in England, known
to tradition as the great plague " of Cadwal-
lader's time," furnishes the starting-point for
this history. But little can be told about
this pestilence, for, besides an entry in the
Irish annals, Beda's Ecclesiastical History is
the only source of authentic information con-
cerning it. Previous to the " black death "
of 1348-49, English epidemics were almost
all famine-sicknesses. The author gives a
chronological list of such pestilences, embrac-
ing more than forty, with full accounts of
three of them, and notes concerning others.
An early chapter is devoted to Leprosy in
Mediaeval Britain, from which it appears that
much consideration was given to lepers in
the middle ages, these unfortunates being
deemed the special wards of Jesus Christ.
The author believes, however, that the hun-
dred or more hospitals mentioned under the
name of lazar-houses in Dugdale's Monasti-
con were not exclusively for the care of
lepers. Furthermore, contemporary descrip-
tions of lepers indicate that several diseases
were then known by the common name of
leprosy.

The black death, or bubo-plague, of 1348-
'49, produced a frightful mortality. Certain
parish records show ten times the ordinary
number of burials. During the fourteen
months of its prevalence two thirds of the
clergy of Britain were carried off, and one
half of the whole population of London. Dr.
Creighton's account of this pestilence in-
cludes an examination of the traditions which
locate its origin in China and in Tartary, and
a discussion of the theory of the bubo-plague.
The social and economic consequences of the
black death make up an interesting chapter,

LITERARY NOTICES.

555

and connect this history with the general his-
tory of the time. The next remarkable epi-
demic was the sweating-sickness, of which
five outbreaks occurred between 1485 and
1551. The record of plague in the Tudor
period is a story of frequent outbreaks, one
of the most serious being the London plague
of 1563. Jail-fevers, influenzas, etc., during
the same period furnish material for another
chapter. The " French pox " has a chapter
by itself, another is devoted to small-pox and
measles, and another to scurvy and other
sicknesses attendant upon early voyages.
The plagues of the seventeenth century down
to 1665 are duly recorded, and then comes
the " Great Plague," to which over twenty
per cent of the population of London suc-
cumbed. The extinction of the plague in
England, in 1666 or 1667, brings this history
to a close. The work gives evidence of much
thoroughness and great ability on the part
of its author, and deserves to rank high in
medical literature.

The Last Words of Thomas Carltle.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 383.
Price, $1.75.

This volume contains Wotton Reinfred,
a romance; and An Excursion (futile
enough) to Paris, which were left among
the author's papers at his death ; and a num-
ber of letters written by Carlyle to Varn-
hagen von Ense in the years 1837 to 1857;
together with two notes of Yarnhagen
about Carlyle's first visit to Berlin in 1852;
and letters of Jane Welch Carlyle to Ami-
ly Bolte, 1843 to 1849. The romance, Wot-
ton Reinfred, is Carlyle's only essay in fic-
tion, and therefore possesses a distinctive
interest. It was probably written soon after
the author's marriage, and represents the
earlier period of his literary development.
In it the editor of the volume finds the first
expression of ideas and doctrines afterward
set forth with more formality in Sartor
Resartus. Mr. Froude regards it as of con-
siderable interest, from the sketches which
it contains of particular men and women,
who being now dead, and the incidents for-
gotten, any objection which may have exist-
ed to publication is now removed. Among
these characters, according to Mr. Leslie Ste-
phen, is " a curious portrait of Coleridge,
thinly veiled." The Excursion to Paris is

the unreserved daily record of a journey in
company with the Brownings, when Carlyle
paid a visit to Lord Ashburton. It presents
a singularly vivid picture of the author's
personality, and one which adds something
to our knowledge of Carlyle the man.

Annual Report of the Board of Regents
of the Smithsonian Institution, to July,
1890. Pp. 808. Report of the Na-
tional Museum, for the Year ending
June 30, 1889. Pp.933. Washington:
Government Printing-Office.

The permanent funds of the Smithsonian
Institution, bearing interest at six per cent,
amount to $703,000. The inadequacy and
insecurity of the buildings continue to be
subjects of complaint. The Institution was
able during the year covered by the report
to do rather more for the encouragement of
original research than it had done for sev-
eral years past. The project for securing
an astro-physical observatory and general
laboratory had assumed definite shape.
Solid foundation piers had been built under
the temporary shed, and a number of instru-
ments had been procured, of which the
siderostat is probably the largest and most
powerful instrument of its class ever con-
structed. The work of exploration was
carried on through the Bureau of Ethnology
and the National Museum ; and some rare
and valuable collections were obtained. A
few small grants from the Smithsonian fund,
" commensurate rather with the abilities of
the Institution than with its wishes," were
made to aid in physical science — in addition
to the aid largely given to biological and
ethnological science through the Museum,
Bureau of Ethnology, and Zoological Park.
One of the important features of the year's
history of the Institution was the passing of
the National Zoological Park under its control.
A complete description of the park is given.
The general appendix, which constitutes
the larger part of the volume, contains a
miscellaneous selection of papers, some of
them original, embracing a considerable
range of scientific investigation and discus-
sion. The National Museum now contains
not far from three million specimens. The
increase during the year covered by the re-
port is much smaller than in any previous
year since the completion of the Museum
building. The difference is accounted for to

556

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

a large degree by the fact that the exhibi-
tion rooms and storage halls being filled to
their utmost capacity, it has become neces-
sary to cease to a large degree the custom-
ary efforts to add to the collections. Besides
other features, accounts are given of work
in the scientific departments, the library and
publications, the work of the Museum pre-
parators, accessions, co-operation of bureaus
and officers of the Government, and explora-
tions ; considerable space is given to de-
scribing the participation of the Smithsonian
Institution and the Museum in Centennial
Exhibitions at Cincinnati and Marietta,
Ohio ; and eight papers are published describ-
ing and illustrating collections.

Games, Ancient and Oriental, and now

TO PLAY THEM. By EDWARD FaLKENER.

London and New York : Longmans,
Green & Co. Pp. 366. Price, $6.

The author believes in the usefulness of
games because they afford needful relaxa-
tion to the mind, pleasant diversions to the
invalid and the afflicted, and means of bring-
ing friends together and promoting acquaint-
ance and fellowship. He directed his atten-
tion many years ago to the games of chess,
draughts, and backgammon, and to the for-
mation of magic squares. Elaborate works
have been written on the history of these
games, and instead of exploiting this branch
of the subject over again, he has preferred
to discuss the practical rules and principles
of each game. He expresses the opinion
that students may find that the games which
were established in years gone by contain
merits that are not always found in the new
and fanciful conceits of the day. The first
place is given to the games of the ancient
Egyptians, with the results of Dr. Birch's
researches on the "subject. The games are
Tau, or Robbers, which was afterward played
and called by the same name, Lucius Latrun-
culorum, by the Romans ; Senat, which is
still played by the modern Egyptians as
Seega ; Han, or the game of the Bowl ; the
Sacred Way, the Hiero Gramme of the
Greeks ; and Atep, which is played by Ital-
ians as Mora, Under the head of chess are
given Indian, Chinese, Burmese, Siamese,
Turkish, Tamerlane's, and double chess, and
the game of the Maharajah and Sepoy ; of
draughts, Polish and Turkish draughts, Wei-

KH and Go, or the Chinese and Japanese
game of inclosing; German, Turkish, and
Indian backgammons. A considerable vari-
ety of magic squares are described, and all
the games are illustrated with photographic
reproductions and with diagrams.

The Oak : a Popular Introduction to For-
est Botany. By H. Marshall Ward,
F. R. S., F. L. S. Modern Science Series,
No. III. New York : D. Appleton & Co.
Pp. 175. Price, $1.

For many persons trees have an interest
which is not possessed by the lowlier mem-
bers of the vegetable kingdom. Trees also
are what the modern art of forestry is con-
cerned with, and those who become interest-
ed in this subject on account of its economic
or sanitary bearings are very apt to want to
know something about the way in which trees
grow. To all such persons Prof. Ward's
book will be very welcome. In a brief in-
troduction the author describes the general
habit of the oak, and then, starting with the
acorn, he describes the unfolding of the em-
bryo, the development of the young plant,
and the form and functions of the mature
tree. There is a chapter on the structure
and technological peculiarities of oak timber,
followed by another dealing with the cultiva-
tion of the oak, and the parasites and fungi
which infest it. A number of illustrations
are given, showing the appearance of oak
wood injured by various fungi. Lastly, the
relationships of the oaks receive brief con-
sideration.

The World-energy and its Self-conserva-
tion. By William M. Bryant. Chicago :
S. C. Griggs & Co. 1890. Pp. 304.

This is a metaphysical inquiry into the
fundamental conceptions of the universe.
The author holds that the laws of thought are
necessarily the laws of things, and takes per-
fect consistency in consciousness to be the
ultimate and absolute ground of all certitude.
From this basis he attempts to formulate the
universe, and reaches the conclusion that the
one permanent reality of which the world we
know is a manifestation is spirit. Stated in
his own words, the conclusion to which his
argument leads is :

" The world-energy is God. Its self-
conservation is the eternal process of crea-
tion. ' Evolution ' is the temporal aspect of

LITERARY NOTICES.

557

this process. The self-unfolding of God cul-
mi""*-3s in man. For man is the son of
God."

Though the author's argument shows wide
reading and much acute thinking, he can not
be said to have a happy mode of expression,
or the power of putting clearly the thought
in mind. The reader soon finds himself lost
in a maze of contradictions and wandering
in a wilderness of words which convey few
or no definite ideas. Very little intellectual
good would seem to come from discussions of
this nature. You begin and end nowhere,
with nothing proved or provable. This is
not to say that it is not desirable and impor-
tant to have clearness and definiteness in our
fundamental notions of things, but this is
hardly to be attained by spinning a logical
web out of our inner consciousness, and try-
ing to find its justification in an assumed
harmony between the laws of thought and
things.

Money, Silver, and Finance. By J. How-
ard Cowperthwait. New York : G. P.
Putnam's Sons. Pp. 242.

The author claims to have tried to answer
the silver question by arguments based both
upon the truths of financial science and upon
the principles which underlie the operation
of business. He hopes that in this volume
the busy man of affairs may find some sci-
entific points which may hitherto have es-
caped his attention ; the student in finance a
portrayal of business ways ; and other read-
ers may find their chain of evidence against
silver fallacies more firmly made up. He
thinks that besides " treating free coinage,"
sound finance demands a repeal of the pres-
ent silver law, and nothing less. " Whether
it be possible or not to frame a banking and
currency act which shall be acceptable where
money is scarce and not too objectionable else-
where, the war against silver theories must
be continued until there shall be effectively
presented to the strong common sense of the
American people the ludicrous spectacle of
thousands of men devoting their time and
labor to taking silver out of the mines, where
it could do no harm, for the purpose of
placing it in the Treasury's vaults, whence its
monstrous bulk menaces the industries and
the general prosperity of the country." In
his succeeding chapters the author discusses

the evolution of money, trades, and finance ;
the movements of prices ; India and her sil-
ver rupee; prices, wages, and labor-saving
machinery ; the debtor class and foreign ex-
change ; foreign exchange under normal and
under abnormal conditions ; the views of
representative advocates of silver; ultimate
redemption ; the old volume-of-money theory ;
the present silver and currency law ; inter-
national conferences, and bimetallism.

An Introduction to Chemical Theory. By
Alexander Scott. New York: Mac-
millan & Co. Pp. 274. Price, $1.25.

This is a text-book designed to supple-
ment laboratory work, and such books as are
mainly confined to the enumeration of facts,
by supplying that knowledge of principles
and laws which is needed to bind chemical
facts together in the mind of the student.
The author assumes that users of this book
will have a fair knowledge of the chemical
properties of substances, and have access to
a teacher. " For this reason," it is stated
in the preface, " references have frequently
been made to matters somewhat outside the
subject under discussion, for the purpose of
stimulating the more inquiring student, with-
out, at the same time, perplexing those less
so. . . . As far as possible, all very debat-
able matter has been omitted, and it is for
this reason, for example, that the account of
the theories of solution has been made very
short."

The Microscope in Theory and Practice.
By Carl Naegeli and S. Schwendener.
New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 394.
Price, $2.60.

One of the most thorough and scientific
of treatises on microscopy is here presented
in an English dress. The translation com-
prises the authors' work, Das Mikroskop, ex-
cept Parts VIII, IX, and X, all copies of
which, together with the woodcuts illustrat-
ing them, were lost by a fire soon after the
sheets were printed. The volume opens with
an explanation of the theory of the construc-
tion Of the several parts of the microscope,
embracing calculations of the paths of rays
passing .through the lenses, determinations
of the positions of images, of the optical
power of instruments, and various other prob-
lems. The division of the work on testing

558

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

embraces testing the optical power, the spheri-
cal and the chromatic aberration, the flatness
of the field of view, and the centering. The
theory of microscopic observation, or the in-
terpreting of microscopical images, is treated
with much thoroughness. Technical micros-
copy receives due attention, and there are
chapters on the simple microscope and the
lantern microscope. The volume closes with
an account of the phenomena of polarization.
Over two hundred figures and diagrams illus-
trate the text.

Laboratory Manual of Chemistry. By
James E. Armstrong and James H. Nor-
ton. American Book Company. Pp. 75.
Price, 50 cents.

This manual consists of directions for
one hundred and sixty-four experiments, ac-
companied by questions designed to call the
attention of pupils to the principles which
the experiments reveal. It is designed to be
used with Eliot and Storer's Manual of Chem-
istry, or any other good text-book of element-
ary chemistry. The course here laid out is
designed to occupy a class three hours a week
for forty weeks. There are as many blank
pages for notes as printed pages in the vol-
ume, and thirty cuts showing the forms and
use of apparatus are given. The experiments
include the tests commonly used in qualita-
tive analysis.

The Plant World. By George Massee.
New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 222.
Price, $1.

The adult who wishes to obtain a general
view of the vegetable kingdom will find this
book a very competent guide. Its seven
chapters deal respectively with plant archi-
tecture, chemistry and physics of plant life,
protective arrangements, reproduction, re-
lationship, geographical distribution, and
fossil plants. The workings of evolution in
the vegetable world are made especially
prominent in this volume, and the conception
of a plant as a living organism is strongly
insisted upon. The text is illustrated with
fifty-six cuts.

Fossil Botany. By H. Graf zu Solms-
Laubach. New York : Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 413. Price, $4.50.

In the translator's preface this treatise is
described as " the only critical digest as yet

published of our present knowledge of fossil
plants from the point of view of botanical
morphology." It is based upon university
lectures delivered by Count Solms-Laubach
in Gottingen. The ground covered by this
work comprises the thallophytes, archego-
niatae, and gymnosperms, but excluding the
angiosperms. There are forty-nine illustra-
tions, and the volume has a bibliography of
seventeen pages and an index.

The Jew at Home. Impressions of a Sum-
mer and Autumn spent with Him. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 105.

The author, who professes to have gone
to southeastern Europe in the summer of
1891 with no thought of the Jew or his af-
fairs in his head, by some fortune saw him
almost daily for five months under all con-
ditions of life, at Brody and Lemburg, in Aus-
trian Poland ; at Maramaros Sziget, in Hun-
gary ; at Berdicheff and Kiev, in Russia ; and
at other places, and formed a very poor opin-
ion of him and his manner of living. He
describes what he saw, or rather, perhaps, his
impressions of what he saw, in very strong
language, and illustrates his descriptions with
pictures which are, at least, strongly charac-
teristic. The result of the whole is the repre-
sentation of " The Jew at Home " as an odi-
ous and repulsive object, whose habits make
him deserving of the scorn that he receives.
Grant that this is so — and we have enough
representatives among us of that class of
Hebrews who are not pleasant associates —
the race has in other regions furnished enough
high-minded and enterprising citizens, and
has distinguished itself sufficiently by liberal
and benevolent enterprises, to enable us to
know that it is still capable of better things.
The author acknowledges this in substance,
and in view of the fact and of his acknowl-
edgment, we regret that he could not, while
truthfully, as he claims to have done, de-
scribing the degradation to which centuries of
contumely and maltreatment have reduced
certain classes of Jews, have spoken of them
in less harsh terms and with more hopeful-
ness of their ultimate redemption under more
favoring circumstances. One view he sug-
gests, however, is worth considering, and is
of weight proportioned to the degree of truth-
fulness contained in it: that is, that these
Jews are not real, pure Jews, but a mixed

LITERARY NOTICES.

559

race who have preserved of the Jews chiefly
their language and the form of their religion.
We agree with him in his " last word," which
is simply this : " Treat the Jew, if he is
brought to you, as an ordinary man ; grant
him no advantages you would not give his
Austrian, Polish, or German fellow-country-
men, no matter what his religion is. Make
him an Englishman or an American, break
up his old customs, his clannishness, his dirt,
and his filth, or he will break you."

Outlines of Theoretical Chemistry. By
Lothar Meyer. Translated by P. P.
Bedson and W. C. Williams. London
and New York : Longmans, Green & Co.
Pp. 232. Price, $2.50.

The present volume differs from the au-
thor's Modern Theories of Chemistry in be-
ing a smaller and less technical treatise.
Being addressed not only to the student but
also to the friend of science who wishes to
keep informed as to the progress of chemical
investigation, the book does not contain any
great number of the numerical results of ob-
servations and measurements, nor any de-
tailed descriptions of experimental methods.
It is, therefore, a general review of the sub-
ject of chemical philosophy in which details
have not been allowed to rise into prominence.
The author, of course, needs no introduction
or commendation to any one who is acquaint-
ed with modern chemistry.

In the Report of the Commissioner of
Education for 1888-89, the commissioner,
Dr. William T. Harris, presents first a gen-
eral statistical exhibit of education in the
United States. From these statistics it ap-
pears that the enrollment is about ninety per
cent of the number of children between six
and sixteen years of age in the whole coun-
try, which is as large as could be expected.
The South is manifesting a great and increas-
ing interest in public schools, and in the past
nineteen years has more than doubled its
expenditure per capita for education. A
prominent feature of this report are the ac-
counts of education in various foreign coun-
tries, prepared by specialists of the bureau,
and the comparisons with education in the
United States for which these accounts fur-
nish material. Dr. Harris calls attention to
the fact that the French and German chil-

dren devote much less time than the Ameri-
can to memorizing the spelling of words.
" Mechanical memorizing," he continues, " is
the much-lamented characteristic of our com-
mon schools. It is evident that such must
remain their characteristic so long as English-
speaking children memorize, like the Chinese,
the arbitrary spelling of more than ten thou-
sand words before they can write the language
with readiness." The training of teachers is
another subject to which much attention is
given, the report embracing papers on The
Inception and Progress of the Normal-school
Curriculum, The Teaching Force of New
England from 1866 to 1888, and Professional
Work in the Normal Schools of the United
States. Chapters on courses of study in city
schools, manual and industrial training, com-
pulsory attendance laws, State text-book laws,
and miscellaneous educational questions are
included in the first volume of the report.
The second volume contains the usual statis-
tics of schools and colleges, and of the edu-
cation of special classes, and an alphabetical
list of the publications of the Bureau of Edu-
cation from 1867 to 1890.

The Report of the Smithsonian Institution
for 1889-90 contains an account of the prog-
ress that has been made in establishing the
National Zoological Park at Washington, to-
gether with the usual information about the
work of the Institution for the year. Ap-
pended to the report are some thirty papers
on a wide variety of scientific subjects, a
number of them being illustrated.

The Journal of Proceedings and Addresses
of the National Educational Association, for
1891, makes a handsome octavo volume of
about nine hundred pages. Besides an ac-
count of the proceedings of the Association
and reports of committees at the Toronto
session, the Journal contains the papers read,
together with abstracts of the discussions
which they called forth. A wide variety of
topics in all departments of educational work
is treated in these papers.

A booklet which has attracted much at-
tention and been read with interest in reli-
gious circles is entitled Not on Calvary : A
Layman's Plea for Mediation in the Tempta-
tion in the Wilderness, and is published by
Charles T. Dillingham, New York. It pre-
sents a new view of the life and office of
Christ while on the earth, which the author

s6o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

hopes may be more acceptable and easier of
credit to those who doubt concerning the
present accepted view. Not " Calvary " — the
crucifixion — according to this view, was the
culmination of Christ's life work, and marked
the accomplishment of his mission, but the
temptation in the wilderness, in which " our
Lord literally bought back the spiritual free-
dom of mankind through the spiritual danger
that he, guarded with the weakness of the
flesh, was presumed to encounter when he
was led by the Spirit into the wilderness."

The Elements of Economics of Industry,
by Alfred Marshall, is an abridgment of the
first volume of the author's Principles of
Economics, noticed in our June number.
The reduction of the larger work has been
effected by the omission of many discussions
on points of minor importance and of some
difficult theoretical investigations, thus allow-
ing arguments that are retained to be given
in full. A chapter on trade-unions is in-
cluded in the present volume, although in the
larger work this subject is postponed to a
later stage. (Macmillan, $1.)

The results of extended study are em-
bodied in The English Language and English
G-rammar, by Samuel Ramsey. The former
part of the book is a general account of the
origin and present condition of our mother-
tongue, considerable attention being devoted
to pronunciation and spelling. The latter
part is a treatise on the nature and uses of
the parts of speech, closing with some sug-
gestions to young writers. Throughout the
volume the author gives his personal impres-
sions freely on controverted matters, though
acknowledging, as for example in his analy-
sis of the sounds in English speech, that
others see these things differently. (Put-
nam, $3.)

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Abbe. Cleveland . Memoirs of Jonathan Homer
Lane and William Ferrell. Washington. Pp. 48.

Abbott, W. L. Catalogue of Collection of Eth-
nological Objects from Kilimanjaro, East Africa.
United States National Museum. Pp. 50.

Agitis, J. Jimeno. La Reforma de la Ortograf ia
Qaetellana. Imprenta de La Patria, Balparaiso.
32 p. Prezio, zinqo zentabos.

Ashley, Hon. J. M. The Impending Political
Epoch. New York : Evening Post Printing House.
Pp.88. 20 cents.

Bailey, L. H. Cross-breeding and Hybridiz-
ing. New York : Rural Publishing Company. 40
cents.

Barnes, Almont. Agriculture of South Amer-
ica. Washington : Department of Agriculture.

Barter, S. Wood-work : the English Sloyd.
New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 341. $2.

Beddard, Frank E. Animal Coloration. New
York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 288, with Plates.
$3.50.

Campbell, John P. Biological Teaching in
the Colleges of the United States. Washington :
Bureau of Education. Pp. 183.

Churchill, Lord Randolph S. Men, Mines, and
Animals in South Africa. New York : D. Apple-
ton & Co. Pp. 337, with Map and Plates. $5.

Ciaffl, Francesco. II Baratto dei Biglietti di
Bianca (Exchange of Bank Notes among Banks
of Circulation and Forced Currency in Italy). Su-
biaco.

Dawson, George M., and Sutherland, Alexan-
der. Geography of the British Colonies. New
York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 330. 80 cents.

Dolbear, A. E. Matter, Ether, and Motion.
Boston : Lee & Shepard. Pp. .334.

Fernow, B. E. Timber Physics. Preliminary
Report. Washington : Department of Agriculture.
Pp. 63, with 6 Plates.

Fessenden, C. Elements of Physics. New
York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 229. 80 cents.

Foster, Michael, and others, Editors. The Jour-
nal of Physiology, Vol. XIII, Nos. 3 and 4. Cam-
bridge, England. Pp. 344, with Plates. Nine
shillings.

Gomme, George Lawrence. Ethnology in Folk
Lore. New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 203.

$1.

Gould, George M., M. D., Philadelphia. The
Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment of the Preva-
lent Epidemic of Quackery. Pp. 24.

Griffith, William. Anthracite Coal Production
of Pennsylvania. Chart. P. 1.

Hale, George E. Solar Photography at the Ken-
wood Astro-physical Observatory. Pp. 11, with 2
Plates.

Hale, Horatio. Language as a Test of Mental
Capacity. Pp. 46.

Hatch, F. H. Mineralogy. New York : Mac-
millan & Co.

Homan, George. The Relation of Land Mo-
nopoly to Population Health. Pp. 9.— Land Lib-
eration as a Public Health Measure. Pp. 7. Con-
cord, N. H.

James, George Francis. Proceedings of the
First National Conference on University Exten-
sion. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott Co. Pp.
292. $1.50.

Japan. Journal of the College of Sciences of
the Imperial University, Tokyo. Vol. V. Part I.
Pp. 147, with 14 Plates.

Knight, George W. The History of Higher
Education in Ohio. Washington : Bureau of Edu-
cation. Pp. 258.

List, N. A. The American Charts. Investiga-
tions in Literary Archaeology. Omaha, Neb.

Lydekker, R. Phases of Animal Life, Past and
Present. New York : Longmans, Green & Co.
Pp. 248. $1.50.

McDonald, Marshall, Commissioner. Bulletin
of the United States Fish Commission. Washing-
ton : Government Printing-office. Pp. 497.

Maginnis, Arthur. The Atlantic Ferry ; its
Ships, Men, and Workiug. New York : Macmil-
lan & Co. Pp. 304. $2.

Maxwell, James Clerk. A Treatise on Elec-
tricity and Magnetism. New York : Macmillan
& Co. 2 vols. Pp. 506 and 500, with Plates. $8.

Missouri Botanical Garden. Third Annual Re-
port. St. Louis. Pp. 170, with Plates.

New York Academy of Sciences. Annals.
Vol. VI, Nos. 5 and 6. Pp. 116.— Transactions,
December, 1891, January and February, 1892. Pp.
64, with Plates.

Not on Calvary. New York : Charles T. Dil-
lingham & Co. Pp. 46.

POPULAR MISCELLANY

561

Parsons, Eugene. Tennyson's Life and Poetry,
and Mistakes concerning Tennyson. Chicago. Pp.
32. 15 cents.

Pickering, Edward C. Investigations of the
New England Meteorological Society for 1890.
Cambridge, Mass. Pp. 15(5, with 5 Plates.

Qnatrefages, A. de. Darwin et ses Precurseurs
Francais (Darwin and his French Precursors).
Paris, France : Felix Akan. Pp. 273.

The Republican Magazine, Vol. I, No. 1.
Monthly. New York : Republican Magazine Co.
Pp. 82. 25 cents. $3 a year.

Romanes, George John. Darwin, and after
Darwin. I. The Darwinian Theory. Chicago :
Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 460. $2.

Ruschenberger, W. S. W. A Sketch of the
Life of Joseph Leidy. Philadelphia : MacCalla
& Co. Pp. 64.

Salisbury, Rollin D., Madison, Wis. The Drift
of the North German Lowland. Pp. 28.

School of Applied Ethics, Plymouth, Mass.
Programme of the Session of 1892. Pp. 20.

Sedgwick, William T., and Hazen, Allen. Ty-
phoid Fever in Chicago. New York : Engineering
News Publishing Company. Pp. 21. 10 cents.

Semple, C. E. Armand. Elements of Materia
Medica and Therapeutics. New York : Longmans,
Green & Co. Pp. 480. $3.

Smock, John C, State Geologist. Annual Re-
port of Geological Survey of New Jersey for 1891.
Pp. 270, with Maps and Plates.

Societe des Arts. Bulletin de la Classe d'lndus-
trie et du Commerce. Geneva. Switzerland. Pp.
20.

Superior and the Sault Canal, Commerce of.
W. E. Street, Statistician. Pp. 80.

Tammany Hall, The Political Mission of. New
York : A. B. King. Pp. 30. 10 cents.

Thomson, William H., M. D. Materialism and
Modern Physiology of the Nervous System. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 112.

Tremain, Mary. Slavery in the District of Co-
lumbia. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.

Walker, Sydney F. How to light a Colliery
by Electricity. New York : Macniillan & Co. Pp.
36. 75 cents.

Woodhull, Victoria Claflin, and Zula Mano.
The Garden of Eden and the Proposal. London.
Pp.98.

World's Columbian Exhibition, Chicago. Plan
and Classification of Department M (Ethnology,
Archaeology, History, etc.). Pp. 27.

Yatabi, Rijo Kichi. Iconographia Florae Ja-
ponicas. Descriptions, with Figures, of Plants In-
digenous to Japan. Tokyo. Pp. 170, with Plates.

Zoological Society of Philadelphia. Twentieth
Annual Report. Pp. 21.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Anthropology at the World's Fair. —

Prof. F. W. Putnam, the distinguished an-
thropologist of Cambridge, Mass.7 has out-
lined a most attractive and important exhibit
of anthropology at the World's Fair. The
department will occupy the northern half of
the gallery of the Main Building and also a
strip of land along the lagoon ; on this land
groups of native American peoples will be
living in their natural habitations and sur-
roundings. There will be a representative
exhibit of the remains of prehistoric man in
vol. xli. — 41

America, and large models of the most note-
worthy of their works, such as the Serpent
Mound and Fort Ancient. Central America
will be well represented. Along with this
there will be an exhibition of primitive indus-
tries, customs, and the like. The section of
physical anthropology will illustrate modern
methods of recording bodily characteristics,
and will show charts recording the results of
many thousand measurements. A large body
of workers are now engaged in measuring
native Americans in all parts of the land.
Measurements of children are also being
gathered for the study of the development of
physical characteristics. This is a large and
important undertaking, from which results of
great scientific value are sure to come. With
this department there is also connected the
department of history, so that the exhibit of
primitive man and his works is followed by
that of the men whom Columbus met, and
thus prepares the way for the exhibit of the
historical changes in America during the last
four centuries. The comprehensive scope of
the exhibit is noteworthy, and under the lead-
ership of Prof. Putnam an exhibit creditable
to American science is assured.

Experimental Psychology at the World's
Fair. — Those who have been interested in
the growth of the new psychology will be
glad to learn that there will be made at the
World's Fair an exhibit of the methods and
results of this young science. There will be
in operation throughout the six months of
the exposition a psychological laboratory in
which simple tests will be made of the senses,
sense-judgments, rapidity of movements, and
simple mental processes, memory, and so on ;
the data thus accumulated will be statistically
utilized to obtain normal standards. There
will also be exhibited apparatus employed in
psychological research, results obtained, as
illustrated by charts, diagrams, photographs,
etc. ; and as complete a representation of re-
cent psychological activity as the facilities
will admit. The department is in charge of
Prof. Joseph Jastrow, of the University of
Wisconsin, and is a part of the general de-
partment of which Prof. F. W. Putnam is
chief.

A Portrait of William Bartram.— When

the sketch of the Bartrams was published in

562

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the April number of the Monthly, we were not
able to find any authentic portrait of either
of them, or to learn that any existed. The
publication of the sketch called out from Dr.
W. H. Mills, of Syracuse, N. Y., the informa-
tion that an engraved portrait of William
Bartram was in existence, and formed the
frontispiece to the second volume of the Cabi-
net of Natural History and American Rural
Sports, published in Philadelphia in 1832 by
J. & T. Dougherty. Through the kindness
of Dr. Mills we have been able to procure
this volume, and to have a copy made of this
picture. Concerning the authenticity of the
portrait, the statement is made in the Bio-
graphical Sketch of William Bartram, which
is the first article in the volume, that " the
accompanying portrait is a correct likeness
of Mr. Bartram, and the only engraved one
ever given to the American public." It will
be observed that the date of the publication
of this portrait was only nine years after Mr.
Bartram's death.

The Schools of New York State. — Ac-
cording to the Report of State Superintendent
Draper, while the number of children of
school age in the State of New York appeared
to be 22,823 less than in 1890, the number
of children in attendance on the public schools
(1,054,044) was greater by 11,884. Besides
these, the private schools reported an attend-
ance of 157,603, and the normal schools,
academies, colleges, etc., 69,392 pupils of
school age in 1891. Comparative tables of
attendance show a steady increase in cities
(270,926 to 513,066) since 1861, while the
attendance in towns has fallen from 601,928
to 540,978. The superintendent calls atten-
tion to the insufficiency of the laws for com-
pulsory attendance, and in view of crude
features in the laws of some other States, he
recommends the formation of a State Educa-
tional Commission, with sufficient powers to
consider the whole subject of the school laws
of the State. In view of the weakness of
some of the school districts, the superintend-
ent favors the consolidation of small and
weak districts when it can be brought about
without serious inconvenience to the children
of school age. It is not to be overlooked, how-
ever, that the school must be at a convenient
distance. In Massachusetts provision is
made for the transportation of children to

distant schools, and profitless schools hare
been abolished, while the children are now
instructed for a longer term under teachers
of more experience and skill. The superin-
tendent recommends the township system of
school organization for consideration. An
increasing interest in Arbor Day is noticed.
The celebrations are usually marked by ap-
propriate literary exercises, with many in-
genious and elaborate programmes. Interest
in this work has been stimulated by the offer,
by Mr. William A. Wadsworth, of prizes for
the best-kept school-grounds. The vote upon
the question of a State flower has resulted in
a majority for the rose over the golden-rod.
The attempt to provide textbooks to be pub-
lished by the State has resulted disastrously
wherever it has been made. The superin-
tendent thinks that the result of such a pol-
icy would be bad, even if it were seemingly
successful. It would discourage authorship,
discontinue competition among makers, and
stop the constant improvement in the matter,
style, and character of the books which has
been marked in the past.

Barrel-making. — Few people, says Cham-
bers's Journal, though all are familiar with
the barrel, have probably been at pains to
consider the skill and ingenuity which have
succeeded in bringing to perfection an inven-
tion as scientific as beneficial all the world
over ; and probably fewer still are conversant
with the brain-power and time which have
been expended in attempts to produce machin-
ery for manufacturing them. Barrels were in
use as far back as the time of Pliny, who
says they were invented in the Alpine val-
leys. A cask is a double conoid — that is, it
has its greatest diameter or its bulge or belly
in the center. The stave is curved length-
wise to form the bulge and crosswise to form
part of the circumference of the cask ; while
the edges must receive the exact bevel to fit
those on either side along their entire length.
Then the staves have to be " chimed " or
beveled at the ends, and furnished with a
"croze" or groove, into which to fit the
heads ; and hooping completes the manu-
facture of the cask. A new invention, by a
Mr. Oncken, is in full operation at Merxem, in
Germany, for turning out casks from one
piece of wood. In the process the stem of
a tree is cut into lengths corresponding to

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

563

the size of the cask. These lengths are then
boiled for two or three hours in a closed ves-
sel, while a current of electricity is passed
through the water. The wood is thereby
softened so that it can be cut, in a machine
rotating the log in the same manner as the
ordinary lathe, into a sheet of any desired
thickness. The sheets are then passed
through a grooving machine and grooved.
Another machine seizes the sheet between
two arms, and by means of knives cuts a
series of mortices or slots around the sides,
so as to give them, when made up, the de-
sired conical shape. Eventually the sheet
reaches the cooper, who rolls it into cylindri-
cal form, drives on the hoops, and makes a
barrel of it.

The Chemung Geological Formation. —

The conclusions of Prof. John J. Stephen-
son's review of the relations of the Chemung
and Catskill formations on the eastern side
of the Appalachian basin, as expressed in
his address at the American Association, are
that the series from the beginning of the
Portage to the end of the Catskill forms but
one period, the Chemung, which should be
divided into three epochs — the Portage, the
Chemung, and the Catskill ; that the deposits
of the Catskill epoch were not made in a
closed sea or in fresh-water lakes ; that the
disappearance of animal life over so great a
part of the area toward the close of the
period was due to gradual extension of the
conditions existing in southeastern New York
as early, perhaps, as the Hamilton period;
and that the Chemung period should be re-
tained in the Devonian.

Scenery of the Mustagh Glaciers. — In his

description, before the English Society of
Arts, of the Pamirs and neighboring regions,
Captain F. E. Younghusband gave a pictur-
esque account of the scenery of the glacial
regions of the Mustagh Mountains. The first
object to attract attention in ascending the
mountain streams is the appearance of what
seem to be great heaps of gravel, with a
stream issuing from their feet. Clambering
up to the summit of one of these mounds,
the traveler looks upward over a sea of
needle-like pinnacles of ice, of every fantas-
tic shape and variety of color, and among
them sees long lines of rocky debris, the

medial moraines of the glacier, "while on
either hand mountains of stupendous height
rise in stern and solemn glory." Among the
pinnacles, or serecs of ice, " may be seen
fairy-like caves and grottoes of pure ice, with
icicles twenty or thirty feet in length hang-
ing from the ceiling or formed in a delicate
fringe across the entrance, and into the walls
of these lovely caves one can look as into a
sheet of glass." When the great snow-fields
at the head of the glacier are reached, " all
is white, pure, and unblemished ; and the
bold intruder is deeply and unforgetably im-
pressed with the noble sublimity of the
mountains towering round on every hand,
and moved by his audacity in daring to in-
trude into regions ruled by Nature in such
stern and silent grandeur. He feels, too,
what tremendous forces are at work beneath
the calm and placid surface; for, while at
first sight all seems still and unchangeable, a
glance around shows the glaciers rent into
great chasms with perpendicular walls of ice,
perhaps hundreds of feet deep, into which,
if a stone is dropped, it bounds from side to
side, and the echoes are heard coming up
from the very heart of the glacier. And
then a little observation shows that these
vast seas of ice, motionless and immovable
as they seem, are year by year forcing their
way down the valleys, carrying on their icy
bosoms the fragments and craigs of rock
which have been broken off from the mount-
ains by the nipping fingers of the frost.
Great cliffs, too, are met with, worn away
and ground by the glacier forced against
them ; and I have seen a whole cliff of lime-
stone polished and smoothed by the glacier
almost as well as small fragments of rock
are by the hand of man."

Eastern and Western Weeds. — A com-
parative list has been published by Prof.
Byron D. Halsted, made up from his own ob-
servations and those of his correspondents,
of the weeds of New Jersey or the East, and
Iowa or the central West. Of 297 weeds in
Iowa, 210 are native and 87 are foreign; and
they are further classified as 51 worst weeds,
94 bad weeds, and 152 indifferent weeds. In
passing from the worst weeds through the
middle class to the indifferent, the percent-
age of perennials rapidly increases. In New
Jersey, 135 weeds are native and 130 are

564

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

foreign ; and 55 are worst, 98 arc bad, and
112 are indifferent, The weeds in Iowa not
found in New Jersey are mostly of the indif-
ferent class, native in large part of the prai-
rie, and as a rule quickly disappear when
the land is placed under cultivation. The
New Jersey list can be made up from the
one for Iowa by omitting 75 of the native
prtiirie plants, mostly perennials, and adding
43, a large percentage of which are annuals.
The only single weed of the first rank stricken
from the Iowa list in adapting it for New
Jersey is a species of pigweed, but even this
has within a year been found in New Jersey.
On the other hand, there are several first-
class (worst) weeds that are added in the
adaptation of the Western list to the East.
Of such, for example, are a pepper-grass, the
wild radish, two kinds of cocklebur, fever-
few, wild onion, wild leek, nut-grass, Ber-
muda grass, and a kind of chess. The East
is overrun with a larger number than the
West of the most aggressive weeds — " weeds
that assert their ability to resist the forces
of the cultivator and plant their banners
upon the tilled ground, likewise annual weeds
that stock the soil with a multitude of seeds,
ready to spring into life whenever an oppor-
tunity offers. Some species of weeds, such
as a goose-foot, a pigweed, a thistle, plantain,
shepherd's-purse, and purslane, are found
everywhere from Maine to California ; others
are prominent on the Pacific coast and not
elsewhere; and there are weeds peculiar to
the Rocky Mountain region, and others to
the prairie region. In the middle prairie
States it is mostly the members of the sun-
flower family that prevail. In the central
States the list is led by the Canada thistle,
quack-grass, docks, daisy, chess, plantain, and
purslane. If to this list we add wild carrot,
onion, and parsnip, and the like old foreign
enemies, we have the extensive catalogue of
these plant pests that prey upon the lands of
New England.

Hypnotism as a Remedy. — Accounts are
given by Dr. George C. Kingsbury, in his
Practice of Hypnotic Suggestion, of fifty
cases of pain or disease which he has him-
self treated by hypnotism. In forty-five of
these, complete cure followed, without any
relapse so far as is known, and there was at
least some slight or temporary relief in the

five others. In one case the hypnotism was
used as an anaesthetic in childbirth. The
patient was hypnotized twelve times in prep-
aration for her confinement, and once more
when it began. She was brought to the con-
venient stage of hypnotic somnambulism in
which she could understand and obey orders
and nevertheless felt no pain. In the treat-
ment of three patients of confirmed drunken
habits some remarkable results in the way of
sobriety, or even dislike for alcohol, were ob-
tained, which had lasted up to the time of
the publication of the book, nine months or
more, and none of them was known to have
relapsed. In many lesser ills, such as neu-
ralgia, headache, toothache, etc., the relief of
the pain was immediate and complete. The
author has found no damage done by hyp-
notism in careful hands.

The Weather and Influenza. — A paper
by Dr. Lang, of Munich, treats of the rela-
tions between influenza and changes of
weather. Among atmospheric conditions
favorable to the development of infectious
maladies are light and rare precipitations,
while the soil dries out and dust abounds,
and next slight winds. Such conditions pre-
vail in anti-cyclones. But not every baro-
metric maximum that occurs can be accused
of being a promoter of an epidemic. The
germs of the disease must be present, then
the anti-cyclone is a danger. Entirely local
conditions can not be held to account for
what passes in the atmosphere, nor for
events that depend on its constitution, for
the air is not, like us, fixed to the ground.
It is continually suffering displacement, and
brings us elements from all the places over
which it has passed. We must look, there-
fore, to the place where the wind started —
that is, to the center of the aerial circulation
of the region in which we are. We know
that the distribution of barometric pressure
is a determining cause of the movements of
the air, and it may be that the corpuscles
scattered through the atmosphere have been
brought from far-off regions, especially if the
distribution of the pressure has continued
the same during a considerable time. In the
winter of 1889-'90 a barometric maximum
was fixed for six weeks in the eastern part
of Europe, with only unimportant modifica-
tions in its shape and extent. Now, since

POPULAR MISCELLANY

S65

the East included the starting-point of the
epidemic of influenza that prevailed then, it
is presumed that this atmospheric condition
favored its extension toward the West. The
views expressed by M. Masson, of Paris, be-
fore one of the medical societies of that city,
substantially agree with these. The period
of greatest mortality from grip in Paris,
from November, 1889, to February 1, 1890,
was marked by a constantly higher pressure
than the average ; the temperature did not
fall below 5° C. ; the hygrometric condition
was high, and radiation fell off from the
very beginning of the epidemic. In the
principal capitals of Europe, according to M.
Masson's investigations, the grip coincided
in general with a humid, foggy condition of
the atmosphere, and only moderate cold
and an unusual height of barometer. It
was so at Vienna, Berlin, and Brussels.
But in Russia, where the grip is endemic,
the mortality increased when the barometer
fell and the thermometer rose, and the mean
humidity was augmented. At St. Petersburg
it disappeared when the pressure rose and
the cold became more intense. For all other
regions M. Lang's and M. Masson's rules
were verified.

The Parapee Palm. — According to a
note in Garden and Forest, the Parapee
palm (Guiliehna speciosa) is cultivated by
the Indian aborigines of the Guianas for its
fruit, which they use largely as food. They
plant it about their settlements, and, where
it is found apparently wild in the forests,
examination will show that such situations
were formerly occupied by the Indians. In
some seasons the fruit is produced without
seed, while in other seasons it contains
seeds, the variation occurring in the fruit of
the same trees from season to season. When
boiled or roasted the fruit has something of
the texture and taste of a dry, mealy potato.
It is palatable and very nutritious. The
fruits, which are individually about the size
of a pigeon's egg, are borne in bunches of
from forty to sixty together. There are two
or three bearing seasons in a year.

Preservation of Minerals and Fossils. —

Minerals and fossils are not exposed to the
ravages of insects, like zoological collec-
tions ; but many of them are liable to de-

struction by deliquescence and efflorescence.
Deliquescence is the property possessed by
some bodies of attracting moisture from the
atmosphere and dissolving in it. There is no
means of preventing these accidents, except
inclosing the specimens in hermetically sealed
envelopes. Efflorescence is a property pos-
sessed by other bodies of falling into powder.
There are several ways of protecting speci-
mens against it. Fossils converted into white
pyrites, or the substance of which is impreg-
nated with salts and not susceptible of being
washed, should be fully dried and covered
with a varnish that will not scale, and they
can also be dipped in oil. Impressions in
danger of being rubbed off can be consoli-
dated by impregnating them with a thin so-
lution of gum arabic, a little sugared to pre-
vent its cracking. Mr. Chalande recommends
for the preservation of rocks, fossils, bones,
etc., liable to split or fall into efflorescence,
placing them for from one to twenty-four
hours, as the case may demand, in a bath,
made by mixing equal parts of silicate of
soda or potash and water, and drying after
the bath. This gives the piece a considera-
ble degree of hardness. For the preserva-
tion of pyritous fossils, M. Andre Fonville
recommends preservation in paraffine ; this,
however, is only adapted to small specimens ;
and for fossils of considerable size, like ferns,
sigillaria, etc., he advises the silicate-of-soda
method. To consolidate fossil bones, M. Lam-
bert recommends coating with boiling melted
whalebone. The hot matter penetrates the
pores and becomes very hard. If any of it
remains on the outside of the specimen, it
may be removed with blazing paper. Gela-
tine and strong glue, used by many persons,
are good, but not so good as the whalebone
application.

The " Silver Thaw." — The " silver
thaw," as described by R. C. Mossman, of
Ben Nevis Observatory, occurs during an in-
version of ordinary temperature conditions,
when the temperature is considerably lower
at the surface than at higher altitudes, and
the rain congeals as it falls. In the six
years from 1885 to 1890, 198 cases of silver
thaw were observed at Ben Nevis, with a
mean duration of four hours and a half in
each case. They nearly all occurred between
November and March, during times of per-

566

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

fectly developed cyclones and anti-cyclones.
Ninety per cent of the cases occurred when
the thermometer was between 28° and 31-9°,
so that the greater number of cases occurred
just before a thaw. The most common type
of cloud which preceded both cyclonic and
anti-cyclonic cases of silver thaw was cirro-
cumulus, frequently accompanied by cirrus
and cirro-stratus ; and the changes showed
that the higher strata of the atmosphere
came first under the influence of the moist
current, which took from three to eight
hours to descend to the height at which
cumulo-stratus forms.

Onr Destructive Locusts. — Eight kinds
of destructive locusts are described in Prof.
C. V. Riley's paper on that subject as infest-
ing the United States or parts of its territory.
The first is the Rocky Mountain locust (Ca-
loptenus spretus), which has caused great de-
struction at times in its sudden, temporary
appearances in the Western States and Ter-
ritories. Its permanent breeding - ground,
where it breeds every year and is always to
be found in greater or less numbers, embraces
the larger part of Montana, a narrow strip of
western Dakota, all but the northwestern
quarter of Wyoming, the central and north-
western parts of Colorado, small tracts in
Utah, Oregon, and Idaho, and a large area
in the British possessions north of Montana.
The subpermanent region, where it is liable
to breed for a few years and then disappear,
lies immediately east of this ; and the tem-
porary region, where it appears for single
seasons, includes large territories east and
south of the subpermanent region. The
lesser migratory locust (Caloptenus atlantis)
breeds annually in abimdance from middle
Florida nearly to the Arctic Circle. It has
been marked as injurious in New England
in nineteen seasons since 1*743. The non-
migratory red-legged locust (Caloptenus fe-
mur rubrum) has a common range with the
previous species, but is rarer in the eastern
part of its range, while it becomes abundant
in the Mississippi Valley. It causes only lo-
cal damage, and few cases of destructive ap-
pearance have been recorded. In common
with the differential and two-striped locusts,
it often gives cause for alarm by devastating
grass-lands or growing crops. The Califor-
nia devastating locust (Caloptenus devastator)

is a Pacific species, of which fifteen local de-
structive visitations are recorded. The differ-
ential locust ( Caloptenus differ •entialis) ranges
through Dlinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas,
and Iowa, and is found in Indiana, New
Mexico, and California. Though not migra-
tory, it is capable of making considerable
flights, and is sometimes locally destructive.
The two-striped locust ( Caloptenus bivittatus)
has an extensive range, covering most of the
country. It is distinguished by its two lat-
eral stripes reaching from the head to the ex-
tremities of the wing-covers. It often be-
comes locally abundant enough to do much
damage to crops. The pellucid locust ( Cam-
nula peUueidd) occurs in the far West and
in Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Con-
necticut. The Eastern and Western forms
used to be considered two species, but the
difference between them is not appreciable.
The American Acridium (Schistocerca ameri-
cana) is our largest locust, being more than
two inches and a half long. It occurs
throughout the Southern States, through
Mexico into Central America, and as far
north as Dlinois and Indiana. It is seden-
tary within the bounds of the United States,
and becomes only locally destructive. Farther
south, it is said to possess the migratory
habit.

Objects of Forest Management. — Forest
management, says Prof. B. F. Fernow, in his
excellent paper on What is Forestry? has
two objects in view, of which the first is to
produce and reproduce a certain useful mate-
rial, and the second to sustain or possibly im-
prove certain advantageous natural condi-
tions. In the first case we treat the forest
as a crop which we harvest from the soil,
taking care to devote the land to repeated
reproduction of crops. In the second case
we add to the first conception of the forest
as a crop another, namely, that of a cover to
the soil, which, under certain conditions and
in certain locations, bears a very important
relation to other conditions of life. The fa-
vorable influence which the forest growth ex-
erts in preventing the washing of the soil
and in retarding the torrential flow of water,
and also in checking the winds and thereby re-
ducing rapid evaporation — further, in facili-
tating subterranean drainage and influencing
climatic conditions, on account of which it is

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

567

desirable to preserve certain parts of the
natural forest growth and extend it else-
where— this favorable influence is due to the
dense cover of foliage mainly, and to the me-
chanical obstruction which the trunks and
litter of the forest floor offer. Any kind of
tree growth would answer this purpose, and
all the forest management necessary would
be simply to abstain from interference and
leave the ground to Nature's kindly action.
This was about the idea of the first advo-
cates of forest protection in this country.
But would it be rational and would it be
necessary to withdraw a large territory from
human use in order to secure this beneficial
influence? It would be, indeed, in many
localities, if the advantage of keeping it un-
der forest could not be secured simultaneous-
ly with the employment of the soil for useful
production ; but rational forest management
secures the advantages both of favorable
forest conditions and of the reproduction of
useful material. Not only is the rational cut-
ting of the forest not antagonistic to favor-
able forest conditions, but in skillful hands
the latter can be improved by the judicious
use of the axe. In fact, the demands of for-
est preservation on the mountains, and the
methods of forest management for profit in
such localities, are more or less harmonious ;
thus, the absolute clearing of the forest on
steep hill-sides, which is apt to lead to desic-
cation and washing of the soil, is equally detri-
mental to a profitable forest management,
necessitating, as it does, replanting under
difficulties. Forest preservation, then, does
not, as seems to be imagined by many, ex-
clude proper forest utilization, but, on the
contrary, these may well go hand in hand,
preserving forest conditions while securing
valuable material ; the first requirement only
modifies the manner in which the second is
satisfied.

The Zebra's Stripes. — It has been shown
by several authors that the stripes of the ze-
bra are a means of protection to it in the
forests, by producing light effects like those
of the limbs of the bushes by which it is
surrounded. One can readily see, says a cor-
respondent of Nature, how the shadows of
the branches in a tropical forest, falling upon
the zebras, would so intermingle with the
stripes of the animals as to add enormously

to the difficulties of recognition by human
eyes, and also by the eyes of their animal
foes. This correspondent believes that the
stripes have a still deeper meaning and value.
At night, when the animal is lying down
partly on its side and partly on its belly, and
doubles up its legs, the horizontal stripes on
them run in the same general direction with
the vertical ones of the body and seem to be
continuations of them ; or, if it rests on its
side and stretches out its limbs, the vertical,
diagonal, and horizontal stripes would then
be more horizontal than anything else, but
pointing in different directions, and would so
assimilate themselves with the crossed and
varying directions of the shadows as to have
the same practical effect in hiding the sleep-
ing animal from its foes.

An Ancient Japanese Burial Custom. —
Prof. Hitchcock, of the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, calling attention, in a paper on Ancient
Tombs and Burial Mounds of Japan, to some
small clay figures representing human beings,
said it was an ancient custom in Japan to
bury the retainers of a prince standing up-
right around his grave. The compassion of the
Emperor Suisina (97-30 b. c.) was aroused
by the sufferings of the persons who were
thus treated when his younger brother died,
and he desired to change the custom. When
the empress died, the plan was proposed of
substituting clay figures of men and horses
for the living victims. From the publication
of an edict in the year 646 forbidding the
burial of living persons, and also the burial
of gold, silver brocade, diaper, or any kind
of variegated thing, it is inferred that the
custom of living burial was kept up to some
extent till the seventh century. Specimens
of the figures, called tsuchi ningio, introduced
to take the places of the living sacrifices, are
now very rare, and this fact leads to the sup-
position that the figures were not buried, but
were left exposed on the surface of the
ground.

The Lung-fish. — The Ceratodus or lung-
fish of Queensland, according to Prof. Spen-
cer's account of it in the Australasian Asso-
ciation, lives only in the Burnett and Mary
Rivers, in Queensland, and belongs to a small
group which may be regarded as interme-
diate between the fishes and the amphibia.

568

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The swimming bladder of ordinary fishes has
been modified so that it serves as a lung. In
Africa, JProtopterm, a form closely allied to
Ceratodus, makes for itself a cocoon of mud,
in which, during the hot, dry season, it lives,
and can breathe by means of its lung. The
Ceratodus does not appear to do this, and
probably never leaves the water. It comes
continually to the surface, and passes out
and takes in air, making a faint spouting
noise. The author suggested that the lung
was of the greatest service to the animal, not
during the hot but during the wet season,
when the rivers are flooded and the water is
thick with sand. The Ceratodus appears to
be herbivorous, and feeds largely on the
seeds of gum trees which fall into the water.

Dealing with Contagions. — A report by
Dr. A. Jacobi calls attention to some pecul-
iar difficulties in dealing with the contagion of
scarlet fever and diphtheria. No general hos-
pital must admit patients suffering from either
disease. Hotel-keepers are not willing to ad-
mit them ; but if cases get lodgment within
their houses, it is to their interest to conceal
the fact. Their interest, however, does not go
so far as to induce them to destroy or disin-
fect curtains and carpets, and purify the
walls of rooms, and the contagion is perpetu-
ated. Rooms and suites of rooms in large
and expensive hotels are known in which
cases of diphtheria have occurred for several
years in succession, all provoked by the same
germ, lodged in the same curtains and car-
pets. The same danger lurks in private
houses, where the well members are impei'-
iled by the presence of the sick one, and all
the surroundings are liable to be infected;
and in tenement-houses, where close contact
of the well with the sick can hardly be avoid-
ed. Patients should be removed from homes
and hotels and isolated ; but this is impossi-
ble, for the want of provision for the proper
care of such cases. The only institution for
these diseases in New York is the Willard
Parker Hospital, which is in a remote part of
the city, and has beds for only seventy pa-
tients, while twenty-five hundred persons
die annually of the infections. Plans for
new hospitals are proposed by the Medi-
cal Society of the City of New York, and
with them stations or refuges, where the chil-
dren of families in which diphtheria or scar-

let fever is prevailing can be housed until
the patients at home have recovered or been
removed, and their residences, bedding, and
furniture have been thoroughly disinfected.

Treatment of Potato Disease. — The treat-
ment of potato disease with sulphate of cop-
per has been found efficacious at Nantes,
France. A dressing of three pounds of sul-
phate of copper to twenty gallons of water,
or of two pounds of sulphate of copper and
four pounds of lime to twenty-five gallons of
water, is used. The best results are obtained
by using whole potatoes, sound, of medium
size, selecting those which show the finest
germs, and cutting very large ones in two.
Before planting they are steeped for twenty-
four hours in a bath composed of six pounds
each of sulphate of ammonia and nitrate of
potash and twenty-five gallons of water ; then
allowed to stand twenty-four hours to give
the sprouts time to swell — whereby the growth
is quickened and the return is increased. Dis-
ease in tubers is arrested by dipping them in
a bath of water and as much lime as it will
take, and drying them. The diseased part
seems to solidify after this treatment, and
does not spread, while the good part con-
tinues sound.

Propagation of Fine Flower Seeds. —

From an address by Mr. George F. Daniels,
quoted in Garden and Forest from the Jour-
nal of Horticulture, we learn that the in-
creased demand for flowers in England and
America has given a corresponding impetus
to seed-growing abroad, where they have the
advantage of cheap labor and a climate es-
pecially adapted to the work. The secret of
successful cultivation in Germany lies in the
bright, dry autumn, which enables seeds to
stand longer and become more thoroughly
ripened. The soil is also well adapted for
the purpose. Stocks are one of the most ex-
pensive crops, in the item of labor, because
the finer varieties have to be grown in pots,
and they require attention in watering. China
asters are grown by acres, one firm devoting
more than a hundred acres to them. Petu-
nias require much attention, as each bloom
has to be fertilized by hand to insure the
setting of the seed. The pollen from the
double blooms is very difficult to obtain, the
flowers being so dense that they have often

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

569

to be removed from the plant, then placed in
wet sand and pulled open, so as to allow the
sun and the air to ripen the pollen, which is
carefully removed and placed on the finest
single blooms. Calceolarias are shy seed-
ers, and the most careful hybridization is
necessary to insure a crop. Every bloom is
examined, and the pollen is taken from the
stamens and placed on the pistil. As the
operation must be performed when the pol-
len is quite ripe, the flowers must be looked
through nearly every day to catch each bloom
as it comes to maturity. Seed is very diffi-
cult to obtain from carnations, and then only
in small quantities. The commoner kinds of
annuals are grown in masses. The plan of
improving stocks of seed is as follows : As
soon as the plants are fully in bloom they
are carefully examined, and the best and
truest in color or shape are marked by placing
a stick next to them. "When the seed is ripe
they are carefully gathered by themselves,
and kept for stock the following year. This
is very necessary in case of some annuals,
which show a great tendency to revert to the
wild state ; at the same time it improves the
stocks from year to year.

Ahi mi i) 11 m in Food - vessels. — Opinions
still differ with regard to the value of alu-
minum for use in food-containing vessels.
Messrs. Liibbert and Roscher asserted sev-
eral months ago, in a paper on the subject,
that aluminum was too readily acted upon by
food-substances or other substances used in
cooking, for its application in the construc-
tion of kitchen utensils to be safe. Prof.
Lunge afterward instituted experiments on
the subject, from which he concluded that
coffee, tea, and beer had practically no action
on aluminum, and the action of brandy was
very slight; while that of acids and acid
liquids (wine, sour milk, and fruit juices) was
more pronounced, but still too slight to cause
alarm. Taking the worst case, that of acetic
acid, this author found a maximum attack of
five milligrammes per one hundred square
centimetres in six days ; so that a given ves-
sel, kept always full, would be reduced to
half its original weight [in fifty-five years.
This, he holds, is too trifling an action to be
considered. There is no danger of any in-
jurious action upon the human body by alu-
minum compounds, which, moreover, are not

poisonous as compounds of arsenic, mercury,
lead, and copper are poisonous. Before they
can act injuriously, a quantity will have to
be ingested a hundred times larger than he
found to be regularly entering the stomach
in this way. Finally, he adds, aluminum may
be employed without fear for canteens or any
other vessels used to hold food, at least at
ordinary temperatures. Against these con-
clusions is a report on the authority of the
telegraph of a soldier near Nuremberg, Ger-
many, who was taken sick after drinking
cognac from his aluminum flask. On analy-
sis of the brandy it was found to be muddy,
and to contain roundish, black particles, which
proved to be aluminum and iron. But in this
case we had not simple corrosion of alumi-
num by brandy, but galvanic action of the
liquor, aluminum, and iron, with resultant
corrosion. Further investigation of the sub-
ject is needed.

Photography in Colors. — M. G. Lippaman
announces that he has perfected a method of
photographing in colors which he mentioned
to the French Academy of Sciences fourteen
months ago, and has exhibited very brilliant
spectra which he obtained without the in-
terposition of the colored screen. The au-
thor claims to have obtained the compound
colors of natural objects as well as the natu-
ral colors of the spectrum. He exhibits a
series of plates representing a window of four
colors — yellow, green, blue, and red ; a trophy
of French and other flags ; a plate of oranges
with a red poppy on top ; and a many-colored
parrot. The window and the parrot are of
dazzling brilliancy. They were photographed
with the electric light in ten minutes. M.
Lippaman admits that the plates require in
practice too long an exposure, and that it will
be necessary to make them more sensitive.

Influence of Natural Snrronndings on
Hnman Character. — Captain F. E. Younghus-
band makes a remark in one of his accounts
of central Asiatic exploration, on the influ-
ence of the natural surroundings on the char-
acter of the people of a country. " It has
been my fortune," he says, " to travel in
very varied descriptions of country — in the
dense, gloomy forests of Manchuria ; over the
bounding grassy steppes of Mongolia ; across
the desolate wastes of the Desert of Gobi ;

570

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and among the mountain valleys of the Him-
alayas and the Hindu Kush. Each differ-
ent type of country produced its own peculiar
impression upon me, find has enabled me to
appreciate perhaps more keenly than I other-
wise should have done its particular influence
upon the inhabitants. The forest produces
a feeling of indefinable repression ; one seems
so hedged in and hampered about, and longs
to be free of the endless succession of trunks
of trees, and to be able to see clear space in
front. Far preferable, in my opinion, is the
desolation of the desert, which, depressing as
it may be, in some way produces also a feel-
ing of freedom ; and on the open steppes an
irresistible desire to roam and wander seems
to come over one, which I can well under-
stand was the motive power which caused
the Mongol hordes under Genghis Khan to
overrun the rest of Asia, and part even of
Europe. Again, with these Mongols of the
desert and the steppes a stranger is always
hospitably received, and there is little of that
dread of people from the outside so frequent-
ly met with among barbarous nations. The
Kirghiz of the open Pamirs, too, have some
of these characteristics. But directly one
enters the narrow, shut-in valleys, such as are
found on the southern slopes of the Hindu
Kush and the Himalayas, one finds the ideas
of the people shut in too. They have a dread
of strangers; they desire, above all things,
to be left to themselves, and unless forced
by over-population to do so, or led away by
the ambitions of a chief, seldom leave the
particular valley to which they belong."

Ratios of Illegitimacy. — A table of sta-
tistics of illegitimacy in Europe, published by
Dr. Albert Leffingwell, shows the Irish to be
the most virtuous of all the peoples, the ratio
of illegitimate births among them being
twenty-six in every thousand. The English
rate is forty-eight, and the Scotch eighty-two
per thousand. Thus we may roughly say
that for every child born out of wedlock in
Ireland two are born in England and three
in Scotland. In Europe at large, Ireland is
closely followed in its place of honor by Rus-
sia, with the low rate of twenty-eight per
thousand, and by Holland with the rate of
thirty-two per thousand. The Italian and
French rates are respectively seventy-four and
eighty-two per thousand, comparable with

the rate in Scotland. Among the countries
that show the highest proportions of illegiti-
macy are Sweden, Saxony, Bavaria, and Aus-
tria, in which the rates range from one hun-
dred to one hundred and forty per thou-
sand. Austria is at the opposite pole from
Ireland, and takes the lowest place in moral-
ity among the European nations, with a rate
of one hundred and forty-six per thou-
sand. The inquiry into the causes of these
varying rates of illegitimacy raises compli-
cated and interesting problems. The causes
generally supposed to be principal factors in
the matter are poverty, ignorance, and the
contamination of great cities. Examining
the influence of these, Dr. Leffingwell finds
it very slight. In Ireland, the lowest rates
are in the poorest counties. Russia, with
one of the lowest rates, is one of the poor-
est countries ; and the author affirms that
" there is nowhere such uniform relation be-
tween the indigence of a people and the preva-
lence of illegitimacy as to justify the hypothe-
sis that this phase of moral delinquency in
any district or country can be accurately de-
scribed as caused by its poverty. As little
can the influence of great cities account for
the prevalence of illegitimacy. Education
and creed appear to have little influence. We
must seek the real factors in race and hered-
ity, legislative restraints upon marriage, so-
cial usage, and other like circumstances."

Value of the Applications of Anthropol-
ogy.— In a paper on Anthropology as a Sci-
ence and as a Branch of University Educa-
tion, Dr. D. G. Brinton thus estimates the
value of the applications of this science : " In
government and law, in education and reli-
gion, men have hitherto been dealt with ac-
cording to traditional beliefs or a priori theo-
ries of what they may or ought to be. When
we learn through scientific research what
they really are, we shall then, and then only,
have a solid foundation on which to build the
social, ethical, and political structures of the
future. It is the appreciation of this which
has given the extraordinary impetus to the
study of sociology — a branch of anthropology
— within the last decade. Anthropology
alone furnishes the key and clew to history.
This also is meeting recognition. No longer
are the best histories mainly chronicles of
kings and wars, but records of the develop-

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

57i

rnent and the decline of peoples ; and what
constitutes ' a people,' and shapes its destiny,
is the very business of ethnology to explain.
So likewise in hygiene and medicine, in ethics
and religion, in language and arts, in paint-
ing, architecture, sculpture, and music, the
full import and often unconscious intention
of human activity can only be understood,
and directed in the most productive channels,
by such a careful historical and physical
analysis as anthropology aims to present."

Science Teaching in Preparatory Schools.

— The report of the Committee of the Amer-
ican Society of Naturalists on Science Teach-
ing in the Schools embraces the answers from
the colleges and preparatory schools in the
North Atlantic States between Maine and the
District of Columbia, to a circular of ques-
tions respecting what they require of scien-
tific instruction. Of sixty-nine colleges from
which answers were received, only eighteen
require science for admission to the course
for the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Eleven
other colleges require science for admission
to the scientific course, while forty colleges
offer no recognition of the place of science
in the pre-collegiate course. Of twenty-one
institutions catalogued as scientific schools,
ten do and eleven do not require some sci-
ence for admission. Of one hundred and
forty-one preparatory schools, ninety-eight
include science in the course preparatory for
the classical course in colleges. These facts
seem to indicate that the academies and high
schools are in advance of the colleges in the
recognition of the claims of science. The re-
port, analyzing the courses of instruction of
the schools, shows that the plea that time can
not be found for scientific study in the four
years of preparatory school instruction is not
well founded. The greatest difficulty in se-
curing the right kind of scientific instruction
in the schools arises from the lack of properly
trained teachers. This difficulty is vanishing,
and the number of teachers is increasing who
possess an acquaintance with science which,
though limited in scope, is in considerable
part sound in method. " Let it be clearly
recognized that the teacher of science de-
manded even in the primary schools is not
one who has committed to memory some ver-
bal propositions about science, but one who
has learned to observe and experiment, to

compare and reason, and the conditions are
already in existence which will not fail to
supply that demand."

Miss North and her Animals. — Miss Mari-
anne North, a British naturalist and traveler,
whose death we noticed several months ago,
exhibits in her recently published " Recollec-
tions " a happy appreciation of the individual
eccentricities of animals. A favorite dog of
her father's, which was implicitly trusted,
when left one day in a room with a tempting
pigeon pie, could not resist stealing a pigeon,
but replaced the bird with the blackened
sponge which Mr. North used to wipe his
pens. Miss North made friends with the sa-
cred baboons in the Indian temples, " who
came and sat by her side to criticise her
drawing, or who, after breaking out in the
tricks of their unregenerated monkey nature,
would suddenly fold their arms and relapse
into pious imbecility, as if they had been dis-
ciples of Buddha, and were meditating on the
Nirvana. She commemorates her first im-
pressions of the Queensland kangaroos, when
she saw fifty come hopping down hill in sin-
gle file, ludicrously manoeuvring as if moved
by machinery, and using their big tails for
balancing rods. Shortly afterward she saw
a bear taking a siesta in the fork of a tree,
who merely cocked his great ears and yawned
when her attendants shied stones at him. He
knew he was out of harm's way. He took
his constitutional only at night, and was not
going to alter his habits to please anybody.
She tells a capital story of a cockatoo, brought
up in a zoological garden, and taught to say :
'Walk in, ladies and gentlemen; don't all
come at once — one at a time.' The bird es-
caped, and was found with a troop of wild
cockatoos attacking it. It was lying on its
back, fighting beak and claw, and scream-
ing out : ' Come on, ladies and gentlemen,
come on; not all at once, one at a time.'
She heard of a South African baboon, who,
having taken to brigandage, had assailed a
musician returning from a dance, and capt-
ured his accordeon. Examining his prize,
there was a dismal discord, followed by a
hideous howl, and the robber vanished in a
panic, leaving the booty behind. She encum-
bered herself with a family of opossum mice,
and this cost her endless trouble and anxiety."
But these mice proved extremely serviceable

572

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

in her journey across the North American
continent, for they excited such intense in-
terest with railway guards, hotel-keepers,
etc., that they always insured their mistress
civility or a cordial reception.

Wild Plants as Fnngus-nnrseries. — Prof.
B. D. Halsted shows, in a paper on fungi com-
mon to wild and cultivated plants, that in
many cases diseases are transmitted by spores
from one genus or family as well as from one
species to another. A bacterium that affects
the tomato and potato causes a disastrous
form of blight in melons, cucumbers, and
squashes. The apple rust that yellows the
foliage of the orchard in July is identical with
the gynosporangium that produces the galls,
swelling out to large size in rainy weather, on
cedar trees, and the spores are transmitted in
alternation from one tree to the other. It is
thus shown by many examples that the evil
influences of plant funguses may act at long
range. The lesson may be learned from the
experiments that " if so much of the smut,
rust, mildew, mold, rot, and blight of our cul-
tivated plants is propagated by the wild plants
hard by, it may be wise for every crop-grower
to pay attention to what is thriving outside of
his garden wall."

Skill of Prehistoric Lapidaries.— The

most superficial examination of any fairly
large collection of stone implements, says
Mr. Joseph D. McGuire, in a paper on the
materials, apparatus, and processes of the
aboriginal lapidary, is calculated to convince
the observer that man in his lowest stage
of development was well acquainted with the
methods of fracture of various stones, and
also that he was a most skillful workman.
The articles found in burial-places, in caves,
and shell-heaps, as well as surface finds, fur-
nish conclusive evidence that man often car-
ried material many hundreds of miles for the
purpose of fashioning, at his leisure, objects
of personal adornment or domestic utility as
well as weapons. The evidence of progress
in the manufacture of tools made by man is
easy to find : " From the splinter of bone or
piece of stone used in the hand to the dia-
mond drill of to-day is an immense advance,
but it can be traced, step by step, without a
break. The author has himself experiment-
ed on the manufacture of stone implements,

using tools similar to those of the North
American Indians, and beginning with the
raw material. The principal work done was
the pecking of stone with the stone hammer,
and the carving, polishing, rubbing, and bor-
ing of stone with the rudest appliances. The
result of the experiments goes far to prove
that the time required for the manufacture
of stone implements by primitive man was
very short." If the time occupied by the
writer was short, it is fair to conclude that a
skillful workman, using the materials which
long experience had taught him were the
best for his purpose, would accomplish the
task in much shorter time. The author, in
his paper, records his experiments in pecking
nephrite, kersantite, catlinite, obsidian, and
basalt, with different hammering material, in
drilling and boring, and in hammering cop-
per, the results of which all went to confirm
the view he has expressed.

Extermination of Species.— Some of the
more obvious causes of the extermination of
animals now going on, says Mr. Frederic A.
Lucas, in his paper on that subject in the
United States National Museum, are to be
found in the systematic killing of animals
for their various products, the destruction
caused by domesticated animals introduced
into new countries, and the bringing of wild
land under cultivation. These causes most di-
rectly affect the larger animals, while smaller
creatures are influenced by slighter ones.
The erection of telegraph wires has proved
destructive to birds, while other birds meet
their fate by dashing against the electric
lights. The extinction of the rhytina and the
great auk, the almost complete extirpation
of the bison, and the reduced numbers of the
walrus, are good examples of destruction
wrought directly by the hand of man ; and,
besides, there are the still more numerous
instances of the very perceptible decrease of
animals once abundant. Species used for
food, or otherwise of economic value, suffer
most ; fashion affects some, some are neces-
sarily destroyed for the protection of man
and his domesticated animals, and others are
killed merely for sport. The passenger
pigeons, formerly visiting us by millions, are
now unknown in places where they once
abounded. Halibut, lobsters, and oysters
are getting scarce, and the Atlantic salmon

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

573

and shad are practically kept from extermi-
nation by the efforts of fish commissions.
One reason for this growing depletion of ani-
mals is found in the fallacy that, because
some animals exist in large numbers, the
supply is unlimited and the species needs
no protection, which is indulged in till the
species is on the verge of extermination.
Usually, too, those most directly interested
in the preservation of game are the bitter-
est opponents of protective measures, espe-
cially if the change will produce even tem-
porary inconvenience. Although regret at
the impending or actual extermination of a
species is often purely a matter of sentiment,
there is no lack of instances where the strict-
est utilitarian is quite as much interested as
the naturalist in preserving a species from
destruction. The pity of it is that in so many
cases a small amount of protection would not
only preserve for the naturalist the animals
he wishes to study, but furnish the practical
man with an additional source of wealth.

Concerning Overwork. — In treating the
question whether laborious occupations in
themselves may lead to premature strain of
the body or mind, and so to degeneration
or disease, Dr. P. H. Pye-Smith thinks we
" must distinguish." Aneurism, emphysema,
and some forms of cardiac hypertrophy may
be the result of overstrained and too violent
and prolonged exertion, from mechanical
stretching of the great arteries by move-
ments of the arms, from high blood-pressure,
excessive calls on the heart, and over-long
suspension of respiration, as in muscular
efforts with a closed glottis. " We see simi-
lar results in horses which are put to too
hard work at too early an age, and there is
no reason to doubt the operation of such
causes of disease in man. But their opera-
tion is limited to the production of certain
definite lesions, and there is no evidence that
harm is done, disease brought on, or life
shortened by what is commonly known as
work, whether mental, physical, or a combi-
nation of the two. The vanity of human na-
ture is tickled by ascribing its disorders to
such respectable antecedents as industry,
energy, and intellectual activity. We must
all have felt this when the results of habitual
idleness or gluttony are ascribed by a patient
or his wife to an overtaxed brain or too

strenuous devotion to business — especially in
the public service. There is no fear of any
one of us" (members of the Royal College of
Physicians) " using our brains too much for
our health, nor do I believe that mental
labor or honest work of any kind interferes
with health or shortens life a day. Even if
it did, who would not rather be worn in use
than rust in idleness ? Who would not
choose a short-spanned life, filled full of ac-
tion and of thought, of sorrow and of joy, of
effort and of endurance, of enjoyment of liv-
ing one's self and helpful service to others,
rather than to wear out a tedious existence
of monotonous ease ? "

Agricnltnre in Egypt. — The land of Egypt
was irrigated in ancient times by turning the
red water from the Nile at high flood into
the basins into which the country was divided
by the construction of earth-banks at con-
venient distances. The water was allowed to
stand at a depth of three feet or more for
forty or sixty days, till the earth had become
saturated and the weeds had been killed, and
the fertilizing layer of finely divided red mud
had been deposited on the soil. The water
being drawn off into the receding river, the
seed was sown upon the soft mud. Some-
times the ground was left till it was dry
enough to be plowed, and was then planted.
In either case sufficient moisture for the sup-
ply of the crop was retained. This system
of irrigation has been supplanted for the
most part in Lower Egypt by the canal sys-
tem introduced by Mehemet Ali, but is still
in use in Upper Egypt. The difference in
the power of the two systems to maintain
the fertility of the soil may be estimated
from the fact that a good crop of wheat
grown under the basin system of Upper
Egypt yields about twenty-seven bushels per
acre; while, unless specially manured, the
yield runs down under canal irrigation to
about eighteen bushels and a half. In the
latter instance, the greater number of crops
taken, and the reduced amount of Nile mud
deposited, make artificial manures necessary.
A combination of the two systems gives the
best results. A wonderful store of natural
manure, called sabakh has for a number
of years been drawn upon by cultivators in
the shape of refuse earth from the mounds
of ancient villages, and from the floors and

574

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

surroundings of the mud huts of the present
generation. The water of the Nile holds in
its volume an unusually large percentage of
air ; and it is probably due to this circum-
stance that it is so healthful and palatable
even at its reddest. The crop seasons are
divided into three different productive pe-
riods : the autumn, or nili — August till the
end of November ; the period of flood, in
which maize, millet, sesame, and a few minor
crops are grown; the summer, or sefi —
April till July ; the warm-weather period, in
which tropical and semi-tropical crops — rice,
sugar, and cotton — are produced ; and the
winter, or shitaioi — December to March, or
cold-weather period — when the European
crops, grown in a temperate climate, come
to maturity.

Spring Two Hundred Tears ago and
now. — Has change of climate within histori-
cal times, Dr. P. H. Pye-Smith asks, brought
about change of diseases ? "I think," he
says, " we may assert that, with a few im-
portant exceptions, such as the draining
which has led to the general disappearance
of malaria, and the improved habitations of
the poor, which have made plague unknown
and typhus rare, no such changes have taken
place ; and in particular that there is no foun-
dation for the opinion that in former time the
English spring was milder than at present.
' The uncertain glory of an April day ' was as
uncertain at the close of the sixteenth as at
the close of the nineteenth century. In the
seventeenth century the great Earl of Veru-
lam met his death from standing in the snow
on Highgate Hill on Easter Monday, and Eve-
lyn remarks, under date of March 27, 1681,
' An extraordinary sharp spring, not a leaf yet
on the trees.' In the eighteenth century
Horace Walpole writes that ' the spring has
set in with its usual severity ' ; and the con-
trast between poetical description of the
' ethereal mildness of spring ' and its actual
inclemency has become a commonplace of
satire."

Typhoid Fever and Sewage in Drink-
ing-water.— Outbreaks of typhoid fever oc-
curred in several of the half-dozen cities and
towns situated near the junction of the Hud-
son and Mohawk Rivers during the winter of
1890-91, and, while their cause can not be

fixed with certainty, Prof. William P. Mason,
of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, holds
that there is good reason to attribute them
to a contaminated water-supply. In a paper
read to the Franklin Institute he states that
every one of these places drains into the
Hudson River or its tributary, the Mohawk.
There were epidemics of tvphoid fever in
Cohoes, West Troy, and Albany, which take
their supplies of water from one or the other
of these rivers ; but in Waterford and Lan-
singburg, which take water from the Hudson
above this group of towns ; in Troy, which
uses in part a similar supply and depends
partly on the lakes back in the hills ; also on
Green Island, opposite Troy, which obtains
sand-filtered river-water from wells, there
was little or no fever besides imported cases.
Ice-cutters at Van Wie's Point, four miles
below Albany, who used the river-water for
drinking, also had the fever break out among
them. It is true that typhoid germs were not
found in the water, but the facts above cited
are certainly worthy of careful consideration.

Sulphuring Dried Frnit. — The dainty
whiteness which commercial dried fruits
have taken on within a few years is due to
an unwholesome bleaching by means of the
fumes of burning sulphur, which is practiced
in the drying factories. Fruit-driers say that
sulphuring makes the fruit dry quicker, keep
better, and sell better. But these advantages
do not benefit the consumer, who suffers the
disadvantages, which are loss of flavor, im-
possibility of distinguishing unripe and poor
fruit from good, and the presence of sulphide
of zinc in fruit that is dried on trays having
a zinc surface. This matter is thoroughly
ventilated in the Transactions of the Ameri-
can Public Health Association by Dr. Joel
W. Smith, who says further that the con-
tamination with sulphide of zinc was the
reason why American evaporated apples were
excluded from Germany. He also quotes
from a paper read by J. L. Mosher at a fruit-
growers' convention in California the state-
ment that " if fruit be picked before ripe,
and over-sulphured to produce whiteness, it
is devoid of its true rich taste and flavor, and
only requires polishing to make buttons."

Physiology of Over - exertion. — Perti-
nently to the death of a young Englishman,

NOTES.

S7S

twenty-two years old, from syncope brought
about by cold and over-exertion attendant
upon a bicycle-ride of forty miles, the Lancet
remarks : " It appears that this young man
was a practiced bicycle-rider, and to such
forty miles could hardly be considered an
excessive run in a day ; but, besides distance,
many things have also to be considered by
the judicious rider — for instance, the nature
of the roads, the weather, and perhaps, above
all, the pace. We know that the new ma-
chines are capable of attaining a speed never
thought of a few years ago. A high speed
through such cold air as prevailed on Good
Friday must often be very dangerous, as likely
to cause pulmonary congestion, to overcome
which the heart will work at a high degree
of tension, and, like any other muscle, it is
likely to become paralyzed from overwork ;
and herein lies the danger from swift and
hard riding. It would be well if our young
men would remember the advice that an emi-
nent English physiologist gave to a young
man some years ago, ' Observe your strength,
and keep within it.' "

NOTES.

Between four and five acres have been
assigned in the forthcoming World's Colum-
bian Exhibition to the Educational Exhibit.
This is a much larger space than ever was
offered before to this interest at a World's
Fair. In order that the most advantage
may be derived from this large privilege, the
Bureau of Education has published a circular
of suggestions of details as to the arrange-
ment of the exhibit, in order that it may be
made as comprehensive as possible, and as
accessible in all its parts. A statement con-
cerning the National Catholic Educational
Exhibit, which has been determined upon,
is printed on the same sheet with the de-
partment's circular.

It appears, from M. W. Brennaud's studies
of the Surya Siddhanta, a book which con-
tains the astronomy of the Hindus, that they
were acquainted with the precession of the
equinoxes and its effects, and with the
theory of lunar and planetary movements.
They had determined with fair exactness
the diameter of the earth and the distance
of the moon; they could calculate the or-
bits of the planets by the aid of the
moon's daily motion in its orbit ; could cal-
culate and predict eclipses of the moon and
the sun ; and had a respectable knowledge of
most of the fundamental problems of astron-
omy.

Observations made by M. Obrecht, at
the observatory in Santiago, Chili, since
July, 1891, show that the ground in the
northwest quarter rises daily between noon
and nine o'clock in the evening, and then
falls back gradually till seven o'clock in the
morning. Furthermore, there is a continu-
ous rising movement of the southeast quarter,
and from September to November a continu-
ous rising of the eastern quarter. The daily
variations had been observed by M. Moesta
at the time the observatory was built, and by
Gillis.

A few months since the Kew authorities
dispatched, per the steamship Atrato, a bo-
tanical commission to the West Indies with
a number of Wardian cases containing vine
cuttings and Gambier plants. Unfortunate-
ly, cold weather set in, and the efforts to
convey these tender plants, which had so
often ended in failure, threatened once more
to result in disappointment. The difficulty
was that if kept on deck they would be in-
evitably destroyed by the low temperature ;
while, if taken below, the absence of light,
which is so necessary to the existence of the
delicate Gambier plants, was almost certain
to be equally fatal. Under these circum-
stances it occurred to Mr. Morris to avail
himself of the electric light, of which there
was an abundance on board the Atrato.
The experiment proved in every way success-
ful.

The extent of the influence a lake may
exercise upon climate is illustrated by the
statement of M. Forel that the quantity of
heat accumulated in Lake Leman during the
summer is equivalent to that which would be
given out by the burning of fifty-one million
tons of coal. A railroad train carrying this
coal would be eighteen thousand kilometres
long, or nearly the length of the earth's me-
ridian from pole to pole.

A story is told of a brown retriever dog
in London which was sent to carry a letter
in its mouth to drop in the post-box at Pic-
cadilly. It got to the box just as the post-
man, having emptied it, was starting away.
The dog seeing him, ran after him, caught
up with him, put the letter in his hand, and
then went off with the satisfied air of a dog
that had done its duty.

Op the " rare metals," didymium is quoted
at $4,500 a pound; barium, at $3,700;
beryllium or glucinum, at $3,375 ; yttrium,
at $2,250 ; rhodium and niobium or colum-
bium, at $2,000 each ; vanadium, at $1,875 ;
iridium, at $700 ; osmium, at $625 ; palla-
dium, at $500 ; and platinum, at $350. The
price of the last metal, however, fluctuates
between those of silver and gold.

M. Berthelot has traced the derivation
of the word bronze to the city of Brundu-
sium, now Brindisi, where was the seat of

576

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

certain manufactures in which the alloy was
employed. A Latin manuscript of the age
of Charlemagne, found in the library of the
chapter of the Canons of Luynes, gives a re-
ceipt for the " composition of Brindisi" —
copper, two parts ; lead, one part ; tin, one
part.

Among the interesting objects exhibited
at a recent soiree of the Royal Society was
a proof-sheet of the Archaeological Survey of
Egypt, by Mr. Percy E. Newberry, showing
all the successive stages of a wrestling-match
between a black and a white man, with more
than a hundred different positions recorded.
The white man seems in many of the pict-
ures to be getting the worst of it.

A foolish report that the Department of
Agriculture contemplated introducing the
mongoose to contend with the rodents of the
Western plains, so troublesome to farmers —
with the ultimate result, of course, of taking
their place as a nuisance — has been denied
by the department.

A new preparation of the potato has
been introduced by M. Moulin, the inventor
of the potato bread, and is intended chiefly
for feeding to cattle. The cleaned potatoes
are scraped or crushed ; the pulp is pressed
for the extraction of free water; is finely
divided ; and is dried with a moderate heat
sufficient to give it a pleasant taste without
converting the starch into dextrin. The
product is called torrefied pulp. It may also
be used for human food by making a puree
of it, or by making bread of a mixture of it
with flour or meal.

At the last meeting of the American
Philosophical Society in Philadelphia reso-
lutions wei'e adopted for the celebration in a
worthy and becoming manner of the sesqui-
centennial anniversary of the society ; and a
committee of five members was appointed to
make all necessary arrangements for the
same. The society celebrated the centennial
anniversary of its foundation in 1843, with a
series of addresses, meetings, etc., continu-
ing from the 25th to the 30th of May.

The last giraffe in the London Zoological
Gardens has recently died, and the institu-
tion is, for the first time since 1836, without
a living specimen of this animal. It has had
in all thirty specimens, of which seventeen
were born on the place. The giraffe market
is very poorly supplied, and there is but one
specimen now for sale in Europe. The
giraffe is practically extinct in South Africa,
and can not be found within a thousand miles
of Cape Town. There are still giraffes in
East Africa, but there are no means of catch-
ing them.

The aborigines of the Andaman Islands,
a curious and even unique people, are said to
be fast disappearing. All of them on two
of the islands are dead, and only a few are

left on a third. Only a small number of
children are born, and they die in infancy.

The Yahgan, one of the three tribes in-
habiting Tierra del Fuego, according to Dr.
Hyades, live chiefly on fish and mollusks.
They also eat any kind of bird they can
catch, and are fond of the flesh of the whale,
the seal, and the otter. When pressed with
hunger they will eat the fox, but never dogs
or rats. Fishing is left to the women, while
the men hunt. The people have splendid
powers of digestion, and assimilate their food
so rapidly that they sometimes become fat
in the course of a single day. Their huts
are made of branches or of the trunks of
trees, the interstices being imperfectly filled
up with moss or bark, with fragments of
canoes, or with seal-skins. In the center is
a fire, around which the inmates sleep at
night, and at other times, when they have
nothing else to do, sit talking and laughing.
The Yahgan lose early the attributes of
youth, but often retain their vigor to a great
age. They are very courageous, and enjoy
games that test their physical strength.

With the exception of certain Eskimo
throw-sticks, Mr. Otis T. Mason remarks in
Science that all the weapons of the North-
western American Indians examined by him
are ambidextrous ; and he questions whether
outside of the Eskimo area any American
aborigines had apparatus that would not fit
either hand.

Among the particular schemes connected
with the celebration of the Columbian quadri-
centennial is that for a great food exhibition
to be held in New York in October, 1892,
under the auspices of the Food Manufact-
urers' Association. It will include displays
of manufactured foods and of products di-
rect from the dairy, orchard, and sea, and
a special department of dairy products, with
daily afternoon and evening concerts.

OBITUARY NOTES.

The death is reported of August Wilhelm
Hoffmann, the eminent German chemist,
Professor in the University of Berlin, and
author of many discoveries that have contrib-
uted to the advancement of the science. A
sketch and portrait of him were published in
The Popular Science Monthly for April, 1884.

Henbi Duvetkier, a famous explorer and
formerly President of the French Geographi-
cal Society, died about the beginning of May.
He was born in 1840, and began, when
twenty years old, a series of journeys in Al-
geria which made him famous. They in-
cluded a reconnaissance to El Golea, where
no European had ever set foot; southern
Constantine and the Tunisian Soudan; the
country of the Tuaregs ; and the Chots of
southern Tunis.

WILLIAM BARTKAM.

^toGAHTM-bBRAR '
NEW YORK.

THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

SEPTEMBER, 1892.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE.

XVII.— GEOGEAPHY.
By ANDEEW DICKSON WHITE, LL.D., L. H. D.,

EX-PRESIDENT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

PART II.

3 The Inhabitants of the Earth. — Even while the question
• of the sphericity of the earth was undecided, another question
had been suggested which the Church held to be of far greater
importance. The doctrine of the earth's sphericity naturally led
to thought upon the tenants of the earth's surface, and another
ancient germ idea was warmed into life — the idea of the antip-
odes— of human beings on the earth's opposite sides.

At this the theological warriors of the Church waxed valiant.
Those great and good churchmen determined to fight. To all of
them this idea seemed dangerous, to most of them it seemed
damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose were tolerant enough to
allow that a man might be saved who thought the earth in-
habited on its opposite sides, but the great majority of the fathers
of the Church doubted the possibility of salvation to such mis-
believers.

Lactantius asks : " Is there any one so senseless as to believe
that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads ?
. . . that the crops and trees grow downward ? . . . that the rains
and snow and hail fall upward toward the earth ? . . . I am at a
loss what to say of those who, when they have once erred,
steadily persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by
another."

But a still greater man followed on the same side. St. Augus-

VOL. XLI. 42

578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tine seemed inclined to yield a little in regard to the sphericity of
the earth, but he fought the idea that men exist on the other side
of it, saying that " Scripture speaks of no such descendants of
Adam." He insists that men could not be allowed by the Al-
mighty to live there, since if they did they could not see Christ
at his second coming descending through the air. But his most
cogent appeal, one which we find echoed from theologian to theo-
logian during a thousand years afterward, is to the nineteenth
Psalm, and to its confirmation in the Epistle to the Romans ; to
the words, " Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their
words to the end of the world." He dwells with great force on
the fact that St. Paul based one of his most powerful arguments
upon this declaration regarding the preachers of the gospel, de-
claring even more explicitly that " verily their sound went into
all the earth, their words unto the ends of the world." Hence-
forth we find it constantly declared that, as those preachers did
not go to the antipodes, no antipodes can exist ; and therefore
that the supporters of this geographical doctrine "give the lie
direct to King David and to St. Paul, and therefore to the Holy
Ghost." Augustine taught the whole world for over a thousand
years that as there was no preaching of the gospel on the opposite
side of the earth, there could be no human beings there.

The great authority of Augustine and the cogency of his
scriptural argument held the Church, as a rule, firmly against the
doctrine of the antipodes ; yet that the doctrine continued to have
life is shown by the fact that in the sixth century Procopius of
Gaza attacks it with a tremendous argument. He declares that
if there be men on the other side of the earth, Christ must have
come to save them ; and, therefore, that there must have been
there, as necessary preliminaries to his coming, a duplicate Eden,
Adam, Serpent, and Deluge.

Cosmas Indicopleustes also attacked the doctrine with especial
bitterness, citing a passage from St. Luke to prove that antipodes
are theologically impossible.

At the end of the sixth century comes a man from whom much
might be expected — St. Isidore of Seville. He had pondered
over ancient thought in science, and, as we have seen, had dared
proclaim his belief in the sphericity of the earth ; but with that
he stopped. As to the antipodes, the authority of the Psalmist,
St. Paul, and St. Augustine silences him; he shuns the whole
question as unlawful, subjects reason to faith, and declares that
men can not and ought not to exist on opposite sides of the earth.*

* For the opinions of Basil, Ambrose, and others, see Leeky, History of Rationalism in
Europe, New York, 1812, vol. i, p. 279, note. Also Letronne, in Revue des Deux Mondes,
March, 1834. For Lactautius, see citations already given. For St. Augustine's opinion, see
the Civ. Dei, xvi, 9, where this great father of the Church shows that the existence of the

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 579

Under such pressure this scientific truth seems to have disap-
peared for nearly two hundred years, but by the eighth century
the sphericity of the earth had come to be generally accepted
among the leaders of thought, and now the doctrine of the an-
tipodes was again asserted by a bishop, Virgil of Salzburg.

There then stood in Germany, in those first years of the eighth
century, one of the greatest and noblest of men — St. Boniface.
His learning was of the best then known. In labors he was a
worthy successor of the apostles ; his genius for Christian work
made him unwillingly primate of Germany ; his devotion to duty
led him willingly to martyrdom. There sat too, at that time, on
the papal throne a great Christian statesman — Pope Zachary.
Boniface immediately declared against the revival of such a her-
esy as the doctrine of the antipodes ; he stigmatized it as an asser-
tion that there are men beyond the reach of the appointed means
of salvation ; he attacked Virgil, and called on Pope Zachary
for aid.

The Pope, as the infallible teacher of Christendom, makes a
strong response. He cites passages from the book of Job and the
Wisdom of Solomon against the doctrine of the antipodes ; he
declares it " perverse, iniquitous, and against Virgil's own soul,"
and indicates a purpose of driving him from his bishopric.
Whether this purpose was carried out or not, the old theological
view, by virtue of the Pope's divinely ordered and protected " in-
errancy," was re-established, and the doctrine that the earth has
inhabitants on but one of its sides became more than ever ortho-
dox, and, in the mind of the Church, necessary to salvation.*

This decision seems to have been regarded as final, and two
centuries later the great encyclopedist of the middle ages, Vin-

antipodes " nulla ratione credendum est." Also citations in Buckle's Posthumous Works,
vol. ii, p. 645. For Procopius of Gaza see Kretschiner, p. 55. See also, on the general
subject, Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde, pp. 96, 9*7. For Isidore, see citations already
given. To understand the embarrassment caused by these utterances of the fathers to
scientific men of a later period, see Letter of Agricola to Joachimus Vadianus in 1514.
Agricola asks Vadianus to give his views regarding the antipodes, saying that he himself
does not know what to do, between the fathers on the one side and the learned men of
modern times on the other. On the other hand, for the embarrassment caused to the
Church by this mistaken zeal of the fathers, see Kepler's references and Fromund's replies ;
also De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 58. Kepler appears to have taken great delight in throwing
the views of Lactantius into the teeth of his adversaries.

* For Virgil of Salzburg, see Neander's History of the Christian Church, Torrey's trans-
lation, vol. iii, p. 63. Also Herzog, Real Encyclopaedic, etc., recent edition by Prof. Hauck,
in verb. Virgilius. Also Kretschmer. See Whewell, i, p. 197 ; but for best choice of authori-
ties and for most careful winnowing out of conclusions, see De Morgan, pp. 24—26. For
very full notes as to pagan and Christian advocates of the doctrine of the sphericity of the
earth and of the antipodes, and for extract from Zachary's letter, see Migne, Patrologia,
vol. vi, p. 426, and vol. xli, p. 48*7. For St. Boniface's part, see Bonifacii Epistoke, ed.
Giles, i, 1T3.

580 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cent de Beauvais, though he accepts the sphericity of the earth,
treats the doctrine of the antipodes as utterly disproved. Yet
the doctrine still lived. Just as it had been previously revived by
William of Conches and then laid to rest, so now it is somewhat
timidly brought out in the thirteenth century by no less a person-
age than Albert the Great, the most noted man of science in that
time. But his utterances are perhaps purposely obscure. Again
it disappears beneath the theological wave, and a hundred years
later Nicolas d'Oresme, Geographer of the King of France, a
light of science, is forced to yield to the clear teaching of the
Scripture as cited by St. Augustine.

Nor was this the worst. In Italy, at the beginning of the four-
teenth century, the Church thought it necessary to deal with ques-
tions of this sort by rack and fagot. In 1316 Peter of Abano,
famous as a physician, having promulgated this with other ob-
noxious doctrines in science, only escaped the Inquisition by death ;
and in 1327 Cecco d'Ascoli, noted as an astronomer, was for this
and similar crimes driven from his professorship at Bologna and
burned alive at Florence. Nor was this all his punishment : that
great painter, Orcagna, whose terrible works still exist on the
walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa, immortalized Cecco by repre-
senting him in the names of hell.*

Years rolled on, and there comes in the fifteenth century one
from whom the world had a right to expect much. Pierre d'Ailly,
by force of thought and study had risen to be Provost of the Col-
lege of St. Die in Lorraine ; his ability had made that little coun-
try village a center of scientific thought for all Europe, and finally
made him Archbishop of Cambray and a cardinal. In 1483 was
printed what Cardinal d'Ailly had written long before as a sum-
ming up of his best thought and research — the collection of essays
known as the Ymago Mundi. It gives us one of the most striking
examples in history of a great man in theological fetters. As he
approaches this question he states it with such clearness that we
expect to hear him assert the truth ; but there stands the argu-
ment of St. Augustine ; there, too, stands the biblical texts on

* For Vincent de Beauvais and the antipodes, see his Speculum Naturales, Book VII,
with citations from St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, cap. xvi. For Albert the Great's
doctrine regarding the antipodes, compare Kretschmer as above with Eicken, Geschichte,
etc., p. 621. Kretschmer finds that Albert supports the doctrine, and Eicken finds that he
denies it — a fair proof that Albert was not inclined to state his views with dangerous clear-
ness. For D'Oresme, see Santarem, Histoire de la Cosmographie, vol. i, p. 142. For Peter
of Abano, or Apono, as he is often called, see Tiraboschi ; also Ginguene, vol. ii, p. 293 ;
also Naude, Histoire des Grands Hommes de Magie. For Cecco d'Ascoli, see Montucla, His-
toire des Mathematiques, i, 528 ; also Daunou, Etudes Historiques, vol. vi, p. 320 ; also
Kretschmer, p. 59. Concerning Orcagna's representation of Cecco in flames of hell, see
Eenan, Averroes et l'Averroisme, Paris, 1867, p. 328.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 58 1

which it is founded; the text from the Psalms and the ex-
plicit declaration of St. Paul to the Romans, " Their sound went
into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world."
D'Ailly attempts to reason, but he is overawed, and gives to the
world virtually nothing.

Still, the doctrine of the antipodes lived and moved : so much
so, that the eminent Spanish theologian Tostatus, even as late as
the age of Columbus, feels called upon to protest against it as
" unsafe." He has shaped the old missile of St. Augustine into
the following syllogism : " The apostles were commanded to go
into all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature ; they
did not go to any such part of the world as the antipodes ; they
did not preach to any creatures there ; ergo, no antipodes exist."

The warfare of Columbus the world knows well — how the
Bishop of Ceuta worsted him in Portugal ; how sundry wise men of
Spain confronted him with the usual quotations from the Psalms,
from St. Paul, and from St. Augustine ; how, even after he was
triumphant, and after his voyage had greatly strengthened the
theory of the earth's sphericity, with which the theory of antip-
odes was so closely connected, the Church by its highest author-
ity solemnly stumbled and persisted in going astray. In 1493
Pope Alexander VI, having been appealed to as an umpire be-
tween the claims of Spain and Portugal to the newly discovered
parts of the earth, issued a bull laying down upon the earth's sur-
face a line of demarkation between the two powers. This line was
drawn from north to south a hundred leagues west of the Azores ;
and the Pope in the plenitude of his knowledge declared that all
lands discovered east of this line should belong to the Portuguese
and all west of it should belong to the Spaniards. This was
hailed as an exercise of divinely illuminated power by the Church ;
but difficulties arose, and in 1506 another attempt was made by
Pope Julius II to draw the line three hundred and seventy
leagues west of the Cape Verd Islands. This, again, was sup-
posed to bring divine wisdom to settle the question, but shortly
overwhelming difficulties arose; for the Portuguese claimed
Brazil, and, of course, had no difficulty in showing that they could
reach it by sailing to the east of the line, provided they sailed long
enough. The lines laid down by Popes Alexander and Julius may
still be found upon the maps of the period, but their bulls have
quietly passed into the catalogue of ludicrous errors.

Yet the theological barriers to this geographical truth yielded
but slowly. Plain as it had become to scholars, they hesitated
to declare it to the world at large. Eleven hundred years had
passed since St. Augustine had proved its antagonism to Scripture,
when Gregory Reysch gave forth his famous encyclopaedia, the
Margarita Philosophica. Edition after edition was issued, and

582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

everywhere appeared in it the orthodox statements ; but they
were evidently strained to the breaking point ; for, while in treat-
ing of the antipodes Keysch refers respectfully to St. Augustine
as objecting to the scientific doctrine, he is careful not to cite
Scripture against it, and is not less careful to cite geographical
reasoning in favor of it.

But in 1519 science gains a crushing victory. Magellan makes
his famous voyage. He proves the earth to be round, for his ex-
pedition circumnavigates it ; he proves the doctrine of the an-
tipodes, for he sees the peoples of the antipodes. Yet even this
does not end the war. Many conscientious men oppose the doc-
trine for two hundred years longer. Then the French astronomers
make their measurements of degrees in equatorial and polar re-
gions, and add to their proofs that of the lengthened pendulum.
When this was done, when the deductions of science were seen to
be established by the simple test of measurement, beautifully and
perfectly, and when a long line of trustworthy explorers had sent
home accounts of the antipodes, then, and then only, this war of
twelve centuries ended.

Such was the main result of this long war; but there were
other results not so fortunate. The efforts of Eusebius, Basil,
and Lactantius to deaden scientific thought ; the efforts of Augus-
tine to combat it ; the efforts of Cosmas to crush it by dogmat-
ism ; the efforts of Boniface and Zachary to crush it by force,
conscientious as they all were, had resulted simply in impressing
upon many noble minds the conviction that science and religion
are enemies.

On the other hand, what was gained by the warriors of science
for religion ? Certainly a far more worthy conception of the
world and a far more ennobling conception of that Power which
pervades and directs it. "Which is more consistent with a great
religion, the cosmography of Cosmas or that of Isaac Newton ?
Which presents a nobler field for religious thought, the diatribes
of Lactantius or the calm statements of Humboldt? *

* For D'Ailly's acceptance of St Augustine's argument, see the Ymago Mundi, Paris,
1490, cap. vii. For Tostatus, see Zockler, voL i, pp. 46*7, 468. He based his opposition
on Romans, x, 18. For Columbus, see Winsor, Fiske, and Adams; also Humboldt, Histoire
de la Geographie du Nouveau Continent. For the bull of Alexander VI, see Daunou, Etudes
Historiques, vol. ii, p. 417; also Peschel, Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, Book II, chap. iv.
The text of the bull is given with the English translation in Arber's reprint of The First
Three English Books on America, etc., etc., Birmingham, 1885, pp. 201-204; also espe-
cially Peschel, Die Theilung der Erde unter Papst Alexander "VT. und Julius II., Leipsic,
18*71, pp. 14 et seq. For remarks on the power under which the line was drawn by Alex-
ander VI, see Mamiani, Del Papato ne'i Tre Ultimi Secoli, p. 170. For maps showing
lines of division, see Kohl, Die beiden altesten General-Karten von Amerika, Weimar,
1860, where maps of 1527 and 1529 are reproduced; also Mercator, Atlas, tenth edition,
Amsterdam, 1628, pp. 70, 71. For latest discussion on The Demarkation Line of Alex-

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 583

4. The Size of the Earth. — But at an early period another
subject in geography had stirred the minds of thinking men —
the earth's size. Various ancient investigators had by different
methods reached measurements more or less near the truth ; these
methods were continued into the middle ages, supplemented by
new thought, and among the more striking results were those
obtained by Roger Bacon and Gerbert, afterward Pope Sylvester
II. They handed down to after-time the torch of knowledge, but,
as their reward among their contemporaries, they fell under the
charge of sorcery.

Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the middle
ages was a solution of the problem from Scripture, and this
solution deserves to be given as an example of a very curious
theological error, chancing to result in great good. The second
book of Esdras, which among Protestants is placed in the Apoc-
rypha, was held by many of the foremost men of the ancient
Church as fully inspired : though Jerome looked with suspicion
on this book, it was regarded as prophetic by Clement of Alexan-
dria, Tertullian, and Ambrose, and the Church acquiesced in that
view. In the Eastern Church it held an especially high place, and
in the Western Church, before the Reformation, was generally
considered by the most eminent authorities to be part of the
sacred canon. In the sixth chapter of this book there is a sum-
mary of the works of creation, and in this occur the following
verses :

"Upon the third day thou didst command that the waters
should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth; six parts
hast thou dried up and kept them to the intent that of these
some, being planted of God and tilled, might serve thee."

" Upon the fifth day thou saidst unto the seventh part where
the waters were gathered, that it should bring forth living creat-
ures, fowls and fishes, and so it came to pass."

These statements were reiterated in other verses, and were
naturally considered c ^f controlling authority.

Among the scholars %o pondered on this as on all other
things likely to increase knov> ledge was Cardinal Pierre d' Ailly.
As we have seen, this great man, while he denied the existence of

ander VI, see E. G. Bourne in Yale Review, May, 1892. For the Margarita Philosophiea,
see the editions of 1503, 1509, 1517, lib. vii, cap. 48. For the effect of Magellan's voy-
ages, and the reluctance to yield to proof, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xiv,
p. 395 ; St. Martin's Histoire de la Geographie, p. 369 ; Peschel, Geschichte des Zeitalters
der Entdeckungen, concluding chapters ; and for an admirable summary, Draper, Hist. Int.
Devel. of Europe, pp. 451^153 ; also an interesting passage in Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar
and Common Errors, Book I, chap. vi. For general statement as to supplementary proof by
measurement of degrees and by pendulum, see Somerville, Phys. Geog., chap, i, par. 6, note ;
also Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii, p. 736, and v, pp. 16, 32 ; also Montucla, iv, 138.

584 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the antipodes as St. Augustine had done, believed firmly in the
sphericity of the earth, and, interpreting these statements of the
book of Esdras in connection with this belief, he held that, as only
one seventh of the earth's surface was covered by water, the ocean
between the west coast of Europe and the east coast of Asia could
not be very wide. Knowing, as he thought, the extent of the land
upon the globe, he felt that in view of this divinely authorized
statement the globe must be much smaller, and the land of
" Zipango," reached by Marco Polo, on the extreme east coast of
Asia, much nearer than had been generally believed.

On this point he laid stress in his great work, the Ymago
Mundi, and an edition of it having been published in the days
when Columbus was thinking most closely upon the problem of a
westward voyage, it naturally exercised much influence upon his
reasonings. Among the treasures of the library at Seville, there
is nothing more interesting than a copy of this work annotated
by Columbus himself ; from this very copy it was that Columbus
obtained confirmation of his belief that the passage across the
ocean to Marco Polo's land of Zipango in Asia was short. But
for this error, based upon a text supposed to be inspired, it is un-
likely that Columbus would have had the courage to undertake
his voyage. It is a curious fact that this single theological error
thus promoted a series of voyages which completely destroyed not
only this but every other conception of geography based upon the
sacred writings.*

5. The Character of the Earth's Surface. — It would be
hardly just to dismiss the struggle for geographical truth with-
out referring to one passage more in the history of the Protestant
Church, for it shows clearly the difficulties in the way of the
simplest statement of geographical truth which conflicted with
the words of the sacred books.

In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life at
Geneva on the charge of Arianism. Servetus had rendered many
services to scientific truth, and one of these was an edition of
Ptolemy's Geography, in which Judea was spoken of, not as " a
land flowing with milk and honey," but, in strict accordance
with the truth, as, in the main, meager, barren, and inhospitable.
In his trial this simple statement of geographical truth was used

* For this error, so fruitful in discovery, see D'Ailly, Ymago Mundi (my own copy is of
1490); the passage referred to is folio 12 verso. For the passage from Esdras, see chap, vi,
verses 42, 47, 50, and 52 ; see also Zockler, Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theolo-
gie und Naturwissenschaft, vol. i, p. 461. For one of the best recent statements, see Ruge,
Gesch. des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, Berlin, 1882, pp. 221 et seq. For the letter of
Columbus acknowledging his indebtedness to this mistake in Esdras, see Navarrete, Viajes
y Descubrimientos, Madrid, 1825, tome i, pp. 242-264 ; also Humboldt, Hist, de la Geo-
graphic du Nouveau Continent, vol. i, pp. 68, 69.

NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE, 585

against him by his arch-enemy John Calvin with fearful power.
In vain did Servetus state the fact that he had simply drawn the
words from a previous edition of Ptolemy ; in vain did he declare
that this statement was a simple geographical truth of which
there were ample proofs ; it was answered that such language
" necessarily inculpated Moses, and so grievously outraged the
Holy Ghost." *

In summing up the action of the Church upon Geography, we
must say, then, that the dogmas developed in the strict adher-
ence to Scripture and the conceptions held in the Church during
many centuries " always, everywhere, and by all," were, on the
whole, steadily hostile to truth ; but it is only just to make a
distinction here between the religious and the theological spirit.
To the religious spirit are largely due several of the noblest among
the great voyages of discovery. A deep longing to extend the
realms of Christianity influenced the minds of Prince John, of
Portugal, in his great series of efforts along the African coast ; of
Vasco da Gama, in his circumnavigation of the Cape of Good
Hope ; of Magellan, in his voyage around the world, and doubtless
found a place among the more worldly motives of Columbus.

Thus, in this field also, from the supremacy accorded to theol-
ogy, we find resulting that tendency to dogmatism which has
shown itself in all ages the deadly foe not only of scientific inquiry
but of the higher religious spirit itself, while from the love of
truth for truth's sake, which has been the inspiration of all fruit-
ful work in science, nothing but advantage has ever resulted to
true religion.

The Japanese dragon is supposed by Mr. Charles De Kay to be possibly a rem-
nant of the original native religion which was superseded by Buddhism in China
and Japan. Compared with the monster as depicted in stone and colors by artists
of our middle ages, it is a graceful creature. Dragons a foot or two long, made of
an incredible number of pieces held together, are among the marvels of Japanese
workers in iron and bronze, and great prices are paid when the foundry-man or
ironsmith is a famous artist. The figures sometimes have a character of their own
which justifies one in placing them among serious works of art. When taken in
the hand their flexibility and coldness make them seem alive ; while their singular
motions and threatening look express capitally the fierceness and wayward nature
attributed to a symbol of the least stable of elements. To us and to skeptical
natives the image is a curious, ingenious plaything, but to the Japanese of the old
religions or to the Buddhist it means a good deal more : it is a talisman to exor-
cise the dangers that lie on land and sea.

* For Servetus's geographical offense, see Willis, Servetus and Calvin, London, 1877, p.
325. The passage condemned is in the Ptolemy of 1535, folio 41. It was discreetly re-
trenched in a reprint of the same edition. As to the mixture in the motives of Columbus,
it may be well to compare with the earlier biographies the recent ones by Dr. Winsor and
President Adams.

vol. xli. — 43

586

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

THE DELAWARE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST.

By Dr. CHAELES C. ABBOTT.

WHEN a considerable collection of the stone and bone handi-
work of the Delaware Indians has been brought together,
and with this material before us we picture to ourselves the people
in possession of the country when first visited by the Dutch and
Swedes, and afterward by the English, the thought arises that
considerable importance must be given to a chance remark of Peter
Kalm, who spent the winter of 1748-'49 in New Jersey — to wit :
" At the first arrival of the Swedes in this country, and long after
that time, it was filled with Indians. But as the Europeans pro-
ceeded to cultivate the land, the Indians sold their land, and went
further into the country. But in reality few of the Indians really
left the country in this manner ; most of them ended their days

Fig. 1. — Common Forms of Arrow-points from New Jersey.

before, either by wars among themselves, or by the small-pox, a dis-
ease which the Indians were unacquainted with before their com-
merce with the Etiropeans, and which since that time has killed
incredible numbers of them." Again, our author states : " The
Indians formerly, and about the time of the first settling of the
Swedes, were more industrious and laborious in every branch of
business than they are now." In other words, they were not
known at their best, even by those who had earliest opportunities
of observing them, and what they habitually used and constantly
produced, perhaps, but a century or two before the advent of the
European, was far superior to their cleverest handiwork in the
seventeenth century. The European had to do with a diseased,
discouraged, and disappearing people. It is safe to assert that
history, as pertaining to the Delaware Valley, would have been

THE DELAWARE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST.

587

widely different had the European been forced to deal, not with
the Lenni Lenapd as they then were, but as they had been. True,
there were statesmen still among them ; intellects equal to any
with which they had to cope ; but the spirit that once seems to
have animated the whole nation was broken. The Indians of the
seventeenth century were living- 011 the memory of departed glory.
Not one of the many writers that have given us an account of
what he saw in use among these people, when the Indian still pos-

Fig. 2. — Stone Ceremonial Object.

sessed the land, refers to many a curious form of stone or bone
object, that now for want of knowledge on the subject we call an
" ornament/' or take refuge behind so convenient a term as " im-
plement." That such objects are full of meaning, could we but
decipher it, there is not a doubt.

It is true that, until the products of their handicraft were
replaced by similar objects of European manufacture, the Indians
were adepts in flint-chipping ; made from pebbles shapely axes ;
carved wooden mortars and even large canoes, and fashioned well-
designed pipes both of stone and clay. But what of the far more
artistic bird-shaped stones, the so-called ceremonial objects, elabo-
rate gorgets, and even idols ? These are found to-day in sufficient
numbers to indicate that they were once a prominent if not com-
mon feature of every village ; but how could they have been over-
looked by the Europeans who described their axes and arrow-
points, if still in use ? They had, it is logical to assume, disap-
peared from the scene ; or, retained, were " relics " in the eyes of
their possessors. It is not unwarranted to say, as concerning the
Delaware Valley, that when Cornelius Mey discovered the Dela-
ware River, there were Indian " relics " then to be had ; and had it

588

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

dawned upon the mind of some bright Lenape" then, he could have
gathered, as the antiquities of his own country, objects bearing
the same relationship to him that his own axe and arrows do to

Fig. 3. — Etched Steatite Gorget from Pennsylvania.

us. The Indian of 1600 was, at least in some respects, the degen-
erate descendant of the aborigine of a. d. 1000, or later.

If, then, it may be asked, the Delaware Indians produced, in
prehistoric times, objects exhibiting a more advanced culture
than did their descendants in historic times or just preceding
them, where are such objects now ? Has tangible evidence of this
assertion been produced ? In the Delaware Valley I think it has.
There have occasionally been found in single graves, or lying in or
on the ground, unassociated articles, clearly of Indian origin, and

Fig. 4. — Stone Gorget. Delaware Indian.

yet not similar to the ordinary " finds " characteristic'of Indian vil-
lage sites. For instance, there have been burial-places examined
in this river valley, from which scores of skeletons have been taken,
and with them only the most commonplace objects were found,

THE DELAWARE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST.

589

and many an interment was without any object of stone, bone, or
clay. On the other hand, in some lonely spot, some little knoll in
a forest, or prominent ridge of earth extending out upon a level
meadow tract, a single grave has been found, where objects of a
high grade of workmanship and suggesting a distinct advance
over the historic Indian occurred. The whole character of the
interment was different from that of the average or ordinary In-
dian grave. There is obvious danger, it is true, from drawing too
broad a conclusion from a few such graves. Doubtless the Indian
" king " would be interred with greater pomp and with finer pos-
sessions than the Indian warrior ; but in such instances as I have
mentioned, the objects found have been different in character as
well as of superior workmanship. In such a matter the best that
can be done, with our present stock of knowledge, is to express,
tentatively of course, that this or that condition was probably
true ; and surveying the whole valley, after twenty years of tramp-

Fk

-Handle of Wooden Spoon. Modern Chippewa.

ing about it from the mountains to the sea, I have been forcibly
impressed with the evidence, first, of man's antiquity in this
region, of his gradual progress from a very primitive to a more
cultured condition, and of retrogression at the dawn of the his-
toric period.

Much might be said of the skill of the Delaware Indian in all
of the many phases of his industry, but I propose only to speak of
him as an artist. A love of bright colors was always, and is, a
prominent characteristic, and probably the first attempt at per-
sonal adornment was the attachment to the person of feathers
and small stones of bright hues. Mica and quartz crystals are
common in graves. The glitter and glistening of these would be
sure to attract. But what of the next step, that of shaping from
formless masses objects that strike the fancy of the wearer ? To

59o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

shape a pebble that it might better meet the needs of a club-head
or hatchet called for little skill, and the labor of making an axe
has recently been shown to be but slight ; but the idea of sym-
metry was developed and cultivated until a weapon was finally
produced that can not be improved upon. The same is true of
chipping from flint points for arrow-shafts. A mere splinter of
stone, if sharp and narrow, would be as effective as any shape
that could be devised ; but such chance splinters do not appear to
have been used, except directly after the invention of the bow and
arrow; and, so far as is now discoverable, a series of artistically
designed patterns have been in use for hundreds of years. Fig.
1 represents four arrow-points such as are common everywhere in
the valley of the Delaware. The flint-worker who made these had
something more than mere utilitarianism in his constitution. A
love of the beautiful, of symmetry, of neatness, call it what you
will, was well developed. Not one of these would kill a bird or
beast one whit quicker than the simple triangular arrow-point ;
and yet these more elaborate forms are more abundant than those
of simpler outline.

I am tempted to suggest that possibly the late (comparative-
ly speaking) use of jasper, here in the valley of the Delaware,
may have been generally adopted largely because of the bright
colors of that material. Of various tints, and often so veined
that even a small object might be partycolored, it is little wonder
that the use of jasper became so wide-spread, and argillite in a
measure neglected ; and yet the latter served every purpose, and
from the days of Palaeolithic man to the coming of the Dutch and
Swedes was never discarded. But argillite is dull gray when old,
and never bright or glossy, however newly chipped ; while the
jasper was red or yellow, green, blue, or variegated, and never lost
its brilliancy. Little wonder it was in such demand, and the
labor of mining undergone. Its color, doubtless, had much to do
with its adoption.

Symmetry, as developed in fashioning the axe and celt, which
were pecked and not chipped, as were arrow-points, soon led to the
same methods being applied to stone for the production of more
elaborately designed objects, and the so-called "ceremonial"
forms were made. Fig. 2 represents a nearly faultless exam-
ple of these common " relics," the purpose of which can only
be conjectured. The Indian who shaped this specimen was no
" 'prentice-hand." He may not have been an artist in the common
acceptation of that term ; but he needed, to say the least, very
little instruction to make him one. Objects of this character are
of such remarkable abundance, although seldom of such beauty
of finish as is this, that the relic-hunter in his tramps over the
fields is continually wondering what they were intended for. I

THE DELAWARE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST.

J91

have found fragments of twenty in one day, and this more than
once ; hut they are not, I think, found in the ordinary clustered
graves of the Indians. In single graves, with other odd forms,
they have occasionally been found. Fig. 2 is perforated at the
middle, and so was intended to be attached to a handle. As a
baton-head it would be an attractive object, and, if the staff was
further decorated with bright feathers and other trinkets, the
whole would be very effective in dance or parade. But what be-

Fig. 6. — Stone Ornament representing Human Face. Susquehanna Eiver, Pa.

came of them all in the days of the first European settlers ?
Could it be possible they were still in common use, and yet not
one writer make mention of them ?

But, besides symmetrically shaping stone into ornamental
forms, the Delaware Indian was given to ornamenting the smooth
surfaces of objects by series of lines and dots, in such regular
manner that the eye is pleased. A simple example of this phase
of ornamentation is shown in Fig. 3. This is a common gorget,
the outline of which is purely fanciful. But it is rendered more
attractive by parallel and oblique lines, arranged in a manner that
suggests not so much hap-hazard fancy as the highly conven-

592

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Fig.

-Miniature Wooden Mask. Delaware Indian.

tionalized representation of some animal form. This is con-
firmed, I think, by referring to Fig. 4, which represents another

specimen of gorget of
most interesting charac-
ter. The difference be-
tween the two is very de-
cided, and yet the re-
lationship is not lost.
What, indeed, the figure
depicted on this circular
gorget is intended for is
problematical. That it
is animal-like no one will
dispute. And with the
two gorgets described,
both of which are very
old and made of stone,
compare the illustration
here given (Fig. 5) of
the handle of a wooden
spoon, of very recent
date. Here we see the
same ornamentation or
representation of the same idea. It is scarcely probable that this
should have been accidental, and is, further, an exemplification
of the expression of an idea
by symmetrically arranged
lines, and not an effort mere-
ly to relieve the monotony
of a plain surface.

We are now brought to
consider realistic represen-
tations of familiar objects.
The human face is one of
these ; and whether the In-
dian first made a few lines
and dots to express it, or cor-
rectly depicted it, is difficult
to determine. It can be made
to appear very forcibly, upon
a smooth surface, by two
dots and two lines, thus :
* [* ; but did the Indian ever
adopt such means ? I have
never seen it, but Fig. 6 is

Certainly an approach to Fl(i> -Miniatube Wooden Mask.

Delaware Indian.

THE DELAWARE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST.

593

such simplicity of illustration. This interesting- specimen was
recently found on an island in the Susquehanna Valley, and cer-
tainly is a most striking example of effective portraiture by
means of a few lines and dots.

Having shown how a stone surface was altered to produce
either a purely ornamental or a pictorial effect, let me offer now
some striking examples of how the artistic efforts of the Indian
showed themselves in carving in other substances than stone.
This was, of course, a much more difficult matter. Stone is, if not
too hard, easily shaped by hammer-
ing, its surface yielding to constant
hammering with another stone. To
shape a bit of wood is another mat-
ter, but that the Indian was abun-
dantly capable of this, I offer Fig. 7
as evidence. Here we have an in-
stance of the artist's skill in more
than one direction. As we look at
the illustration, we see the human
face grotescpjely represented, and at
the same time the portrait is equally
good, or almost so, of a barn owl
(Strix praiincola). To accomplish
this the artist must have had a clear
conception of many of the rules of
his profession.

Fig. 8 brings us, perhaps, to the
highest point reached by the Dela-
ware Indians in artistic effort. Here
we have a portrait of an Indian, it
may be, and at any rate a correct
representation of the Indian counte-
nance. This and the preceding, hav-
ing metal and porcelain about them,
were certainly made after European
contact, unless we can suppose that
the eyes originally were bits of cop-
per, and these becoming detached, were replaced, in one case,
with bits of sheet silver, and in the other with small white beads.
This is not altogether improbable, and that the objects themselves
really antedate the Columbian discovery. They are certainly
very old.

Perhaps more striking than either of the wooden carvings is
that represented in Fig. 9, which is an example of carved antler,
where we have a combination of representations, all realistic, and
absolutely perfect in their way. The human face is a marvel of

Fig. 9. — Carved Antler.
Delaware Indian.

594 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

aboriginal skill. The series of lines and dots are regular, and the
faintly outlined snake's tongue is true to nature ; as is also the
end of the object, which represents with marked fidelity the rattle
of the rattlesnake. The Indian who could make this carving had
a wide range of capabilities in the line of artistic representation.
And now a word, in conclusion, with reference to pictorial repre-
sentation, where many objects, and these in action, are concerned.
We know how, in recent times, the Western Indian depicted with
spirit a fight with other Indians or a buffalo-hunt. If, then, in
prehistoric time and at the time of the continent being first
peopled with Europeans, our Delaware Indian was capable of
such artistic efforts as have been briefly commented upon in the
preceding pages, might he not likewise have essayed in this direc-
tion also, and recorded events by the grouping of men and ani-
mals on slabs of stone ? The pictured rocks on the Susquehanna
show a disposition to accomplish this on a large scale ; but I refer
more particularly to ornament gorgets. It is scarcely safe, and
certainly not logical, to decry such specimens, however startling
the subject treated or artistically accomplished. Perhaps through
some such pictured stone we may yet learn that the Indian was
present when the last mastodon and giant elk in the valley of the
Delaware bit the dust.

THE DECLINE OF BIBLIOLATRY.*

By Pkof. T. II. HUXLEY.

MY memory, unfortunately, carries me back to the fourth dec-
ade of the nineteenth century, when the evangelical flood
had a little abated and the tops of certain mountains were
soon to appear, chiefly in the neighborhood of Oxford ; but
when, nevertheless, bibliolatry was rampant ; when church and
chapel alike proclaimed, as the oracles of God, the crude assump-
tions of the worst informed and, in natural sequence, the most
presumptuously bigoted, of all theological schools.

In accordance with promises made on my behalf, but certainly
without my authorization, I was very early taken to hear " ser-
mons in the vulgar tongue." And vulgar enough often was the
tongue in which some preacher, ignorant alike of literature, of
history, of science, and even of theology, outside that patron-
ized by his own narrow school, poured forth, from the safe
intrenchment of the pulpit, invectives against those who devi-
ated from his notion of orthodoxy. From dark allusions to

* From the Prologue to Essays upon some Controverted Questions, by T. H. Huxley,
F. R. S. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1892.

THE DECLINE OF BIBLIOLATRY. 595

" skeptics " and " infidels," I became aware of the existence of
people who trusted in carnal reason ; who audaciously doubted
that the world was made in six natural days, or that the deluge
was universal ; perhaps even went so far as to question the
literal accuracy of the story of Eve's temptation, or of Balaam's
ass ; and, from the horror of the tones in which they were men-
tioned, I should have been justified in drawing the conclusion
that these rash men belonged to the criminal classes. At the
same time, those who were more directly responsible for provid-
ing me with the knowledge essential to the right guidance of life
(and who sincerely desired to do so), imagined that they were dis-
charging that most sacred duty by impressing upon my childish
mind the necessity, on pain of reprobation in this world and
damnation in the next, of accepting, in the strict and literal
sense, every statement contained in the Protestant Bible. I was
told to believe, and I did believe, that doubt about any of them
was a sin, not less reprehensible than a moral delict. I suppose
that, out of a thousand of my contemporaries, nine hundred at
least had their minds systematically warped and poisoned, in the
name of the God of truth, by like discipline. I am sure that, even
a score of years later, those who ventured to question the exact
historical accuracy of any part of the Old Testament and a fortiori
of the Gospels, had to expect a pitiless shower of verbal missiles,
to say nothing of the other disagreeable consequences which visit
those who, in any way, run counter to that chaos of prejudices
called public opinion.

My recollections of this time have recently been revived by
the perusal of a remarkable document,* signed by as many as
thirty-eight out of the twenty odd thousand clergymen of the
Established Church. It does not appear that the signataries
are officially accredited spokesmen of the ecclesiastical corpora-
tion to which they belong ; but I feel bound to take their word
for it, that they are " stewards of the Lord, who have received
the Holy Ghost," and therefore to accept this memorial as evi-
dence that, though the Evangelicism of my early days may be
deposed from its place of power, though so many of the colleagues
of the thirty-eight even repudiate the title of Protestants, yet the
green bay tree of bibliolatry flourishes as it did sixty years ago.
And, as in those good old times, whoso refuses to offer incense to
the idol is held to be guilty of " a dishonor to God," imperiling his
salvation.

It is to the credit of the perspicacity of the memorialists that
they discern the real nature of the Controverted Question of the
age. They are awake to the unquestionable fact that, if Scripture

* Declaration on the Truth of Holy Scripture. The Times, December 18, 1891.

596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

has been discovered " not to be worthy of unquestioning belief/'
faith " in the supernatural itself " is, so far, undermined. And I
may congratulate myself upon such weighty confirmation of an
opinion in which I have had the fortune to anticipate them. But
whether it is more to the credit of the courage, than to the intel-
ligence, of the thirty-eight that they should go on to proclaim
that the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments
" declare incontrovertibly the actual historical truth in all rec-
ords, both of past events and of the delivery of predictions to
be thereafter fulfilled," must be left to the coming generation
to decide.

The interest which attaches to this singular document will, I
think, be based by most thinking men, not upon what it is, but
upon that of which it is a sign. It is an open secret that the
memorial is put forth as a counterblast to a manifestation of
opinion of a contrary character, on the part of certain members
of the same ecclesiastical body, who therefore have, as I sup-
pose, an equal right to declare themselves "stewards of the
Lord and recipients of the Holy Ghost." In fact, the stream
of tendency toward naturalism, the course of which I have
briefly traced, has, of late years, flowed so strongly, that even
the Churches have begun, I dare not say to drift, but, at any rate,
to swing at their moorings. Within the pale of the Anglican
establishment, I venture to doubt, whether, at this moment,
there are as many thorough-going defenders of "plenary in-
spiration" as there were timid questioners of that doctrine
half a century ago. Commentaries, sanctioned by the highest
authority, give up the " actual historical truth " of the cosmogoni-
cal and diluvial narratives. University professors of deservedly
high repute accept the critical decision that the Hexateuch is a
compilation, in which the share of Moses, either as author or as
editor, is not quite so clearly demonstrable as it might be ; highly
placed divines tell us that the pre-Abrahamic Scripture narra-
tives may be ignored ; that the book of Daniel may be regarded
as a patriotic romance of the second century B. c. ; that the words
of the writer of the fourth Gospel are not always to be distin-
guished from those which he puts into the mouth of Jesus.
Conservative but conscientious revisers decide that whole pas-
sages, some of dogmatic and some of ethical importance, are inter-
polations. An uneasy sense of the weakness of the dogma of
Biblical infallibility seems to be at the bottom of a prevailing
tendency once more to substitute the authority of the " Church "
for that of the Bible. In my old age it has happened to me
to be taken to task for regarding Christianity as a " religion of a
book" as gravely as, in my youth, I should have been repre-
hended for doubting that proposition. It is a no less interesting

THE DECLINE OF BIBLIOLATRY. 597

symptom that the state Church seems more and more anxious
to repudiate all complicity with the principles of the Protestant
Reformation and to call itself " Anglo-Catholic." Inspiration,
deprived of its old intelligible sense, is watered down into a mys-
tification. The Scriptures are, indeed, inspired ; but they con-
tain a wholly undefined and indefinable " human element " ; and
this unfortunate intruder is converted into a sort of biblical
whipping boy. Whatsoever scientific investigations, historical
or physical, prove to be erroneous, the " human element " bears
the blame ; while the divine inspiration of such statements, as
by their nature are out of reach of proof or disproof, is still as-
serted with all the vigor inspired by conscious safety from attack.
Though the proposal to treat the Bible " like any other book,"
which caused so much scandal forty years ago, may not yet be
generally accepted, and though Bishop Colenso's criticisms may
still lie, formally, under ecclesiastical ban, yet the Church has
not wholly turned a deaf ear to the voice of the scientific tempt-
er ; and many a coy divine, while " crying I will ne'er consent,"
has consented to the proposals of that scientific criticism which
the memorialists renounce and denounce.

A humble layman, to whom it would seem the height of pre-
sumption to assume even the unconsidered dignity of a " steward
of science," may well find this conflict of apparently equal ecclesi-
astical authorities perplexing — suggestive, indeed, of the wisdom
of postponing attention to either until the question of precedence
between them is settled. And this course will probably appear
the more advisable, the more closely the fundamental position of
the memorialists is examined.

No opinion of the fact or form of divine revelation, founded
on literary criticism (and I suppose I may add historical or phys-
ical criticism) of the Scriptures themselves, can be admitted to
interfere with the traditionary testimony of the Church, when
that has been once ascertained and verified by appeal to an-
tiquity." *

Grant that it is " the traditionary testimony of the Church "
which guarantees the canonicity of each and all of the books of
the Old and New Testaments. Grant also that canonicity means
infallibility ; yet, according to the thirty-eight, this " traditionary
testimony " has to be " ascertained and verified by appeal to
antiquity." But " ascertainment and verification " are purely
intellectual processes, which must be conducted according to the
strict rules of scientific investigation, or be self-convicted of
worthlessness. Moreover, before we can set about the appeal to
" antiquity," the exact sense of that usefully vague term must be

* Declaration, Article X.

598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

defined by similar means. " Antiquity " may include any num-
ber of centuries, great or small; and whether "antiquity" is to
comprise the Council of Trent, or to stop a little beyond that of
Nicsea, or come to an end in the time of Irenseus, or in that of
Justin Martyr, are knotty questions which can be decided, if at
all, only by those critical methods which the signataries treat so
cavalierly. And yet the decision of these questions is fundament-
al, for as the limits of the canonical Scriptures vary, so may the
dogmas deducted from them require modification. Christianity
is one thing, if the fourth Gospel, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the
pastoral Epistles, and the Apocalypse are canonical and (by the
hypothesis) infallibly true ; and another thing, if they are not.
As I have already said, whoso defines the canon defines the
creed.

Now it is quite certain with respect to some of these books,
such as the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the
Eastern and the Western Church differed in opinion for centu-
ries ; and yet neither the one branch nor the other can have con-
sidered its judgment infallible, since they eventually agreed to a
transaction, by which each gave up its objection to the book pa-
tronized by the other. Moreover, the " fathers " argue (in a more
or less rational manner) about the canonicity of this or that book,
and are by no means above producing evidence, internal and ex-
ternal, in favor of the opinions they advocate. In fact, imperfect
as their conceptions of scientific method may be, they not infre-
quently used it to the best of their ability. Thus it would appear
that though Science, like Nature, may be driven out with a fork,
ecclesiastical or other, yet she surely comes back again. The ap-
peal to " antiquity " is, in fact, an appeal to science, first, to define
what antiquity is ; secondly, to determine what " antiquity," so
defined, says about canonicity ; thirdly, to prove that canonicity
means infallibility. And when science, largely in the shape of
the abhorred " criticism," has done this, and has shown that " an-
tiquity " used her own methods, however clumsily and imperfectly,
she naturally turns round upon the appealers to "antiquity," and
demands that they should show cause why, in these days, science
should not resume the work they did so imperfectly, and carry it
out efficiently.

But no such cause can be shown. If " antiquity " permitted
Eusebius, Origen, Tertullian, Irenseus, to argue for the reception
of this book into the canon and the rejection of that, upon rational
grounds, "antiquity" admitted the whole principle of modern
criticism. If Irenseus produces ridiculous reasons for limiting
the Gospels to four, it was open to any one else to produce good
reasons (if he had them) for cutting them down to three, or in-
creasing them to five. If the Eastern branch of the Church had

THE DECLINE OF B1BLT0LATRY. 599

a right to reject the Apocalypse and accept the Epistle to the
Hebrews, and the Western an equal right to accept the Apoc-
alypse and reject the Epistle, down to the fourth century, any
other branch would have an equal right, on cause shown, to reject
both, or, as the Catholic Church afterward actually did, to accept
both.

Thus I can not but think that the thirty-eight are hoist with
their own petard. Their " appeal to antiquity " turns out to be
nothing but a roundabout way of appealing to the tribunal the
jurisdiction of which they affect to deny. Having rested the
world of Christian supernaturalisrn on the elephant of biblical in-
fallibility, and furnished the elephant with standing ground on
the tortoise of " antiquity," they, like their famous Hindoo ana-
logue, have been content to look no further ; and have thereby
been spared the horror of discovering that the tortoise rests on a
grievously fragile construction, to a great extent the work of that
very intellectual operation which they anathematize and repudiate.

Moreover, there is another point to be considered. It is of
course true that a Christian Church (whether the Christian
Church, or not, depends on the connotation of the definite article)
existed before the Christian Scriptures ; and that the infallibility
of these depends upon the infallibility of the judgment of the per-
sons who selected the books, of which they are composed, out of
the mass of literature current among the early Christians. The
logical acumen of Augustine showed him that the authority of
the gospel he preached must rest on that of the Church to which
he belonged.* But it is no less true that the Hebrew and the
Septuagint versions of most, if not all, of the Old Testament
books existed before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth; and that
their divine authority is presupposed by, and therefore can hardly
depend upon, the religious body constituted by his disciples. As
everybody knows, the very conception of a "Christ" is purely
Jewish. The validity of the argument from the Messianic proph-
ecies vanishes unless their infallible authority is granted; and,
as a matter of fact, whether we turn to the Gospels, the Epistles,
or the writings of the early Apologists, the Jewish Scriptures
are recognized as the highest court of appeal of the Christian.

The proposal to cite Christian " antiquity " as a witness to the
infallibility of the Old Testament, when its own claims to au-
thority vanish, if certain propositions contained in the Old Testa-
ment are erroneous, hardly satisfies the requirements of lay logic.
It is as if a claimant to be sole legatee, under another kind of tes-

* Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi ecclesise Catholics me coinmoveret auctoritas.
— Contra Epistolam Manichcei, cap. v. [I would not, indeed, believe the gospel unless the
authority of the Catholic Church directed me. — Editor.]

600 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tament, should offer his assertion as sufficient evidence of the va-
lidity of the will. And, even were not such a circular, or rather
rotatory, argument, that the infallibility of the Bible is testified
by the infallible Church, whose infallibility is testified by the in-
fallible Bible, too absurd for serious consideration, it remains per-
missible to ask, Where and when the Church, during the period
of its infallibility, as limited by Anglican dogmatic necessities,
has officially decreed the " actual historical truth of all records "
in the Old Testament ? Was Augustine heretical when he de-
nied the actual historical truth of the record of the Creation ?
Father Suarez, standing on later Roman tradition, may have a
right to declare that he was ; but it does not lie in the mouth of
those who limit their appeal to that early " antiquity," in which
Augustine played so great a part, to say so.

Among the watchers of the course of the world of thought,
some view with delight and some with horror the recrudescence
of supernaturalism which manifests itself among us, in shapes
ranged along the whole flight of steps, which, in this case, sep-
arates the sublime from the ridiculous — from Neo-Catholicism
and Inner-light mysticism, at the top, to unclean things, not
worthy of mention in the same breath, at the bottom. In my
poor opinion, the importance of these manifestations is often
greatly overestimated. The extant forms of supernaturalism have
deep roots in human nature, and will undoubtedly die hard ; but,
in these latter days, they have to cope with an enemy whose full
strength is only just beginning to be put out, and whose forces,
gathering strength year by year, are hemming them round on
every side. This enemy is Science, in the acceptation of system-
atized natural knowledge, which, during the last two centuries,
has extended those methods of investigation, the worth of which
is confirmed by daily appeal to Nature, to every region in which
the supernatural has hitherto been recognized.

When scientific historical criticism reduced the annals of
heroic Greece and of regal Rome to the level of fables ; when the
unity of authorship of the Iliad was successfully assailed by
scientific literary criticism ; when scientific physical criticism,
after exploding the geocentric theory of the universe, and reduc-
ing the solar system itself to one of millions of groups of like
cosmic specks, circling, at unimaginable distances from one an-
other, through infinite space, showed the supernaturalistic theo-
ries of the duration of the earth and of life upon it to be as inade-
quate as those of its relative dimensions and importance had
been — it needed no prophetic gift to see that, sooner or later, the
Jewish and the early Christian records would be treated in the
same manner ; that the authorship of the Hexateuch and of the

THE DECLINE OF BIBLIOLATRY. 60 1

Gospels would be as severely tested ; and that the evidence in
favor of the veracity of many of the statements found in the
Scriptures would have to be strong indeed, if they were to be op-
posed to the conclusions of physical science. In point of fact, so
far as I can discover, no one competent to judge of the evidential
strength of these conclusions ventures now to say that the biblical
accounts of the creation and of the deluge are true in the natural
sense of the words of the narratives. The most the modern rec-
onciler ventures upon is to affirm that some quite different sense
may be put upon the words ; and that this non-natural sense may,
with a little trouble, be manipulated into some sort of non-contra-
diction of scientific truth.

My purpose, in the essay (XVI) * which treats of the narrative
of the Deluge, was to prove, by physical criticism, that no such
event as that described ever took place ; to exhibit the untrust-
worthy character of the narrative demonstrated by literary criti-
cism ; and, finally, to account for its origin, by producing a form
of those ancient legends of pagan Chaldea, from which the bib-
lical compilation is manifestly derived. I have yet to learn that
the main propositions of this essay can be seriously challenged.

In the essays (II, III) on the narrative of the Creation, I have
endeavored to controvert the assertion that modern science sup-
ports, either the interpretation put upon it by Mr. Gladstone, or
any interpretation which is compatible with the general sense
of the narrative, quite apart from particular details. The first
chapter of Genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present
forms of life ; modern science teaches that they have come about
by evolution. The first chapter of Genesis teaches the successive
origin — firstly, of all the plants ; secondly, of all the aquatic and
aerial animals ; thirdly, of all the terrestrial animals which now
exist — during distinct intervals of time ; modern science teaches
that, throughout all the duration of an immensely long past, so
far as we have any adequate knowledge of it (that is, as far back
as the Silurian epoch), plants, aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial ani-
mals have coexisted ; that the earliest known are unlike those
which at present exist ; and that the modern species have come
into existence as the last terms of a series, the members of which
have appeared one after another. Thus, far from confirming the
account in Genesis, the results of modern science, so far as they
go, are in principle, as in detail, hopelessly discordant with it.

Yet. if the pretensions to infallibility thus set up, not by the
ancient Hebrew writings themselves, but by the ecclesiastical
champions and friends from whom they may well pray to be

* [The Roman numerals in this article refer to the author's Essays upon some Contro-
verted Questions. — Editok.]
vol. xli. — 44

602 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

delivered, thus shatter themselves against the rock of natural
knowledge, in respect of the two most important of all events, the
origin of things and the palingenesis of terrestrial life, what his-
torical credit dare any serious thinker attach to the narratives of
the fabrication of Eve, of the Fall, of the commerce between the
Bene Elohim and the daughters of men, which lie between the
creational and the diluvial legends ? And, if these are to lose all
historical worth, what becomes of the infallibility of those who,
according to the later Scriptures, have accepted them, argued from
them, and staked far-reaching dogmatic conclusions upon their
historical accuracy ?

It is the merest ostrich policy for contemporary ecclesiasticism
to try to hide its Hexateuchal head — in the hope that the insepa-
rable connection of its body with pre-Abrahamic legends may be
overlooked. The question will still be asked, If the first nine
chapters of the Pentateuch are unhistoricaL how is the historical
accuracy of the remainder to be guaranteed ? What more in-
trinsic claim has the story of the Exodus, than that of the Del-
uge, to belief ? If God did not walk in the garden of Eden, how
can we be assured that he spoke from Sinai ?

In some other of the following essays (IX, X, XI, XII, XIV,
XV) I have endeavored to show that sober and well-founded
physical and literary criticism plays no less havoc with the doc-
trine that the canonical Scriptures of the New Testament " declare
incontrovertibly the actual historical truth in all records." We
are told that the Gospels contain a true revelation of the spiritual
world — a proposition which, in one sense of the word " spiritual,"
I should not think it necessary to dispute. But, when it is taken
to signify that everything we are told about the world of spirits
in these books is infallibly true ; that we are bound to accept the
demonology which constitutes an inseparable part of their teach-
ing ; and to profess belief in a supernaturalism as gross as that of
any primitive people — it is at any rate permissible to ask why ?
Science may be unable to define the limits of possibility, but it
can not escape from the moral obligation to weigh the evidence in
favor of any alleged wonderful occurrence ; and I have endeav-
ored to show that the evidence for the Gadarene miracle is alto-
gether worthless. We have simply three, partially discrepant,
versions of a story, about the primitive form, the origin, and the
authority for which we know absolutely nothing. But the evi-
dence in favor of the Gadarene miracle is as good as that for any
other.

Elsewhere I have pointed out that it is utterly beside the
mark to declaim against these conclusions on the ground of their
asserted tendency to deprive mankind of the consolations of the

THE DECLINE OF BIBLIOLATRY. 603

Christian faith, and to destroy the foundations of morality ; still
less to brand them with the question-begging, vituperative appel-
lation of " infidelity." The point is not whether they are wicked;
but whether, from the point of view of scientific method, they
are irrefragably true. If they are, they will be accepted in time,
whether they are wicked or not wicked. Nature, so far as we
have been able to attain to any insight into her ways, recks little
about consolation, and makes for righteousness by very round-
about paths. And, at any rate, whatever may be possible for
other people, it is becoming less and less possible for the man
who puts his faith in scientific methods of ascertaining truth, and
is accustomed to have that faith justified by daily experience, to
be consciously false to his principle in any matter. But the num-
ber of such men, driven into the use of scientific methods of inquiry
and taught to trust them, by their education, their daily profes-
sional and business needs, is increasing and will continually
increase. The phraseology of supernaturalism may remain on
men's lips, but in practice they are naturalists. The magistrate
who listens with devout attention to the precept, " Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live/' on Sunday, on Monday dismisses, as in-
trinsically absurd, a charge of bewitching a cow brought against
some old woman ; the superintendent of a lunatic asylum who
substituted exorcism for rational modes of treatment would have
but a short tenure of office ; even parish clerks doubt the utility
of prayers for rain, so long as the wind is in the east ; and an out-
break of pestilence sends men not to the churches, but to the
drains. In spite of prayers for the success of our arms and Te
Deums for victory, our real faith is in big battalions and keeping
our powder dry ; in knowledge of the science of warfare ; in
energy, courage, and discipline. In these, as in all other practical
affairs, we act on the aphorism " Laborare est orare " ; * we admit
that intelligent work is the only acceptable worship ; and that,
whether there be a Supernature or not, our business is with Nature.

According to the London Times, Dr. Frithiof Nansen intends to start on his
projected expedition to the north pole next year, and to make direct for the
mouth of the Lena River in Siberia. He believes that a current sets from the
Siberian coast across the pole to Greenland, as various objects have been discov-
ered on the Greenland coast that could have got there only from Siberia or the
sea north of it. Dr. Nansen expects to be away three or four years, but his
ship will be provisioned for six years. His V-shaped vessel will be of about two
hundred and fifty tons, will accommodate twelve men, and will be so strongly
built as to be impervious to ice-nipping. Alcohol will be taken only in the medi-
cine-chest or for food; but apparatus for providing electric light will form part of
the equipment.

[To labor is to pray. — Editor.]

6o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY.

By J. S. K1NGSLEY.

THE little village of "Woods Holl, situated on the southern
shore of Massachusetts, just where that long, sandy stretch,
known as Cape Cod, begins to jut from the mainland, is one of the
most important spots for biological science in the whole of
America. And yet how little the summer migrant knows of the
place as he passes through it on his way from the mainland to
the summer residences of Cottage City and Nantucket ! Woods
Holl has for the lover of the sea a charming situation. On the
south and east is that important water-way, Vineyard Sound,
through which is constantly passing a procession of vessels of all
styles and sizes, from the tiny cat-boat to the large passenger
steamers of the Norfolk and Savannah lines. To the west is the
broad and shallow expanse of Buzzard's Bay, with the New
Bedford shore now plainly visible, now appearing in that fan-
tastic shape called by the fisherman " looming " — a kind of mirage
when the coast appears doubled as in a mirror, and raised some
distance above the horizon. To the southwest stretches out the
long chain of the Elizabeth Islands, which possess no little in-
terest. They together form the town of Gosnold, named for that
old explorer who in 1G02 built his fort upon the westernmost
island, Cuttyhunk, traces of which are said to remain to the
present day. These Elizabeth Isles have retained the musical
names which the Indians gave them, and the students who yearly
visit Woods Holl have their struggles with the rhyme —

" Naushon, Nashuena,
Nonamesset, Uncatena,
Weepocket, Pasquenese,
Cuttyhunk and Penikese" —

which embodies the names of the eight.

The channels between the islands are known as " gutters," if
shallow ; " holes," if broad and deep. Thus, in one place is
Quick's Hole, in another Robinson's Hole, while between Nona-
messet and the mainland is the dangerous passage of Wood's
Hole, whose rocks have proved the wreck of many a vessel and
which gives the name to the adjacent village, the spelling of
which has for some unexplained reason been changed by the Post-
Office Department to Holl.*

* [The First Report of the United States Board on Geographic Names has the following
explanation of this change : " The name which was originally Wood's Hole was changed
several years ago by the summer residents of the place to Woods Holl." — Editor.]

THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 605

The village itself is absolutely without business, except the
daily shipment of fresh fish to the Boston and New York markets.
In years long gone by, like the neighboring seaports, it was in-
terested in the whale fisheries, and a recollection of those oily
days still remains in the old stone candle factory where the
spermaceti was made into wax candles. Later the Pacific Guano
Company established here its extensive works, to which the
phosphate rock of the Carolina rivers was brought, pulverized,
treated with sulphuric acid, and converted into fertilizers for the
farmer. But a few years ago the company failed, and the prop-
erty has all been sold.

The United States has considerable interests here. There is
the lighthouse wharf, where the supplies for the whole district
are kept. To this wharf every buoy and channel-mark is brought
each year to receive its coat of preservative copper paint ; and
here is almost always to be seen a reserve light-ship to replace
any that may be injured upon the many adjacent shoals. The
revenue marine has also its wharf here, where its steamers obtain
their supplies of coal and the like. Here, too, is the place where
one leaves the dusty cars of the Old Colony Railway for the cool
and comfortable steamers for Cottage City and Nantucket. Not
these, however, but rather the scientific aspects of the place, in-
terest us at present.

There is no place like the sea-shore for the student of natural
history. On the one hand, we can turn to the fields and streams,
and find there essentially the same animals and plants which
occur a hundred miles inland ; on the other, we have the won-
drous wealth of life of the ocean, so rich as to almost surpass
belief. This richness is of two kinds : First, there is the wealth
of numbers, a wealth which is far beyond that of any fresh-water
expanse ; and, second, the astonishing variety of forms. Whole
groups of animals are abundant in the ocean which are absolutely
without representatives in our rivers and lakes. Sea anemones
and corals, star-fishes and sea-urchins are wholly unknown in
fresh water, while thousands of other marine forms have but a
few insignificant representatives in ponds and streams.

Nor is this richness either of forms or of individuals the only
advantage the sea offers the student. The marine animals often
have a greatly different history from their fresh-water relatives.
One of the most important studies of the modern naturalist is
that which traces every phase of growth of an animal from the
time the egg is laid until the adult condition is reached. It is
hardly necessary to say that the theory of evolution is no longer
a question for discussion with him. He accepts the principle and
makes it the key-note of all his investigations. He is now trying
to ascertain the various lines of descent, rather than to test the

606 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

truth of the theory. One of the laws of evolution is that animals,
in their growth from the egg to the adult, pass through condi-
tions which represent, more or less clearly, the different stages
through which the line of descent has come. Thus, the existence
of rudimentary gills, with the cartilages and blood-vessels proper
to gills, in the human embryo, is taken as an indication that at
one time the ancestor had gills which were functional — in other
words, that man has descended from a fish-like form. There are,
however, great differences in the completeness with which this
record of ancestral history has been preserved. Speaking gen-
erally, more features have been dropped by the fresh-water and
terrestrial forms than by those of the sea. In the latter there
frequently hatches from the egg a larva which bears not the
slightest resemblance to the adult: the young sea-urchin shows
not a feature of the spiny creature we find in the holes in the
rocks ; and these changes — metamorphoses they are called — are
fraught with interest and instruction to the student who goes
deeper than ascertaining the mere name of the form he collects.
So we can see that, if the ocean offer such advantages, a labora-
tory for the study of Nature should be on the shore.

Not all places on the coast are equally suitable for study. At
one there is nothing but sand ; another has rocks and no sand or
mud ; a third has the water vitiated by the mouth of some river
constantly pouring in fresh water, which makes the neighboring
ocean brackish ; a fourth is contaminated by the sewage of a large
city. All these conditions conspire to make the region poor in
life. The proper place for our studies must have rocky points ;
stretches of mud and sand exposed at low tide ; currents to bring
constantly the pure water of the sea ; and such localities are not
abundant. It was over twenty years ago that the late Professor
Spencer F. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, recognized the
advantages of Woods Holl, not only for the investigation of the
problems of pure science, but for the study of the many questions
of more economic importance connected with the supply of food-
fishes of the country. So, year after year, he and his assistants
came here and worked through the summer months. Some made
studies of the fish of the region ; others collected the other forms
of life, for among these we must seek the food of the fishes ; still
others traced the life-histories of the injurious as well as of the
valuable forms ; while still others worked at the problems of arti-
ficial hatching and the like. As the work went on it outgrew the
limited quarters afforded by the barn-like building on the light-
house wharf, and so Congress granted the money for the present
buildings, the finest for their purposes of any in the world.

These buildings were completed shortly before the death of
Professor Baird. On the one side is the Dormitory and Mess Hall,

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for accommodations are scarce in Woods Holl, and students can
not pay summer-hotel prices. On the other is the admirably
equipped Laboratory. On the ground-floor is the fish-hatching
room, where each year millions of cod, lobsters, and other valu-
able animals are carried through the critical period of their exist-
ence before being turned into the ocean to shift for themselves.
On the same floor are the public aquaria stocked with the most
interesting and most attractive animals of the region. The sec-
ond floor is devoted to laboratories for students and offices for the
clerical force. Between the dormitory and the laboratory is the
pumping station which forces a constant stream of salt water
through the aquaria.

Attracted, not only by the natural advantages of the place, but
also by the advantages to be gained by proximity to such an in-
stitution as the Fish Commission, the Marine Biological Labora-
tory was located here. This institution is an evolution, and its
embryonic history possesses a certain interest.

For several years, Professor Alpheus Hyatt, of the Boston
Society of Natural History, with some of his pupils, spent the
summer months in natural history studies at the quaint little
fishing village of Annisquam, on the north shore of Cape Ann.
The facilities afforded, limited as they were, were highly appre-
ciated by those who came, and more than could be accommodated
desired each year to profit by them.

One of the many Boston " isms " is its Woman's Education
Association, and a world of good it has done. If any scheme can
be shown to promise good results for the education of women, the
society will see that the money and all that is necessary are soon
forthcoming. So with the humble beginnings at Annisquam ; if
women could be accommodated, the problem could be easily
solved. So the Association provided the money, a building was
hired and equipped with the absolutely necessary furniture and
apparatus, and on June 15, 1881, the first student began his work
in the Annisquam Laboratory. For six years this institution was
kept up ; a hundred students worked there with scalpel and mi-
croscope, and the laboratory fully demonstrated its raison d'etre.

It is a principle of the Woman's Education Association to
carry its projects through the experimental stage, but no further.
If, then, they have shown their necessity or utility, the Associa-
tion takes the necessary steps to put the institution upon an inde-
pendent footing. So with the Annisquam Laboratory. It supplied
a want, and must be made permanent. As a result of several
meetings in Boston, the Marine Biological Laboratory was incor-
porated in the spring of 1888, and to it was transferred all the
property, etc., of its Annisquam predecessor.

The new was, however, to be greater than" the old. At Annis-

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610 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

quam instruction had been almost the sole function, and no
provision was made for investigation. In the new institution
research was to be made prominent. At Annisquam scarce
twenty students could be accommodated ; its successor must
provide for at least fifty. Naturally, the question of situation
was a serious one. Not a single place on the whole Atlantic
coast, from Eastport to Newport, fulfilled all requirements ; but
Woods Holl seemed the best of all, and hence the result already
indicated.

Money was raised, land near the Fish Commission building
was purchased, and a two-story building twenty-nine by sixty-
three and a half feet was erected and equipped in time for the
summer session of 1888. This was enlarged two years later by
an addition measuring twenty by forty feet ; and this spring a
new addition is being made, equal in size to the original struct-
ure. This affords some evidence of the growth of the laboratory,
and of the constantly increasing demands upon it for space. This
growth is also shown in another way. In 1888, seventeen en-
joyed its facilities; in 1889, there was a jump to forty-four ; in
1890, forty-seven ; while in 1891 there was another jump to sev-
enty-one. In these numbers are included both pupils and instruct-
ors, for all are students. Those who do the teaching are always
engaged in investigation, and their researches are carried on in
the moments snatched from the pupils proper. In 1888 there
were but two instructors ; for 1892, eight are announced.

The laboratory has been extremely fortunate in its head. Ever
since its organization Professor Charles Otis Whitman, of Clark
University — recently appointed to the new Chicago University —
has served as Director, and not a little of the success of the
laboratory is due to his efforts and his plans for its develop-
ment. The scope of the work as announced for this summer
shows how far the laboratory has advanced along the lines laid
down for it.

As already mentioned, two very distinct functions are recog-
nized : the laboratory is at once a center for the advancement and
for the diffusion of knowledge ; it is a school for teaching and
an institute for research ; and accordingly the students who an-
nually attend are divided by a distinct line into pupils and inves-
tigators. In the first category come those whose acquaintance
with Nature and with the methods of finding out her secrets, is
slight. Before they can engage in original research they must
have a solid foundation of fact, and facility in the use of the
naturalist's instruments. So they dissect and study under the
microscope a selected series of animals and plants which may
exhibit broadly the different types of structure in the living
world. In this class, to which the ground-floor of the laboratory

THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 611

is given up, the pupil is constantly under the eye of the in-
structor, who endeavors to teach him how to use the microscope
and its accessories, how to dissect, and, most important of all,
how to interpret what he sees. From the animals studied, the
young naturalist obtains a broad knowledge of the general
structure which occurs in the greater groups of the animal and
vegetable worlds, which can be used as a basis for comparison
in future work. In giving the necessary instruction, those in
charge are continually trying to impress upon the student the
necessity of accuracy and the love of truth, and to give him a
clear idea of the great principle of homology, which is the very
center and soul of modern morphological work.

A word or two may be necessary to explain exactly what this
means. Two organs are said to be homologous when they have
the same general structure, no matter how diverse may be the
uses to which they are put. Thus, for example, if we dissect the
arm of a man and the wing of a chicken, we shall find in each
similar bones, muscles, blood-vessels, and nerves ; in short, a
broadly identical structure — they are homologous organs, and
yet how different are their functions ! On the other hand, when
we study the wing of a butterfly or of a bee, we find in it no bones,
no muscles, no nerves ; and yet it, like the wing of a bird, is an
organ of flight. The resemblances are those of analogy ; ho-
mology is lacking. In these examples the distinctions are evi-
dent, but this is not always the case, yet the principle is equally
important in all.

These elementary students occupy the ground-floor of the
laboratory. Each has his regular seat at the laboratory tables,
a locker for his instruments, and his set of reagents and supplies.
In the center of the room are the aquaria, where animals for dis-
section and study are kept. Here he may work " from early dawn
to dewy eve," and later if he (or she) desire.

The second floor is dedicated to investigation, and the students
here may be divided into two groups. In the first are those who
have pursued a course of study essentially equivalent to that of
the pupils on the lower floor, and who wish to begin original in-
vestigation. It is not an easy problem for the beginner to find
out what questions are important to be solved, and even less easy
is it for him to attempt their solution. He needs assistance at
first at almost every step. For such persons twenty places are
provided. The instructors in charge select some problem which
needs solution, and which, at the same time, is not too difficult
for the beginner, and which, further, will give experience in
technique and method of study. They map out the investigation,
and watch the embryo investigator in his struggles. Every step
in its solution is accompanied with criticism or suggestion, and,

6l2

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

when difficulties arise, either of technique or interpretation, the
instructor is at hand to smooth away the trouble.

For those who have passed this preliminary training, and who
are ready to carry on investigation, twenty-four private rooms
on the second floor are set aside. Here, in privacy and in quiet,
undisturbed by others, each can solve his problems. In each
room is an aquarium to keep the animals or plants, while the
table and shelves are supplied with the necessary books, reagents,
and glassware. All who have carried on investigations after the
modern methods of zoology and botany realize that rapidity is
incompatible with good work. A thorough piece of investigation
can not be completed in a few weeks ; and yet over thirty papers
have been published, or are now in press, as the results of the in-

Fig. 3. — A Bit of the Students' Laboratory, Woods Holl, Mass.

vestigations carried on in those private rooms. No laboratory
connected with any college or university in the country can show
equal productiveness.

In both upper and lower laboratories, among both beginners
and investigators, some are working at zoological, others at bo-
tanical subjects ; while this year, for the first time, physiology
is to be included in the work done. Material for study is abun-
dant. Besides row-boats, which are available for shore collecting,
the laboratory has a sail-boat and also a Burgess-built steam-
launch, the Sagitta, which has proved itself the fastest boat in the
region. This is daily in use. Now it goes out on a dredging trip
in the sound ; yesterday it made a trip to Cuttyhunk or Gay Head
for lobsters ; this morning it made the round of the fish-pounds

THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 613

along the coast for sharks and strange fish ; to-morrow it will take
a party to Naushon for worms and sea-cucumbers. So it goes, day-
after day, constantly bringing material for the workers in the
laboratory. At night another kind of collecting is tried. Many
of the smaller animals and the larvae of the larger kinds come to
the surface of the sea when the sky is dark and the water calm.
Then the naturalist, with a net of gauze, skims the surface of the
sea, and catches the life found there. The results of such surface-
skimming are wonderful, and no one who has never seen the
operation would begin to imagine the richness of the catch. And
then, how quickly it dies ! At night there are millions of animals
in the dishes into which the tow is poured ; in the morning all are
dead. So the skimmings must be studied soon after they are
taken, if one wishes to utilize them.

The instruction given at the laboratory is largely personal.
Each student is carefully watched by the instructors, and natu-
rally the beginners receive more attention than those in the upper
laboratory. They also have their daily lectures upon the general
principles of zoology and botany. There are frequently other
laboratory lectures upon subjects of more general scientific in-
terest. These are given in the evening by the laboratory staff or
by visiting naturalists, and no lecture course in the country can
boast of such subjects treated by such masters. Naturally, they
are appreciated by all, and the little lecture-room is always
crowded when they occur. The lectures for 1890 have been issued
in book-form, and the volume has been highly praised by the
scientific press of the world.

To the student of to-day books are almost as important as
specimens. He needs them to show him not only what has al-
ready been found out, so that he need not waste his time in
duplicating the labors of some foreign naturalist, but also to
show him the structure or development in allied forms, so that
with the larger array of facts he can have a basis for interpreta-
tion of the meaning of his own discoveries. So the laboratory has
gathered together a small library. Most of the publishing natu-
ralists of America have given extra copies of their papers, and a
generous friend has supplied the means for the purchase of com-
plete sets of several of the most important European periodicals.

Although started in Boston, the Marine Biological Laboratory
is a national rather than a local institution. A student from
California is as warmly welcomed as one from the immediate
neighborhood. In its four years students have come from twenty-
two States, from Canada and Japan. Philadelphia has sent more
students than Boston; while Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Cali-
fornia, and Kansas have been represented. The fees charged are,
for the lower laboratory, thirty dollars ; for the upper, fifty dol-

6 i 4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lars, for the season. These fees fall far short of paying the actual
running expenses, and yet every outgo is reduced as far as is com-
patible with first-class results. So every year the trustees have
the problem of meeting the deficiency. So far it has been suc-
cessfully solved, but it means a continuous struggle. Various
plans have been suggested ; the most promising is the following :
That different colleges and universities endow the private rooms
with a hundred dollars a year, and by virtue of this payment
have the right to nominate the annual occupant.

Such in outline is the Marine Biological Laboratory as it exists
to-day ; but it is far from being the institution that its friends

Fig. 4. — A Private Eoom, Marine Biological Laboratory.

wish it to be. It has developed about as far as possible in the
line of a school of instruction, but as a center of investigation
there is a chance for enormous growth, and for development in
that direction the plans are already well thought out, but as yet
the necessary money is lacking.

Only a few years ago, when the student wished to investigate
marine life, he must take his laboratory with him and depend for
quarters upon a room in a fish-house or the like near the shore.
That was the way in which Johannes Muller worked in Europe,
and the way in which Agassiz studied on our own coast. Some
fifteen or twenty years ago the change began, and sea-side labora-
tories were erected. The best known of these to-day is the cele-
brated Zoological Station at Naples, established by Dr. Dohrn, to
which students flock from every quarter of the world. In its

THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 615

appointments it is almost perfect, while in its results it takes the
first rank of all the institutions of investigation in existence.
Since its establishment other laboratories modeled after it have
been founded in all quarters of the globe — Australia, Japan, and
Java not being behind the rest. In America the station estab-
lished by Mr. Alexander Agassiz at Newport is exclusively for
investigation, but it is only open to invited guests of its founder.
It was a part of the plan of the late Professor Baird to make the
Woods Holl station of the United States Fish Commission a cen-
ter of pure science as well as a laboratory for the solution of the
more economic problems connected with the food-fishes, and it
has been such. The scientific results published by the students
who have availed themselves of the facilities afforded have been
very considerable. Still, it is evident that in a Government insti-
tution research must ever be subordinate to the more practical
questions. The people can pay for that which will put dollars in
their pockets, but study for study's sake is something that the
average politician can not appreciate. At present, at least, pure
research must be supported by private means rather than by Gov-
ernment grant.

The Marine Biological Laboratory has the foundation upon
which the ideal laboratory can be built. Its board of trustees
includes some of the most prominent zoologists in America, who
can be expected to guide it in the most profitable directions. It
has already purchased land for future growth. The desire now is
that upon this land shall be erected a building which can be kept
open all the year, instead of some three or four months in sum-
mer. Here there shall be a force of paid investigators through
the year, working at the many problems connected with the living
world. On the other hand, it will at the same time prove an
annex to every progressive college and university in the land, for
to it in summer both professors and students can freely come for
study and to collect the materials for the winter classes. It will
need a large library for reference, and funds for the publication
of the results worked out within its walls.

Such an institution can not live from hand to mouth, but it
must have an endowment sufficient to pay all running expenses,
salaries, and the like. It offers to the future benefactor much in
return. To found a college or university to-day requires an enor-
mous fortune ; a fraction of that sum would establish a biological
station the best in the world. Nowhere in educational lines can
such great results be expected as here. We have enough colleges
and universities; institutions primarily for research are as yet
lacking; yet what honor they would reflect upon the man far-
sighted and public-spirited enough to give them the means of
existence !

6i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. CAUSATION AND

IMMUNITY. *

By GEORGE M. STERNBERG, M.D.,

SURGEON UNITED STATES ARMY.

CERTAINLY, from a scientific point of view, no question in
medicine is more important than that which relates to the
causation of disease. An accurate knowledge of the specific etio-
logical agents concerned in the production of specific infectious
diseases forms the very basis of scientific medicine; and, as you
all know, researches which have been made during the past thirty
years have given us this accurate knowledge for a considerable
number of these diseases. I say thirty years, in order to include
the researches of Davaine upon anthrax ; but, as a matter of fact,
the principal portion of our knowledge relating to specific disease-
germs has been acquired during the past decade.

As an introduction, a brief historical review of the progress of
our knowledge will perhaps not be out of place. But first I must
call your attention to the fact that this progress has been made
possible by certain improvements in methods of research, and es-
pecially by the following : first, the use of a cotton filter to ex-
clude atmospheric organisms from our culture media (Schroder
and Von Dusch, 1854) ; second, the sterilization of culture media
by heat (methods perfected by Pasteur, Koch, and others) ; third,
the use of aniline dyes as staining agents (first recommended by
Weigert in 1877) ; fourth, the introduction of solid culture media,
and the " plate method " for obtaining pure cultures (by Koch in
1881) ; fifth, the perfection of methods for cultivating anaerobic
bacteria. I have already referred to the researches of Davaine re-
lating to the disease of cattle and sheep known as anthrax. Hav-
ing ascertained that the blood of an infected animal constantly
contained a rod-shaped micro-organism, and that the smallest
quantity of this blood inoculated into a susceptible animal gave
rise to the disease and caused its death, Davaine, in 1803, boldly
announced his belief that the bacillus was the specific etiological
agent in this disease. The experiments of Davaine were not, how-
ever, generally accepted as conclusive, because, in inoculating an
animal with blood containing the bacillus, the living micro-organ-
ism was associated with material from the body of the diseased
animal. This objection was subsequently removed by the experi-
ments of Pasteur, Koch, and many others with pure cultures of
the bacillus. These were shown to have the same pathogenic
effects as had been obtained in inoculation experiments with the

* Address in Medicine, delivered at Yale University, June 28, 1892.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 617

blood of an infected animal. To-day no one questions the etio-
logical relation of Bacillus anthracis to the disease anthrax. And
this bacillus has served for innumerable experiments relating to
the solution of a variety of questions in pathology and preventive
medicine. Among these we may mention the following, each of
which has an extended literature : attenuation of virulence ; pro-
tective inoculation of susceptible animals ; hereditary transmis-
sion of protection; passage of pathogenic bacteria through the
placenta, from the mother to the foetus ; explanation of acquired
immunity ; comparative value of germicidal agents and of anti-
septics ; conditions governing spore formation, etc.

Proceeding with our historical review : In 1873, Obermeier, a
German physician, announced the discovery, in the blood of pa-
tients suffering from relapsing fever, of a minute, spiral, actively
motile micro-organism — the Spirochete Obermeieri — which is now
generally recognized as the specific infectious agent in this dis-
ease. Recently (1890) a spirillum closely resembling the relaps-
ing-fever spirillum has been discovered by Sakharoff, a Russian
investigator, in the blood of geese. The investigations of the
author named show that it is the cause of a fatal epidemic disease
which occasionally prevails among geese in certain swampy
localities in Caucasia.

In 1879 Hansen reported the discovery of bacilli in the cells of
leprous tubercles. Subsequent researches have shown that this
bacillus is constantly associated with leprosy, and presumably
bears an etiological relation to the disease.

In the same year (1879) Neisser discovered the " gonococcus."
The bacillus of typhoid fever was first observed by Eberth, and
independently by Koch, in 1880, but it was not until 1884 that
Gaffky's important researches relating to this bacillus were
published. It is now well established that this bacillus is con-
stantly found in the spleen and intestinal glands involved in
cases of typhoid fever ; and pathologists have generally accepted
it as the specific etiological agent in this disease. We can scarcely
doubt the correctness of this conclusion, although it must be ad-
mitted that no satisfactory experimental demonstration of the
fact has yet been made, inasmuch as none of the lower animals
are subject to the disease as it occurs in man, and inoculations
with pure cultures do not give rise to identical morbid phe-
nomena. Since the discovery of the typhoid bacillus very numer-
ous researches have been made to determine in an exact manner
its biological characters, its resistance to germicidal agents, the
duration of its vitality in drinking-water and in the soil, its pres-
ence in water the ingestion of which has been suspected of caus-
ing typhoid fever in man, etc. As to the results of these in-
vestigations we may say, in brief, that it has been shown that the

VOL. XLI. — 45

618 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

bacillus as obtained from the spleen of typhoid cadavers varies
somewhat in different cases; that very similar bacilli may be
obtained from waters contaminated by sewage, etc., which differ
from the typhoid bacillus in certain characters of growth, and
yet resemble it so closely that it is still uncertain whether they are
to be considered distinct species or only varieties of the typhoid
bacillus ; that the character which was at first supposed to dis-
tinguish the typhoid bacillus from all others — viz., its invisible
growth upon potato — has proved to be unreliable, inasmuch as
certain other bacteria have been shown to have a like invisible
growth, and under certain circumstances the typhoid bacillus may
form a visible growth on potato. However, in spite of these
difficulties in differentiating the typhoid bacillus from nearly
allied bacteria found in water or in the dejecta of man and the
lower animals, there is good reason to believe that the bacillus of
Eberth, of Koch, and of Gaffky is the veritable etiological agent
in the widely spread endemic and sometimes epidemic disease
known as typhoid fever. But in admitting this we must admit
that the bacillus itself is widely distributed, and that an attack of
typhoid fever does not necessarily follow its introduction into the
alimentary canal of man by means of contaminated water or milk.
Other secondary causes, no doubt, often determine the question of
infection. Among these we may mention individual suscepti-
bility ; exposure to agencies which reduce the vital resisting
power, such as sewer-gas poisoning; the quantity and the viru-
lence of the typhoid germs ingested; the state of the digestive
function, etc.

In 1880 the present writer discovered the important pathogenic
micrococcus which is now generally recognized as the usual cause
of croupous pneumonia. This I now call Micrococcus pneumonic?
crouposce: The German bacteriologists usually speak of it as the
Diplococcus pneumonicB. I first discovered this micrococcus in
the blood of rabbits inoculated with a few drops of my own saliva ;
and subsequent researches have shown that it is found in the
saliva of healthy individuals in various parts of the world. This
fact may at first view appear to be opposed to the statement that
it is the usual cause of croupous pneumonia, especially as I have
never myself suffered from this disease, although for several years
I frequently demonstrated the presence of this micrococcus in my
salivary secretions. But, as in the case of the typhoid bacillus
and several other widely distributed bacteria, while accepting,
upon experimental evidence, the etiological relation of the specific
micro-organism, we are also obliged to admit the essential rela-
tion of predisposing or exciting causes in the development of an
attack of the disease. In this connection I quote from a paper of
my own, published in 1885 :

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 619

The constant presence of this micrococcus in the buccal secretions of healthy
persons indicates that some other factor is required for the development of an at-
tack of pneumonia ; and it seems probable that this other factor acts by reducing
the vital resisting power of the pulmonary tissues, and thus making them vulner-
able to the attacks of the microbe. This supposition enables us to account for the
development of the numerous cases of pneumonia which can not be traced to infec-
tion from without. The germ being always present, auto-infection is liable to
occur when, from alcoholism, sewer-gas poisoning, crowd-poisoning, or any other
depressing agency, the vitality of the tissues is reduced below the resisting point.
We may suppose, also, that a reflex vaso-motor paralysis, affecting a single lobe of
the lung, for example, and induced by exposure to cold, may so reduce the resist-
ing power of the pulmonary tissues as to permit this micrococcus to produce its
characteristic effects. Again, we may suppose that a person, whose vital resisting
power is reduced by any of the causes mentioned, may be attacked by pneumonia
from external infection with material containing a pathogenic variety of the
micrococcus having a potency, permanent or acquired, greater than that possessed
by the same organism in normal buccal secretions."

Investigations made since the above was written show that
this micrococcus does vary greatly in its pathogenic power when
obtained from different sources, and that virulent cultures ob-
tained from the blood of inoculated animals become attenuated
when they are kept for a short time. This, indeed, is a general rule
as regards the best-known pathogenic bacteria; which usually
acquire increased virulence when cultivated in the bodies of sus-
ceptible animals, and become attenuated as regards their patho-
genic potency when they are cultivated for a certain length of
time in artificial media. My own experiments with pneumonic
sputum were made in January, 1885, and led me to the identifica-
tion of the oval coccus, commonly in pairs, which is found in
this material, with the coccus which I had previously found in my
own saliva (September, 1880), and which was subsequently the ob-
ject of extended experimental researches made by me in 1881-1884.

In my paper read before the Pathological Society of Philadel-
phia, in April, 1885, 1 say : " It seems extremely probable that this
micrococcus is concerned in the etiology of croupous pneumonia.
. . . But this can not be considered as definitely established by
the experiments which have thus far been made upon the lower
animals." The extended researches of Frankel, Weichselbaum,
Netter, Gamale'ia, G. and F. Klemperer, and others, which have
been published since, have fully established the etiological role
of the micrococcus in question.

In 1882 Fehleisen isolated the so-called streptococcus of ery-
sipelas and proved by experiment that it is the etiological agent
in the production of erysipelatous inflammations. At a later date
(1884) Rosenbach isolated the micro-organisms commonly con-
cerned in traumatic infections and in the production of acute
abscesses. Among these was a streptococcus, called by him Strep-

620 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tococcus pyogenes, which, is probably identical with Streptococcus
erysipelatos of Fehleisen, although some bacteriologists still in-
sist that slight differences exist in the mode of growth in certain
culture media which justify the view that they are well-defined
varieties if not distinct species. I am of the opinion that the strep-
tococcus obtained from erysipelatous inflammations is identical
with the streptococcus of pus ; and we have ample evidence that
the pathogenic power of this micro-organism differs as a result
of conditions relating to its environment. In artificial culture
media it becomes more or less attenuated, but when obtained from
the tissues invaded in erysipelas, or in puerperal septicaemia, it
has an increased virulence. Like the micrococcus of pneumonia,
this is a widely distributed micro-organism ; it has frequently
been obtained in cultures from the surface of the body or from
exposed mucous membranes of healthy persons. This is also true
of the other pus cocci concerned in traumatic infections. And, in
the light of our present knowledge, it appears that erysipelas,
wound infection, abscess formation, etc., do not depend alone
upon the presence of the specific etiological agents which induce
such localized infectious processes, but also upon predisposing
and secondary causes relating to the infected individual, as well
as upon the origin and virulence of the pathogenic micro-organ-
ism. Thus the Streptococcus pyogenes from a case of erysipelas
or of puerperal septicaemia introduced into a recent wound upon
a healthy person would be likely to cause a severe and possibly
fatal infection, while an attenuated culture of the same would
perhaps give rise to no symptoms, or at most to slight local
inflammation. On the other hand, if the vital resisting power
of the individual is reduced by previous ill-health, by insufficient
food, by sewer-gas poisoning, crowd-poisoning, etc., an attenuated
variety of Streptococcus pyogenes may perhaps give rise to an
erysipelatous inflammation, or to an acute abscess, if introduced
by accident into an open wound. Again, in contused and lacerated
wounds the vital resisting power of the tissues is diminished ; and
wound infection is likely to occur from the accidental introduc-
tion of the pus cocci, which lead a saprophytic existence upon the
surface of the body and exposed mucous membranes, where under
ordinary circumstances they are quite harmless. Secondary in-
fections clue to these now well-known pyogenic micrococci are
not infrequent as sequelae to the specific infectious diseases, such
as scarlet fever, yellow fever, etc.

In 1882 Koch published his famous discovery of the tubercle
bacillus. This will always rank as one of the most important
events in the history of medicine, and as a notable triumph of
well-directed scientific research. The proof that the bacillus re-
ferred to is the specific cause of tuberculous processes and that

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 621

tuberculosis is an infectious disease, was contained in Koch's origi-
nal memoir announcing his discovery. Investigations made since
have fully confirmed Koch's conclusions in all important particu-
lars. In order to show you the interest taken by bacteriologists
and pathologists in all that relates to the tubercle bacillus and
the effects of its pathogenic action, I have referred to the Jahres-
bericht of Baumgarten, for the year 1890, which gives abstracts of
all original memoirs in this field of research. The total number
of papers referred to, published during the year mentioned, is one
hundred and thirty-five. By far the greater number are pub-
lished in German and French journals, but the literature includes
a certain number of memoirs published in Russia, in Italy, in
Hungary, in Sweden, and in the United States.

Another important discovery, made in 1882, is that of the ba-
cillus of glanders, by Loffler and Schutz.

Koch published his discovery of the cholera spirillum (" com-
ma bacillus") in 1884.

The same year (1884) Lofner discovered the diphtheria bacillus.
Subsequent researches have not only established the etiological
relation of this bacillus to the disease known as diphtheria, but
have given us an exact knowledge of its biological characters and
pathogenic action, as tested upon lower animals.

The tetanus bacillus was discovered in 1884 by Nicolaier, a
student in the laboratory of Prof. Fliigge, of Gottingen. That
this bacillus is the cause of tetanus in man has been demonstrated
by the subsequent researches of numerous investigators.

So far as human pathology is concerned, no important patho-
genic micro-organism has been discovered since the date last men-
tioned (1884) until the present year. After numerous unsuccess-
ful researches by competent bacteriologists, a bacillus has been
discovered by Pfeiffer, of Berlin, and independently by Canon,
which there is good reason to believe is the specific cause of epi-
demic influenza.

"We have, also, a recent announcement, by Canon, of the dis-
covery of a minute bacillus in the blood of patients suffering with
measles, but the etiological relation of this bacillus has not been
established, and additional researches will be required before we
can properly estimate the value of Canon's alleged discovery.

The brief historical review which we have made shows that
the etiology of a considerable number of infectious diseases has
been determined by the researches of bacteriologists, but it also
shows that other important diseases of this class are not included
in this list.

Up to the present date no satisfactory demonstration of the
specific infectious agent has been made in any one of the eruptive
fevers ; and in yellow fever, my own extended researches have

622 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

failed to clear up the etiology of the disease. In the last-men-
tioned disease, there are excellent a priori reasons for believing
that a living micro-organism of some kind is the essential etiologi-
cal factor ; but this hypothetical germ has eluded all researches.
Possibly it belongs to an entirely different class of micro-organ-
isms, as is the case with the blood parasite which is now recog-
nized as the cause of the malarial fevers.

Having thus briefly reviewed the progress of our knowledge
relating to the etiology of infectious diseases, I desire to call your
attention to the question of acquired immunity from these diseases.

No questions in general biology are more interesting, or more
important from a practical point of view, than those which
relate to the susceptibility of certain animals to the pathogenic
action of certain species of bacteria, and the immunity, natural
or acquired, from such pathogenic action which is possessed by
other animals. It has long been known that certain infectious
diseases, now demonstrated to be of bacterial origin, prevail only
or principally among animals of a single species. Thus, typhoid
fever, cholera, and relapsing fever are diseases of man, and the
lower animals do not suffer from them when they are prevailing
as an epidemic. On the other hand, man has a natural immunity
from many of the infectious diseases of the lower animals, and
diseases of this class which prevail among animals are fre-
quently limited to a single species. Again, several species, in-
cluding man, may be susceptible to a disease, while other animals
have a natural immunity from it. Thus, tuberculosis is common
to man, to cattle, to apes, and to the small herbivorous animals,
while the carnivora are, as a rule, immune ; anthrax may be com-
municated by inoculation to man, to cattle, to sheep, to guinea-
pigs, rabbits, and mice, but the rat, the dog, carnivorous animals,
and birds are generally immune ; glanders, which is essentially a
disease of the equine genus, may be communicated to man, to the
guinea-pig, and to field-mice, while house-mice, rabbits, cattle,
and swine are to a great extent immune.

In addition to this general race immunity or susceptibility, we
have individual differences in susceptibility or resistance to the
action of pathogenic bacteria, which may be either natural or
acquired. As a rule, young animals are more susceptible than
older ones. Thus in man the young are especially susceptible to
scarlet fever, whooping-cough, and other "children's diseases,"
and after forty years of age the susceptibility to tubercular in-
fection is very much diminished. Among the lower animals it is
a matter of common laboratory experience that the very young of
a susceptible species may be infected when inoculated with an
"attenuated culture" which older animals of the same species
are able to resist.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 623

Considerable differences as to susceptibility may also exist
among adults of the same species. In man these differences in
individual susceptibility to infectious diseases are frequently
manifested. Of a number of persons exposed to infection in the
same way, some may escape entirely, while others have attacks
differing in severity and duration. In our experiments upon the
lower animals we constantly meet with similar results, some
individuals proving to be exceptionally resistant. Exceptional
susceptibility or immunity may be to some extent a family char-
acteristic, or one of race. Thus, the negro race is decidedly less
subject to yellow fever than the white race, and this disease is
more fatal among the fair-skinned races of the north of Europe
than among the Latin races living in tropical or subtropical
regions. On the other hand, small-pox appears to be exception-
ally fatal among negroes and dark-skinned races generally. A
very remarkable instance of race immunity is that of Algerian
sheep against anthrax, a disease which is very fatal to other
sheep.

The essential difference between a susceptible and immune
animal depends upon the fact that in one the pathogenic germ,
when introduced by accident or experimental inoculation, multi-
plies and invades the tissues or the blood, where, by reason of its
nutritive requirements and toxic products, it produces changes in
the tissues and fluids of the body inconsistent with the vital re-
quirements of the infected animal ; while in the immune animal
multiplication does not occur or is restricted to a local invasion
of limited extent, and in which after a time the resources of
Nature suffice to destroy the parasitic invader.

Now, the question is, Upon what does this essential difference
depend ? Evidently upon conditions favorable or unfavorable to
the development of the pathogenic germ ; or upon its destruction
by some active agent present in the tissues or fluids of the body
of the immune animal ; or upon a neutralization of its toxic prod-
ucts by some substance present in the body of the animal which
survives infection. The composition of the body fluids, and es-
pecially their reaction, is probably a determining factor in some
instances. Thus, Behring has ascribed the failure of the anthrax
bacillus to develop in the white rat, which possesses a remarkable
immunity against anthrax, to the highly alkaline reaction of the
blood and tissue juices of this animal. Behring claims to have
obtained experimental proof of the truth of this explanation by
feeding white rats on an exclusive vegetable diet, or by adding
acid phosphate of lime to their food, by which means this ex-
cessive alkalinity of the blood is diminished. Hats so treated are
said to lose their natural immunity, and to die as a result of
inoculation with virulent cultures of the anthrax bacillus.

624 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The recent experiments of Nuttall, Behring, Buchner, and
others have established the fact that recently drawn blood of
various animals possesses decided germicidal power, and Buchner
has shown that this property belongs to the fluid part of the
blood and not to its cellular elements. This power to kill bacteria
is destroyed by heat, and is lost when the blood has been kept for
a considerable time, but it is not neutralized by freezing. Further,
this power to destroy bacteria differs greatly for different species,
being very decided in the case of certain pathogenic bacteria, less
so for others, and absent in the case of certain common sapro-
phytes.

In the infectious diseases of man involving the system gen-
erally, a single attack commonly confers immunity from sub-
sequent attacks. This is true of the eruptive fevers, of typhoid
fever, of yellow fever, of mumps, of whooping-cough, and, to
some extent at least, of syphilis. But it seems not to be the case
in epidemic influenza (la grippe), in croupous pneumonia, or in
Asiatic cholera, in which diseases second attacks not infrequently
occur. In localized infectious diseases, such as diphtheria, ery-
sipelas, and gonorrhoea, one attack is not protective. Croupous
pneumonia and Asiatic cholera should perhaps be grouped with
diphtheria and erysipelas as local infections with constitutional
symptoms resulting from the absorption of toxic products.

That immunity may result from a comparatively mild attack
as well as from a severe one is a matter of common observation in
the case of small-pox, scarlet fever, yellow fever, etc., and since
the discovery of Jenner we have in vaccination a simple method
of producing immunity in the first-mentioned disease. The ac-
quired immunity resulting from vaccination is not, however, as
complete or as permanent as that which results from an attack of
the disease.

These general facts relating to acquired immunity from in-
fectious diseases constituted the principal portion of our knowl-
edge with reference to this important matter up to the time that
Pasteur (1880) demonstrated that in the disease of fowls known as
chicken cholera, which he had proved to be due to a specific
micro-organism, a mild attack followed by immunity may be
induced by inoculation with an " attenuated virus " — i. e., by
inoculation with a culture of the pathogenic micro-organism the
virulence of which had been so modified that it gave rise to a
comparatively mild attack of the disease in question. Pasteur's
original method of obtaining an attenuated virus consisted in
exposing his cultures for a considerable time to the action of
atmospheric oxygen. It has since been ascertained that the same
result is obtained with greater certainty by exposing cultures for
a given time to a temperature slightly below that which would

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 625

destroy the vitality of the pathogenic micro-organism, and also
by exposure to the action of certain chemical agents.

Pasteur at once comprehended the importance of his discovery,
and inferred that what was true of one infectious germ disease
was likely to be true of others. Subsequent researches by this
savant and by other bacteriologists have justified this anticipa-
tion, and the demonstration has already been made for a consider-
able number of similar diseases — anthrax, symptomatic anthrax,
rouget, etc.

In Pasteur's inoculations against anthrax, " attenuated " cult-
ures are employed which contain the living pathogenic germ as
well as the toxic products developed during its growth. Usually
two inoculations are made with cultures of different degrees of
attenuation — that is to say, with cultures in which the toxic
products are formed in less amount than in virus of full power.

The most attenuated virus is first injected, and after some time
the second vaccine, which if injected first might have caused a
considerable mortality. The animal is thus protected from the
pathogenic action of the most virulent cultures.

Now, it has been shown by recent experiments that a similar
immunity may result from the injection into a susceptible animal
of the toxic products contained in a virulent culture, independ-
ently of the living bacteria to which they owe their origin. The
first satisfactory experimental evidence of this important fact was
obtained by Salmon and Smith in 1886, who succeeded in making
pigeons immune from the pathogenic effects of cultures of the
bacillus of hog cholera by inoculating them with sterilized
cultures of this bacillus. In 1888 Roux reported similar results
obtained by injecting into susceptible animals sterilized cultures
of the anthrax bacillus. Behring and Kitasato have quite re-
cently reported their success in establishing immunity against
virulent cultures of the bacillus of tetanus and the diphtheria
bacillus by inoculating susceptible animals with filtered, germ-
free cultures of these pathogenic bacteria.

In Pasteur's inoculations against hydrophobia, made subse-
quently to infection by the bite of a rabid animal, an attenuated
virus is introduced subcutaneously in considerable quantity by
daily injections, and immunity is established during the interval,
the so-called period of incubation, which usually occurs between
the date of infection and the development of the disease. That
the immunity in this case also depends upon the introduction
of a chemical substance present in the desiccated spinal cord of
rabbits which have succumbed to rabies, which is used in these
inoculations, is extremely probable. But, as the germ of rabies
has not been isolated or cultivated artificially, this has not yet
been demonstrated.

626 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

With these facts in view, let us proceed to consider briefly the
various theories which have been offered in explanation of ac-
quired immunity :

Exhaustion Theory. — For a time Pasteur supported the view
that during an attack of an infectious disease the pathogenic
micro-organism, in its multiplication in the body of a susceptible
animal, exhausts the suyjply of some substance necessary for its
development, that this substance is not subsequently reproduced,
and that consequently the same pathogenic germ can not again
multiply in the body of the protected animal.

In discussing this theory, in a paper published in the Ameri-
can Journal of the Medical Sciences (April, 1881), the writer
says:

Let us see where this hypothesis leads us. In the first place, we must have a
material of small-pox, and a material of measles, and a material of scarlet fever,
etc. Then we must admit that each of these different materials has been formed
in the system and stored up for these emergencies — attacks of the diseases in
question — for we can scarcely conceive that they were all packed away in the
germ-cell of the mother and the sperm-cell of the father of each susceptible
individual. If, then, these peculiar materials have been formed and stored up
during the development of the individual, how are we to account for the fact
that no new production takes place after an attack of any one of the diseases in
question ?

Again, how shall we account for the fact that the amount of material which
would nourish the small-pox germ, to the extent of producing a case of confluent
small-pox, may be exhausted by the action of the attenuated virus (germ) intro-
duced by vaccination ? Pasteur's comparison of a fowl protected by inocula-
tion with the microbe of fowl cholera, with a culture fluid in which the growth
of a particular organism has exhausted the pabulum necessary for the devel-
opment of additional organisms of the same kind, does not seem to me to be a
just one, as in the latter case we have a limited supply of nutriment, while in
the former we have new supplies constantly provided of the material — food
— from which the whole body, including the hypothetical substance essential
to the development of the disease-germ, was built up prior to the attack. Be-
sides this, we have a constant provision for the elimination of effete and useless
products.

This hypothesis, then, requires the formation in the human body, and the re-
tention up to a certain time, of a variety of materials which, so far as we can
see, serve no purpose except to nourish the germs of various specific diseases,
and which, having served this purpose, are not again formed in the same system,
subjected to similar external conditions, and supplied with the same kind of nu-
triment.

It is unnecessary to discuss this hypothesis any further, inas-
much as it is no longer sustained by Pasteur or his pupils, and is
evidently untenable.

The Pretention Theory, proposed by Chauveau (1880), is sub-
ject to similar objections. According to this view, certain prod-
ucts formed during the development of a pathogenic micro-or-

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 627

ganism in the body of a susceptible animal accumulate during the
attack and are subsequently retained, and being prejudicial to the
growth of the particular micro-organism which produced them, a
second infection can not occur. Support for this theory has been
found by its advocates in the fact that various processes of fer-
mentation are arrested after a time by the formation of sub-
stances which restrain the development of the micro-organisms to
which they are due. But in the case of a living animal the con-
ditions are very different, and it is hard to conceive that adventi-
tious products of this kind could be retained for years, when in
the normal processes of nutrition and excretion the tissues and
fluids of the body are constantly undergoing change. Certainly
the substances which arrest ordinary processes of fermentation
by their accumulation in the fermenting liquid, such as alcohol,
lactic acid, phenol, etc., would not be so retained. But we can
not speak so positively with reference to the toxic albuminous
substances which recent researches have demonstrated to be pres-
ent in cultures of some of the best-known pathogenic bacteria.
It is difficult, however, to believe that an individual who has
passed through attacks of half a dozen different infectious dis-
eases, carries about with him a store of as many different chemi-
cal substances produced during these attacks, and sufficient in
quantity to prevent the development of the several germs of
these diseases. Nor does the experimental evidence relating to
the action of germicidal and germ-restraining agents justify the
view that a substance capable of preventing the development
of one micro-organism should be without effect upon others of
the same class ; but if we accept the retention hypothesis, we
must admit that the inhibiting substance produced by each par-
ticular pathogenic germ is effective only in restraining the devel-
opment of the microbe which produced it in the first instance.

Moreover, if we suppose that the toxic substances which give
pathogenic power to a particular micro-organism are retained in
the body of an immune animal, we must admit that the animal
has acquired a tolerance to the pathogenic action of these toxic
substances, for their presence no longer gives rise to any morbid
phenomena. And this being the case, we are not restricted to
the explanation that immunity depends upon a restraining in-
fluence exercised upon the microbe when subsequently intro-
duced.

Another explanation offers itself, viz., that immunity depends
upon an acquired tolerance to the toxic products of pathogenic bac-
teria. This is a view which the writer has advocated in various
published papers since 1881. In a paper contributed to the
American Journal of the Medical Sciences in April, 1881, it is pre-
sented in the following language : " The view that I am endeavor-

628 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ing to elucidate is that, during a non-fatal attack of one of the
specific diseases, the cellular elements implicated which do not
succumb to the destructive influence of the poison acquire a tol-
erance to this poison which is transmissible to their progeny, and
which is the reason of the exemption which the individual enjoys
from future attacks of the same disease."

In my chapter on Bacteria in Infectious Diseases, in Bacte-
ria, published in the spring of 1884, but placed in the hands of
the publishers in 1883, I say : " It may be that the true explana-
tion of the immunity afforded by a mild attack of an infectious
germ disease is to be found in an acquired tolerance to the action
of a chemical poison produced by the micro-organism, and conse-
quent ability to bring the resources of Nature to bear to restrict
invasion by the parasite." This theory of immunity has received
considerable support from investigations made since that date,
and especially from the experimental demonstration by Salmon,
Roux, and others that, as suggested in the work from which I
have quoted, immunity may result from the introduction into the
body of a susceptible animal of the soluble products of bacterial
growth — filtered cultures.

The theory of vital resistance to the toxic products evolved by
pathogenic bacteria is also supported by numerous experiments
which show that natural or acquired immunity may be over-
come when these toxic products are introduced in excess, or when
the vital resisting power of the animal has been reduced by vari-
ous agencies. Thus Roger has shown that the rabbit, which has
a natural immunity against symptomatic anthrax, succumbs to
infection when inoculated with a culture of the bacillus of this
disease, if at the same time it receives an injection of a sterilized
or non-sterilized culture of Bacillus prodigiosus. Monti has suc-
ceeded in killing animals with old and attenuated cultures of the
Streptococcus pyogenes or of Staphylococcus pyogenes aureus, by
injecting at the same time a culture of Proteus vulgaris. A simi-
lar result may be obtained by subjecting animals to physical
agencies which reduce the vital resisting power of the tissues.
Thus, Nocard and Roux found by experiment that an attenuated
culture of the anthrax bacillus, which was not fatal to guinea-
pigs, killed these animals when injected into the muscles of the
thigh after they had been bruised by mechanical violence. Char-
rin and Roger found that white rats, which are insusceptible to
anthrax, became infected and frequently died if they were ex-
hausted, previous to inoculation, by being compelled to turn a re-
volving wheel for a considerable time. Pasteur found by experi-
ment that fowls, which have a natural immunity against anthrax,
become infected and perish if they are subjected to artificial re-
frigeration after inoculation. This has been confirmed by the

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 629

more recent experiments of Wagner (1890). According to Canalis
and Morpurgo, pigeons which are enfeebled by inanition easily
contract anthrax as a result of inoculation. Arloing states that
sheep which have been freely bled contract anthrax more easily
than others ; and Serafini found that when dogs were freely bled,
the bacillus of Friedlander, injected into the trachea or the
pleural cavity, entered and apparently multiplied to some extent
in the blood, whereas without such previous bleeding they were
not to be found in the circulating fluid. Again, the simultaneous
injection of certain chemical substances may overcome the vital
resisting power of the tissues or fluids of the body in such a way
that infection and death may occur as a result of inoculations into
animals which have a natural or acquired immunity against the
pathogenic micro-organisms introduced. Thus Arloing, Corne-
vin, and Thomas have shown that rabbits succumb to symptomatic
anthrax when lactic acid is injected at the same time with the
bacillus into the muscles. Nocard and Roux have obtained the
same result by injecting various other substances, and their ex-
periments show that the result is due to the injurious effects of
the substance injected upon the tissues, and not to an increased
virulence on the part of the pathogenic bacillus. The experi-
ments of Leo are of a similar nature. By injecting phloridzin
into rats he caused them to lose their natural immunity against
anthrax. Certain anaesthetic agents have also been shown to pro-
duce a similar result. Platania communicated anthrax to immune
animals — dogs, frogs, pigeons — by bringing them under the influ-
ence of curare, chloral, or alcohol ; and Wagner obtained a simi-
lar result in his experiments on pigeons to which he had admin-
istered chloral.

In view of the results of recent experimental researches which
show that, in certain cases at least, acquired immunity depends
upon the formation of an antitoxine in the body of the immune
animal, we are convinced that the theory of immunity under dis-
cussion, first proposed by the writer in 1881, can not be accepted
as a sufficient explanation of the facts in general. At the same
time we are inclined to attribute considerable importance to ac-
quired tolerance to the toxic products of pathogenic bacteria as
one of the factors by which recovery from an infectious disease is
made possible, and subsequent immunity established. Of course,
when we ascribe immunity to the " vital resistance " of the cellular
elements of the body, we have not explained the modus operandi
of this vital resistance or " reactive change/' but have simply
affirmed that the phenomenon in question depends upon some
acquired property residing in the living cellular elements of the
body. We have suggested that that which has been acquired is a
tolerance to the action of the toxic products produced by pathoge-

630 -THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nic bacteria. But, as already stated, in the light of recent experi-
ments, this theory now appears to us to be untenable as a general
explanation of acquired immunity.

The Theoky of Phagocytosis. — The fact that in certain in-
fectious diseases due to bacteria the parasitic invaders, at the point
of inoculation or in the general blood-current, are picked up by
the leucocytes, and in properly stained preparations may be seen
in their interior, has been known for some years. Now, the theory
of phagocytosis assumes that the bacilli are picked up by the
leucocytes and destroyed in their interior, and that immunity de-
pends largely upon the power of these " phagocytes " to capture
and destroy living pathogenic bacilli.

The writer suggested this as a hypothesis as long ago as 1881,
in a paper read August 18, 1881, before the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, in the following language : " It
has occurred to me that possibly the white corpuscles may have
the office of picking up and digesting bacterial organisms which
by any means find their way into the blood. The propensity ex-
hibited by the leucocytes for picking up inorganic granules is
well known, and that they may be able not only to pick up but to
assimilate, and so dispose of, the bacteria which come in their
way, does not seem to me very improbable, in view of the fact
that amoebae, which resemble them so closely, feed upon bacteria
and similar organisms."

At a later date (1884) Metschnikoff offered experimental evi-
dence in favor of this view, and the explanation suggested in the
above quotation is commonly spoken of as the Metschnikoff theory.
The observations which first led Metschnikoff to adopt this view
were made upon a species of daphnia which is subject to fatal in-
fection by a torula resembling the yeast fungus. Entering with
the food, this fungus penetrates the walls of the intestine and
invades the tissues. In certain cases the infection does not prove
fatal, owing, as Metschnikoff asserts, to the fact that the fungus
cells are seized upon by the leucocytes, which appear to accumu-
late around the invading parasite (chemiotaxis) for this special
purpose. If they are successful in overpowering and destroying
the parasite, the animal recovers ; if not, it succumbs to the gen-
eral infection which results. In a similar manner, Metschnikoff
supposes, pathogenic bacteria are destroyed when introduced into
the body of an immune animal. The colorless blood-corpuscles,
which he designates phagocytes, accumulate at the point of inva-
sion and pick up the living bacteria, as they are known to pick
up inorganic particles injected into the circulation. So far there
can be no doubt that Metschnikoff is right. The presence of bac-
teria in the leucocytes in considerable numbers, both at the point
of inoculation and in the general circulation, has been repeatedly

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 631

demonstrated in animals inoculated with various pathogenic bac-
teria. The writer observed this in his experiments, made in 1881,
in which rabbits were inoculated with cultures of his Micrococcus
Pasteuri ; and it was this observation which led him to suggest
the theory which has since been so vigorously supported by
Metschnikoff. But the presence of a certain number of bacteria
within the leucocytes does not prove the destructive power of
these cells for living pathogenic organisms. As urged by Weigert,
Bamngarten, and others, it may be that the bacteria were already
dead when they were picked up, having been destroyed by some
agency outside of the blood-cells. As heretofore stated, we have
now experimental evidence that blood-serum, quite independently
of the cellular elements contained in it in the circulation, has de-
cided germicidal power for certain pathogenic bacteria, and that
the blood-serum of the rat and other animals which have a natu-
ral immunity against anthrax is especially fatal to the anthrax
bacillus.

Numerous experiments have been made during the past two
or three years with a view to determining whether pathogenic
bacteria are, in fact, destroyed within the leucocytes after being
picked up, and different experimenters have arrived at different
conclusions. But in certain infectious diseases, and especially in
anthrax, the bacilli included within the leucocytes often give evi-
dence of degenerative changes, which would support the view
that they are destroyed by the leucocytes, unless these changes
occurred before they were picked up, as is maintained by Nuttall
and others.

Metschnikoff concludes an address delivered at the Pasteur
Institute in Paris, in December, 1890, as follows : " It is not pos-
sible at the present time to state fully and accurately all these
influences which are associated in aiding phagocytic action ; but
already we have the right to maintain that, in the property of its
amoeboid cells to include and to destroy micro-organisms, the ani-
mal body possesses a formidable means of resistance and defense
against these infectious agents" This statement, we think, is
justified by the experimental evidence relating to phagocytosis.
But in view of experimental evidence, to be referred to later we
can not accept the so-called Metschnikoff theory as a sufficient
explanation for the facts relating to acquired immunity in general,
and must regard phagocytosis simply as a factor which, in certain
infectious diseases, appears to play an important part in enabling
immune animals to resist invasion by pathogenic bacteria.

Going back to the demonstrated fact that susceptible animals
may be made immune by inoculating them with the toxic products
produced during the growth of certain pathogenic bacteria, we
may suppose either that immunity results from the continued

632 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

presence of these toxic products in the body of the inoculated ani-
mal, or to a tolerance acquired at the time of the inoculation and
subsequently retained, by transmission from cell to cell, as here-
tofore suggested. Under the first hypothesis — retention theory —
immunity may be explained as due to a continued tolerance on
the part of the cellular elements of the body to the toxic substances
introduced and retained, or to the effect of these retained toxic
products in destroying the pathogenic bacteria, or in neutralizing
their products when these are subsequently introduced into the
body of the immune animal. We can not understand how toxic
substances introduced in the first instance can neutralize sub-
stances of the same kind introduced at a later date. There is
something in the blood of the rat which, according to Behring,
neutralizes the toxic substances present in a filtered culture of the
tetanus bacillus; but whatever this substance may be, it is evi-
dently different from the toxic substance which it destroys, and
there is nothing in chemistry to justify the supposition last made.
Is it, then, by destroying the pathogenic micro-organism, that
these inoculated and retained toxic products preserve the animal
from future infection ? Opposed to this supposition is the fact
that the blood of an animal made immune in this way, when re-
moved from the body does not prove to have increased germicidal
power as compared with that of a susceptible animal of the same
species. Again, these same toxic substances in cultures of the
anthrax bacillus, the tetanus bacillus, the diphtheria bacillus, etc.,
do not destroy the pathogenic germ after weeks or months of
exposure. And, when we inoculate a susceptible animal with a
virulent culture of one of these micro-organisms, the toxic sub-
stances present do not prevent the rapid development of the bacil-
lus ; indeed, instead of proving a germicide they favor its develop-
ment, which is more abundant and rapid than when attenuated
cultures containing less of the toxic material are used for the
inoculation. In view of these facts it is evident that acquired
immunity does not result from the direct action of the products
of bacterial growth, introduced and retained in the body of the
immune animal, upon the pathogenic micro-organism when sub-
sequently introduced, or upon its toxic products.

But there is another explanation which, although it may ap-
pear a priori to be quite improbable, has the support of recent
experimental evidence. This is the supposition that some sub-
stance is formed in the body of the immune animal which neutral-
izes the toxic products of the pathogenic micro-organism. How the
presence of these toxic products in the first instance brings about
the formation of an "antitoxine" by which they are neutralized
is still a mystery ; but that such a substance is formed appears to
be proved by the recent experiments of Ogata, Behring and Kita-

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 633

sato, Tizzoni and Cattani, G. and F. Klemperer, and others, in-
cluding my own.

Ogata and Jasuhara, in a series of experiments made in the
Hygienic Institute at Tokio (1890), discovered the important fact
that the blood of an animal immune against anthrax contains
some substance which neutralizes the toxic products of the
anthrax bacillus. When cultures were made in the blood of dogs,
frogs, or of white rats, which animals have a natural immunity
against anthrax, they were found not to kill mice inoculated with
them. Further experiments showed that mice inoculated with
virulent anthrax cultures did not succumb to anthrax septicaemia
if they received at the same time a subcutaneous injection of a
small quantity of the blood of an immune animal. So small a
dose as one drop of frog's blood, or one half drop of dog's blood,
proved to be sufficient to protect a mouse from the fatal effect
of an anthrax inoculation. And the protective inoculation was
effective when made as long as seventy-two hours before, or five
hours after, infection with an anthrax culture. Further, it was
found that mice which had survived anthrax infection as a result
of this treatment were immune at a later date (after several
weeks) when inoculated with a virulent culture of the anthrax
bacillus. Bearing and Kitasato have obtained similar results in
their experiments upon tetanus and diphtheria, and have shown
that the blood of an immune animal, added to virulent cultures
before inoculation into susceptible animals, neutralizes the patho-
genic power of these cultures. Tizzoni and Cattani ascribe the
protection of animals which have acquired an immunity against
tetanus to the presence of an albuminous substance which they
call the tetanus antitoxine. This they have isolated from the
blood of immune animals ; and have shown by experiment that it
neutralizes the potent toxalbumin of tetanus in test-tube cultures
as well as in the bodies of infected animals. G. and F. Klemperer
have recently (1891) published an important memoir in which
they give an account of their researches relating to the question
of immunity, etc., in animals subject to the form of septicaemia
produced by the Micrococcus pneumonic?, crouposce. They were
able to produce immunity in susceptible animals by introducing
into their bodies filtered cultures of this micrococcus, and proved
by experiment that this immunity had a duration of at least
six months. They arrive at the conclusion that the immunity
induced by injecting filtered cultures is not directly clue to the
toxic substances present in these cultures, but that they cause the
production in the tissues of an antitoxine which has the power of
neutralizing their pathogenic action. Emmerich, in a commu-
nication made at the recent (1891) International Congress for
Hygiene and Demography, in London, reports results which cor-

VOL. XLI. 46

634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

respond with those of G. and F. Klemperer so far as the produc-
tion of immunity is concerned, and also gives an account of ex-
periments made by Donissen in which the injection of twenty to
twenty-five cubic centimetres of blood or expressed tissue juices,
filtered through porcelain, from an immune rabbit into an unpro-
tected rabbit, subsequently to infection with a bouillon culture of
" Diplococcus pneumonia?" prevented the development of fatal
septicaemia. Even when the injection was made twelve to fifteen
hours after infection, by inhalation, the animal recovered. Em-
merich and Mastraum had previously reported similar results in
experiments made upon mice with the Bacillus erysipelatos suis
(rothlauf bacillus). White mice are very susceptible to the
pathogenic action of this bacillus. But mice which, subsequently
to infection, received by injection the expressed and filtered tissue
juices of an immune rabbit, recovered, while the control animals
succumbed. According to Emmerich, the result in these experi-
ments was due to a destruction of the pathogenic bacilli in the
bodies of the injected animals ; and the statement is made that at
the end of eight hours after the injection of the expressed tissue
juices all bacilli in the body of the infected animal were dead.
The same liquid did not, however, kill the bacilli when added to
cultures external to the body of an animal. The inference, there-
fore, seems justified that the result depends, not upon a substance
present in the expressed juices of an immune animal, but upon a
substance formed in the body of the animal into which these
juices are injected. We have, however, an example of induced
immunity in which the result appears to depend directly upon
the destruction of the pathogenic micro-organism in the body of
the immune animal. In guinea-pigs, which have an acquired im-
munity against Vibrio Metschnikovi, the blood-serum has been
proved to possess decided germicidal power for this " vibrio,"
whereas it multiplies readily in the blood-serum of non-immune
guinea-pigs. (Behring and Nissen.)

The antitoxines thus far referred to are from animals which
have an acquired immunity against virulent cultures of well-
known pathogenic bacteria. But we have also experimental evi-
dence showing the presence of antitoxines in animals immune
against rabies and against vaccinia, two infectious diseases in
which the specific infectious agent has not been demonstrated.
Prof. Tizzoni, and his associate, Dr. Schwarz, have recently
(1892) published the results of their experiments relating to the
presence of an antitoxine in the blood of rabbits which have an
acquired immunity against rabies. And I have shown by experi-
ments made during the past two months that the blood of vac-
cinated and consequently immune calves contains an antitoxine
which neutralizes the specific virulence of vaccine virus, both

INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 63 5

human and bovine ; also that blood-serum from a person who has
recently suffered an attack of small-pox neutralizes vaccine virus
after contact for two or three hours.

The account which I have given of the experimental evidence
relating to the presence of antitoxines, or, as they are called by
Hankin, " defensive proteids," in the body of immune animals has
been largely taken from a paper which I read at the recent meet-
ing (May, 1892) of the Association of American Physicians, en-
titled Practical Results of Bacteriological Researches. Time
will not permit me on the present occasion to consider the ques-
tion of therapeutic possibilities in the use of antitoxines, but I
may mention that already we have reports of six cases of trau-
matic tetanus successfully treated with the tetanus antitoxine ob-
tained by Prof. Tizzoni from the blood of immune dogs. I con-
fess I have sanguine hopes that other infectious diseases may
prove to be amenable to a similar specific treatment. But, what-
ever may be the practical results following the discovery of these
" defensive proteids " in the bodies of immune animals, it must be
admitted that this addition to our knowledge is an important
event in the history of scientific medicine. For this reason, and
because the experimental evidence is of such recent date that the
facts are not generally known, I have made this the principal
topic of my address. It is scarcely necessary to add that the ex-
perimental evidence detailed gives strong support to the view that
acquired immunity depends upon the formation of antitoxines in
the bodies of immune animals. It is also probable that recovery
from an infectious disease depends upon the formation of an anti-
toxine during the attack, by which the toxic substances giving
rise to the morbid phenomena characterizing each specific disease
are neutralized in the body of the infected individual.

A recent notice in the Monthly of a book on Right-handedness has called
forth from Mr. George Wilson, President of the Lafayette County Bank, Lexing-
ton. Mo., the story of the "office cat of the bank, Ephraim, who is decidedly and
persistently right-handed. " "He sometimes," says Mr. Wilson, "laps milk like
other cats, and sometimes sits close up to the pan and dips his paw in the milk
and carrying it to his mouth, licks the drop of milk off. Noticing that he always
used his right paw, I tried to get him to use the left one, first by setting the pan
of milk on his left side and afterward by dipping his left foot in the milk, so as to
get him started in the use of the left. He would shake the milk off his left paw
and go on eating with the right one, and we have never by any expedient been
able to get him to eat with the left paw."

A Polynesian Society has been formed in Wellington, New Zealand, the chief
object of which is to secure as far as possible a systematic study of the ethnology
and philology of the island groups collectively designated as Polynesia.

636

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

FURTHER STUDY OF INVOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS.*

By JOSEPH JASTROW, Ph. I).,

PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL AND COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF

WISCONSIN.

IN a former article (Popular Science Monthly, April, 1892) vari-
ous illustrations were given of the involuntary movements of
the hand toward the object or locality to which the subject was
giving his attention : whether he were counting the strokes of a
metronome or the oscillations of a pendulum, reading colors or

words, thinking of a building, locality, or
hidden object, a very fair though variable
index of the direction of his thoughts
could be derived from the involuntary
movements of the hand. The record was
obtained by means of an apparatus called
the automatograph, the essential parts of
which were a pair of glass plates, suitably
mounted, and between them three well-
turned brass balls ; the hand rests upon
the upper plate, which, upon the slightest
impulse, rolls upon the balls, and the move-
ment thus imparted to the plate is recorded.
The recording device may be used sepa-
rately, and is shown in full size in Fig. 1.
There is a cork C, pierced by a glass tube
T, within which a pointed glass rod R
moves freely up and down ; a rubber band
B is useful in raising the pencil from the
record as well as in preventing the rod
from falling through the tube. The record
is made upon a piece of glazed paper
stretched over the glass of a ground-glass
drawing-frame, such as children use for
tracing outlines ; the paper is blackened
with lamp-soot, and the record may be
made permanent by bathing it in shellac
and alcohol. This recording device, with-
out anything else, will record involuntary movements : the cork
is held in the extended hand with the rod over the record-plate,
which is placed upon a table ; or, again, the record-plate may
be held in the hand and the recording device held firmly over

Fig. 1. — Device for record-
ing Movements. The glass
rod, E, moves freely up and
down in the glass tube, T,
held in the cork, C. The
rubber band, B, prevents
the rod from falling through
the tube.

* The results of this paper were obtained with the co-operation of Thomas P. ( 'niter and
Edward P. Sherry, of the class of 1892, University of Wisconsin.

FURTHER STUDY OF INVOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS. 637

it.* In either way we have an extremely simple means of obtain-
ing records of involuntary movements, which any one interested

Fig. 2. — Counting Metronome, w* Upper line, movements of head ; lower line, of hand on
automatograph ; time, 45 seconds. The head movements are reversed, but have been
again reversed for readier comparison. Figs. 2 to 11 are all obtained upon the same sub-
ject. The arrows indicate the direction in which the object attended to was situated.

may construct and test for himself. The use of such a device
is not confined to the hand ; the plate or the rod may be fixed to
other portions of the body.

Having shown that the hand moves toward the direction of
one's thoughts, the next
important step is to deter-
mine whether this move-
ment is altogether the ex-
pression of the subject's
mental activity, and, if
not, what other factors

Fig. 3. — Counting Metronome. Facing m^-. Automatograph, sitting. I, <-» ; time, 105
seconds. II, #-» ; time, 45 seconds.

contribute to it ; and, further, in what part or parts of the body
it originates, what are its components, and the like. These move-
ments have a close connection with the body as well as with the

* It is to be noted that in this case the record will be in a direction the opposite of the
real movement.

638

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

mind, and it is essential to determine in what measure each ap-
pears in the general result.

If you hold out your arm nearly on a level with the shoulders
and in line with them, you perceive at once that movements of

the hand to the front are
much more readily made
than to the rear, and
movements toward the
body more readily than
those away from the
body ; the tendency of
the hand is to move along
a circle of which the
shoulder is the center.
What we require is a
position in which move-
ments in any direction
are as readily made as in
any other ; and this may
be approximated, though only approximated, by holding the hand
at an angle of about 45° with the line joining the shoulders, and
with the elbow bent at an angle of about 120°; this position* is

Fig. 4. — «-> Counting Metronome. Kiglit band holds
pencil, left hand holds record ; time of each, 90 sec-
onds. Facing w-». Upper line, standing ; lower
line, sitting.

Fig. 5. — Thinking of a Building. Fac- Fig. 6. — Counting Metronome. Ri^ht hand

ing J ; standing. Right hand holds pen-
cil, left hand holds record ; time of each,
60 seconds. I, J ; II, J ; shows respi-
ration.

holds pencil, left hand holds record. From
A to B, J ; from B to C, *-» ; from C to D,
J ; from D to E, ^-w ; standing ; each part,
45 seconds.

recommended for the normal tests. The usual result is a move-
ment toward the object of attention ; but when that is to the rear,
this tendency is sometimes outweighed by the natural tendency

* In one series we were able to measure the extent of movements in various directions,
and found half again as much movement toward the front as toward the rear, and a third
again as much toward as away from the body.

FURTHER STUDY OF INVOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS. 639

for the arm to move forward, and the result is then a smaller and
less direct movement forward than when the object of attention
is to the front. An instance of this, obtained under other but
comparable circumstances, appears in Fig. 3, while Figs. 5 and 6
illustrate the more usual result. We conclude, then, that the
position of the body is an important factor, but does not detract
from the accepted psychological interpretation of these move-
ments. While observing the subject we may note movements of
the body as a whole, and of the arm or hand ; the movement of
the body is an irregular swaying with the feet as the point of at-
tachment, and this we recorded by fixing the recording plate upon
the subject's head, and suspending the pencil above it. It was
found that the head like the hand moved toward the object of at-

Fig. 7. — 1 Thinking of a Building.
Standing J. I, left hand ; II, right
hand ; both holding record near the
body ; time, 35 seconds ; records re-
versed.

Fig. 8. — J Thinking of a Building. Facing
J. I, left hand held extended far out ; II,
right hand held close to body ; each hand
holds record ; time, 35 seconds ; records re-
versed.

tention ; and, further, that it moved as readily toward the object
when the latter was to the front, to the rear, or to either side. To
determine how far this swaying is the same in head and hand, we
record both at the same time. Fig. 2 illustrates the correspond-
ence of the two movements. From a number of such tests we
conclude that the swaying of the body contributes an important
factor to the automatograph records, and that the movements of
the head are apt to be more extensive than those of the hand.

To eliminate this swaying of the body, we may experiment with
the subject seated ; we then obtain a distinctive record II (of Fig.
3), in which the oscillations have almost disappeared, and in which
the tendency to move along a circle is marked. A still better
method of eliminating this swaying is to hold the recording plate

640 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in one hand and the pencil in the other ; in this way the pencil
and the plate sway alike, and no record of it is made. The very
fine movements thus obtained are shown in Fig. 4; this figure
also shows the slight difference between a record taken by this
method Avhile the subject is sitting and while standing, which
further proves that the swaying of the body has been eliminated.
Traces of periodic oscillations are noted in Fig. \ ; these are due
to respiration movements, and in II, of Fig. 5, they are unusually
distinct and regular, about twenty to the minute. The forearm
of the hand holding the record -plate rests
against the body while the recording
hand is held free from it, and thus
the abdominal movements are
recorded. The movements
toward the object of
attention appear

Fig. 9. — ^-* Counting
Metronome. Eecord vertical.
Facing <-». Time, 20 seconds.
Pencil held in extended right hand.

throughout. Fig. 5 figures a move-
ment toward the rear as well as toward
the front ; while Fig. 6 presents a most
beautifully regular movement in all four direc-
tions. As the metronome, the strokes of which
the subject is counting, is carried from one
corner of the room to the next, the hand involuntarily follows
it and records an almost perfect square.

It is further interesting to record the movements of the two
hands during the same experiment ; a correspondence of move-
ment would be attributed to a common swaying of the body, but
this would not exclude symmetrical movements of the hands as
well. Fig. 7 illustrates the close similarity of the movements :
while Fig. 8 shows the importance of the position of the arms in
such an experiment. The hand that is held away from the body
moves more extensively ; the form of the movement remains simi-
lar. All the above records (and Figs. 9, 10, and 14) were obtained
upon the same subject ; they are therefore comparable with one
another, and illustrate the analysis of the resulting movements
into their several factors.

Involuntary movements are not limited to the horizontal
plane ; we may record vertical movements by holding the record-

FURTHER STUDY OF INVOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS. 641

ing device in a slanting position, and fixing the record-plate upon
the wall. The main characteristic of such a record is the sinking
of the arm from fatigue ; the movement is rapid and coarse (I of
Fig. 10). If the attention be directed to the front, we obtain a
resultant of the two tenden-
cies, as is shown in the di-
agonal line of Fig. 9. Fig.
10 illustrates an interesting
point similar to that illus-
trated in Fig. 3. When the
attention is directed down-
ward, the hand falls rapidly,
I ; but when the attention is
directed upward, very little
movement at all takes place
— the tendency to move to-
ward the object of attention
constantly counteracting the
tendency for the arm to fall.

While we have not been
altogether successful in re-
cording by these involuntary
movements the various pow-
ers of different sense-impres-
sions to hold the attention,
the few successful results are
especially interesting. In
Fig. 11 the outline I is the
movement of the hand dur-
ing the thirty-five seconds
that the subject was count-
ing the strokes of a metro-
nome ; the outline II is the
movement while counting
for twenty-five seconds the
oscillations of a pendulum.
The latter movement is much
more extensive than the for-
mer ; the visual holds the at-
tention better than the auditory impression. The subject of this
record is a noted American novelist, and his description of his
own mental processes entirely corresponds with this result. He
is a good visualizer, and is eye-minded in every respect.

We turn to Fig. 12. The subject was asked to call the names
of a series of small patches of colored papers hanging upon the
wall in front of him. He did this with some uncertainty for

Fig. 10. — I, J Record-plate Vertical. Think-
ing of one's feet. Time, 45 seconds. II, f
thinking of a point overhead. Time, 45 sec-
onds.

642

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thirty-five seconds, and during this time his hand on the automat-
ograph moved from A to A'. At the latter point he was asked to
count the oscillations of a pendulum ; this entirely changed the
movement, the hand at once moving rapidly toward the pendulum.
The pendulum was a more attractive sense-impression than the
colors ; the special point of interest in this record is, that upon

Fig. 11. — <h-> I, Counting Metronome. Automatograph. Facing *-». Time, 35 seconds.
«h> II, Counting Pendulum. Automatograph. Facing m->. Time, 25 seconds.

examination the subject's color-vision proved to be defective and
thus explained the failure of the colors to hold his attention.

An important problem relates to the possible correlation of
types of involuntary movements with age, sex, temperament, dis-
ease and the like. A few observations upon children are interest-
ing in this regard. They reveal the limited control that children
have over their muscles, and how difficult it is for them to fix the
attention when and where desired. The movements they make
are large, with great fluctuations, and irregularly toward the ob-
ject of attention. Fig. 13 illustrates some of these points; in
thirty-five seconds the child's hand moved by large steps seven

Fig. 12. — «-> Facing #-». Hand on Automatograph. From A to A', reading colors, 35
seconds. From A' on, counting pendulum, 25 seconds.

inches toward the pendulum, and the entire appearance of the out-
line is different from those obtained upon adults.

Much attention has recently been paid to automatic writing,
or the unconscious indication of the nature, not the direction, of
one's thoughts while the attention is elsewhere engaged. We at-
tempted this upon the automatograph by asking the subject to
view or think of some letter or geometric figure, and then search-

FURTHER STUDY OF INVOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS. 643

ing the record for some trace of the outline of the letter or figure ;
but always with a negative result. While unsuccessful in this

Fir;. 13. — «)-> Hand on Automatograph. Facing «-». Counting pendulum. Time, 35 sec-
onds. The record from B' to C is continuous with that of A to B. The subject a child ot
eleven years.

sense, the records prove of value in furnishing a valuable contrast
to the experiments in which the attention was fixed in a definite
direction. For example, the subject is thinking of the letter O ;
he does not think of it as in any special place, and the record,
Fig. 14, likewise reveals no movement in any one direction. Two

Fig. 14. — Thinking of Letter 0. Pencil in hand ; record on table. I, standing ; II, sitting.

records are shown quite similar in significance, and illustrating as
well the difference between the movements while standing and
while sitting.

We have thus illustrated a variety of involuntary movements
obtained in different ways and with bearings upon many points
of importance to the psychologist. They by no means exhaust
the possibilities of research, or the deduction of conclusions in
this field of study, but simply illustrate in an imperfect way how
abundant and intricate are the expressions of the thoughts that
lie within.

644 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

THE WAGE-CONTRACT AND PERSONAL LIBERTY.*

By CONRAD RENO.

IN this reply to that part of Mr. Atkinson's interesting article
which affirms that any State regulation of wages or of the
hours of work is necessarily an abridgment of personal liberty,
and therefore vicious and unjustifiable, the writer intends to con-
fine his attention to two propositions : (1) That the settlement of
labor disputes by the State does not necessarily involve an abridg-
ment of personal liberty ; (2) that compulsory arbitration through
a State tribunal is the remedy for labor disputes, strikes, and
lockouts.

The virtues of the " age of contract " are extolled by all dis-
ciples of the individualist school of thought, from Mr. Herbert
Spencer to Mr. Edward Atkinson. Its superiority over the " age
of status " — i. e., the age of slavery — no one will deny. Its adop-
tion marks an upward step in the march of progress and civili-
zation. As a means of attaining justice the contract has many
advantages over the sword or brute force, by which human slav-
ery was established and maintained. The right of contract is not,
however, an end in itself (as this school seems to think), but
merely a means to an end ; and that end is justice. In the admin-
istration of justice experience has proved it to be necessary to
impose many restrictions upon the right of free contract. Judge
Ray has recently published a large legal work upon the subject
of Contractual Limitations, and most persons will be surprised at
the great number of restrictions that the law places upon this
right. A full list of such cases would be tiresome, and only the
more important ones will be mentioned. From time immemorial
it has been customary for the State to fix a maximum rate of in-
terest for the use of money, a maximum charge for the use of
ferries, hacks, etc., for the services of millers in grinding corn,
and a maximum charge of innkeepers and wharfingers for the use
of their premises. In recent years the State has also fixed a
maximum charge for the use of railroads and grain elevators.
The constitutionality of State statutes fixing grain-elevator charges
has been twice affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United
States within twenty years, and the highest courts of the great
States of New York and Illinois have also reached the same con-
clusion, f In the extensive class of insurance contracts the State

* A reply to Mr. Edward Atkinson's paper on Personal Liberty, in The Popular Science
Monthly for February, 1892.

f Munn vs. Illinois, 94 U. S., 113 ; Budd vs. New York, 143 D S., 317 ; People vs. Budd,
117 X. Y., 1 ; Munn vs. People, 69 111., so

THE WAGE-CONTRACT AND PERSOiYAL LIBERTY. 645

does not hesitate to prescribe their terms and conditions and to pre-
vent forfeitures by contract; and the constitutionality of such
State statutes interfering with the freedom of contract has been
upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States and by the
highest State courts of Ohio and Wisconsin.* Besides these,
there is a numerous class of contracts which the State declares
shall not be made at all, or if made shall be void in law, because
contrary to public policy, such as contracts in restraint of trade,
gambling contracts, and contracts between husband and wife.
Does Mr. Atkinson consider these State acts infringements of per-
sonal liberty or unjustifiable interferences with the freedom of
contract ? If so, he constitutes one of a small minority.

Turning now to the wage-contract, the question arises, " Is the
State justified in fixing a minimum wage and a maximum time
for work ? " It is perhaps needless to say that the term " State "
is here used to mean the people or the public acting through an
agency or tribunal created by the people and in furtherance of
their will. It does not mean something extrinsic and superior to
the people's will, such as the monarchy of France was at the time
when Louis XIV exclaimed, " I am the state ! " In this country,
if the State ever undertakes to regulate these matters, it will be
done in pursuance of the will of the majority, and not of any one
man or a minority. The businesses in which labor wishes the
assistance of the State in the direction of restricting the freedom
of contract are conducted almost exclusively by corporations under
charters granted by the State. The three principal ones are rail-
roading, manufacturing, and mining, and only an insignificant
fraction of any one of these businesses is conducted by private in-
dividuals or partnerships. Although it may be of theoretic value,
it is therefore of very little practical value to inquire into the right
of the State to regulate the wage-contract between individuals.
Now, the individual employer or partnership stands upon firmer
ground in this respect than does the corporate employer. The
State is justified in interfering with the latter more than with the
former, for the reason that the corporation has received certain
privileges and immunities from the State which the other em-
ployer has not received. In the first place, the corporation derives
its being or existence from the State, and also its right to transact
business. In the next place, the corporate form enables the capi-
tal of many individuals to be combined and used for one common
purpose. But the most important immunity is that of limited
liability, whereby the members of the corporation escape the uni-

* Equitable Life Insurance Company vs. Clements, 14o U. S., li-ti ; Insurance Company
vs. Leslie, -17 Ohio St., 409; Queen Insurance Company vs. Leslie, 24 N. E. Rep. (Ohio),
107'2; Reilly v«. Franklin Insurance Company, 4:^ Wis., 449.

646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

versal liability of individuals or partners, and only risk the por-
tion of their wealth which they invest in the corporation. This
feature of limited liability, probably more than any other, ac-
counts for the growth and number of corporations. Private indi-
viduals or copartnerships do not enjoy this privilege or immu-
nity, but remain liable to loss to the full extent of their posses-
sions. It is clear, therefore, that the moral right of the State or
society as a whole to regulate wage-contracts with a corporation
is greater than with individuals or firms, provided the neces-
sity exists and the wage-earners desire it. It is not intended
to confine the discussion to the case of corporate employers, but
merely to point out some differences between the two classes of
employers.

Mr. Spencer's opinion that the State has no moral right to
interfere with the freedom of contract between employer and
employed, or to regulate wages in any way, is based upon the
analogy supposed to exist between human labor and commodities.
Because, in his opinion, the State has no right to regulate the
price of bread, or the rate of interest, or the price of other com-
modities, therefore it has not the moral right to regulate the price
of human labor, with the exception of labor for life, or slavery.
Is this analogy correct ? Is human labor a commodity ? No ;
human labor is the creator of commodities, and commodities are
things created by human labor. The creator is always superior
to the thing created. The shoemaker is superior to the shoe ; the
watchmaker to the watch ; and God to man. The slaveholder
also believed that human labor when clothed in black was a com-
modity, and that negroes could be bought and sold as chattels ;
and it took four years of civil war to establish the contrary.
Labor is much more than a commodity ; it is the bone and sinew
of the State, the very essence of its existence. It is the sole means
of support of millions of human beings — men, women, and chil-
dren. Those who have only their labor to sell are more entitled
to the protection of the State than those who have commodities
to sell.

Mr. Spencer's admission that the State has the right to forbid
the sale of one's self into slavery, or the sale of one's services for
life, as well as to hinder freedom of contract when it endangers
national existence, also proves his analogy to be unsound. For,
if the State may regulate or forbid the sale of one's services for
life, it may also regulate the sale of one's services for ten years, or
five years, or one year, or a shorter term ; and, if the State may
hinder the freedom of contract when national existence is thereby
endangered, why may it not hinder the freedom of contract when
the existence of a large body of its citizens is thereby endan-
gered ? Their existence is endangered when they can not, by

THE WAGE-CONTRACT AND PERSONAL LIBERTY. 647

means of their utmost exertions, earn sufficient wages to purchase
the necessaries of life.

That the great mass of wage-earners favor State regulation of
some sort will probably be conceded. Scarcely a month passes
that Congress and the State Legislatures are not asked by labor
interests to restrict the freedom of contract in one way or another.
They believe that their wages may be increased by legislation,
just as the price of commodities is increased by tariff laws. If
legislation can lower the rate of wages below the contract rate, it
is difficult to see why it can not also raise the rate of wages above
the contract rate. For centuries the employing class of England
legislated in its own interest and kept the rate of wages below
the contract rate. This they did, first, by various Statutes of
Laborers, passed by Parliament, giving the employing class
power to fix wages, and punishing laborers who asked or received
higher wages ; secondly, by laws abolishing trade guilds and con-
fiscating their property ; thirdly, by acts of Parliament and de-
cisions of the courts holding that peaceful combinations among
workmen to raise wages were conspiracies and punishable by fine
or imprisonment ; and, fourthly, by acts of Parliament debasing
the currency, by which the purchasing power of the laborer's
shilling or penny was greatly lessened. Prof. Rogers, in his great
work entitled Six Centuries of Work and Wages, shows how by
these various legislative means the English laborer's condition
was reduced from that of comparative comfort in the fourteenth
century to that of semi-starvation in the eighteenth. This sys-
tem was inaugurated in 1350, shortly after the Great Plague,
which destroyed one third of the entire population of England.
At that time the employing class, which, of course, controlled
legislation, seems to have had some excuse for passing the Statute
of Laborers. The supply of labor being thus suddenly reduced
one third, the demand was intense, and the laborers could get
exorbitant prices for their work. The contract rate depending
upon supply and demand was abnormally and unreasonably
high,* and therefore the employing class brought all the machin-
ery of the State to bear upon the situation, and finally succeeded
in reducing the rate below the contract rate. This policy was
pursued by England into the dawn of the nineteenth century,
when, the conditions having changed and there being an over-
supply of labor and the contract rate correspondingly low, the
Statutes of Laborers were magnanimously repealed.

During all this time of State regulation of wages in favor of
the employing class we look in vain for any philosopher to arise

* The preamble to the statute recites that wages had risen to double or treble the rate
that prevailed immediately before the plague.

648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and proclaim that the sacred right of freedom of contract or of
personal liberty was thereby impaired. But, as soon as there is a
chance of the wage-earners being able to control legislation and
they indicate their desire to increase wages, it is immediately dis-
covered by many would-be teachers and philosophers of the indi-
vidualist school that this sacred right is imperiled, and that it
would be sacrilegious to touch it with the vulgar hand of the
State. This school overlooks the actual condition of affairs and
bases its conclusions on an ideal state of facts which does not exist
except in the imagination of its members. If employer and em-
ployed stood upon an equal footing ; if the necessities of one were
equal to the necessities of the other ; if the abilities of both were
equal — then freedom of contract would produce not only good but
also just results. But no one with any knowledge of the world
can affirm that these conditions exist. The condition of labor
more nearly corresponds to that of a man who falls into a well,
far removed from human habitation. After he has been there
for a day without food and sees starvation staring him in the
face, he attracts the attention of a stray passer-by by his cries
for help. The latter comes up, but refuses to lower his rope and
pull him out unless he receives five hundred dollars. The next
day another man says he will help him out for one thousand dol-
lars, but this offer is also declined. The third day, being nearly
starved, he contracts to pay a third man fifteen hundred dollars
for assisting him out of the well, and so regains his freedom.
Labor has fallen into the well of poverty, and Capital stands on
the brink and says in effect : " I did not put you there, and there-
fore I am justified in making the best bargain I can with you.
In fact, I am forced to do so by the competition of some of my
rivals who sell the same commodities. They screw wages down
to the lowest point, and I can't compete with them unless I do
likewise. I must either pay the same low wages, or retire from
business, or become bankrupt."

It is precisely at this point that the pinch comes, which exerts
a controlling influence upon the average employer. He cares
nothing for fine-spun theories respecting the freedom of contract
or personal liberty, but he knows from every-day experience that
he can not pay high wages so long as there are even a few un-
scrupulous and avaricious employers in the same line of business
who succeed in obtaining labor at low rates. He is forced to com-
pete with them in the sale of his commodities, and the price of
labor is a large item in the cost of their manufacture. Higher
wages would eat up his profits, and drive him out of business or
into bankruptcy. " If," he says, " some plan can be invented by
which all my competitors will be obliged to pay high wages, then
I have no objection to paying the same wages, for then we shall

THE WAGE-CONTRACT AND PERSONAL LIBERTY. 649

all stand upon an equality with respect to the cost of labor. This
will increase the cost of production ; but, as the increase applies
alike to all my rivals as well as to myself, I can make myself
whole by raising the price of the finished product, as they will do
the same."

The doctrine of the freedom of contract will never place the
honest and generous employer upon an equal footing with the
dishonest and avaricious employer in the cost of labor. Under it
the latter will always obtain an advantage over the former. This
doctrine, therefore, puts a premium upon the possession of these
undesirable qualities. Moreover, under the law of competition in
commodities, the honest and generous employer is forced to con-
form substantially to the rate of wages set by the dishonest and
avaricious. This tendency is inherent in the wage system, and
must increase, unless some remedy be found ; for evil and grasp-
ing men can not be kept out of the ranks of employers, and only
a few of them are required to depress wages below their fair
value. This operates not only to the detriment of their employe's,
but also to the detriment of all other employe's. Is it right that a
few evil characters should commit this injustice upon labor, and
control the vast majority of both classes ? Should the State, or
society in its organized form, permit them to do this wrong ? It
is submitted that it should not, and that some State agency should
be devised to prevent or to remedy it.

About a year ago the writer published a pamphlet entitled
State Regulation of Wages, in which he outlined a plan to remedy
this difficulty. Its essential feature was the establishment of State
Boards of Labor or Arbitration for the settlement of disputes
between employers and employed, with power to fix the minimum
wage and the maximum hours of work, upon the request of a cer-
tain proportion or number of either side. In determining the
minimum wage, the board should not be controlled by the rate of
wages now prevailing under the " iron law of wages " of supply
and demand, but by what may be called the golden rule of wages,
by which labor is entitled to receive a fair and just proportion of
the wealth which it creates, irrespective of supply and demand.
The minimum annual wage should be that required to support
the average workman and his family in frugal comfort. The
adoption of this plan would place all employers upon an equality
in the cost of labor and relieve the generous employer from the
competition of the avaricious one upon this large item in the cost
of production. It is true that its adoption by a single State would
not protect the employers of that State from the competition of
their rivals in other States or foreign countries ; but if the plan
were found to work well in one State it would be speedily followed
in other States ; and, as to foreign competition, the tariff laws, if

TOL. XLI. 47

650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

not already sufficiently high to cover the difference in the cost of
labor, could easily be made so.

If the people of a State see fit to establish such a Board of
Labor or Arbitration for the settlement of labor disputes, it is no
more an infringement of their personal liberty than is the estab-
lishment of courts of law for the settlement of legal disputes.
In both cases the restraint is self-imposed, and may be thrown off
at will by disestablishment. The object of both tribunals is the
same, namely, that of settling disputes by the judgment of a body
of disinterested and fair-minded persons, instead of leaving the
stronger to overcome the weaker by force, or of allowing the cun-
ning to victimize the innocent or simple. The experience of cent-
uries has proved the practical utility of courts so composed in
settling legal disputes, and every civilized nation has adopted the
principle in one form or another. But with respect to labor dis-
putes we are still in a state of barbarism, in which force, fraud,
and cunning are always triumphant, and the matter is settled
without regard to the merits of the case. Would any one advo-
cate a return to the personal liberty of early days, when barons
held their sway and settled disputes by the sword ? Yet strikes
and lockouts are industrial warfare, and are as barbarous methods
of settling labor disputes as the baron's sword was of settling
legal disputes.

At present the public does not realize that it has a vital inter-
est in settling labor disputes peaceably, and in providing some
competent tribunal for that purpose. The public is good-natured
and easy-going, but it will not require many more large strikes
and lockouts to arouse its ire. Take the case of a strike or lock-
out on a railroad or street-car company. These are gwcm-public
corporations, created by the State for the convenience of the
public. They are subject to the control of the public; but if
a strike or lockout arises, the public may be inconvenienced
for days, weeks, or months, simply because there is no tribunal
with power to settle the dispute. As the public has the power
to remedy this evil, it has only itself to blame for its continued
existence.

Nor is the public's interest in settling labor disputes confined
to railroading, but also extends to manufacturing, mining, and
other businesses. The public is injuriously affected by any
act which seriously interferes with the production or distribu-
tion of wealth. Strikes and lockouts undoubtedly not only in-
terfere with the production and distribution of wealth, but
they also endanger the public peace and security of life and
property.

The strong argument of employers is that their business is a
matter of private concern, and that therefore they have the right

THE WAGE-CONTRACT AND PERSONAL LIBERTY. 651

to conduct it as they see fit, without the State's interference. This
is true to a great extent. For instance, the employer may decide
what business he will adopt, where he will transact it, what goods
he will manufacture, when and where and at what prices he will
offer them for sale, what persons he will employ, and in many
other ways act on his own judgment, uncontrolled "by the State or
the general public. But when disputes, strikes, and lockouts arise,
it is only right that the State should require him to submit the
matter to some superior power for determination and settlement.
If the public has sufficient interest in a dispute between A and B
respecting the ownership of an acre of land, or the liability of B
to A for a pair of shoes, to justify the State in compelling them
to submit to the decision of a court, it is extremely difficult to
understand why the public has not sufficient interest in labor dis-
putes, which frequently entail loss and suffering upon thousands
of the public as well as upon the immediate parties to the dispute,
to justify the State in requiring the parties to submit to the de-
cision of a State tribunal.

Within the past ten or twelve years the principle of arbitra-
tion as a means of settling labor disputes has made considerable
progress. The States of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Missouri, and Montana have all estab-
lished Boards of Arbitration. The new State of "Wyoming has
provided in its Constitution for the creation of such a board. By
the act of October 1, 1888, Congress legalized a Board of Arbitra-
tion, to consist of three members, one to be chosen by each side
and the third by the other two, with power to adjust differences
between interstate railroads and their employe's. Under these
various boards some good results have been attained, some labor
disputes have been settled, and some strikes and lockouts have
been prevented. But the practical value and utility of these
boards have been largely impaired by the provision in the law of
their organization requiring both employer and employed to agree
to submit the matter to the board, and also by the failure of the
law to confer any power upon the board to enforce its decision or
orders. In other words, under existing laws, these boards have
jurisdiction only when both sides are willing, and even after the
board has rendered a decision, the unsuccessful party may disobey
its orders with impunity, as the board has no power to fine or im-
prison for disobedience. The result is that the board only acts in
the small number of cases in which both sides believe themselves
right, and never acts in the more numerous and important cases
in which one side is conscious of the injustice of its demands.
The board's decision has merely a moral but no legal force. The
law should be amended in these respects so as to give the board
jurisdiction upon the request of a certain number of either side,

652 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and with power to enforce its orders — that is, the Labor Board
should have the same power over the parties to a labor dispute
that a court has over the parties to a legal dispute, and its juris-
diction should not depend upon the consent of both parties.
Either side should possess the right to compel the other to submit
the matter to the board ; and if both sides refuse for a long time
to submit to arbitration, and the public interests are endangered,
it might be expedient to give a certain number of the public
at large the right by request or petition addressed to the board
to invoke its jurisdiction. With these powers exercised by a tri-
bunal of disinterested persons it is believed that wages would be
raised to the point of fairness, that the honest employer would be
protected from the competition of the dishonest employer, that
strikes and lockouts would cease, and that the eight-hour day
would soon become an accomplished fact.

MICA AND THE MICA MINES.

By C. HANFORD HENDERSON.

ONE can get little pleasure out of a science until one is toler-
ably familiar with its nomenclature and terminology. We
should make even less than we do out of human history if we
were not fairly familiar with the language in which it is written.
If the words " institution," " government," " constitution " did not
convey correspondingly definite ideas, we should be at a loss to in-
terpret the pages of even our more obvious historians. In natural
history it is much the same thing, and it is for this reason, I think,
that so many make very little out of it. They never get to feel
quite at home among the scientific terms which must needs be
used. It may seem like insisting upon a very obvious truth to
point out that, when we define or describe a thing in terms un-
known to the hearer, we do not define or describe it at all ; but
nevertheless I believe that it is what Mill would have called a
luminous platitude. It is certainly a commonplace more notice-
able in the breach than in the observance.

A party of two or three are out on a tramp. Perhaps one of
the number is a botanist. He is pretty sure to be besieged with
questions : What is this ? — What is that ? — and all asked in evi-
dent good faith. One of the tramps picks up a little beach fern
and rushes off to the Linnaeus of the party to know what it is.
Linnaeus looks at it, and answers with all good intentions that it
is a Phegopteris dryopteris. The non-botanical member thanks
him, perhaps says, " Oh, is it ? " as if it were a perfectly intelli-

MICA AND THE MICA MINES. 653

gible tiling to "be a Phegopteris dryopteris, and in most cases goes
away perfectly satisfied. Occasionally, however, it does occur to
him that he is just as wise as he was before, and not one whit
more so. These are not imaginary cases. It was from being
several times in the position of the non-botanical member that led
me to reflect that the function of a definition is to define. Now,
who is to blame for this extreme haziness of intercourse, Linnseus
or his friend ? Perhaps both of them.

In the face of these experiences, it is difficult to answer the
seemingly simple question, " What is mica ? " To say that it is a
unisilicate in which the predominant protoxide is potash and the
predominant sesquioxide is alumina, is to say something that is
fairly unintelligible to those who are not chemists, and something
which even to those who are chemists gives only a bit of classifi-
cation and partial composition, but in reality explains little about
the mineral itself. Any answer that we can give is only satis-
factory until we learn to push the question a step further. Gau-
tama well expresses the difficuly when he says in the Light of

Asia:

" Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes,
Or any searcher know by mortal mind,
Veil after veil will lift — hut there must be
Veil upon veil behind."

But this is a difficulty which besets us on all sides when we
question any of the thousand and odd minerals described in Dana,
or for that matter when we put questions to Nature in any direc-
tion.

In the case of minerals we know enough to perceive that there
is much yet unexplained which lies well within the domain of the
knowable. But it is as difficult for the mineralogist as for the
botanist to give even fair descriptions of the objects of his study,
for he so soon runs against his brick wall when he comes to talk
about either the physical or chemical properties of minerals. The
processes of crystallization are as profound a mystery as the life
process itself. "We are much in the position of the zoologists of
the last century, who named and labeled their specimens without
knowing the significance of their relationship.

The name mica is not that of a single mineral, but is a family
cognomen, which includes a number of varieties. With the out-
ward attributes of the family we are all more or less familiar, for
under the common name of isinglass it forms a small part of
the stock in trade of every householder. The family is one of
some importance in the mineralogical hierarchy. All are shining
members, and are alike in splitting into extremely thin leaves or
plates ; in being more or less transparent ; in being highly elastic ;
and in having certain ingredients in common. There are seven

65+ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

well-defined minerals * which lay claim to the family name, be-
sides an extensive list of relatives which have been formed by
alteration on exposure to air and water. The series runs from
the compact, glistening mica found in granite and gneiss, through
many gradations of hydrous micas, until we reach the ordinary
soapstones and clays. But the name properly stops when the
mineral loses its glistening surfaces, for then the Latin word
viicare (to shine) no longer applies. Our German friends call it
Glimmer, a name whose significance is readily seen.

The importance of the mica family, however, does not depend
alone upon its many varieties and numerous relatives. The micas
are an essential ingredient in many of our most wide-spread
rocks — such as the granites, gneisses, mica schists, and their
relatives, which form the continental backbone in both the East-
ern and Western worlds. These rocks in time run into each
other through infinite gradations, just as the mica passes insen-
sibly into the soapstone, so that we can nowhere find hard and
fast lines in the mineral any more than we can in the biological
world. If we wish, then, to think of mica correctly, we must
picture to ourselves a long stem with many branches, and some-
where on this stem — perhaps midway between quartz and lime-
stone— a group of closely related minerals of peculiar scale-like
structure and glistening surfaces. We must think of minerals
as momentary crystallizations in an ever-changing current of in-
organic matter, and not at all as fixed and final forms.

When we submit the micas to chemical analysis, we find that
they all contain a large amount of silica — whose common repre-
sentative is ordinary quartz; — combined with certain metallic
bases, such as alumina, iron, magnesia, lime, and the alkalies
(potash, soda, lithia, ca?sia, and rubidia). No one mica contains
all these — though there is some truth in the statement that the
micas are silicates of almost everything — but the different varie-
ties depend upon the nature and proportion of the metallic bases
which combine with the silica. Thus, while common mica is in
the main a silicate of potash and alumina, it also contains small
quantities of other metals, such as sodium, magnesium, and iron.

There is a partial parallel here between the mineral and the
organic world. Silica is, so far as we know, a compound made up

* Phlogopite, a magnesia mica, commonly of bronze or copper color.
Biotite, or black mica, a magnesia-iron mica, of dark-green or black color.
Lepidomelane, an iron-potash mica, of black or green color.
Astrophyllite, a rare titanium mica, whose powder resembles mosaic gold.
Muscovite, or common mica, a potash-aluminum compound of varying color, white, gray,
brown, green, and even violet or rose.

LepicV.ite, or lithia mica, a mineral of pearly luster, and grayish to rose or violet color.
Cryophyllite, a very rare lithium mica, of greenish color.

MICA AND THE MICA MINES. 655

of two elements, the gas oxygen and the hard, light, non-metal
silicon. It is a substance that is almost omnipresent in the rocks
of the world. In organisms, on the other hand, it is the carbon
which is the chief element, and about which the hydrogen and
oxygen and nitrogen group themselves. Silicon seems, then, to
play much the same role in the mineral world that carbon does in
the organic. In many respects the two elements themselves are
similar. But the point of interest lies in their compounds. Fine,
crystallized carbon, the diamond, is not readily altered. Nor are
its simpler compounds with the elementary gases, such as carbon
dioxide, marsh-gas, and cyanogen. But when the compounds be-
come more complex, when carbon unites with all three of these
elements, and the molecule contains many so-called atoms, it is
correspondingly unstable. The highest development of this com-
plicated organic structure is found in the human brain, and in
the rapid changes which go on in these tissues we have, if not
the cause of thought, at least its accompaniment. The quality
and quantity of thought apparently depend upon the differentia-
tion of these carbon compounds, and the consequent ease and
rapidity with which they can decompose and recompose.

Now, we have in the mineral world at least a partial parallel
to this general behavior, and one that is well illustrated in the
members of the mica family. Silicon itself is never found alone,
and the proximate reason for this is readily understood. It is a
fundamental law of chemistry that, when two reactions are possi-
ble, that one will take place which will liberate the greater amount
of heat. Apply this to silicon. When it unites with oxygen,
the heat of combination is very great, greater than that produced
by the combination of oxygen with carbon, and consequently this
reaction would take place in preference to many others, even in
preference to the oxidation of carbon. The point is admirably
illustrated by the chemical reactions taking place in the Bessemer-
steel process. The pig iron which is run into the converter con-
sists in the main of metallic iron combined with carbon and sili-
con. When the blast of air bubbles through the molten metal,
it is the silicon which first oxidizes. The flame escaping from the
mouth of the converter is small and intensely hot. The spectro-
scope shows a predominance of the silicon lines. Then the carbon
flame appears, less hot and more voluminous — the second choice
of the oxygen. Finally, the iron itself begins to burn and the
blast is discontinued. Bearing these facts in mind, we would
never expect to find free silicon, and we are never disappointed.
When the element combines with oxygen, in silica or quartz, we
have a simple and extremely stable compound, as with the cor-
responding carbon compound. At a high heat and in the presence
of metallic bases, the silica will readily enter into new combina-

656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tions, as in the processes of glass-making, but in the simple pres-
ence of air and water at ordinary temperatures, it remains un-
affected through long ages. "When the silica is united with a
metal, such as aluminum, in kaolin and the ordinary clays, the
compounds are still very stable, but they are less so than the sim-
ple oxide. When, further, there are several metals included in
the compound, as in the mica minerals and their allies, the silicate
decreases in stability as it increases in complexity, and we have,
as with carbon, a readily decomposable compound.

The world has chosen rock as the symbol of. stability, but it
has not chosen very wisely, for the majority of rocks are any-
thing but stable.

In the case of the mica family the readiness with which the
minerals take up water and part with the more soluble of their
components is shown in the many gradations by which they pass
through the hydrous micas to the clays and soapstones. It is very
noticeable in the mica regions themselves. A mica mine is, in-
deed, an instructive object-lesson in soil formations. One can
almost see the decay of the crystalline rocks going on before
one's eyes.

Were the micas only important as a rock constituent, they
would doubtless receive very careful study by reason of the
many interesting problems which their occurrence and alteration
bring up, but in addition to this, their characteristic physical
qualities, their transparency, elasticity, laminar structure, luster,
comparative infusibility, and electrical non-conducting power,
give them a number of applications in the arts, and make them
the object of industrial mining. The mica of the market is in
nearly all cases the common white mica or muscovite. From its
chemical composition it is sometimes known as potash mica, to
distinguish it from lithia and other micas, but these names are
more common in the laboratory than in trade. Although mica is
so widely distributed in Nature, it is only in a few localities and
under well-defined conditions that it occurs in large enough plates
to be profitably mined. Granite and gneiss both consist of a
mixture of the three minerals, mica, quartz, and feldspar (an-
other silicate of potash and alumina), but as ordinarily found,
the mica is too thoroughly mixed with the other ingredients,
and is in too small masses, to be available. It is only when fis-
sures in the rock have been filled with very coarsely crystallized
granite that the mica can be mined with profit.

Such fissure veins occur in a number of localties, notably in
Siberia and Norway on the other side of the water ; and in our
own country, in New Hampshire, in North Carolina, in Wyo-
ming, in New Mexico, in the Black Hills of Dakota, and probably
in paying quantities in Alaska. Of late years the importation of

MICA AND THE MICA MINES. 657

mica from the East Indies has been quite heavy and has closed
many of the American mines. The recent tariff of thirty-five per
cent is leading to their partial reopening.

All these mines are more or less alike so far as their natural
features are concerned. The chief differences are artificial, and
consist in the methods of mining and handling the mica. The
mines of western North Carolina have been largely exploited and
may well serve as a type.

As one travels across the State to the westward, one passes
over three distinct belts of country : the lowlands, covered by re-
cent alluvial deposits ; the middle or Piedmont section, a low pla-
teau underlaid by older sandstones and shales ; and, last of all, the
western or mountain section, in which the Appalachian system
reaches its finest development, and in Mount Mitchell its culmi-
nating point. The trend of the rocks, in this mountain section is
pretty evenly northeast and southwest ; they dip at angles which
are generally forty-five degrees or over. There are a few mica
mines to the east of the Blue Ridge, but the most of them and
the best lie to the west. Once beyond this barrier, and evidences
of mica abound on all sides. One sees the sunlight reflected from
plates of mica on distant hill-sides, and the glitter of tiny scales
in the bed of every brook. These look so much like gold that
one is tempted to turn Argonaut, and try to bring again the
golden fleece. For Colchis, it is easy to read Carolina. The
talcose schists and slates of the eastern escarpment are here suc-
ceeded by the oldest crystalline rocks of the continent, belonging
presumably to the Huronian or Laurentian period. There are
giant upthrows of granite and gneiss, and these are full of fis-
sures carrying the coarsely crystallized matrix in which the pay
mica is found.

It must not be thought, however, that all these veins are alike
profitable, or even that the same vein can be relied upon for any
great distance, for that would be far from the experience of the
practical mica-miner. It is indeed impossible, even after this
lapse of time, when some of the mines have been worked inter-
mittently for more than a quarter of a century, to reach any gen-
eral conclusions as to what conditions are most favorable for a
profitable mine. Old miners say that this or that indication is a
sure sign of a good mine, but the shrewdest of them confess that
mica-mining is pretty much like gambling. A certain amount is
staked in the shape of labor and supplies, and one gets in return
either hundreds of dollars' worth of mica, or perhaps only barren
quartz and feldspar.

Many of the veins occur in a fine-grained black gneiss, which
passes with the mountain miners under the name of "slate."
The vein generally dips with the bedding of the gneiss, but occa-

VOL. XLI. 48

658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sionally it changes abruptly and cuts across the strata. In some
of the mines the vein does not come to grass, as the miners say,
but only begins some distance below the surface. The veins vary
in thickness from less than an inch to ten or a dozen feet, occa-
sionally to as much as thirty or forty feet, but these instances are
rare. In places the vein pinches out completely and is practically
lost, or is cut off perhaps by a large mass of displaced country
rock, known as a " horse."

The contrast between the vein stuff and its containing walls is
very striking and often very beautiful. The "slate" is almost
black, and is generally clean and glistening, while the vein itself
is almost snow-white. This is due to the feldspar with which the
fissure is filled. It breaks with a clean, smooth cleavage, and
shows on such surfaces a brilliant, pearly luster. The dump-
heaps around the mine-mouth are largely made up of this daz-
zling white feldspar. One is constantly tempted to fill every
available pocket with the mineral, to the exclusion of other speci-
mens really more interesting. Interspersed with the feldspar are
masses of grayish-white quartz and occasional blocks of the cov-
eted mica.

It would be of the highest value to know how these three min-
erals got into the vein and arranged themselves in their present
form, but, as no direct observation is possible, we can only reason
back from such facts as we are now able to observe. The fissures
themselves are doubtless simple cracks formed by those shiftings
and readjustments which are constantly going on in the surface
rocks of the earth. The vein material has evidently been in-
truded from below and has come in a liquid or pasty condition,
but just how it has come, and whether as a uniform mass which
afterward separated into the different minerals, or as a mixture in
which each mineral still preserved its own identity, we are quite
unable to say. The most reasonable supposition is that the mate-
rial came into the vein in a condition of aqueo-igneous fusion —
that is to say, rendered liquid at a comparatively low tempera-
ture by the presence of water and great pressure — and that it was
fairly homogeneous. The question as to which mineral separated
first would seem almost hopeless. Yet there is quite strong cir-
cumstantial evidence to show that the mica was the first to form,
for the mica is much more uniformly crystallized than either of
the other two minerals, and frequently leaves the impress of its
lamina on the crystals of quartz. After the mica, the feldspar
probably separated ; and, last of all, the silica that was left over
after the formation of these two minerals, collected into crystals
of quartz. This is what we would expect theoretically. The
mica is only about half silica, the feldspar a little over two thirds,
and the quartz manifestly nearly all silica. The minerals con-

MICA AND THE MICA MINES, 659

taining the greater amount of metallic bases would naturally
separate first.

The location of the mines has been largely accidental. So far
as I have been able to learn, the first one opened was the Sink-
hole mine in Mitchell County. The spot was marked by the ex-
istence of trenches, many hundred feet long in the aggregate, and
in places fully twenty feet deep. Large trees growing on the
debris indicated that the workings were very ancient. It was
supposed that they had been for silver ; and when the trenches
were reopened at the close of the war, the search was for that
metal and not for mica. Silver seems to dominate in the Caro-
linian dream of mineral wealth, when it is, of all such dreams,
the one least likely to be realized. The search for silver being
unsuccessful, the mines were again abandoned. The mica that
had been thrown out was left on the dump, and soon advertised
the real character of the mine. A stock-driver, passing that
way, carried a block of it with him to Knoxville, where it
attracted the attention of men acquainted with its value. They
investigated the matter, emigrated at once to Mitchell County,
and began systematic mining for mica. As the mineral was
then selling for from eight to eleven dollars a pound, the rewards
were considerable, and much enterprise was shown in the devel-
opment of the industry. The first-comers had the easy and
profitable task of simply preparing and shipping the mica that
had been already mined, and they enjoyed the further advan-
tage of an undisturbed market. So profitable an enterprise,
however, soon attracted others. Many of the hands employed
in the mines were also land-owners and naturally concluded,
as soon as they had learned something of the business, that
it would pay better to work for themselves. They began ex-
ploring their own plantations, and as these often contained
several hundred or even several thousand acres, the ground for
prospecting was extensive. It is a region in which the majority
of the people are land-poor. The single-tax project would not be
apt to meet with favor there.

Then, as now, the mountaineers were largely guided in their
search by the ancient workings. These were probably made by
the aborigines, and were also for the purpose of obtaining mica.
The old workers could only penetrate as far as the rock was de-
composed, and were obliged to stop as soon as solid ground was
reached. The imprint of their stone implements may still be seen
in the decomposed stuff at the sides of the opening. What these
people used the mica for is still problematical. Large plates of it
have been found in the mounds of Eastern Tennessee, and would
indicate that it had domestic application, or was used for personal
decoration.

66o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

In the absence of these archaeological landmarks, there are
other signs scarcely less unmistakable. On exposure to the atmos-
phere the feldspar is decomposed, the potash being washed out,
and the kaolin left as an insoluble residue. If this be followed
up, it is pretty sure to lead to mica, but one can not, of course,
predict to what sort of mica.

In most cases the mining has been decidedly incidental in its
character, and has been abandoned as soon as water was reached,
or as soon as the yield of mica ceased to be immediately profit-
able. Other mines have had quite a history. Perhaps the most
famous of the Carolina mines is the Clarissa, near Bakersville.
It was opened soon after the Sink-hole, and is said to have pro-
duced more mica than all the other mines in the county com-
bined. Its output is reckoned up in hundreds of thousands of
dollars. The vein is from four to twelve feet thick, with an aver-
age of about six. It has been followed to a depth of over three
hundred feet. The mine is now idle and full of water, although
men who know it say that there is as much mica there as ever.

With labor at seventy-five cents a day, the primitive methods
of mining are the more profitable. Steam drills have been intro-
duced in a number of the mines, but have proved less economical
than hand drilling. I do not know that the relation is strictly
that of cause and effect, but their introduction has generally been
followed by the closing of the mine. When the vein stuff has
been blown down, it is an easy matter to separate the blocks of
mica from the feldspar and quartz. When once obtained they
are jealously guarded, for a clear block of mica of good size rep-
resents a value of many dollars. Each mine has its strong-room,
solidly built of logs and constantly kept under lock and key.
These blocks of mica are in the shape of rough hexagonal prisms
(monoclinic), and if of any thickness are quite opaque. They
vary in color from silver-gray and green to a rich, almost ruby
brown. This last is known as " rum " mica, and sometimes com-
mands an extra price.

The mica is seldom prepared for market at the mine itself, but
is taken to a conveniently located glass-house. This generally
means a transportation of several miles. Frequently the mines
are on steep mountain-sides, and are only connected with the out-
side world by the roughest sort of trails. In this case the mica
is "packed" down the mountain on the backs of men to the
wagon-road in the valley below.

At the glass-house the mica is put into shape for shipment.
The blocks vary greatly in size. One from the Wiseman mine,
near Spruce Pine, is reported to have been six feet long by three
wide. Pieces a yard in diameter have been obtained at the Ray
mine, in Yancey County, and similarly large plates have been

MICA AND THE MICA MINES.

661

found in Siberia, "but these are exceptional. The average block
is little larger than the page of a magazine, and is generally less
than six inches in thickness. It separates very readily into sheets
parallel to the base of the prism. It is estimated that this cleav-
age may be carried so far that it would take three hundred
thousand of the mica plates to make an inch. It is needless to
say, however, that such a thickness is not suitable for service in
stoves and furnaces. The mica is generally split into plates vary-
ing from about one eighth to one sixty-fourth of an inch in thick-
ness. In preparing these plates for market, the first step is to
cut them into suitable sizes. Women are frequently employed in
this work, and do it as well as, if not better than the men. The
cutter sits on a special bench which is provided with a huge pair
of shears, one leg of which is firmly fixed to the bench itself,
while the movable leg is within convenient grasp. It is requisite
that the shears shall be sharp and true, for otherwise they will
tear the mica.

The patterns according to which the mica is cut are arranged
in a case near at hand. They are made of tin, wood, or paste-
board, according to the preference of the establishment. Gener-
ally they are simple rectangles, varying in size from about four
square inches to eighty. The following table, taken from actual
use, will give some idea of the numerous sizes cut, and of the the-
oretical prices which correspond to them. The actual prices are
at present about forty per cent less :

Size. Price per lb.

Size. Price per lb.

Size. Price per lb.

Size. Price per lb.

Size. Price per lb.

Ux3

$0 50

2 x2|

$0 60

2Jx4£

$2

00

2fx3

$1 00

3 x7

$8 50

l*x3i

55

2 x3

65

2£x5

2

40

2fx3£

1 20

3 x8

8 75

Hx3£

60

2 x34.

70

2J x 5i

2

50

2f xU

1 35

3 x9

9 00

Hx3|

65

2 x3£

80

2£x5i

3

00

2fx3f

1 50

3£x3±

3 50

Hx-t

75

2 x3f

90

2JxG

3

40

2f x4

1 75

3ix3|

4 00

l*x4i

85

2 x4

1 10

2£x6±

3

65

2|x4£

2 25

3ix3f

4 50

H*H

1 00

2 x4±

1 20

2|x64

3

90

2fx4£

2 75

3£x4

5 00

Hx4£

1 25

2 xU

1 40

2£x7

4

25

2|x4f

3 50

3±x4±

5 25

llx5

1 50

2 x4f

1 50

2ix2i

70

2|x5

4 50

3ix4^

5 50

lix5*

1 90

2 x5

1 75

2|x2f

75

2fx5£

4 75

3Jx4f

6 25

4x6

2 40

2 x5|

2 40

2ix3

85

2fx5£

5 25

3£x5

7 25

lfx2

50

2 x6

3 00

2lx3£

95

2£ x6

5 75

3£x5£

7 50

lfx2J

50

2 x6{

3 50

2ix3£

1

00

2|x6|

6 25

3ixM

7 75

lfx2£

50

2 x7

4 00

2+x3f

1

20

2|x7

6 75

3Jx5|

8 00

lfx2J

50

2 x7i

4 25

2lx4

1

30

3 x3

1 80

3±x6

8 50

l|x3

60

2 x8

4 50

2^x4£

1

60

3 xSi

2 15

UxSi

4 50

l|x3J

65

2±x2£

50

2ix4£

2

25

3 x31

2 60

3£x3f

5 00

l|x3£

75

24x2£

55

2|x4|

2

75

3 xSf

3 00

3£x4

5 50

lfx3|

90

2£x2£

60

2£x5

3

50

3 x4

4 00

3ixii

5 75

l|x4

1 00

2jrx3

70

2| x 5i

3

60

3 x4J

4 75

HxH

6 50

lfx4J

1 10

2£x3±

85

2|x5£

3

75

3 x4j

5 50

3ix4f

7 00

ifx-H

1 25

2Jx3|

95

2£x6

4

25

3 x4f

6 00

3|x5

7 50

lfx4f

1 40

2ix3f

1 10

2$xU

4

50

3 x5

7 00

3ix5£

8 25

2 x2

50

2^x4

1 25

2^x7

5

00

3 x&i

7 50

3|x6

8 75

2 x2i

50

2£x4£

1 50

2^x8

5

50

3 x6

8 00

31x6|

8 75

2 x2|

50

2ix4|

1 75

2fx2|

85

3 x6{

8 25

3£x7

9 00

66a

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Size. Price per lb.

Size. Price per lb.

Size. Price per lb.

Size. Price per lb.

Size. Price per lb.

3£x8

$9 25

4 x5i

$8 00

4|x5

$8 25

5x8 $10 25

6 x9

$11 00

8^x9

9 50

4 xal

8 50

4ix a\

8 75

5x9 10 50

6 xlO

11 50

3f x 3f

5 50

4 x6"

9 00

4|x6

9 25

5 xlO 11 00

7 x7

10 75

3 J x4

5 80

4 x6£

9 25

4£xCi

9 50

5£x5i 9 25

7 x8

11 00

3§x4±

6 25

4 x7

9 50

4£x7

9 75

5{x6" 9 75

7 x9

11 25

3fx4^

6 75

4 x8

9 75

4x8

10 00

5|x7 10 25

7 xlO

12 00

3£x4f

7 25

4 x9

10 00

4|x9

10 25

5|x8 10 50

8 x8

12 00

4 x4

6 25

5±x4^

6 75

5 x5

8 50

5|x9 10 75

8 x9

12 50

4 x4J

6 50

4^x4^

7 25

5 x5|

9 00

6x6 10 00

8 xlO

13 00

4 x4|

7 00

4ix4f

7 75

5 xG

9 50

6 x6£ 10 25

4 x4f

7 50

4^x5

8 00

5 x6|

9 75

6x7 10 50

All lai

•ger at

4 x5

7 75

4ix41

7 50

5 x7

10 00

6x8 10 75

special

prices.

The cutter selects the pattern which will cut to the best ad-
vantage, lays it on the sheet of mica, and then, holding the two
firmly together, trims off the edges of the mica to make it corre-
spond with the pattern. She puts both mica and pattern in their
proper place in the case before her. Then she takes up another
piece of mica, and finding the best pattern, proceeds to shape the
sheet as before. In this way the rough plates of mica are reduced
to uniformity and are sorted as they are cut. When the cutter
completes her task, she has all the mica piled away in little bun-
dles under their corresponding patterns, while the scrap falls in a
glistening heap on the floor.

The cleaning process comes next. The cleaner sits directly in
front of a window and must examine each sheet of cut mica by
holding it up between her eyes and the light. If there be any
imperfections, and there nearly always are, they must be removed
by stripping off the offending layers of mica until a clear sheet re-
mains. The cleaning is done by means of a sharp penknife — and
considerable discretion. It is quite easy to tear away the entire
sheet and have nothing left for one's trouble. Both the cutting
and cleaning are tiresome routine operations, yet there is a certain
fascination about tearing the mica to pieces that few have philos-
ophy enough to resist. One soon becomes absorbed in the task of
seeing just how thin a sheet of mica can be separated, and before
one realizes it an hour or more is gone.

Finally, the cut and cleaned mica is put up in pound packages
and is ready for the market.

There is an enormous waste in the processes of preparation.
One hundred pounds of block mica will scarcely yield more than
about fifteen pounds of cut mica, and sometimes it is even less.
The proportion varies, of course, with different localities.

The chief use of the cut mica is in stoves, and its comparative
cheapness has made possible the luminous — not to say artistic —
wonders which constitute the latest and most cheerful creations
of the stove-men. In Siberia the sheets of mica are still some-

MICA AND THE MICA MINES. 663

times used in windows, as they were in the seventeenth cent-
ury in Philadelphia, when glass was a luxury in the colonies.
The sheets are also used in the peep-holes of smelting furnaces, in
lanterns, in shades, and in the port-holes on board naval vessels,
where the vibrations would soon demolish less elastic glass. Mica
is an excellent non-conductor, and of recent years has been cut to
some extent into narrow strips for use in the construction of
dynamos.

The scrap mica was formerly thrown away, with the excep-
tion of a small quantity used as a lubricating material, but it has
recently found a market in several new directions. Old waste
heaps are being bought up, for a few dollars a ton, and their con-
tents cleaned by being passed through a rough mill. This is sim-
ply a rotating cylinder of coarse wire screen with its axis slightly
inclined to the horizontal. The scrap is fed into the upper end
of the cylinder, and slowly discharges itself from the lower end.
As it makes its way from end to end, the sand and trash are sup-
posed to fall through the meshes of the screen. The cleaned scrap
is then shipped to Richmond, where it is ground into a coarse
powder and distributed to the various industries requiring it.
Large quantities are used in the manufacture of wall-paper. The
mica produces a sparkling surface which is thought to be decor-
ative, but at best the effect is somewhat bizarre. Considerable
amounts are used to produce the snow effects on Christmas cards,
and in stage scenery and other tinsel ; while smaller packages,
under the name of diamond dust, are sold as powder for the hair.
Much of the ground mica is sent to France, and this, oddly
enough, when the East Indian sheet mica is pressing our own
pretty heavily in the home market.

The Latin world used the mica dust to strew over the Circus
Maximus, while mediaeval Europe knew the golden and silver
scales as cat-gold and cat-silver.

But to go back again for a moment from the glass-house to the
mines themselves, there is much of interest in the rare and beau-
tiful minerals associated with the mica. Some of the mines are
quite noted for these by-products and are as attractive to a lover of
color as to the mineralogist. The mica itself is often the carrier
of curious forms. Frequently a mineral makes its way between
the laminae of the mica, and is thus forced to grow horizontally
instead of normally in three directions. This gives us curious
dendritic or tree-like forms which come out finely on holding the
mica up to the light. The oxide of manganese is most prone to
get caught in this way, and gives delicate tracery of dark brown
or black. Sometimes it is a garnet which is thus entrapped, and
then we have a brilliant little hexagonal plate of ruby glass, very
beautiful and very gem-like. By carefully taking off the outer

66± THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sheet, we can get the garnet-plate set in mica, and it makes a
specimen well worth preserving. Less frequently one finds a
thin layer of quartz imprisoned between the mica, or a thin layer
of the transparent glassy feldspar known as sanidin. Sometimes
the mica itself is microscopically striated, and plays queer tricks
with the light, giving iridescent films that might easily be mis-
taken for soap-bubbles.

But the feldspar is the most promising matrix for the mineral
hunter. At the Cloudland mine it is well penetrated with the
greenish, yellowish, and bluish hexagonal prisms of the beryl.
The precious form of this mineral, the emerald, is seldom or never
found in the mica mines. There is, however, an intermediate
variety known as the aqua marine, which occurs in the mines
around Spruce Pine, and is somewhat esteemed as a gem. As the
name indicates, it is of a light sea-green color. It is perfectly
transparent, and when well cut makes a quiet but really beauti-
ful gem-stone. Clear crystals of aqua marine are exceedingly
rare. It comes commonly as a part of the opaque crystal of
beryl.

Intimately associated with the beryl are plentiful sprinklings
of blood-red garnets, and the two colorings against the pure
white background of the feldspar make a very effective combina-
tion. Garnets are generously distributed in nearly all the mica
mines, and add much to the beauty of these mineral masses. One
day at the Cloudland mine, a large mass of feldspar was blown
down, and there in the center of the white and standing face of
the vein was a blood-red spot at least six or seven inches in
diameter. A giant garnet had been cut squarely in two by the
blast, and the blood-red spot was a cross-section of what re-
mained.

In other mines, such as the Tolly Bend in Yancey County, the
white feldspar is occasionally covered with patches of dainty
pink. It is the mineral rhodonite, a silicate of manganese, and is
as delicate as a peach-blow vase.

There are also other accessory minerals which are less strik-
ing in appearance, but of greater scientific interest on account of
their rarity. Such are euraninite, gummite, columbite, and samar-
skite, containing the rare metals uranium, columbium, yttrium,
tungsten, tantalum, and their allies, which are curiosities even to
the chemist. At Spruce Pine, one gets excellent specimens of
uraninite, the oxide of uranium. It is a heavy black mineral
with a frequent orange-yellow coating of another uranium com-
pound, gummite. The miners take considerable interest in find-
ing the mineral, as it is worth something like a couple of dollars
a pound, and it takes a very small quantity to make a pound.
The oxides of the metal are used to produce black and yellow col-

MICA AND THE MICA MINES. 665

ors on glass and porcelain. The peculiarly fine black of Havi-
land china is due, I believe, to uranous oxide.

The Ural Mountains are the collecting-grounds for the cabi-
nets of Europe. In no other district can one find so many varie-
ties of minerals within the same area. The mountains of western
North Carolina are in many respects similar. They probably
yield a greater number of rare minerals than any other region in
America, and are therefore a favorite tramping-ground for col-
lectors. At the smallest cross-roads post-office one hears of the
visit of some well-known mineralogist. Nearly every mountaineer
has a few specimens in his treasury, and generally he knows the
names of the more characteristic varieties, particularly if they
have a marketable value. It is not safe, however, to rely very
implicitly upon his classification, for his knowledge is of the most
superficial sort.

As commonly taught in our schools and colleges, and as com-
monly apprehended by students outside, a knowledge of mineral-
ogy consists of a more or less definite familiarity with several
hundred minerals, and an ability to recognize the more common
varieties on sight, or by means of some readily applied physical
test. It is largely a knowledge of separate and unrelated facts, a
catalogue, one might almost say, and not yet a body of well-or-
ganized truth. We have gathered part of the material of a fine
science, and eminent men are now at work building this material
into a coherent whole. The curious facts of paragenesis, or the
characteristic associations of minerals, and the many problems
presented by substitution and alteration, are being carefully in-
vestigated. The mysteries of crystallization are commanding
attention. The progress along these lines is very encouraging.
But a great amount of work still remains to be done. One who
comes to the study of minerals at this particular juncture will
find it pleasurable, even as a study of separate facts, but he will
feel, I think, that a greater pleasure remains for him when these
results have been still further co-ordinated. We are still waiting
for our Darwin.

Statistics concerning the influence of the style of living on stature, collected by
M. G. Cartier from among the conscripts at IJvreux, France, go to confirm the
conclusions that other authors have drawn on the subject. Persons who are sup-
posed from their occupations to have been brought up under good hygienic condi-
tions and comfortable circumstances — students, farmers, etc. — are generally of
larger than average stature ; while persons ill-fed, poorly clothed, or who have
grown xip in an unfavorable medium — workers in metallurgy, weavers, etc. —
are smaller. Consequently, if uthe race fixes an ideal mean round which indi-
viduals oscillate," the latter are especially influenced by the conditions of the
medium, alimentation, exercise, and comfort.

666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

INCALCULABLE ACCIDENTS.

By WILLIAM A. EDDY.

WHEN we consider the quantity of metal and the jars and
strains to which it is subjected as railroad trains move
at high speed, it becomes difficult to estimate the effects of acci-
dents and to think of a way to evade injury. "When caught be-
tween trains rapidly passing each other it is claimed that if the in-
cautious pedestrian remain standing the result will be disastrous,
and that safety is assured only by lying down. This peculiarly
perilous situation illustrates a simpler phase of the complications
that may arise when an accident is imminent, in which the dan-
ger may be principally due to the fact that the noise and interpo-
sition of one train conceal the presence of another.

The surprising and unexpected nature of some railroad acci-
dents was exemplified in the experience of the engineer of a pas-
senger train which was moving at the rate of about forty miles an
hour. He felt a jar and heard a terrific clatter beneath his loco-
motive. At the same time he was astonished to find that the seat
on the other side of the engine cab where the fireman usually sat
had been torn away, and the fireman thrown backward and left
insensible. The engineer instantly knew that one of the bars
connecting the driving-wheels of his locomotive had broken. The
partly detached piece of steel beat against the cab with severe
blows caused by the rapid revolutions of the wheels. He jumped
to his feet to escape injury, just as the bar on his side of the loco-
motive broke also and tore away the seat which he had vacated.
The crippled locomotive was then derailed, causing general de-
struction of the running gear and woodwork of the cars.

This derangement in the mechanical structure of a locomotive
occasionally happens, and it is one of the possible accidents that
every locomotive engineer must guard against. It is clear that
familiarity with special machinery sometimes lessens the fatality
due to an accident, because the resulting effects have been looked
for during many years, and the action to meet the conditions de-
cided upon. But the complication is increased by the fact that
each accident may be unprecedented. For example, at another
time the side-bar broke away from the driving-wheels altogether,
and, striking against a jutting point of rock, bounded beneath
the train, which was under full head-way. This long, powerful
piece of steel then flew along the track under the train and pierced
a hole through the floor of the rear car. Meantime the brasses
and some of the more delicate machinery on the forward part of
the locomotive were torn away and, falling on the track or rails,
threw off the last four wheels of the rear car, which was dragged

INCALCULABLE ACCIDENTS. 667

in a slanting position, plowing up the gravel, for about a thou-
sand feet along the edge of a high embankment. The occupants
of that car never forgot the awful sensation, like that of a violent
earthquake with its resulting uncertainty of footing. A striking
characteristic of this accident was that the engine and forward
car were not thrown from the track. Another accident of this
kind, equally unexpected, took place under somewhat similar con-
ditions, when one of the driving-wheels burst with terrific explo-
sive force, a solid piece of the iron crashing through the wood-
work of a passenger car, after having shattered the glass of a
door. This ponderous missile shot along the aisle between the car
seats, unpleasantly near the heads of the passengers.

The sign on many car doors notifying passengers not to ride
on the car platforms calls attention to a danger which is more
real than may be at first supposed. Some people who easily
lose their balance may be thrown off a train, owing to the
sudden jar of the cars at the beginning of a sharp curve, and the
same effect may be brought about by the stopping and starting
caused by coupling cars. In one such instance a man was
thrown from the rear platform as the train made a jerking
movement forward. There is also the possibility of a fall due
to dizziness or momentary faintness. But probably the most
remarkable case recently recorded occurred during a very high
wind when a passenger was blown from the platform of a car
which was running across the wide, windy expanse between
Jersey City and Newark, New Jersey.

There is marked danger in trying to board a moving train, as
shown by repeated accidents ; yet so irresistible is the temptation
to do this that it would be difficult to find a man who has not
taken the risk. The car steps, as related to the position of an
ordinary station platform at the level of the rails, are too high to
be easily gained, and the rails over which the wheels of the car are
to pass are nearer the edge of the car steps than is generally sup-
posed. If, owing to miscalculation, haste, or a stumble, the pas-
senger's foot is placed under instead of upon the step, the result
may be fatal, because the movement of the body when swinging
from the perpendicular railing at the corner of the car is then
toward a position beneath the car platform. It is probably safer to
jump from a rapidly moving train than to board the same train.
The extent of the peril in leaping from a moving car obviously
depends upon the amount of skill shown in alighting upon ground
that slants away from the track. Of course, the many serious
accidents caused in this general way suggest the radical impor-
tance of waiting for a train to stop.

The rules pertaining to the safety of passengers using the
great transportation lines seem at times needless. But the move-

668 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

merits of people who are distracted by trouble, who are absent-
minded, excited, mentally disordered, almost crazed by an amaz-
ing success as well as by an equally amazing failure, may be
characterized by incalculably erratic action, even if the action be
decidedly exceptional. Such people may have little more than
the power of ordinary locomotion. In many instances, owing to
the unprecedented nature of the occurrence, the individual at his
best can not cope with the conditions. Some accidents may take
place only once in a lifetime, and the person threatened is neces-
sarily unable to instantly decide upon the wisest course.

Accidents may be dealt with coolly by the professional man,
or the coroner who attends like cases. The growing complications
of modern life are such that the highest form of natural shrewd-
ness is almost inoperative under these rare circumstances when
compared with experienced intelligence.

The modern railroad train, with its tremendous momentum,
calls for a greater number of mechanical engineers of superior
ability whose ingenious constructive power shall further lessen
not only the danger but the amount of destruction caused by rail-
road accidents. Prevision of the effects of an accident may in-
volve the elaborate calculations necessary to the solution of an
intricate mathematical problem. In fact, the contingent or pos-
sible results in a given instance suggest the importance of long
and careful training. Undoubtedly, with the lapse of time, and
with wider experience, the imperfections in railroad construction
and material will steadily decrease.

The accidents from contact with electric-light wires that carry
a deadly current are well known, but the complex nature of these
accidents demands special attention. Sometimes the attempt to
close an iron door or an iron window shutter is at once followed
by a severe electric shock, if not by serious injury. The men who
repair ordinary telegraph wires have learned to be cautious be-
cause of the possible presence of a deadly current. An operative
who was accustomed to the work of readjusting dangerous wires
was killed because, unknown to him, an apparently disused, rusty
wire was charged with intense electric force, as evinced by the
fact that a metal cornice, wet with rain, carried the current from
the wire through his body. A somewhat similar accident oc-
curred to a skilled electrician who was connecting one wire with
another on a switchboard. He lost his balance while on a step-
ladder, and, as he put out his hand to save himself, he by chance
touched another wire, and this completed a circuit that killed him
instantly. Still another phase of this kind of accidental death
from electricity was seen in New York city when an Italian, who
was cleaning a window, completed a circuit from his hand through
his body, the current penetrating the sole of his shoe which rested

INCALCULABLE ACCIDENTS. 669

upon a metal surface. A like accident, singularly fatal, happened
to one of two clerks wlio had lifted a metal show-case to carry it
into a store. The metal top of the case touched the metal exten-
sion of an arc electric lamp that had been left hanging too near
the pavement. One of these clerks, moving hurriedly under the
strain of the burden, chanced to step upon an iron cellar grating
which caused the electric current to kill him instantly. The other
clerk, who was lifting his part of the weight, stood upon the ordi-
nary pavement and so was not injured. The metallic frame of the
show-case had transmitted the current.

Some very serious injuries have been caused by an attempt to
brush away an electric-light wire that dangled against the head
of the passer-by. The muscles of any one who is unfortunate
enough to grasp such a wire contract with uncontrollable persist-
ence, and the electric current burns with an effect resembling that
of white-hot iron.

The innumerable electric appliances, which are already begin-
ning to compete with those run by steam, must increase the num-
ber of accidents. Rapidly growing power is at present accom-
panied by rapidly growing risk — a condition to be expected dur-
ing early stages of advancement. But relative safety will doubt-
less be attained through the skill of an army of specialists who
will be divided and subdivided into a greater number of groups as
the new combinations multiply. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of
the increase of heterogeneity during certain stages of evolution is
thus reaffirmed in this age of mechanism. Yet there is every
reason to expect that the development of intelligence will steadily
eliminate the dangers arising from haste in construction. The
loss and inconvenience which may be experienced while waiting
for absolute safety should not be overlooked. In fact, prolonged
delay is neither practicable nor desirable.

In his introductory lecture on the Anthropological History of Europe, Dr.
Beddoe inclines to the modern view which regards Europe as the original home
of the Aryans. He also discusses in a novel manner some of the causes which
may be supposed to produce changes of physical type. Incidentally he records
his opinion that a process of selection, which may be called natural, works against
the perpetuation of certain types in our cities. He also remarks that more evi-
dence exists than is generally known of the deteriorative effect of malaria on
physical type.

The Antarctic Fund of the Australian Association for the Advancement of
Science has grown to £14,044, leaving only £1,000, or $5,000, to raise it to the £15,-
000 that are sought to complete it. It is thought that this remaining amount will
be furnished by the colonial governments. As at present arranged, the expedi-
tion is expected to arrive in September, 1893, at its last coaling port and starting-
point in the southern hemisphere.

67o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT.

By M. JULES EOCHAED,

OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF MEDICINE.

THE use of tobacco prevails throughout the whole world.
Smokers alone are numbered by hundreds of millions. A
million and a quarter acres of the earth are devoted to the culti-
vation of the plant, and the taxes on it alone in France amount
to three hundred million francs (or sixty million dollars). A cus-
tom so general, a habit that has been maintained so long in the
face of constant attacks upon it, should be considered seriously.
It should be studied from every side, and the various elements
of the question should be subjected to a complete analysis by the
means of investigation now at our disposal, for it is a scientific
problem of the first order. "While it is of moral and philosophical
interest, and its social con sequences are within the province of
economists, it is for science, physiology, and hygiene to furnish
experimental data as the basis for their deductions.

A proper study of the subject should be made with an inde-
pendence of prepossession which it is not easy to find. Persons
who have never smoked will talk of tobacco as the blind talk of
colors ; smokers have a fondness for their habit, while those who
have been obliged to give it up are prejudiced on the other side.
I am one of the reformed smokers. After having abused tobacco
for about fifty years, I was compelled to abjure it. I fought my
ground inch by inch, and yielded only to an absolute necessity.
Knowing what the reformation cost me, I have not tried to make
proselytes ; but I intend to say what I believe is true upon a ques-
tion which I have studied well, and on which I am not lacking in
personal experience.

The tobacco plant belongs to the order Solanacece., and consti-
tutes a genus (Nicotiana) named after Jean Nicot. It is culti-
vated through the whole world, and succeeds equally in the tem-
perate zone and the intertropical regions. Two species are culti-
vated : common or large tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) and small
tobacco (Nicotiana rustica). The first species is the most widely
diffused. It is a large and fine-looking annual plant, growing to
a height of about six feet. It bears large alternate leaves of a
glaucous-green color, and is tipped with a cluster of elegant flow-
ers having a pale-rose corolla and a persistent five-parted calyx.
Small tobacco does not exceed twenty inches or two feet in height.
Its leaves are thick, soft, dark-green, and viscously hairy. The
terminal inflorescence comprises clusters of flowers composed of
cymes. The pale-yellow corolla, a little greenish, is supported by
a campanulate calyx, covered with glandular hairs and terminat-

TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 671

ing in uneven teeth. The genus Nicoiiana includes some fifty
other species, mostly natives of America, but some of Australia
and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Of these, some fifteen or
twenty species are cultivated and give rise to different foreign
tobaccoes, the taste and properties of which are varied. A few
species, remarkable for the richness of their colors and their grace-
ful growth, are cultivated as ornamental plants in gardens.

Tobacco leaves contain principles common to all vegetable
substances — such as starch, cellulose, sugar, organic acids, and
salts — principles soluble in ether, nitrogenous substances, and a
peculiar alkaloid to which the plant owes its special qualities,
called nicotine. This alkaloid, discovered by Posselt and Remann,
was isolated by Vauquelin in 1809. It is an oily liquid, trans-
parent and colorless, which becomes brown and thick in the air
by absorbing oxygen. Its acrid and virulent odor is like that of
tobacco ; it has a burning taste, and its vapor is so irritating that
breathing is painful in a room where a drop of it has fallen. It
is very hygrometric, and soluble in water, alcohol, and ether. It
combines directly with acids, with the evolution of heat. It is
found as a malate in the leaves. The different kinds of tobacco
do not contain the same quantities of it. The black, unctuous
tobacco of the Antilles, the pronounced savor, ready burning,
and white ash of which make it in demand among experienced
smokers, contains much more nicotine than the light, fragrant
tobacco of the Levant. The quantity of it increases with the
development of the plant, and varies according to the thickness
of the leaves. The thinner-leaved plants contain less of it. The
fermentation to which tobacco is subjected in manufacturing
volatilizes a part of the nicotine and substitutes ammonia for it.
Consequently, there is less nicotine in tobacco prepared for con-
sumption than there was in the dry leaves before the preparation.
Combustion destroys about three quarters of this. According to
M. Pabst, the smoke of five grammes of tobacco yields about
three milligrammes of nicotine ; but it contains a number of
other principles besides, the enumeration of which here would
not be interesting. Nicotine is the active principle of tobacco, as
atropine is of belladonna and morphine of opium ; but there are
other poisons among the substances united with it. The less
volatile ones condense during combustion, and produce a brownish
empyreumatic liquid, a kind of coal-tar of tobacco, a part of which
oozes through porous pipes, and the whole of which is retained in
the water of nargilehs.

Among the volatile principles that pass into the smoke along
with nicotine are hydrocyanic acid and carbonic oxide. Dr. Gre-
hant has shown that a notable quantity of them is absorbed by
rapid smokers swallowing the smoke, and the gas passes into the

672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

stream of the circulation. These facts are of considerable impor-
tance in view of practical consequences, and go far to explain the
accidents that sometimes occur after one has passed several hours
in a medium saturated with tobacco, even without smoking, and
the phenomena of intoxication which are produced by eating food
that has remained for a long time in a similar atmosphere.

Tobacco is a poison, as are most of the Solanacecz and many
plants which medicine daily utilizes. Its properties have been
studied in our time with all the rigor of the experimental method,
verified by clinical observation. We can no more than present
the principal results of the investigation here. The decoction of
tobacco destroys animal life in a time short in proportion to the
strength of the dose. The phenomena preceding death are like
those produced by other toxic alkaloids, and are identical with
those exhibited by man in a similar condition, which doctors have
had too frequent occasion to observe. Sometimes convicts or
sailors swallow their quids, or fools drink on a wager a glass or
two of the empyreumatic juice that flows from old pipes, or the
poison is swallowed by mistake, as when snuff is taken for coffee
or tobacco leaves are mixed with orange leaves. Cases of mali-
cious poisoning are more rare ; but the poet Sauteuil died, accord-
ing to Merat, in horrible suffering after having drunk a glass of
wine in which Spanish tobacco leaves had been put. Mortal poi-
soning is, however, rarely brought about when tobacco is taken
by the mouth, for it is nearly always rejected by vomiting before
it can produce its worst effects ; but the results of intestinal
administration are different. The intoxication is then most usu-
ally the result of a medical error. The decoction of tobacco is
still given sometimes as an injection in cases of asphyxia by sub-
mersion or of strangled hernia, and, if the dose is too large, death
may result. Orfila cites four cases that were fatal in doses ranging
from eight to sixty-four grammes. One patient died in fifteen
minutes, and the one who held out longest at the end of two
hours. Eight grammes do not form a toxic dose, but the case cited
by Orfila was one of an infant. From fifteen to thirty grammes
are required to kill an adult. Tobacco may also poison through
the lungs. Cases are mentioned of persons who died from sleep-
ing in a room filled with fermenting leaves ; others, worthy rivals
of the bettors just now spoken of, died after executing wagers
that they could smoke an improbable number of pipes without
intermission. The skin itself may serve as a channel for the in-
troduction of the toxic principle. Accidents of this kind were
not rare when diseases of the skin were treated with pomades or
liniments of which tobacco was the base. Murray reports an ob-
servation of three infants who were taken with vomitings and
vertigos, and died in convulsions within twenty-four hours after

TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 673

having their heads rubbed with a tobacco ointment. Cases are
recorded of smugglers who died after having covered the bare
skin of their whole body with tobacco leaves ■ which they were
trying to introduce fraudulently. Ferdinand Martin has related
the case of a lady afflicted with lumbago who applied flannels
dipped in a decoction of smoking tobacco to the ailing part. Her
pains were promptly subdued, but she soon felt all the phenomena
of intoxication by nicotine, and did not recover from it for three
days. Poisoning by tobacco generally occurs by accident or mis-
take. It is rarely tried criminally, probably because the toxic prop-
erties of the drug are not reliable enough. Assassins prefer the
alkaloid itself, the effects of which are much more prompt and more
terrible than those of the plant. By whatever method it is admin-
istered in experiments, the animal is slain. Two drops are enough
to kill a large dog ; eight drops will kill a horse in four minutes.
Under its effects he rages, prances, writhes, falls down, and dies
in convulsions. " This alkaloid," says Claude Bernard,* " is one
of the most virulent poisons known, and a few drops of it on the
cornea of an animal will kill it instantly. Nicotine, apparently
sympathetic in its effects, in its action is very much like prussic
acid." The action of this principle is so subtle that it can not be
analyzed unless the drug is administered in minute doses and
very dilute solutions. There is then observed the phenomenon —
which goes far to explain the facility with which one is habitu-
ated to the use of tobacco — of the rapid development of tolerance
of gradually increasing doses. This has been demonstrated by
Traube, who, with the twenty-fourth of a drop of nicotine subcu-
taneously injected, obtained very marked effects on the first day.
The next day, on the same animal, it took a whole drop to reach
the same result, and at the end of four days five drops were neces-
sary. A similar tolerance is observed in man for hypodermic in-
jections of morphine ; but one does not get accustomed to digita-
line or strychnine.

When nicotine is administered in doses weak enough to per-
mit an analysis of its effects, almost the same phenomena are wit-
nessed as with the whole plant. In the cases of poisoning already
mentioned, there came on at the beginning extreme anguish and
agitation, with sensations of burning heat in the pit of the stom-
ach. Respiration was accelerated and the pulse was slackened ;
then came vomiting and purging, vertigo, and faintness. The
face grew pale, the skin was covered with a cold sweat, the head
was confused, and the patient fell into a deep stupor, with cries,
general trembling, and convulsions. This agitation gives place

* Lecons sur les effets des substances toxiques et medicamenteuses. Paris, lSo?, p.
397.

VOL. XLI. — 49

674 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to paralysis and insensibility ; respiration is impeded, the pulse
declines to a mere thread, and the patient dies in syncope.

When the patient resists the attack, as is most frequently the
case, the evolution of the symptoms described above is arrested,
and the sufferer comes out of his comatose condition with a vio-
lent headache, extreme weakness, and a gastric disturbance which
it requires a considerable time to allay.

The effects produced by the habitual use of tobacco differ ac-
cording to the way it is consumed. They have not been much
observed except among smokers, who are most noticed because of
their number. Then their habit is open ; the smoke goes every-
where, and it causes inconvenience to others ; while the more
discreet snuff -taker can hide his snuff-box, and annoys with the
smell of tobacco only those who come too near him.

Beginners at snuff -taking require, like smokers, an apprentice-
ship. They begin by sneezing ; then the mucous membrane of the
nasal fossae becomes accustomed to the drug, is palled, and even
finds itself pleasantly tickled by the ammoniacal piquancy and
nicotian perfume of the virulent powder. At last it becomes thick,
and with intemperate snuff -takers perceives odors only feebly. It
becomes sometimes the seat of a chronic inflammation which ex-
tends to the pharynx and produces a slight dry and characteristic
cough. Snuff-takers are told of who have suffered from eruptions,
ulcerations, and polypi ; others have become deaf ; but such cases
are so rare and their etiology is so doubtful that serious account
need not be taken of them.

The only phenomenon peculiar to nicotine often observed
among snuff -takers is a rhythmic trembling of the hands, not like
that of old men or that of drunkards, but which is observed likewise
in excessive smokers. A single case is mentioned by Dr. Bean of
angina pectoris in a patient who was addicted to an excessive use
of snuff. But a solitary case is not important in the considera-
tion of a habit so general, and there is no need of pursuing a fugi-
tive enemy. Snuff-taking is condemned by fashion, from whose
decrees there is no appeal. Those of hygiene are not so impera-
tive.

Smoking is charged by its opponents with injuring the health
and debasing the mind. The former part of the charge has a
measure of foundation. There is certainly nothing hygienic in
the habit. All are acquainted with the troubles that ensue on the
first effort to smoke. There are nauseas, soon followed by vomit-
ing, headache, vertigo, and a condition resembling sea-sickness,
and much like the earlier phenomena of acute poisoning by to-
bacco. These troubles soon pass away, and after a few succeeding
efforts the smoker accustoms himself to the action of the smoke.
"When the habit is once acquired, smokers feel no further incon-

TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 675

venience ; and there are some who are able to smoke just before
sitting down at the table. Smoking generally dulls the appetite
and gives relief against the pains of hunger. But after eating the
desire to smoke becomes irresistible. This is the psychological
moment ; and the pleasure we feel then is more intense than at
any other time in the day. The pipe or the cigar is a condition of
good digestion for some smokers, but in others it produces gas-
tric troubles. Nervous people, those who lead a too sedentary life,
and office men, especially if they have the habit of smoking before
meals, gradually lose their appetite, and acquire instead of it a
painful anxiety and nausea. Others suffer from pyrosis. There
are smokers who can not light a cigar at some hours in the day
without having the feeling of hot iron that marks that affection.
Nearly all excessive smokers are dyspeptics ; and the fact is
explained by the excess of salivation and the diminution of the
gastric juice and of the functional energy of the stomach. Next
after the digestive troubles, the most common affections touch the
respiratory organs and the heart. Granular pharyngitis is very
common among persons who smoke to excess. The irritation of
the pharynx is often communicated to the larynx, and there results
a peculiar dry cough. Others feel a temporary oppression in the
evening after having smoked during the day. A special form of
asthma has been mentioned as caused by the abuse of tobacco ;
but cases of it must be very rare, for I have never observed it,
though I have passed my life among smokers. Affections of the
heart are more frequent. Some doctors assert that one fourth of
the smokers are afflicted with palpitations and irregularities of
the pulse. I do not know where such observations have been
made, but I have never seen any cases of the kind. I, as well as
other doctors, have met cases of angina pectoris, chiefly among
persons who passed their lives in an atmosphere saturated with
tobacco, and among those who have swallowed the smoke of their
cigars, and have not been surprised at them, because the smoke
then enters into the lesser ramifications of the bronchial vessels,
where it impresses directly the finest nervous threads of the lungs
and the heart, and its action induces the spasms of suffocation that
constitute that terrible disease. These symptoms are at first fleet-
ing, and rarely mortal ; but, if the patient does not abandon his
habit, they occur more frequently, and become more grave till
death ensues in one of them. Disasters from breathing an atmos-
phere saturated with tobacco-smoke seem more liable to occur with
children than with grown persons. Staying in smoking-rooms,
where the smoke is sometimes so thick that one can hardly see
from one end of the room to the other, is dangerous to persons sub-
ject to palpitations, even though they do not smoke. Dr. Vallin
has cited three facts conclusive as to this point, one of which re-

676 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

lates to the case of a young officer who had given up tobacco three
months before, and was attacked with a suffocation like angina
2)ectoris after having passed several nights in his room where his
friends came to smoke for some hours every evening. Dr. Ge'lineau
tells of an epidemic . of angina pectoris among some sailors who
were crowded in the between-decks of a merchant vessel during a
storm that made it necessary to close all the hatches, and who
smoked to pass away the time. Those who did not join in the
smoking suffered equally with the others, for they breathed the
same toxic atmosphere.

Pipe-smokers are in danger of epithelioma, or cancer of the lips
and of the tongue. The former occurs chiefly among persons who
smoke a very short-stemmed clay pipe. Smokers' cancer appears
usually at the point where the hot pipe-stem bears upon the lower
lip, and on the side of the tongue at the point where the smoke
touches at each aspiration. In some cases it begins with buccal
psoriasis, a kind of thickening of the epithelium of the tongue,
which becomes white, glossy, and horny. These two forms of a
horrible malady are incontestably the most serious danger smok-
ers incur ; and the fear of it is the motive that has impelled the
majority of conversions from the habit. The frequency of them
should not, however, be exaggerated.

Tobacco has been accused of contributing to the depopulation
of the country by enfeebling the reproductive powers of men
and inducing miscarriages in women. The former part of the
charge is founded on the very real fact that the smoking of to-
bacco, while its influence prevails, appeases all ardor ; but its ac-
tion is essentially temporary, and does not detract from the gen-
eral powers of smokers. Their families are as numerous as those
of other persons, and the peoples who smoke most are precisely
those who have the most children. The Germans smoke twice as
much as the French, and have five times as many children. The
possibility of tobacco promoting abortions is more open to discus-
sion, but it can not exert any noticeable influence on the move-
ment of population, for it concerns only a very limited class of
women — those who work in tobacco-factories. These establish-
ments have borne a bad reputation in the past, and the effect of
life in them upon the operatives has been painted in very dark
colors. All manufactories were until recently in a deplorable
hygienic condition. Now the rooms are spacious and well venti-
lated, and all precautions are taken to preserve the health of the
operatives.

But, whatever may be done, the vapors of nicotine can not be
got rid of in the shops where large quantities of tobacco are dried
and fermented, or where it is stored in bales and casks. When
the leaves are cleaned and mixed, in rasping and grinding, dust as

TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 6y7

active as the vapors is diffused around. Operatives who work in
this atmosphere are in the situation of smokers, and become ha-
bituated to it after having suffered the same disorders in the
beginning. Those who work in smaller and insufficiently venti-
lated rooms are often more seriously affected ; but, as a rule, these
workmen enjoy good health. Opinions as to the particular effect
of this employment on women differ ; but the prevalent result of
the discussion appears to be that tobacco does not provoke abor-
tion, and has no mischievous influence' on the health of women
operatives. Abortion is not more frequent among them than
among other working- women ; and the weakness and mortality
of their children are easily explained by the fact of their being
left at home while their mothers are at the shop.

Among the maladies to which hardened smokers are exposed
is nicotinic amblyopia, which Sichel noticed first, and which has
been well studied by modern ophthalmologists. It is a peculiar
weakening of the sight, and is distinguished from other affections
of the kind by the readiness with which it passes away when the
patient gives up tobacco, and the promptitude with which it ap-
pears again when he resumes the practice. It is very rare. So
is a paralysis which has been observed in Germany. Delirium
tremens, convulsions, epilepsy, hallucinations, dementia, preco-
cious senility, and melancholia have been mentioned as among
the evils brought on by tobacco. No doubt smokers have them,
and many other diseases. Tobacco will not save them from any
of the ills with which mankind is afflicted.

Of all the accusations that have been made against tobacco,
that of blunting the intellect is the most cruel to smokers. But
the evidence in favor of it is not formidable. That most fre-
quently encountered is obtained from statistics that show that in
institutions for public instruction smokers stand lower in their
classes than other pupils. Decaisne has shown this for the French
lycees ; MM. Bartillon, G. Dore*, and Elie Joubert, for the pupils
of the Polytechnic School ; and Dr. Coustan, for the Normal and
Naval Schools and the School of Bridges and Roads. The demon-
stration is hardly satisfactory. It seems reasonable to assume
that the smoking pupils do not succeed so well as the others be-
cause they are idle and find in tobacco an auxiliary to their indo-
lence and a relief from its consequent ennui. Probably, if the
investigation had been pushed further, it would have been found
that the same pupils are those whose general conduct leaves most
to be desired, and who are most frequently punished. Discussion
of this charge brings up an international comparison that is not
favorable to its validity. There is a people north of the Rhine,
whom I have already mentioned, and with whom the use of to-
bacco has almost become an institution. They consume a half

678 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

more than we (the French), and yet we have to admit that these
Germans are not as dull as they should be by the theory, that they
do not cut a bad figure in the scientific world, and that they hold
a preponderant position in Europe. A more specious argument
than this is one which the detractors of tobacco draw from the
enfeeblement of memory which many observers pretend to have
remarked. This would be a serious matter if the charge was
sustained ; but it does not appear to me proved. Instances have
been related in good faith, it is true, of persons who are supposed
to have lost their memories through the use of tobacco ; but my
impression is, that the loss can be more properly attributed to
advancing age.

I have no thought of writing an apology for tobacco, or of ask-
ing for the erection of a statue of Jean Nicot. Smoking is a bad
habit for everybody, especially for women and children. But be-
cause tobacco is a grand culprit is a reason why it should not be
painted blacker than it is. If we exaggerate its faults and attrib-
ute imaginary ones to it, we run the risk of wholly missing our
aim. In fact, children whom we are trying to preserve from it,
when they see smokers around them able-bodied and sparkling with
wit, are disposed to think we are deceiving them when we hold up
this bugbear before them, and will come to not believing the real
evils of the bad habit against which we are trying to fortify them.

Last to be considered is the philosophical side of the question :
What is the motive that impels so many persons to contract an
inconvenient, expensive, and unhealthy habit ? The problem is in-
soluble to persons who do not smoke. " I can never comprehend,"
lately said a professor of hygiene, "the enjoyment one can feel in
converting his mouth into a chimney-flue." Dupuytren called the
habit of smoking the ignoble pleasure of poisoning one's self and
others. This is not surprising ; but it is more so that smokers
themselves can not account for the fact. The general opinion is,
that we begin to smoke to imitate others, and continue it by habit,
as a distraction, or means of dispelling ennui. " The boy of four-
teen or fifteen years, beginning to smoke," says M. Dumas, " does
not seek a cerebral excitement in the new habit any more than one
who is beginning to drink. He simply imitates the bearded per-
sons whom he sees with the pipe or cigar in their mouths. It is
to him one of the signs of the virility to which he aspires. It is
the easiest way for him to make himself believe that he is already
a man, and to make the public believe it." This is true, but few
smokers can find any traces of this feeling in their recollections ;
but while the desire of affirming one's virility and doing like oth-
ers may explain the first essays in the face of the pains that attend
them, it does not account for the irresistible attraction of the habit
once formed and the readiness with which it establishes itself.

TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 679

The customs and tastes of populations and the fashions change
and give place to others that disappear in their turn, after having
inspired the same infatuation in us ; but the habit of smoking goes
on increasing, over all obstacles. The earliest adepts of the prac-
tice braved anathemas and persecutions, and some of them pun-
ishments. The smokers of to-day do not have to make the same
struggles, but many of them endure troubles that compromise their
health rather than abandon the practice, and among these are men
of energy and intelligence, whatever else may be said of them.

There must, therefore, be in this passion something besides the
satisfaction of a mechanical habit. " The particular intoxication
caused by tobacco," says M. Dumas, " must have irresistible attrac-
tions for an intoxicant of so recent discovery, the initiation into
which is so painful, to have overtaken wine, old as the world."
The charm of tobacco-intoxication is not easy to explain. It is in
the soothing, says M. Fay ; it is an anaesthesia that has become
necessary, says M. Richet ; it is a state of torpor which conduces
to revelry, say others. Tolstoi maintains that it is nothing of
this kind, but the desire to stifle the voice of conscience ; and,
confounding tobacco with alcohol and opium, the Russian roman-
cist envelops them both in the same anathema. In explanation
of his view he has recourse to a theory known in physiology as
that of duality, or human dynamism. During his conscious life,
Tolstoi says, man has frequent occasion to recognize in himself
two distinct beings : one blind and sensitive, the other enlight-
ened and thinking. The former eats, drinks, rests, sleeps, repro-
duces, and moves, like a machine wound up for a certain time.
The other, the thinking and enlightened, united with the sensitive
one, does not act by itself, but only controls and appraises the con-
duct of the former one, helping it effectively if it approves, and
remaining neutral in the contrary case. This spiritual but pow-
erless being plays in human psychology the part of the compass
of the ship, of which the other being is the helmsman. The last
can follow the directions of the magnetic needle, or he can pay no
attention to them ; he is even able, when its warnings annoy him,
to disarrange his compass. Weak and timorous persons have re-
course to the last expedient. They stifle their conscience, and, in
order to do so, use alcohol or tobacco.

Count Tolstoi's theory can not be sustained. It has one par-
ticularly weak point in the similarity which the author assumes
between the effects of tobacco and of alcohol. Not one of the
personages whom the translator of his work consulted protested
against this confusion, and still it is false and deceitful. The Rus-
sian's paradox may be applied, to a certain extent, to drunkenness.
We do sometimes get drunk to forget, to stupefy ourselves, and
it is a detestable means. Rogues and criminals all do it; they

680 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

drink often to give themselves heart, murderers especially ; while
there is not a case known, as M. Aurelian Schole has observed, of
a crime committed with pipe or cigar in the mouth. The author
himself confesses that he dulled his conscience with tobacco for a
long time. It had not, it is true, many reproaches to address to
him. Sometimes it reproved him for idleness, or admonished him
for a neglect, or a want of punctuality, or an excess of passion in
which he had not measured his tone. To quench his remorse he
lighted a cigar, and all was forgotten. If tobacco had never com-
mitted worse misdeeds, nobody, I believe, would have thought of
quarreling with it.

Other modes of voluntary intoxication have the common char-
acteristic of deranging the reason and the moral sense. Hashish
produces hallucinations and delirium, and plunges persons into a
condition like madness. Opium puts to sleep, and procures for
some persons agreeable dreams ; but one becomes quickly habitu-
ated to it, the doses have to be increased, all the functions flag,
and the opium-smoker falls into a condition of inanity, at times
interrupted by fits of homicidal furor. Morphinomaniacs do not
suffer the same perversion of mind, but they become false, dis-
simulating, indifferent to all that is foreign to their passion, ex-
tending to family feeling and even to honor. Their health is in-
jured more quickly than by opium-smoking, and their life is
shortened as much. Alcoholism is still worse. I have studied its
effects in all their phases in another work, and will not repeat
my conclusions now. It is sufficient to recollect that the ignoble
and degrading vice attacks nations in all their vital forces ; fami-
lies in their honor, fortune, and prosperity ; that it peoples hospi-
tals, insane asylums, and prisons ; and costs France a milliard and
a half of francs a year.

Tobacco can be reproached with no such mischief. It has
never led the reason astray, destroyed the will, or perverted the
sensibility of any one. The most hardened smoker enjoys at all
times the most perfect clearness of mind. Even at the moment
when he is under the influence of nicotine he talks, reasons, stud-
ies, and works with a freedom of thought that proves that his in-
telligence has not received any harm. One might say that tobacco
had disengaged him from physical impressions, and that, as Dr.
Richet says, it mollifies the sensibility of the organs only to leave
the psychical functions greater freedom of evolution.

There is another characteristic difference between tobacco and
other voluntary poisons. A person can break up the habit of
using tobacco, while alcoholism and morphinomania are almost
incurable. At the end of my long career I can not recollect having
witnessed more than two or three cures from alcoholism, and I
can not affirm that they would have been permanent if the sub-

TOBACCO AND THE TOBACCO HABIT. 681

jects had been exposed to new temptations. Morphinomaniacs
are absolutely incurable unless they are interned. Smokers, on
the other hand, can correct themselves when they wish to. They
only need a firm will. We see persons every day who have done
this ; and since the troubles caused by tobacco have been more
definitely known we see many men giving it up of their own
accord as they advance in age. The habit is so completely lost
that after a few years the reformed victim can find himself in a
company of smokers without feeling a desire to imitate them ;
and if he is moved to light a cigar he will not find the pleasure of
the old days in it.*

I might stop here ; but I will not finish this article without
giving my own explanation of the fascination of tobacco. It is
probably no better than the others, and I will not try to impose
it on any one.

Men have at all times eagerly sought for substances that would
act on their nervous system. The tendency is general, and is ex-
clusively human. To escape real life and the drudgery of daily
occupations, to live in dream-land, in an ideal world which the
imagination can people at its will, and can embellish with its
illusions, have irresistible charms to some minds. In obedience
to this dangerous seduction they involuntarily seek the dreams of
opium and hashish, the intoxication of ether and chloral, or the
grosser drunkenness of alcohol. The weak yield unresistingly to
their inclination, and pass into the degrading excesses which I
have reviewed. Tobacco offers no such seductions and is attended
with no such dangers. Its action on the nervous system is weak
and wholly special. It does not put to sleep, but it calms and
mollifies the sensibility of the organs. It causes an agreeable tor-
por, during which thought continues lucid, and the capacity for
work is not diminished. Such is the attraction it exercises, and
which causes it to be sought for by so many thinkers and stu-
dents. Tobacco is to them a help in mental labor. When fatigue
begins and the need of a moment's rest is felt ; when the thought
fails to present itself with the usual exactness, and the mind hesi-
tates over the shape to give it, the student, writer, or investigator
stops, lights his pipe, and soon, by favor of this pleasant narcotic,
the thought appears clear and limpid through the bluish cloud in
which the smoker has enveloped himself.

I should make a wrong impression if I left it to be believed
that I thought tobacco necessary to mental labor. It becomes so
only for those who have contracted the habit of using it, and they

* The translator of this article was an inveterate smoker till the summer of 1868. One
evening he said to himself that he would not smoke that evening. That is all the resolution
he ever took ; but he has never smoked or desired to smoke since.

682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

can divorce themselves from it without losing their capacity. As
a whole, tobacco is harmless to the mind, but it may have a mis-
chievous influence on the health, and may cause serious diseases.
We should not advise any one to use it, and should try to keep
women and children from doing so. In taking up this part of its
programme, and in affiliating itself with teachers of all grades,
the Society against the Abuse of Tobacco has performed real serv-
ice ; but it has tried to gain its end by exaggerations that can
only compromise it. It is of no use, and would be labor lost, to
try to convert adult smokers so long as they experience no incon-
venience from the habit. As soon as they begin to feel some
troubles, and have reached an age when the troubles may become
grave, the dangers to which they are exposing themselves should
be described to them without extenuating them, but without mak-
ing the picture blacker. If dangerous affections are threatened,
like angina pectoris, or injuries to the tongue and lips, a decisive
course must be taken, and the immediate and complete abandon-
ment of the cigarette and pipe insisted upon, for experience has
taught that there can be no gradual leaving off. — Translated for
The Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes.

ODORS AND THE SENSE OF SMELL.

By M. CHAKLES HENRY.

A CONSIDERABLE number of mineral compounds are odor-
ous. It is enough to mention, as illustrations of the fact,
the sulphureted hydrogen odor of rotten eggs, and the scent of hy-
drocyanic acid which emanates from bitter almonds. Although
perfumes, or pleasant smells, are organic or carbon compounds,
the distinction between organic and inorganic may be considered
artificial, since the principal organic bodies can be obtained by the
combination of such simple mineral elements as carbon, oxygen,
hydrogen, and nitrogen. On the gradual complication of synthe-
ses of this kind M. Berthelot, who has made more of them than
any other chemist, has based a classification of organic compounds
into eight categories. We have first, hydrocarbons, formed of the
two elements — acetylene, formene, benzene, turpentine, styrolene,
etc. The bodies composed of three elements — carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen — are divided among four categories. We distinguish
between the alcohols, which are capable of uniting directly with
acids to form ethers with the elimination of the elements of wa-
ter ; the aldehydes, which are formed at the expense of the alco-
hols, with the loss of hydrogen, among which are the essence of
bitter almonds and the essence of cinnamon; the acids, like

ODORS AND THE SENSE OF SMELL. 683

acetic and benzoic acids, which, can unite with bases and form
salts ; and the ethers, the results of the association of alcohols,
acids, or other alcohols, among which are the oils of the onion and
of mustard. Among quaternary compounds we have the alkaloids
formed by the union of the alcohols with ammonia or other alka-
lies, amides formed by the union of ammonia and acids with the
separation of the elements of water; and the metallic radical
compounds which are obtained by the reaction of metals on some
of the ethers.

Perfumes are, in general, binary or ternary compounds char-
acterized by the fact that the proportion of equivalents of hydro-
gen to those of carbon diminishes at the same rate as those of an-
other class of products very rich in hydrogen which are called the
fatty series, while this class of products, less rich in hydrogen, is
called the aromatic series. Is there any relation between odor and
chemical composition ? An English physiologist, Mr. John Berry
Hay craft, in his studies of the savors and odors, and savors of the
principal compounds of each natural family of bodies, particular-
ly of compounds of the family oxygen, sulphur, chromium, sele-
nium, molybdenum, tellurium, didymium, tungsten, and uranium,
has observed modifications in odor corresponding with increase in
atomic weights. For example, sulphureted hydrogen, hydrogen
selenide, and hydrogen telluride smell like rotten eggs. The com-
pounds of elements of this family with methyl and ethyl have an
alliaceous odor. So with the family chlorine, bromine, and io-
dine ; the acids which these bodies form with hydrogen and their
compounds with methyl, ethyl, and ethylene have similar odors,
so that some among them seem to share them with their neigh-
bors ; bromof orm, for example, having a similar odor with chloro-
form and iodoform. Passing to the organic series, Mr. Haycraft
observes in the monatomic alcohols a modification of odor corre-
sponding with variations in atomic weight. Methyl alcohol, for
instance, has a weak odor of alcohol ; ethyl alcohol has the typical
alcoholic odor ; propylic alcohol has both an alcoholic odor and
a special smell; isobutylic, amylic, and octylic alcohols pro-
gressively lose the alcoholic odor and acquire as against it a spe-
cial scent. The same facts are remarked in the fatty acids and
hydrocarbons.

Similar odors may be furnished by bodies without likeness in
chemical composition. Arsenic in oxidizing disengages vapors
that have the odor of garlic. Nitrobenzene, benzoic aldehyde,
and prussic acid smell much alike. It has been asserted that
emeralds pounded and ground several hours a day for three weeks
had emitted a well-defined odor of violets. The fact has been
verified ; but it has yet to be determined whether it is due to the
manipulation or to organic substances that have been released by

684 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the trituration. Sulphuric acid, cortibined with distilled water,
disengages a pungent odor resembling that of musk. The odor
of musk is brought out in a great many reactions. The nitrate
derivatives of aromatic substances smell of it ; artificial musk and
natural musk have no chemical resemblance. So alcohols chemi-
cally identical, but of different derivation, do not behave alike
with essential oils. As odor is thus in a great measure inde-
pendent of the chemical constitution, it must depend upon the
disposition of the particles, a property which it is evidently im-
possible to discover by any known chemical processes.

A few eminent chemists, following Dalton, Avogadro, and Am-
pere, have tried to make up for this impossibility by hypothesis,
and have taken up the great problem of predicting and explain-
ing chemical combinations and isomerics. Their theories, called
atomic, have been adopted in most of the original memoirs and
taught in most of the text-books. Whatever may be their scien-
tific value, the aids they give him in retaining and recollecting
the formulas present incontestable advantages to the student.
The applications of them to the study of the aromatic series are
famous.

The radical of the hydrocarbons of this series and of all the
other compounds is benzene, a body composed of six atoms of car-
bon and six atoms of hydrogen ; when it is attacked by a reagent,
and we substitute for an atom of hydrogen another simple body
or a group of atoms, whichever of the atoms of hydrogen the sub-
stitution may bear upon, we obtain a single product ; whence it is
concluded that each atom of carbon is united to an atom of hydro-
gen, and that a symmetrical exchange can take place of the atoms
of carbon among their valencies. A German chemist, Herr Ke-
kule", has tried to express these peculiarities by a hexagonal scheme
which has still some lack of symmetry, and M. Ladenbourg has
substituted a prismatic scheme for it. In this figure the six
atoms of carbon of the benzene occupy the summits of a trian-
gular prism, each one being united with an atom of hydrogen and
exchanging the three valencies that are left it with the three next
atoms of carbon by the three edges which meet at the summit.
The perfect symmetry of this scheme is well expressed in the sim-
ple construction of the figure. But usually, for greater conven-
ience, the hexagonal construction is adopted, and the reciprocal
relations of the atoms of carbon and hydrogen are represented
by figures in which the more or less complex lateral chains are
joined, and which offer the remarkable characteristic of being
closed chains — that is, of always returning to their starting-point.
What the atomic theories have taught us concerning odor is lim-
ited to this singular and so far unfruitful representation; it is
evident that they are still mute concerning the real structure of

ODORS AND THE SENSE OF SMELL.

685

the molecular edifice. The efforts which have been recently made
to fill this void are more difficult to expound and follow than
fruitful in applications.

Six methods of extracting perfumes are known : The first is ex-
pression, by means of a special press, which is applicable without
too great loss to fruit-skins rich in essential oils, such as orange
and citron peel, previously grated. Another method is that of
distillation, which consists in heating flowers with water in a
boiler. The essential oil is volatilized and is condensed with the
vapor of water in a worm and a Florentine receiver. The water
usually goes to the bottom and the oil floats. The oils of neroli,
rose, patchouli, geranium, lavender, caraway, etc., are obtained in
this way. This process is not applicable to the delicate perfumes
of the mignonette and the violet ; and for them recourse is had
to maceration of the flowers in animal fats or mineral oils, which
have the property of absorbing odorous substances, and are then
washed in alcohol. The flowers are usually heated in the fat or
the oil for a variable number of hours. For perfumes which can
not endure a high temperature the petals are placed between two
frames of glass coated with fat. This is the process of enfleurage.
The pneumatic process, which consists in causing a current of
perfumed air or carbonic acid to be absorbed by coatings of lard
on glass plates, appears not to have given satisfactory results.
Another process consists in dissolving perfumes in very volatile
liquids like sulphuret of carbon, chloroform, naphtha, ether, or
chloride of methyl, and volatilizing the solvents, which can be
done at a low temperature in a vacuum. The last method has
given very satisfactory results in the extreme delicacy and great
accuracy of its returns.

Series.

Types.

Secondary odors of the same series.

The rose

Geranium, eglantine, palissander.
Lily of the valley, ylang-ylang.
Acacia, syringa, orange leaf.
Lily, jonquil, narcissus, hyacinth.
Cassis, iris mignonette

The iasmin

Tuberose

Orange flower, or neroli . . .
Tuberose

Violaceous

Violet

Balsamic

Vanilla

Balsams of Peru and Tolu benzoin

Cinnamon

storax, tonka bean, heliotrope.
Nutmeg, mace, allspice.
Pink.

Caryophyllaceous

Camphor

Clove

Camphor

Rosemary, patchouli.
Vetivert, cedar

Sandal

Sandal- wood

Citron

Orange, bergamot, cedrat, lime fruit.
Aspic, thyme, wild thyme, marjoram.
Wild mint, basil, sage.
Anise - seed, caraway, dill, fennel,

coriander.
Laurel, nut, mirbane.

Herbaceous

Lavender

Mint

Anise

Peppermint

Anise

Bitter almonds

Musky

Musk

Civet, musk-mallows

Amber

Ambergris.

Pear

Apple, pineapple, quince.

686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Numerous classifications of odors have been proposed. It is,
of course, impossible to quote any rational classification. The
natural way is to group around a type, in successive series, odors
which resemble one another. Eugene Rimmer has tried to do
this in the accompanying table.

The author observes that it would be hard to arrange in any
of these series certain peculiar odors like that of wintergreen, or
salicylate of methyl and magnolia. Notwithstanding the uncer-
tainties attending the arrangement, we must apparently depend
upon classifications based upon this principle for a guide in the
study of odors.

All that we know concerning the propagation of an odor is
that it consists in an emission of solid, liquid, or gaseous particles.
This emission is allied for these three states of matter to the
property called diffusion, which consists in the reciprocal pene-
tration at the end of a certain time of the particles of two or
more bodies among one another ; and also for solids and liquids
to the property called volatility, or the rapidity of evaporation.

But little is known concerning the diffusion of solids. If we
heat to a high temperature a porcelain crucible within a crucible
of plumbago, the plumbago will penetrate the porcelain to a
depth varying according to the duration of the experiment. M.
Pellat has shown, by delicate measures of quantities of electricity,
that metallic surfaces placed parallel to one another a few tenths
of a millimetre apart, reciprocally exchange their outer surfaces,
as if they emitted a little of their own substance to each other.
When the influence ceases, the surfaces gradually lose their
foreign coatings, and return slowly to their primary condition.

The diffusion of liquids is easily observed. It can be wit-
nessed by introducing, with a pipette, into a vessel under water
a colored liquid, red wine, for example. The wine, being lighter
than water, rises to the surface, and does not color the deeper
layers of the water till after one or two days. There is doubtless
in the complicated diffusion of liquids a kind of chemical action
related to the movements on water of camphor and a consider-
able number of diffusible substances. If we put a bit of camphor
on the surface of water, it at once turns round and moves in
every direction. If a drop of oil is let fall on the same surface,
the movements will cease immediately. The motion arises from
the diffusion of camphor in a liquid form on the surface of water.
When, after the surface is saturated, there is no more diffusion,
the motions cease. They also cease when two currents are pro-
duced by different bodies in opposite directions. That there is a
liquid diffusion is proved by the fact that when the camphor is
placed on a float of pith, or on the polished surface of mercury,
there is no movement. So, if a bit of camphor is put into a large

ODORS AND THE SENSE OF SMELL. 687

saucer covered with a thin layer of water, the water immediately
retires, sometimes for several centimetres, before the odorous
substance. The laws of the diffusion of liquids may be summa-
rized by saying that the rapidity depends on the nature of the
substance, increases in proportion to the degree of concentration
of the solution, and augments as the temperature rises. Graham's
dialyzer is based on the very feeble diffusibility of certain sub-
stances, like the gums, and the great diffusibility of certain
crystalline substances, like salt. It is simply a vessel, the bottom
of which is formed of a leaf of parchment paper, that lets the dif-
fusible substances pass into the water around it and holds the
others.

The diffusion of gases and vapors, which is more important in
questions of smell, is subject to laws which have been only ap-
proximately determined. A glass tube about a metre long is
used, divided perpendicularly to its length by a thin metallic par-
tition, which can be made to slide between two perforated glasses.
A gas is introduced into each of the separated halves of the tube ;
the supply-cocks are closed, the partition is lifted out, and the two
halves of the tube are put in communication ; a half-hour later
the partition is shut, and the gaseous mixture contained in each
of the compartments is analyzed. Mr. Loschmidt has in this way
found the mathematical rule for the measure of the diffusion of
different gases, one within the other.

The volatility of a liquid is expressed by the weight of that
liquid which evaporates per second and per square millimetre at
a given temperature. All that is known of it is that this weight
is proportioned to the excess of the maximum tension of the va-
por at that temperature over the tension which it has in the air ;
and this weight varies inversely as the atmospheric pressure ac-
cording to a law special for each liquid. Evaporation may, there-
fore, give us valuable information concerning the purity of the
odor, and spare us, in many cases, the delicate problem of deter-
mining the maximum tension which is so important a character-
istic of substances. A special apparatus has been devised for the
rapid measurement of volatility.

Tables have been prepared showing the relative volatility of
different perfumes, of the substances used for adulterating them,
and of the adulterations, by means of which a convenient method
is afforded for the detection of frauds.

The influence of different physical forces on the disengagement
of odor has been studied ; and possible relations between the
colors of flowers and the intensity of their perfumes have been
inquired into. It has been found that white flowers represent the
largest number of odoriferous species, and after them come red,
yellow, green, and blue. The order corresponds with that of the

688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

emission of calorific force. Flowers which by their color emit
the most heat, also emit the most perfume.

The results of the study of the influence of the color of sub-
stances on their power of absorbing odors differ a little from
these : white, yellow, red, green, and blue absorb odors in a de-
creasing order, or rather emit them in an increasing one. These
colors represent decreasing luminous powers.

Ozone develops the energy of essential oils, and perfumes in
turn determine by their oxidation in the air the production of
ozone. This is a matter of hygienic significance, for the pres-
ence of ozone being favorable to health, we have a means at hand
of increasing the supply of it by surrounding ourselves with fra-
grant substances and flowers.

Heat favors the volatilization of perfumes, and to such an ex-
tent that beds of flowers are sometimes inodorous in the bright
sunlight which are fragrant in the shade. Some essences need a
high temperature for the production of their full effect ; while
others, to have their delicacy fully appreciated, require the cool-
ness of the evening. This principle may account for appir-fnt
differences of tastes among the people of different countries. The
odors of many substances are not of equal strength in different
climates. Prof. Tyndall believes that there are considerable dif-
ferences in the absorbing power of different odorous vapors for
radiant heat. He perfumed small paper cylinders by dipping them
by one end in an aromatic oil, and then placed them in a glass
tube, which communicated, through a stop-cock, with a tube in
which a vacuum is produced. The air, according as it has been
perfumed with one substance or another, discloses to the galva-
nometer an absorbing power, which, air at the usual pressure being
taken as one, varies from thirty for patchouli, to three hundred
and seventy-two for anise-seed. These results are, unfortunately,
not exact, for no account is taken in them of the tensions of the
odorous vapors, which certainly vary, though they are probably
of very small absolute value.

Messrs. Nichols and Bailey have compared the smelling powers
of men and women. Having made measured solutions of a num-
ber of essential oils, a series of flasks was prepared so that the
solution in each succeeding one should be only half as strong as
that in the preceding one. The flasks were " shuffled/' and the sub-
jects of the experiment were called upon to rearrange them in the
order of concentration of the solutions. The smelling power of
women appeared to be on the whole less delicate than that of the
men. The extreme delicacy of the scent of the dog is well known.
Mr. Romanes has shown that, by fastening a sheet of paper to the
shoes, the odor may be masked, and the dog prevented from
following the track of his master ; but that a contact with the

ODORS AND THE SENSE OF SMELL. 689

ground of a few square millimetres is enough to enable the dog
to follow the scent. In birds, the sense of smell appears to be
little developed ; in mollusks and insects the smelling apparatus
has been located in the antenna?. Below the group of worms, no
olfactory reactions have been, so far as I know, definitely estab-
lished.

The mechanism of the olfactory apparatus is, as a whole,
simpler than that of sight and hearing ; but the sensation is sub-
ordinated to many individual anatomical peculiarities. As much
can be said of touch and taste, which require contact of the
excitant, while sight and hearing merely register the vibrations
transmitted by a medium. It is easy to conceive how the con-
dition of the membranes, the form of the nasal passages, etc.,
may affect the sensation.

A distinction is made in medicine between respiratory anos-
mias which depend on the formation of the organs and the
condition of the connective tissues, and essential anosmias which
result from atrophy of the nerves. Anosmias are frequent ; some
are congenital, many are senile and temporary, and connected
with traumatisms, hemianesthesia, aphasia, and hemiplegia. We
can not expect to find as concordant reactions for the smell as for
the sense of color or the sense of form. It is nevertheless a matter
of interest to investigate, on as good subjects as we can get, the
influence of different odors on sensibility ; or, in other words, to
determine the weight of odorous vapor which it is necessary to
breathe and accumulate in the nasal f ossse to make a perfume per-
ceptible. That is the purpose of olfactometers. The olfactometer
gives, besides this, the intensity of a perfume. The larger the
perceptible minimum of a perfume, the less intense the perfume
is, and it is this intensity which determines the price of a per-
fume, the delicacy of its odor being the same.

The olfactory sense is followed by effects of different kinds
of intensity from those of sight and hearing, and may be accom-
panied by a kind of poisoning. The old medical books are full of
stories of it. There are those of a girl killed by the exhalations
of violets; of a woman seized with a violent headache from
sleeping on a bed of roses ; and of a girl who lost her voice by
smelling of a bouquet. Ancient medicine attributed curative
properties to perfumes, particularly to those of the rose, musk,
and benzoin. The intensity of the effects of perfumes makes a
rapid succession of sensations almost impossible ; for consecutive
odors cause a rapid anesthesia of the sense ; on the other hand,
if the times separating two successive sensations are too long, it
becomes impossible to combine them, and the anticipated effect
is disturbed by strange feelings. In short, smell is rather the
complement of other excitations than an artistic excitation like

VOL. XLI. — 50

690 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

a melody or a picture. Its function is, nevertheless, very impor-
tant. By virtue of its volatility it is a valuable prophylactic ;
by the great intensity of its effects it can bring about salutary
modifications of physiological functions, particularly of the am-
plitude of respiration ; and it possesses in the highest degree the
luxurious character of every artistic enjoyment. Flavor has an
essential part in nutrition ; so has touch. Hearing and sight are
indispensable to relations with other persons; but smell, neces-
sary to the animal for finding its prey and avoiding danger, has
become, under normal conditions, an almost useless sense to man,
since the refinements of civilization tend to prevent the produc-
tion of miasms and the pestilential odors from which he has to
protect himself. It is therefore becoming more and more a sense
of luxury for civilized man ; and that, perhaps, is the reason why
poets, from the author of the Song of Songs down, have associ-
ated all kinds of beauty and joy with perfumes. — Translated for
The Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique.

+•+■

CHANGES IN CHEMICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL

WORDS.

By FREDERIK A. FERNALD.

' ' "I TOW do you pronounce quinine ? " is a question that is
J — L often asked, and, unless the person appealed to is unusu-
ally dogmatic, the answer is never decisive. Webster's Interna-
tional Dictionary gives three forms as being in good use — name-
ly, hwl'nin, kwi'nin, and hwl'nen ; the Century Dictionary gives
two of these and a fourth form, Icwln'en, hinen', and kwi'nin ;
while a fifth variant is found in Stormonth, which has only
kwln'ln and kwinln! . Physicians and chemists, from having to
use this word oftener than the general public, have been more
annoyed by the conflicting pronunciations. Other words that
have troubled the chemists are the names of the halogens, some
pronouncing them chlo'rln, bro'min, I'ddln, and flu'orln, while
others said chlo'ren, etc. A more serious difficulty is the liability
to mistake certain substances for others, from the close likeness
of whole classes of names, both when spoken and when written.
This occurs with the chlorides and the chlorltes, also with the
sulphides and the sulphites. In order to do away with these
difficulties, a proposition for a revision of the spelling and pro-
nunciation of chemical terms was made in the Chemical Section
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at
the annual meeting in 1887. Accordingly, a committee to make

CHEMICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL WORDS. 691

such a revision was appointed, and made its final report at the
meeting of 1891. This report says :

During the past four years, your committee has sought to obtain from the
members of this section, from leading American philologists, and from American
chemists in general, an exhaustive and thoroughly representative expression of
opinion on the questions coming within the scope of its commission, which has
been essentially the attainment of uniformity in the orthography and pronun-
ciation of the terms used in our science.

Three preliminary reports were distributed to American chemists in the years
1889, 1890, and 1891, inviting extended criticism and suggestion. The substance
of the replies to these was carefully digested and submitted to the Chemical Sec-
tion each year for detailed discussion and decision. The present and final report
of your committee embodies the results of these four years of correspondence and
discussion, as completed by the sectional action at the present meeting of the
Association. It is presented in the hope that all chemists, especially those engaged
in teaching, will cordially unite in the effort to bring about the desired uniformity
in usage.

The reasons for the adoption of a few more radical changes in our nomenclature
are to be found in the report for 1890. Those specially interested in the subject
who have not attended the recent sessions of the Association may freely correspond
with individual members of the committee, who will gladly furnish more detailed
explanation of the principles involved.

The following summary of rules is not to be regarded as final. Your committee
recognize the fact that, after a fair trial for a decade or even less, certain modifica-
tions will in all probability be generally regarded as desirable.

In conclusion, the committee express their sincere thanks to their many col-
leagues throughout the land, who have so promptly and fully responded to the
successive requests for data, suggestions, and opinions.

(Signed) T. H. Noeton,

Edwakd Hart,
H. Careington Bolton,
James Lewis Howe.

Among the decisions of the committee (all being accepted by
the Chemical Section) is to sound the i short in the names of the
halogens, and the spelling is changed by dropping the final e, so
as better to indicate this pronunciation : thus, chlorin, bromin, etc.
The " pentalemma " of quinine is conquered by adopting a sixth
pronunciation Tcwi'nin and the final e is dropped, making the
spelling quinin. Similar treatment is accorded to anilin, mor-
phin, glycerin, cocain, etc. The similarity between -ide and -tie
is removed by changing the former to -id, giving chlorid, bromid,
oxid, etc.

Polysyllables in the metric system are regarded as compound
words, each part with its own accent ; thus, not centi' meter, but
cen'time"ter. The spellings aluminum and asbestos displace
aluminium and asbestus ; gramme is preferred to gram (probably
to avoid confusion with grain in indistinct handwriting) ; al'kaline
retains the long i and its final e ; dl'loy, both as noun and as verb,

692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

is accented on the first syllable ; and appard'tus does duty in both
the singular and the plural numbers. Quan'tiva"lence, u'niva"lent,
etc., have both a primary and a secondary accent, as has no'men-
cld'ture. A few more preferred pronunciations are con' centra" ted,
mol'ecule, mblec'ular, and aldehyde ; both crystallin and crystalline
are accepted. Probably the boldest change in spelling is the sub-
stitution of/ for ph in sulfur and all its derivatives. Phosphorus,
however, remains unchanged.

Where two or more names are in use for the same thing, the
chemists have given a preference to one of them. Thus, they
advise the use of caffein rather than thein, hydrogen sulfid rather
than sidfuretted hydrogen, valence rather than quantivalence, and
univalent, oivalent, etc., rather than monovalent, divalent, etc.

A large number of other decisions have been rendered, but the
foregoing are all that affect words that are in general use, or
much used by teachers. The changes which the chemists have
decided on are far from being radical. They are all plainly dic-
tated by common sense, and it is to be hoped and expected that
they speedily will become the prevailing usage.

Geographical names are also undergoing a revision both here
and abroad. There has been heretofore a most perplexing di-
versity in the spelling of many of them. Names of places in
Asia or northern Africa, which are written by their inhabitants
in Arabic or some other Eastern language, must be transliterated
when they appear in the Roman alphabet. English-speaking
geographers would transliterate these names after the analogies
of their own language, French geographers would follow the
different usage of their language, and the Germans would do
likewise. If any language admitted an alternative way of spell-
ing, some author would be sure to adopt it ; so that, in the case of
an important town in Syria (Beirut), no less than twelve ways of
spelling its name have arisen among Western peoples.

Then there were names of places, rivers, etc., in the unwritten
native languages of Africa, the Pacific islands, and America, con-
cerning which the same diversity has prevailed. Sometimes a
strange spelling has had the force to bring in a mispronunciation.
The early English explorers found a nation of Indians in eastern
North America whose name they spelled Algonkin. The French
explorers, having no h in their language, and being accustomed
to represent the fc-sound by qu, spelled the same name Algonquin.
Both spellings persist to this day, and many among us, the
descendants of the Englishmen, having become acquainted with
the form Algonquin through the eye and not through the ear,
have given the qu its English value in pronouncing the word, and
say wrongly, " Algonkwin."

CHEMICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL WORDS. 693

In 1885 the Council of the Royal Geographical Society of
England began a movement in behalf of systematic spelling in
geographical names, which has yielded most gratifying results.
The society adopted a system having the same basis that is em-
ployed for all scientific modes of spelling, namely, vowels pro-
nounced as in Italian (or German), and consonants as in English.
This system has been adopted by the British Admiralty Office, by
the War, Foreign, and Colonial Offices, and by the last has been
recommended to the colonies.

In September, 1890, the United States Board on Geographic
Names was created by order of the President of the United States,
for the purpose of securing uniformity of geographical nomencla-
ture in Government publications.

The board consists of ten officials in the departments at Wash-
ington, with Prof. Thomas C. Mendenhall, Superintendent of the
United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, as chairman. For
spelling names from Oriental or unwritten languages, this board
has adopted a system practically identical with that used by the
British Government offices. Since France, Germany, and Spain
have adopted methods substantially the same as this, the great
map-making nations of the world are now in close agreement as
to geographical spelling. The alphabet is used as follows by the
board in representing the sounds of Oriental and unwritten lan-
guages : a as in father (Java, Somali), e as in men (Tel el Kebir),
i as in ravine (Fiji), o as in mote, and u as 00 in boot. All vowels
are shortened in sound when the following consonant is doubled.
( Yarra, Jidda). Doubling a vowel is necessary only where there
is a distinct repetition of its sound. English i in ice is represented
by ai (Shanghai), au represents oiv in hoiv (Fuchau), ao is slightly
different from au (Nanao), and ei is scarcely to be distinguished
from ey in th.ey (Beirut).

Among the consonants, o, d, I, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, iv, x, and z are
the same as in English; c is always soft (Celebes), ch as in church
(Chingchin), / as in English, and its sound is never represented
by ph (Haifong), g is always hard, h is always pronounced when
inserted, j as in English, and its sound is never represented by dj
(Jinchuen), h as in English, and always takes the place of hard c
(Korea), kh stands for the Oriental guttural (Khan),o7i is another
guttural as in the Turkish (Dagh, Ghazi), ng as in finger, also as
in singer, q is not used, qu being replaced by lew (Kwangtung), y
is always a consonant and is to be replaced by i wherever it has
been used as a vowel (Mikindani). Accents should not generally
be used, but where there is a very decided emphatic syllable or
stress which affects the sound of the word it should be marked by
an acute accent (Galapagos, Sardwak).

With regard to names in the United States the policy of the

694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

board is to make no changes unless a decided improvement can
be secured thereby. Its first principle is that the spelling and
pronunciation which are sanctioned by local usage should be
adopted in general. Even where the present name is a changed
or corrupted one, if it has become firmly established the board
keeps its hands off. But where a choice is offered between two
or more names for the same locality, all sanctioned by local
usage, the opportunity to secure the most appropriate and eupho-
nious one is improved. The possessive form of names is discarded
wherever practicable, sometimes by dropping both the (') and the
s, for instance changing Qedney's to Oedney Channel, in New
York Harbor, and in cases where so much change has not seemed
advisable, simply omitting the ('). By the latter procedure, which
is practically changing to the plural form, Minot's Ledge, in
Boston Harbor, becomes Minots Ledge. The final h is dropped
from names ending in -burgh, and the ending -borough is shortened
to boro. The spelling center is always used rather than centre.
The board discourages the use of diacritic marks over letters, and
hyphens between parts of names ; where a name consists of more
than one word it prefers to combine the parts into one. The use
of the words City, Town, and Court House (abbreviated C. H.) as
parts of place-names is deemed undesirable.

The first report of the board has been issued recently and con-
tains a list of decisions made during the year which it covers.
More than two thousand questions have been submitted to the
board, and decisions have been given upon nearly all of them.
Early in the year it was called upon to decide concerning several
hundred names in Alaska, where the utmost confusion exists con-
cerning geographic nomenclature. To the difficulty of translit-
erating Russian and Indian words into English letters is added the
confusion caused by the fact that expedition after expedition, ex-
ploring this region, has assigned new names to the geographic
features of the country, ignoring those already given. This state
of affairs has induced the board to undertake a complete revision
of Alaskan names, the result of which will be a geographical dic-
tionary of the Territory. One of the three bulletins issued during
the year contained a list of between five and six hundred decisions
rendered at the instance of the Lighthouse Board, and fully a
thousand questions were answered for the Census Office. The
names of all the counties in the United States have been passed
upon, and the approved list appears in the report.

Among the United States names that have been revised are :
Bering (Sea and Strait), in place of Behring, the h being a German
addition to the original Danish name: Fort Monroe, this, not
Fortress Monroe, being the name given to the works at Old Point
Comfort by the Secretary of War in 1828 ; Pedee, for the river

CHEMICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL WORDS. 695

formerly called Great Pedee ; Pittsburg (Pa.), without final h, this
being really the official form of the city's name ; Mohave instead
of the Spanish form Mojave, and Blackivells Island in place of
Black ■ well's. Wood's Holl, the meaningless corruption of Wood's
Hole effected by finical summer visitors, is not meddled with
except to drop the apostrophe.

Among foreign names Colon has been adopted, to the exclusion
of AspinwaU, Bermuda instead of The Bermudas, and Salvador
(Central America) for San Salvador. The spelling Fiji is pre-
ferred to the now antiquated Feejee ; Baluchistan has been adopted
for Beloochistan; and a few other accepted spellings are Kaffraria,
Chile, Haiti, Kamerun (Cameroon), Kashmir, Kongo, Puerto Rico,
Sind (Sindh), and Tokyo.

The accepted forms are used by the Coast and Geodetic Survey,
on its charts of the coasts of the United States ; the Hydrographic
Office of the Navy Department, on the charts of foreign coasts
that it publishes; the Geological Survey, which is making a
mother-map of the United States ; the General Land Office, which
compiles from its plats maps of most of the States and Territo-
ries ; and the Post-Office Department, which decides the names of
all post-offices. They are used more or less also by nearly every
other bureau of the General Government — in fact, wherever geo-
graphical names occur in all printing done at the Government
printing-office.

The new forms are also coming into use rapidly among pub-
lishers of books and newspapers and the general public. The
American Book Company, which furnishes the greater portion of
the school-books used in this country, has adopted the decisions
of the board for all its text-books on geography. Publishers of
atlases and other geographical works generally are using them,
so that in a few years it will be easy to tell that a map is old
from the fact that the old forms of names are engraved on it.
Many newspapers also, that have received copies of the first re-
port of the board, have stated that they should follow it.

The good work of the chemists and geographers in the interest
of simplicity and uniformity gives hope that similar changes
may be made in other classes of words. Medical terms might
come next. Few persons would be sorry to see the ce and ce re-
placed by e and the silent consonants omitted in " hcemorrTiage,"
" gynaecology," " cesophagus," " diarWicea," "phthisis," "pneu-
monia," "r7ieumatism," "ptyalism," "psora," etc. There is a
growing tendency toward such simplifications on all sides, and
the direct efforts that are being made in this direction are only
furthering the progress of a natural evolution. It has been said
that we ought to wait for these changes until the natural process
makes them ; but if men want to put city streets and blocks where

696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

there is a hill, they do not wait for geological agencies to level the
hill. They go at it with steam-shovels, drills, and dynamite. An-
other objection that is made to all simplifications of spelling is
that they remove the marks of derivation in words. In many
cases this is untrue ; in the others it is of no consequence. The
Italian sees the Greek <£wtos and ypa<f>uv just as plainly in his foto-
grafia as the Anglo-Saxon does in his photograph. As for the
marks of derivation from Old French, the Teutonic languages,
Arabic, etc., the majority of persons do not see them at all, and
those who do and can interpret them are above the need of such
aids. It is with words very much as with men. The influence of
heredity makes it instructive to know the character of a man's
parents and grandparents, but men do not go to business every
day carrying charts on which their family trees are delineated.
So with words ; in every-day use only their present values concern
us, and their histories should be left to the dictionaries as family
trees are left to genealogical records.

A general simplification of English spelling promises to be one
of the events of the near future. Articles in favor of it are ap-
pearing with increasing frequency in our leading magazines, the
latest being by Brander Matthews, in Harpers' Magazine for
July. The philologists as a body desire the change, and there
is not one linguistic scholar of any prominence who opposes it.
When publishing firms nowadays select editors to make or revise
our leading dictionaries, they get spelling reformers, for all the
men competent to do such work are of this class. The late Presi-
dent Porter, who edited the International Webster, has expressed
himself in favor of simplification ; Prof. W. D. Whitney, editor-
in-chief, and several of the other editors of the Century Diction-
ary, are active workers for this reform ; Prof. F. A. March, who is
in charge of the departments of spelling and pronunciation in the
forthcoming Standard Dictionary, is President of the Spelling
Reform Association, and many of the collaborators on this work
believe in logical spelling. In England, Dr. James A. H. Mur-
ray, editor-in-chief of the Philological Society's Dictionary, the
greatest lexicographic work on the English language ever under-
taken, is an unhesitating advocate of orthographic reform, as is
Prof. Walter W. Skeat, author of the Etymological Dictionary.
If English spelling were to be made phonetic next year, or in 1900,
a few persons might cry, " Give us back our silent letters," as the
mob cried, " Give us back our eleven days," when the calendar
was changed from old style to new ; but only a few months would
pass before all would be asking, " Why was this not done genera-
tions ago ? "

C ORRESP ONBENCE.

697

CORRESPONDENCE.

PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER.

Editor Popular Science Monthly.
rriHE article under the above title in your
_l_ July number appears to be based on
chemical theories of nutrition that find no
place in the modern science of physiology.
The classification of food constituents into
proteids or albuminoids, fats, and carbohy-
drates is a convenient one for certain pur-
poses, but it is now known that these groups
of nutrients have not the specific functions
that were formerly attributed to them.

The assumption of Dr. Davies (page 366)
that " the foods that are converted into heat
— that is, keep up the heat of the body — are
starches, sugar, and fat, and those that more
particularly nourish the nervous and muscu-
lar system are the albumen and salts," is a
survival of an obsolete theory of respiration ;
and tables giving the proximate composition
of different articles of food are of little value
in formulating diets for special purposes.

The law of the conservation of energy is
now recognized as a significant factor in all
physiological processes, and it furnishes the
only consistent explanation of the phenom-
ena of animal heat. The energy used in
the constructive processes is stored up as po-
tential energy, as an essential condition or
constituent of all organic substances, and on
their disintegration in the processes of de-
structive metabolism it is liberated in the
form of heat — as in the digestion of foods,
and in the wear and tear of the tissues that
are constantly taking place in all vital activi
ties.

Animal heat is no"t produced by a com-
bustion of certain food constituents that
serve as fuel, but it is the result of the libera-
tion of the stored euergy of foods and tissues,
iu the disintegrating processes they undergo
in the system. Dr. M. Foster, who is recog-
nized as one of the best authorities in physi-
ology, estimates the potential energy of food
constituents as follows :
1 gramme proteids = 4,500 calories,

1 " fat =9,000 "

1 " carbohydrates = 4,000 "
From this it appears that the " starches and
sugars," which are included in the group of
carbohydrates, contain less potential energy
than the proteids, and the heat obtained
from them is accordingly less. The infer-
ence that starch and sugar should be avoided
in hot weather, and largely replaced by lean
meat, which consists in the main of proteids
or albuminoids, is, therefore, not warranted
by the evidence in regard to their constitu-
tion.

Without noticing the numerous fallacies
in the article in question, attention is called

to the widely different conclusions reached
by Dr. Foster, in the last edition of his Physi-
ology, in discussing the adaptations of diets
to climatic conditions, and to the require-
ments of the system in brain-work and severe
muscular labor.

He says : " With regard to climate the
chief considerations attach to temperature.
When the body is exposed to a low tempera-
ture, the general metabolism of the body is
increased, owing to a regulative action of the
nervous system. We might infer from this
that more food is necessary in cold climates ;
and, since the increase in the metabolism ap-
pears to manifest itself chiefly in a greater
discharge of carbonic acid, and therefore to
be especially a carbon metabolism, we might
infer that the carbon elements of food should
be especially increased. When the body is
exposed to high temperatures the same reflex
mechanism tends to lower the metabolism ;
but the effects in this direction are much less
clear than those of cold, and soon reach their
limits ; the bodily temperature is maintained
constant under the influence of surrounding
warmth not so much by diminished production
as by increased loss. We may infer from this
that in warm climates not less, but if any-
thing, rather more food than in temperate
climates is necessary in order to supply the
perspiration needed for the greater evapora-
tion and discharge of heat by the skin. . . .
Indeed, the evidence that the increase of
metabolism provoked by cold bears exclu-
sively on carbon constituents, is so uncertain
that it may be doubted whether any change
in the normal diet, beyond some increase in
the whole, should be made to meet a cold
climate. Similar reasons would lead one to
infer that man in the warmer climate would
maintain on the whole the same normal diet,
the only change perhaps being to increase it
slightly, possibly throwing the increase chiefly
on the carbohydrates with the special vievj of
furthering perspiration. . . .

" In choosing a diet for muscular labor we
must have in view not the muscle itself but the
whole organism. And although it is possi-
ble that future research may suggest minor
changes in the various components of a nor-
mal diet, such as would lessen the strain dur-
ing labor on this or that part of the body, on
the muscles as well as on other organs, our
present knowledge would rather lead us to
conclude that what is good for the organism
in comparative rest is good also for the organ-
ism in arduous work ; that the diet, normal
for the former condition, would need for the
latter a limited total increase, but no striking
change in its composition. . . . The princi-
ples of such a conclusion with regard to mus-

698

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

eular work may be applied with still greater
confidence to nervous or mental work. The
actual expenditure of energy in nervous work
is relatively small, but the indirect influence
on the economy is very great. The closeness
and intricacies of the ties which bind all
parts of the body together are very clearly
shown by the well-known tendency of so-
called brain-work to derange the digestive
and metabolic activities of the body ; and if
there be any diet especially suited for intellect-
ual labor, it is one directed not in any way
toward the brain, but entirely toward lighten-
ing the labors of and smoothing the way for
such parts of the body as the stomach and tlie
liver.''''

It is evident from these statements that
our present knowledge of the physiology of
nutrition does not warrant any prescriptions
of special food constituents for the assumed
varying requirements of the system under
different climatic conditions or for different
kinds of work.

Individual peculiarities and inherited hab-
its of the system are prominent factors in the
processes of nutrition, and experience is a
safer guide in regulating one's diet than any
theories based on the chemical composition
of foods. Yours truly,

Manly Miles.
Lansing, Mich.

THE PROTECTION OF BRAKEMEN.

Editor Popular Science MontMy :

Sir : By the omission of a line in print-
ing the note I made to my suggestion as to
the protection of brakemen against mutilation
by accidents in coupling freight-cars (which

escaped me in the proof), my suggestion it-
self loses whatever force it might have, I
think, by being too exemplary. My sugges-
tion was (page 222 of The Popular Science
Monthly for June, 1892) that a statute might
be provided requiring the draw-heads of all
freight-cars manufactured or admitted into
the United States to be of a uniform height
and to be within projecting frame corners
from the rail surface, everybody can see that
not only humanity but perfect justice both to
the railway company and to the employe
would be subserved.

The note I added should read as follows :
I think such a law as this would be a better
one than one directing the use of an auto-
matic coupler, for it would not throw any
brakemen out of their jobs. As to the loss
of life spoken of by the President, the larger
number of instances will, I think, be found
to have occurred at night, when brakemen,
not knowing of course the height of the draw-
heads of the cars approaching them, and often
while using every precaution, might be caught
and crushed by a different build of car with
flush corners, or higher or lower timbered
corners. Such a law, prescribing uniformity
in this detail, and mulcting the company own-
ing the car or cars causing the death or mu-
tilation, by reason of its willful omission to
observe the provisions of that law, with ade-
quate damages, would be, I think, a salutary
and an exemplary one.

Since the matter is one which certainly
calls for attention, I should be glad if you
would insert this letter in your next issue.
Yours, etc.,

Appleton Morgan.
New York, June 1, 1892.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

POLITICAL PROGRESS.

' \ \THEN we look back over the his-
t V tory of this country since the
close of the civil war we find, on the
whole, ample cause for satisfaction and
encouragement. Those who look for per-
fection in the working of political insti-
tutions are doomed to disappointment.
Happy is the nation that, as the years
and decades slip by, can count some solid
gains for the cause of good government
and national morality, even though many
parts of the political machine may work
faultily, and many evil tendencies mani-
fest themselves from time to time. Aft-

er the war, we entered upon a period
of almost shameless political corruption,
not only in national but in State and
municipal affairs as well. To say that
we have completely thrown off the dis-
ease of corruption would be, we fear, to
say too much ; but that a very consid-
erable purification has been effected,
especially in connection with the na-
tional Government, no one can doubt.
Too many individuals throughout the
community are indeed indifferent to this
evil, and many are ready to make all
kinds of apologies for it, as something
that can not be dispensed with in con-

EDITOR'S TABLE.

699

nection with popular institutions ; but
in some way or other the nation, as a
whole, has set its face against it, and
the suspicion of being systematically cor-
rupt— that is to say, of practicing, or
being prepared to practice, corruption
in the administration of the national
Government — would be fatal to either
political party.

Twenty years ago the " spoils sys-
tem " was in full force. Every office
under the Government was virtually used
for purposes of bribery. It was bestowed
in the first place as a reward for fidel-
ity to party, and the salary attached to
it was afterward assessed for contribu-
tions to the party funds. The sense of
decency of the people has risen up in
revolt against this abomination, and,
though the principles of civil-service
reform have not yet been carried far
enough, the great body of the national
civil service has been placed on an in-
dependent and honorable footing. No
party manager can now fry the meager
" fat " out of the smaller office-holders
for political purposes ; the only persons
to whom that process can at present be
applied are the higher functionaries and
the protected manufacturers. The re-
sult of this partial yet extensive reform
of the civil service has been a consider-
able increase in the efficiency of the
public departments. The public inter-
est is now kept in view where formerly
there was little thought of anything
save how to make an office temporarily
held of as much advantage as possible
to the holder. The effect on the self-
respect of the service is already marked,
and we can not doubt that it will be-
come more so as years go on.

But there is further progress yet to
be made. The perfection of any ma-
chine is to consist of the fewest parts —
in other words, to be as simple as pos-
sible in construction — and to accomplish
its work with the least possible loss of
energy. In judging of our political and
administrative institutions we can not
keep this analogy too closely in view.

But here arises a prior question : "What
is the work which our political machine
should be set to accomplish ? Is it, for
example, to regulate the whole indus-
trial and commercial life of the people?
If so, adieu all hope of simplicity of
construction ! Adieu, we may add, all
hope of any efficient performance of so
huge, so unlimited a task. As has often
been pointed out — more than once in
these columns — the system of taking
certain industries under the protection
and patronage of the state is, in itself,
a species of corruption, and has its nat-
ural result in special acts of gross cor-
ruption. "What will a wealthy manu-
facturer, whose profits depend in large
measure upon a tariff enacted for his
special benefit, not do for the party that
made and maintains the tariff? The
thing is too obvious to need insisting on.
The more help a party receives from
the controllers of tariff-fed industries
the more independent it is of the people ;
and it is for the people to see to it that
they are not strangled in cords of their
own making. The governing power in
a state ought to be under no obligations
of any kind to individuals, corporations,
or interests within the state ; it should
stand aloof from all these, in order that
it may do justice to all without fear or
favor, without prejudice or partiality.
Until this condition prevails it is abso-
lutely impossible that we should have
honest government in the full sense of
the word. It is evident then what the
next step in the purification of our na-
tional life must be : it is the freeing of
the governing power from all depend-
ence on, and all entangling alliances
with, private interests. "We believe
that, were this done, a higher standard
of public duty and a nobler tone of pub-
lic life would at once be established ;
and we should begin to see more clearly
how, in other respects, our administra-
tive methods might be improved. The
ideal of a free state is the largest pos-
sible measure at once of liberty and
security for the individual citizen, and

;oo

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the widest possible scope for spontane-
ous social activities. We are well aware
that, even in this enlightened commu-
nity, not every citizen takes this view
of tlio matter ; that the old idea of gov-
ernment as a kind of earthly Providence
to whom prayers may be addressed on
all possible subjects, and whose powers
of interference with the natural course
of things are, and should be, unlimited,
more or less prevails. We trust, how-
ever, that this antiquated notion is on
the wane, and that within the next few
years our people will take a decided
step in advance in freeing themselves
from the thrall of unnecessary state in-
terference with individual action. We
shall never know what, as a people, we
are capable of till we take our industrial
and commercial activities into our own
hands, and instruct our legislators that
we shall not in future consider it one of
their tasks to make this country wealthy
and prosperous.

MORAL ENDEAVOR.

Theke has recently sprung into ex-
istence a society of vast extent, the pro-
fessed purpose of which is to promote
the doing of good deeds by its mem-
bers. We refer to the Society of Chris-
tian Endeavor, a monster convention
of which was held in this city two
month ago. So far as its main object
goes, it is impossible to find any fault,
even were one so disposed, with the
Society of Christian Endeavor. One is
only tempted to ask a little mournfully
why it should be thought necessary to
join a society in order to feel prompt-
ed to good deeds. We all belong to a
society far vaster than that of Christian
Endeavor — we are all members of the
great human society. Through our
membership therein we reap a constant
succession of benefits of the most im-
portant character ; and the question we
should put to ourselves, if we have not
already put it, is whether our personal
attitude toward that great society is

what it ought to be. It can not be
what it ought to be unless we vividly
realize the benefits our membership en-
tails. To the human society we are in-
debted for peace and security, the pro-
tection of life and property, scope for
the development of family and personal
affections, access to the means of intel-
lectual and moral growth, opportunities
for aesthetic enjoyment — in a word, all
that enters into the great name civiliza-
tion. Without this society into which
we are all born members we should re-
cede into a barbarism more primitive
than that of our flint-fashioning ances-
tors, for even they lived in societies.
Language would leave us, and, with
language, all higher rationality.

This great human society, like other
organizations, works under conditions,
and, vast as are the benefits it now con-
fers upon us, they are not what they
would be if each member consciously
endeavored to advance the ends for
which the society exists. It is worth
while to pause a moment and think
what life would be if every member of
the human society were a working
member in the best sense ; if, by a faith-
ful performance of duty and a kindly
bearing toward our fellow-men, we were
all trying to briDg our society to per-
fection. Does any one say that the
human society is too big for one to feel
any affection or loyalty toward it? If
so, it is not wisely said. The Society of
Christian Endeavor is getting to be
very big indeed — running into the mill-
ions— but is the interest in it lessening
on that account? We do not hear that
it is. In point of fact the human so-
ciety is not too big for many to feel a
deep interest in it already; and we are
persuaded that, if only its claims were
properly presented, multitudes could be
brought to profess their allegiance to it.
Every day of life thousands, nay mill-
ions, of deeds are done consciously or
unconsciously in the name of human-
ity— that is to say, with no other
feeling or motive than a desire to do

EDITOR'S TABLE.

701

good to the world at large. "What is
wanted is a vast extension of this feel-
ing and the raising of unconscious serv-
ice to the human society to conscious
service. "Who, indeed, that is not a
criminal hy nature would say: "lam
wholly indifferent to the welfare of the
social organism ; if, by a slight effort,
I could improve the conditions of life
for numbers of my fellow-men, I would
not do it" ? If, then, we feel that selfish
indifference to the general weal makes
a man virtually a criminal and an out-
law, nothing should be required to spur
us to a more diligent performance of our
social duties than to be reminded from
time to time of our membership in that
vast society which comprises the human
race, and whose constitution and by-
laws are written in the civilization of our
time. There is an esprit de corps which
should animate every intelligent mem-
ber of civilized society and which should
make the performance of any service
toward society, or toward any member
of it, a pleasure. We certainly approve
of the ends which the Society of Chris-
tian Endeavor sets before itself; but, in
so far as it tends to obscure the antece-
dent obligation of every human being
who lives by society to live also for so-
ciety, it may, in spite of its admirable
aims, be found working against rather
than for the true progress of the race.

POSITIVISM IN FRANCE.

Most of our readers are probably
aware that the name "positivism " was
given by the French philosopher, An-
guste Comte, to a system of thought and
life which he professed to have founded
on the unmistakable teachings of sci-
ence. According to his view, the world
had passed through the stages of intel-
lectual childhood (theology) and adoles-
cence (metaphysics), and had entered
upon its maturity, the distinguishing
mark of which would be the acceptance
and systematic application of duly veri-
fied scientific truth. That Comte was a

powerful thinker, with an altogether
singular faculty for generalization, no
one has ever been disposed to deny ;
and, although the scientific world in
general has stood aloof from his system
of thought as something too finished and
definitive, and therefore too restrictive,
for such an era of intellectual growth and
expansion as the present, it has watched,
not without sympathy, the efforts of his
avowed followers to uphold the claims
of science to a controlling voice in hu-
man affairs, and to promote the higher
intellectual and moral life of society by
means of popular lectures of a superior
character. On the other hand, positiv-
ism has earned the hatred of the eccle-
siastical foes of modern thought by the
absoluteness of its rejection of their
claims and pretensions. It is, therefore,
an event of no ordinary importance that
the leader of positivism in France, the
man whom Auguste Comte designated
as his successor, should have been se-
lected by the Minister of Public In-
struction to fill the newly created chair
of the General History of the Sciences
at the College de France, the most dis-
tinguished educational institution in the
country. The chair was created, it is
generally understood, with the express
intention of offering it to M. Lafitte ; and
when the appointment was made it was
greeted with almost unanimous approval
by the press. Ecclesiasticaljournals, like
the Univers, of course objected, and
the Minister of Public Instruction had
to answer some interpellations in the
legislature ; but, on the whole, the Gov-
ernment had every reason to congratu-
late itself on the effect produced on
the public mind. Some of the com-
ments of the Paris press are indeed very
striking, showing a freedom in the ex-
pression of opinion to which in this
country or in England the public is
scarcely accustomed. "In these days
of mystical reaction," says one paper
(La Justice), "it was a very suitable
thing to take strong ground for the posi-
tive and scientific spirit, and to proclaim

702

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

in clear and lofty tones the one true re-
ligion, that which exalts the claims of
humanity and of social duty." In de-
fending his appointment in the Senate,
the Minister of Public Instruction, after
dwelling upon the intellectual qualifi-
cations of his nominee, paid the follow-
ing tribute to his character: "Truly,
if there is among us a modest man,
a simple man, a man who has never
courted notoriety, and who has reached
his seventieth year without ever having
asked anything of his country, it is M.
Lafitte; and, for that reason, this mod-
est and conscientious scholar, this sa-
va?it, whose whole life has been devoted
to disinterested study, appeared to us to
present the moral as well as the intel-
lectual characteristics necessary for the
high dignity of a professor in the
College de France." Again, speaking of
positivism as a system, he observed:
" This positivist doctrine, that people talk
about and that some execrate, is an ex-
tremely tolerant doctrine ; you may say
that tolerance lies at its very base. Its
absolute rule is to proceed by means of
observation and experiment ; to limit its
conclusions and its affirmations to what
is revealed to it by these special scien-
tific methods ; and, as regards what lies
beyond verification, to treat with re-
spect every belief and every hypothesis.
Positivism is, therefore, from the phil-
osophical point of view what the un-
sectarian, or lay state is from the po-
litical point of view ; and I did not,
therefore, think that M. Lafitte's pro-
fession of this doctrine should alarm or
disturb men's consciences in this coun-
try, or prevent me from nominating
him to a chair of which he was wor-
thy."

These are notable words to have
been spoken by a responsible minister
in a country in which not long ago
ecclesiasticism was so powerful. It is
not necessary to have adopted, or to ap-
prove of, the peculiarities which mark
positivism in its intellectual, and espe-
cially in its practical aspects, in order to

rejoice that its most eminent teacher
should have an opportunity of exhibit-
ing its broader principles from the van-
tage-ground now afforded him, and of
thus challenging for them, more openly
than ever before, the criticism of the
philosophical world. As to the action
of the French Government, we can only
applaud the determination it shows to
place all competently represented sys-
tems of thought upon a footing of per-
fect equality.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Marriage and Disease. By S. A. K. Stra-
han, M. D. New York : D. Appleton &
Co. Pp. 326. Price, $1.25.

A subject for which the progress of
science is just beginning to obtain intelligent
consideration is the transmission of defects
from parents to offspring. While most per-
sons have a hazy belief in the adage, " Like
father, like son," comparatively few have
any adequate conception of the remorseless
certainty with which the physical and men-
tal defects of parents produce degeneracy
and early death in their children. The pres-
ent work furnishes in a form available for
the general reader an abundance of pertinent
and well-authenticated facts concerning the
above subject. The author states first what
is known as to the general laws of heredity,
and then proceeds to discuss in turn insanity,
drunkenness, epilepsy, and other diseases
and defects with relation to parenthood.
" There is no class of diseases," he says, " so
surely transmitted from parent to child as
the nervous." While the chronically insane
are not allowed to contract marriage, yet a
young man, for instance, who inherits nerv-
ous instability may, in the intervals between
acute attacks of insanity, marry and beget
children. When, as probably happens, he
goes to end his days in an asylum, he is very
likely to be followed by some of the children
whom he has burdened with his infirmity.
The results are more surely disastrous when
both parents belong to the neurotic or insane
type. " The person, man or woman," says
Dr. Strahan, " who has an epileptic, or cho-
reic, or imbecile brother or sister, an insane
uncle, aunt, or parent, or even grandparent,

LITERARY NOTICES.

7°3

should never for a moment permit himself to
look upon a member of any neurotic family
— that is, one in which insanity, epilepsy,
habitual drunkenness, suicide, or imbecility
has at any time appeared — as a probable, or
even possible, partner in marriage. . . . All
these diseases, together with neuralgia, hys-
teria, cancer, and the like, are allied, and,
following some law at present unknown to
us, replace each other in successive genera-
tions, and in different individuals of the same
generation, in a manner at present inexpli-
cable."

In the chapter on tubercular disease, the
causes which produce the consumptive tem-
perament are given as impure air, drunken-
ness, and want among the poor ; dissipation
and enervating luxuries among the rich.
This temperament occurs in families that are
on the down grade of general decay. Among
instinctive criminals, which are regarded as
representatives of a decaying race, tubercular
disease, very naturally, is found actively at
work.

In the concluding chapters of the work
it is shown that too early and too late mar-
riages have an injurious effect on the off-
spring of such unions, while consanguineous
marriages injure the children proceeding
from them only by intensifying whatever de-
fect may characterize the family to which the
parents belong. Attention is called to the
fact that unions of the criminal, the dissolute,
and the intemperate bring forth children
whose degenerate organizations make them
burdensome and dangerous to those of more
wholesome parentage. On the basis of these
facts Dr. Strahan urges those who perceive
that they possess any serious constitutional
taint to forego marriage, and advocates the
confinement of the criminal and habitually
drunken so as to prevent the propagation of
their kind.

Bibliography of the Algonquian Lan-
guages. By James Coxstaxtixe Pil-
ling. Washington: Government Print-
ing-Office. Pp. 614.

We have already noticed the four previous
numbers of the author's series of bibliogra-
phies of Indian languages — those of the Es-
kimauan, Siouan, Iroquoian, and Muskogean
families. The whole have grown out of an
attempt made several years ago to embrace

within a single volume an author's catalogue
of all the material relating to the native
North American languages. Too much ma-
terial was collected for a single convenient
volume, and it was concluded to change the
style of publication and issue a series of bib-
liographies, each relating to one of the more
prominent groups of our native languages.
The Algonquian-speaking people perhaps
covered a greater extent of country than
those of any other of the linguistic stocks of
North America ; and the literature of their
languages is greatest in extent of any of the
stocks north of Mexico, being equaled, if at
all, by only one south of that line, the Na-
huatl. Probably every language of the family
is on record, and of the more prominent, ex-
tensive record has been made. The whole
Bible has been printed in the Massachusetts
and Cree languages, nearly the whole in the
Chippewa and Micmac, and portions of it in
a number of others. Rather extensive dic-
tionaries have been printed in Abnaki, Black-
foot, Chippewa, Cree, Delaware, Micmac, and
Nipissing, and manuscript dictionaries are in
existence of Abnaki, Nipissing, Blackfoot,
Chippewa, Cree, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mon-
tagnais, and Pottawatomi ; grammars of the
Abnaki, Blackfoot, Chippewa, Cree, Massa-
chusetts, Micmac, and Nipissing ; and manu-
script grammars exist of the Illinois, Menom-
enee, Montagnais, and Pottawatomi. Prayer-
books, hymn-books, tracts, and scriptural
texts have appeared in nearly every language
of the family ; several of them are repre-
sented by primers, spellers, and readers ;
and a geography for beginners was printed
in Chippewa in 1840. The present volume
contains 2,245 entries of titles, of which 1,926
relate to printed books and articles, and 319
to manuscripts. Of these, 2,014 have been
seen and described by the compiler ; and of
those unseen by him, titles and descriptions
of probably half have been received from
persons who have actually seen them and
described them for him. Many full titles of
printed covers are also given, and fac-similes
of the original. The author has sought to
include everything, printed or in manuscript,
relating to the Algonquian languages — books,
pamphlets, articles in magazines, tracts, se-
rials, etc., and such reviews and announce-
ments of publications as seemed worthy of
notice.

7°4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Bulletin of tiie United States Fish Com-
mission for 1889. Washington: United
States Commission of Fish and Fisheries.
Pp. 504.

TnE contents of this volume consist of
some twenty reports on various subjects con-
nected with American fishes and fisheries,
including the taking of shell-fish. Among
the more extended papers is one on the
salmon and salmon fisheries of Alaska, by
T. II. Bean, which is copiously illustrated
with views and maps. As the salmon fish-
eries of Alaska are said to be more valuable
than the seal fisheries, the act of Congress
ordering the commissioner to make this in-
vestigation, with a view to protecting the in-
dustry, would seem to be a wise one. There
is a Report upon a Physical Investigation of
the Waters off the Southern Coast of New
England, by William Libbey, Jr., accom-
panied by a large number of tables and tem-
perature charts. Other notable papers are,
A Reconnaissance of the Streams and Lakes
of the Yellowstone National Park, by David
Starr Jordan, with views of streams and cata-
racts ; Notes on the Crab Fishery of Crisfield,
Md., by Hugh M. Smith ; and Notes on the
Oyster Fishery of Connecticut, by J. W.
Collins, the two last named also being well
illustrated.

Tenth Annual Report of the United States
Geological Survey, 1888-'89. J. W.
Powell, Director. Part I, Geology ; Part
II, Irrigation. Washington : Department
of the Interior.

During the year covered by this report,
work was prosecuted in the many divisions
of the survey already established, and in the
new division of irrigation, created to perform
the new duties assigned to the survey by
Congress at the beginning of the year. The
publications printed for the survey were one
annual report, two quarto monographs, nine
bulletins, and one annual statistical volume.
In accordance with a plan promulgated by the
director in December, a conference on map
publication was held in January, at which a
unit of publication, a system of nomenclature,
and sets of colors and patterns for geological
maps were determined upon. The decisions
reached, and plates showing the colors and
patterns, are inserted in the report. The di-
rector's report is followed by administrative
reports of the heads of divisions, and by

these papers : General Account of the Fresh-
water Morasses of the United States, with
a Description of the Dismal Swamp District
of Virginia and North Carolina, by Nathaniel
Southgate Shaler ; The Penokee Iron-bearing
Series of Michigan and Wisconsin, by the
late Roland Duer Irving and Charles Rich-
ard Van Hise ; The Fauna of the Lower
Cambrian or Olenellus Zone, by Charles D.
Walcott. The papers are illustrated by nine-
ty-eight plates and many figures and maps.

The report on irrigation is bound sepa-
rately, and describes the first year's work in
this field. The area of the arid region of
the United States is about 1,300,000 square
miles — one third of the whole country. Ma-
jor Powell estimates that 150,000 square
miles of this, equal to half the present culti-
vated area of the country, is so favorably
situated that it may be reclaimed by irriga-
tion within a generation. The efforts of the
persons assigned to the irrigation survey
were directed during the year to ascertaining
the whereabouts of irrigable land most eligi-
ble for redemption and segregating it for
homestead settlement; to determining the
amount of available water, the best locations
for reservoirs and canals, the seepage, the
evaporation, and the vested rights — in short,
the most economical method of bringing the
land and the water together. The details
of this work are set forth in the report.

Psychology applied to the Art of Teach-
ing. By Joseph Baldwin, LL. D. In-
ternational Education Series, Vol. XIX.
New York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 381.
Price, $1.50.

The process of training the mind is here
presented in a thoroughly methodical man-
ner. The author divides his treatise into six
parts, the first five of which deal respectively
with the education of the perceptive powers,
the representative powers, the thought pow-
ers, the emotions, and the will powers. These
several subjects are systematically divided
and subdivided, and under each subdivision
the author tells in terse, vigorous sentences
just what the teacher should do. For an
example of his method take the following,
from the chapter on Culture of the Perceptive
Powers :

Habits of Exact Observation.— 'These habits
should be formed in early life. Discriminations

LITERARY NOTICES.

705

and assimilations should be as exact as possible,
and this exactness should be rooted into habit.

1. Sense-observation. Great attention should
be given to educating learners to gain exact sense-
ideas through each sense. The power and ac-
curacy of memory, imagination, and thought de-
pend largely upon the extent and exactness of our
sense-knowledge. Merchants must be able to test
the quality of their goods by their senses. Me-
chanics, cooks, artists, poets, need to have the
power of exact sense-observation well developed.
Habits of exact observation should be cultivated
early in life, and maintained persistently. Gazing
around at everything, and listening to every sound,
are not meant by this, but a careful attention to
details, plans, and purposes.

Large use is made of tabular statements,
diagrams, and different styles of type in pre-
senting the author's meaning. The closing
portion of the work, on The Art of Teaching,
consists of seven short chapters. In the
second of these Prof. Baldwin states and
comments upon the following "Nine Laws
of Teaching": "1. Be what you would have
your children become. 2. Know thoroughly
the children and the subject. 3. Use easy
words and apt illustrations. 4. Secure at-
tention through interest. 5. By easy steps
lead through the known to the unknown. 6.
Lead learners to find out, to tell, and to do
for themselves. *7. Train learners to assimi-
late into unity their acquisitions. 8. Train
pupils to habitually do their best, in the best
ways. 9. Lead the pupil through right ideas
to right conduct." He then proceeds to de-
fine the fundamental teaching processes, and
to state which are to be most largely em-
ployed in the several periods of education.
This work, with the author's two earlier
books, on the Art of School Management,
and Elementary Psychology, form a series in
elementary pedagogy. During the past forty
years the chapters of the present volume
have been given as lessons to many classes
of teachers, and they are now fixed in the
form in which the author believes they will
be most helpful.

A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism.
By James Clerk Maxwell. Third edi-
tion. In two volumes. New York : Mac-
millan & Co. Price, $8.

That a work on electricity in this genera-
tion of electrical progress should still con-
tinue to be printed twenty years after it was
written, and ten years after the death of its
author, is an indication of sterling worth.
tol. xli. — 51

Although a treatise like this, dealing only
with the mathematics of electricity, is not so
liable to become antiquated as one treating
of the theories and applications of the sci-
ence, yet Maxwell's book had a distinct for-
ward trend which has contributed much to
its longevity. The editor of the present edi-
tion, Prof. J. J. Thomson, says in his pref-
ace that the advances made by electricity
and magnetism in the last twenty years are
" in no small degree due to the views intro-
duced into these sciences by this book ; many
of its paragraphs have served as the starting-
points of important investigations " ; and
further, that " all recent investigations have
tended to confirm in the most remarkable
way the views advanced by Maxwell." In
revising this work Prof. Thomson has added
foot-notes relating to isolated points which
could be dealt with briefly, but the chief ad-
vances in electricity that have been made
since the publication of the first edition are
to be treated more consecutively in a sup-
plementary volume. He has added some ex-
planations to the argument in passages where
he has found that students meet with diffi-
culties. He has also attempted to verify the
results that Maxwell gives without proof, and
where he arrives at different results has in-
dicated the difference in a foot-note.

Longmans' New School Atlas. Edited by
George G. Chisholm and C. H. Leete.
New York: Longmans, Green & Co.
Price, $1.50.

There are thirty-eight maps in this atlas,
most of them being on double-page sheets,
measuring about fourteen by eleven inches,
and a few being on longer folded sheets. Col-
oring and a variety of markings are used so as
make to each give a remarkably full descrip-
tion of the lands and waters that it represents.
There are seven maps of the world : the first
showing the height of land and depth of sea
in contours ; the second showing ocean cur-
rents, periodical rains, and drainage; the
third, in four parts, giving isotherms; the
fourth showing the mean atmospheric press-
ure and prevailing winds in January and in
July ; the fifth, magnetic variation ; the sixth,
vegetation; and the seventh, in two parts,
density of population, races, and religions.
The maps of the several countries show po-
litical divisions (historical boundaries being

706

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

indicated in some cases), height of the land by
means of coloring, canals, battle-fields, eleva-
tion in feet of important towns, mountain
peaks and passes, and the limit of naviga-
tion in rivers. There are geological, rainfall,
population, industrial, and commercial maps
of the United States, and one showing terri-
torial growth, besides the general map of the
whole country, and one of the northeastern
part on a larger scale. To avoid overloading
the maps, names of unimportant places are
not printed on them, but such places may be
found by means of the index, in which their
locations are indicated. A sheet of astro-
nomical diagrams is prefixed to the maps,
and the volume has a thumb-index.

A Manual of North American Butterflies.
Bv Charles J. Maynard. Boston: De
Wolfe, Fiske & Co. Pp. 226. Price,

$1.50.

Intending his book for the tyro as well
as for the advanced student, the author has
avoided the use of technical terms as far as
possible. He has also made his descriptions
as short as possible, and in the interest of
clearness has used the comparative method
wherever he could do so. The volume con-
tains ten hand-colored plates, on which one
species of nearly all the genera of North
American butterflies are figured, and wood-
cuts are inserted in the text showing some
peculiar character of about two hundred and
fifty more species, by which the insects may
be known. Both plates and woodcuts, with
one exception, have been drawn and engraved
by the author. The arrangement used is
that published by Mr. W. H. Edwards in
1884.

The Rural Publishing Company, New
York, publish in their Rural Library — a se-
ries of monthly issues of popular pamphlets
on scientific and practical topics in agricult-
ure and horticulture — a well-studied paper
on Cross-breeding and Hybridizing, by L. H.
Bailey. It considers the philosophy of the
crossing of plants, with reference to their
improvement under cultivation, first sum-
marizing the results of the studies of Darwin
and other authors who have investigated the
subject; then setting forth the advantages
of crossing within the variety and change of
stock within ordinary bounds ; and, finally,

going on to the summary production of new
varieties. This is a difficult and delicate
process, calling for the exercise of the great-
est skill and patience. The author records
several experiments of his own in the pro-
cess, all going to illustrate its uncertainty ;
and concludes: "Encourage in every way
crosses within the limits of the variety and
in connection with change of stock, expect-
ing increase in vigor and productiveness ;
hybridize if you wish to experiment, but do
it carefully, honestly, and thoroughly, and do
not expect too much." A valuable feature of
the publication is the copious bibliography of
the subject.

A pamphlet comes to us from Italy dis-
cussing financial questions and reviewing the
situation in that country in particular, en-
titled II Baratto dei Biglietti di Banca fra gli
Istituti di Emissions e il Corso forzoso in
Italia (The Exchange of Bank-notes between
Institutions of Emission and Forced Circu-
lation in Italy), by the Avocato Francesco
Ciaffii. The author regards the financial
situation of his country as critical, and a
forced circulation as imminent.

The periodical formerly known as The
Triangle now comes to us as Physical Educa-
tion, to which subject it is devoted. The
name of the company by which it is pub-
lished still remains the Triangle Publishing
Company, and the triangle — denoting the
co-operation of body, spirit, and mind — is
still the emblem of its school. It purposes
to publish chiefly original matter. We are
glad to observe it deploring the pushing of
records in special lines, refusing to hold up
in prominence those who succeed in doing
extraordinary work in any single line, and
declaring itself committed to all-round work.
It also expresses dissent with those who hold
that symmetry of bodily form is the great ob-
ject to be worked for, and with those who look
to bodily health as the end of their endeavors.
Symmetry of bodily form is an incidental
good, and bodily health is only one of the
objects to be pursued.

Food is a new monthly publication devoted
to cookery, household economy, and good
living, including foods, dietetics, adultera-
tions, sanitation, regimen for the sick-room,
new domestic inventions, and all matters
of careful and healthful living, published by
the Clover Publishing Company, New York.

LITERARY NOTICES.

707

The first three numbers, now before us, are
filled with bright, suggestive, and practical
leading articles on various points in domestic
life, and several " departments " containing
recipes, sensible household suggestions, hints,
and " spicy " items. Price, twenty cents a
copy.

The Journal of Physiology, edited by
Michael Foster, with the co-operation of a
number of eminent English and American
physiologists, continues to publish articles
of original research, and stands at the head
of publications of this class in the English
language. The double number for May con-
tains accounts of investigations of taste, sen-
sations, respiratory changes, retractile cilia in
the intestine of Lumbricus terrestris, cobra-
poison, the influence of calcium salts on heat
coagulation of albumins, the protective func-
tions of the skin, etc. Cambridge, England.
Pi ice, $5 a volume.

A pamphlet on How to light a Colliery
by Electricity contains full directions on that
subject by Sydney F. Walker, author of other
papers on electric lighting. It gives direc-
tions concerning the number of lamps re-
quired, apparatus, dynamos, and their types,
the engines that drive them, their position,
lamps, switches, cables, faults, and many
other points related to the subject. Pub-
lished in New York by Macmillan & Co. Pp.
36. Price, 75 cents.

Dr. Daniel G-. Brinton has printed a num-
ber of Studies in South American Native
Languages, being papers which were con-
tributed to the Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society in the early months of
1892. Most of them are based on unpub-
lished manuscripts in European and Ameri-
can libraries, and they include material on
at least four linguistic stocks hitherto wholly
unknown to students. Dr. Brinton has also
added two studies of Mexican languages.

Physiology: its Science and Philosophy
(The Courier Co., New Castle, Ind.), is an
octavo volume in which the author, Jacob
Redding, M. D., gives his ideas of the phi-
losophy which underlies physiology and dis-
ease.

One of the latest efforts to establish a
substantial identity of body and soul is con-
tained in a book on PI uri- Cellular Alan, in
which the questions " Whence and what is
the intellect, or soul ? " " What becomes of

the soul ? " and " Is it possible to save the
soul ? " are considered from a biological
point of view, by Dr. C. A. Stephens. The
author conceives matter as sentient or feel-
ing, and the living body, consequently, as
composed of an aggregation of living atoms,
or cells. Hence the processes of life have
their origins in the beginnings of Nature.
The cell " is not only a modicum of proto-
plasm, but the instrumentality of a self, an
ego, a personal being." The soul " is the
developed and experienced living matter of
the body, particularly that in the cells of the
nerve ganglia and the brain." The second
and third questions proposed are answered
in accordance with this doctrince.

The volume of the Missouri Botanical
Garden for 1892 contains the third annual
reports of the Board of Trustees and of
the director, William Trelease, three anniver-
sary publications, and two scientific papers.
We learn from the director's report that the
garden has acquired the grasses of the her-
barium of the late Dr. George Thurber, Mr.
Hitchcock's collection of 2,000 specimens
representing the flora of the West Indies,
and Mr. Trelease's herbarium of 11,000 speci-
mens representing 4,000 species, mostly of
fungi ; and the Engelmann Herbarium of
about 98,000, and the Bernhardi Herbarium
of 57,500 specimens, have been mounted
and arranged. The anniversary publications
in the volume are the Second Annual Flower
Sermon, by the Rev. Montgomery Schuyler ;
the proceedings of the second annual ban-
quet of the trustees of the Garden, and of
the second annual banquet to gardeners.
The scientific papers are a revision of North
American species of Rumex, by Mr. Trelease,
and " the Yucca Moth and Yucca Pollination,"
by Prof. C. V. Riley, with notes on Agave
Engelmanni and Parmelia molliuseula. Both
the papers are excellently illustrated. Price,
$1.

One of the fruits of the effort of Mr.
Draper, State Superintendent of Public In-
struction of New York, to secure compari-
sons of the school system of that State with
those of other States and of foreign coun-
tries appears in French Schools through
American Eyes, which has been prepared at
Mr. Draper's request by J. Russell Parsons,
inspector of teachers' classes, formerly our
consul at Aix-la-Chapelle, and author of a

7

o8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

similar book on Prussian schools. Mr. Par-
sons spent a summer in the study of the
French school system, and has presented a
clear and comprehensive report on the sub-
ject. It is accompanied by a special paper
on primary instruction in France. The two
reports illustrate the educational systems of
the two leading countries of Europe which
pay the closest attention to elementary
schools. Published by C. W. Bardeen, Syra-
cuse, N. Y.

A valuable and well-arranged manual of
the Geography of Africa South of the Zam-
besi, with notes on the industries, wealth, and
social progress of the states and peoples, by
William Parr Greswell, is published by a
London house which is represented in New
York by Macmillan & Co. The author al-
leges as a reason for the being of his work
that the country is marked by the display of
the power of European colonization. It " has
ceased to be a country of mere sporting ad-
venture or of aimless wanderings. It is
gradually being identified with the European
system ; and by recent international conven-
tions and agreements, under the Salisbury
Government, boundaries have been assigned
and frontiers surveyed which are likely to be
permanent and beneficial to all contracting
parties on the east as well as on the west
coast." A large proportion of the space is
taken up with the account of Cape Colony as
the largest of the colonies and countries,
and as having many features common to all.
Maps are given of Cape Colony, Natal, and
British South and Central Africa. Price, $2.

Mr. W. Lee Beardmore, author of The
Drainage of Habitable Dwellings (Macmillan
& Co., $1.50), has for many years past made
a special study of the science of house
drainage. In writing the articles, for British
technical journals, of which the book has
been composed, he touched briefly upon
what has been done in an insanitary manner
in the past, and pointed out what should be
done to render a dwelling thoroughly sani-
tary in its drainage arrangements. While
some critical readers may think he has not
gone deep enough into the theory or into
the practice, he hopes he has made a hearty
endeavor to place before the public what
should be done in order to have a truly habi-
table dwelling.

In Humanity in its Origin and Early

Growth (Open Court Publishing Company,
Chicago, $1.50), the author, E. Colbert, has
endeavored to trace out a few of the salient
points in the early unfolding of man and his
thought, principally in those ages which pre-
ceded the writing of history ; to show some of
the states of development by which man was
evolved from merely inanimate matter, and
more especially those by which he rose from
the level of his immediate predecessor in the
scale of progress ; then to sketch the widen-
ing out of the human mentality from the in-
fantile phase to that of the child in knowl-
edge, at which point it is left for history to
take up the thread of the narrative. The
principal object has been to discover primi-
tive ideas about the causation of events and
the constitution of things, and to show that
to a great extent man's religious creeds and
ceremonies, with much of his philosophy,
grew out of notions which appear to have
been first entertained as a result of observing
the stars.

The first number has appeared of the
Journal of the United States Artillery, pub-
lished under the authority of the staff of the
Artillery School. As the name of the journal
implies, it is devoted to the interests of the
artillery. The present number contains arti-
cles on sea-coast guns and steel armor, field
practice, the English proving-grounds at
Shoeburyness, the determination of the ve-
locity of projectiles by sound phenomena,
book notices, and abstracts of the contents
of service periodicals.

The Department of Agriculture publishes
a Report on the Agriculture of South Amer-
ica, with maps and the latest statistics of
trade, which has been prepared under the
direction of the statistician, Almont Barnes,
a gentleman whose long residence in South
America as United States consul, and subse-
quent study of the condition and progress of
the South American countries, well qualify
for the work. The several countries of the
continent are considered each in its separate
chapter, with discussions of all the points
connected with the general subject.

A preliminary report on Timber Physics,
compiled by B. E. Fcrnow, chief, and pub-
lished by the Forestry Division of the De-
partment of Agriculture, contains ample
statements concerning the purpose, theory,
and practical application of the timber tests

LITERARY NOTICES.

709

now being made in the forestry division, of
which a number of brief notices have already
been given. The headings under which the
subject is treated include the " Need of the
Investigation," " Scope and Historical De-
velopment of the Science of Timber Physics,"
and "Organization and Methods of the
Timber Examinations in the Division of For-
estry."

The Psychological Table prepared by Prof.
W. R. Benedict, of Cincinnati, on the basis of
the teachings of James "Ward and Prof.
Hoffding, presents on a single sheet at one
view the whole course of the development of
consciousness, feeling, and thought. Defin-
ing psychology as the science of conscious-
ness, it assumes that consciousness is de-
pendent on nerve matter, and therefore starts
with affections of that. There are presented
the beginnings of consciousness ; its develop-
ment by differentiation ; sensation and the
senses ; representation, or the return of states
of consciousness ; intellection, or thought ;
feeling ; the will ; and psychical disease, the
progress of which, in contrast with evolution,
is called devolution.

From the annals of the Astronomical Ob-
servatory of Harvard College is reprinted a
valuable compend of the Investigations of the
New England Meteorological Society for 1890.
Reports were received from 172 different ob-
servers, but owing to various changes the
average number of observers was about the
same as in 1889 — 194. There are room and
need for more observers in western and
northern New England. In reviewing the
cyclone observations of the year, notice is
taken of the course of the storms, and as far
as practicable of the relations to other regions
of those which passed through it and north
and south of it. In the work of gathering
climatic data, the attempt to prepare such
general results as isothermal maps or maps of
mean annual rainfall has been met with the
two difficulties of an insufficient number of
reporting stations, and of insufficient time
since the stations have been established to
afford trustworthy means for a climate so
variable as that of New England. The society
hopes in time to be able to attempt the prep-
aration of tables and maps that shall por-
tray the peculiarities of local climate on a
finer scale than that which suffices very well
for the country as a whole. A careful study

of the tornado at Lawrence, Mass., of July
26, 1890, is given in papers by W. M. Davis,
director of the society, and H. Helm Clayton,
of the Blue Hill Observatory.

A pamphlet entitled Humanity's Spread-
ing Curse is aimed at the exposure of the
" Scribes and Pharisees," by One of them.
The characters held up to reprobation are :
"The Common Scribe," "The Moral
Scribe," "The Puritan," "The Foolism
Scribe," and " The Pharisee " ; the question is
asked, " What must we do to be saved ? " and
quotations are made from newspapers and
periodicals to enforce the author's points.
The characters aimed at by the author are
doubtless all liable to criticism ; but criticism
is one thing, and reckless denunciation is an-
other.

The Annual Report of the Geological
Survey of New Jersey for 1891 (John C.
Smock, State Geologist) is full of valuable
facts and statistical data concerning the re-
sources of the State, and of suggestions for
their further development. The work of the
survey was carried on during the year in the
study of the surface or Pleistocene forma-
tions in the northern part of the State ; in
an examination of the oak-land and pine-
land belts of the southern part of the State ;
in the continued study of the stream-flows
and water-sheds for the report on water-sup-
ply and water-power ; and, in co-operation
with the United States Geological Survey, in
the study of the crystalline rocks of the
highlands of northern New Jersey. In ad-
dition to a very satisfactory presentation of
these subjects, articles are given on "Ar-
tesian Wells," " Passaic River Drainage,"
"Iron Mines," and "Mineral Statistics."
The detailed study of the drift and of the
glacial moraine and its topographical char-
acteristics is full.

A convenient manual of the Elements of
Materia Medica and Therapeutics, compiled
from the British Pharmacopoeia of 1885, and
its appendix of 1890, by C. E. Armand Sem-
ple, is published by Longmans, Green & Co.,
New York ($3). While it treats in the main
only of the drugs that are official, a few illus-
trations of non-official plants have been in-
troduced here and there, in order to demon-
strate some particular facts. The book is
divided into two sections : the organic, deal-
ing exclusively with the vegetable and ani-

7io

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ma] products ; and the inorganic, containing,
besides inorganic substances proper, alcoholic
and ethereal preparations, creosote, paraffin,
etc., and carbon products generally. Stress
is placed upon the illustrations — of forms of
crystals and representations of plants — as
tending to make the subject more interesting
and to impress the facts more firmly upon
the memory.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Adams, R. C. Travels in Faith. New York :
Truth-Seeker Co., 1892. Pp. 238. 25 cents.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins
and Reports, 1892. The Silo and Silage in Indi-
ana. Purdue University. Pp. 16.— Horticulture,
Corn Crossing, etc. University of Illinois. Pp. 30.
— Feeding Stock, etc. Iowa. Pp. 86.— Hand-power
Cream Separators. Delaware College Station. Pp.
13. Illustrated.

Atkinson, Edward. The Science of Nutrition,
and the Art of Cooking in the Allodin Oven.
Springfield, Mass., 1892 : C. W. Bryan & Co.,
Printers. Pp. 180.

Ball, W. W. R. Mathematical Recreations
and Problems. London : Macmillan & Co., 1892.
Pp. 241. $2.25.

Barrows, S. L. Evolution of the Afric-Ameri-
can. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1892. No.
28, Evolution Series. Pp. 28. 10 cents.

Bendine, Charles. Life Histories of North
American Birds. Washington : Smithsonian In-
stitution, 1892. Pp. 446. Illustrated.

Bessey, C. E. Transpiration, or the Loss of
Water from Plants. Pp. 4. Reprint.

Bkrbower, A. Was Christ crucified ? New
York : Truth-Seeker Co., 1892. Pp. 24. 10 cents.

Binet, A. Les Alterations de la Personalite.
Paris : Gcrmer Bailliere et Cie., 1892. Iiiblio-
theque Scientifique Internationale. Pp. 323.

Brinton, Daniel G. Further Notes on Fuegian
Languages. Pp. 6.— The Tribute Roll of Monte-
zuma. Pp. 6. Reprints.

Bush, George G. History of Higher Educa-
tion in Massachusetts. Washington : Bureau of
Education, 1891. Pp. 445. Illustrated.

Call. R. E. The Chemistry of Soils. Pp 5.
—Papers read before the Iowa Academy of Sci-
ences. Pp. 30. Reprints.

Cheal, J. Fruit Culture. London : George
Bell & Sons, 1892. Pp. 194. 75 cents.

Clinton Liberal Institute. Catalogue, 1892. Pp.
48. Illustrated.

Cresson, H. T. Pile Structures in Naaman's
Creek. Delaware. Cambridge, Mass., 1892. Pp.
24. Illustrated.

Curtis, M. M. Philosophv and Physical Sci-
ence. Cleveland, 1892. Pp. 53.

Dall, William H. Instructions for collecting
Mollusks, etc. Smithsonian Institution, 1892. Pp.
55.

Directory of the Scientific Alliance of New
York, 1892. Pp. 33.

Doughty, F. W. Evidences of Man in the
Drift. New York : privately printed, 1892. Pp.
14.

Ewart, William, M. D. Cardiac Outlines. New
York : G. P. Putnam's Sous, 1892. Pp. 165. Illus-
trated.

Fernald, M. L. New List of Maine Plants.
Portland Society of Natural History, 1892. Pp. 72.

Fernow, B. E. United States Department of
Agriculture. Report of the Chief of the Division
of Forestry for 1891. Washington, 1892. Pp. 38.
Illustrated.

Fleming, Sanford. An Appeal to the Cana-
dian Institute on the Rectification of Parliament.
Toronto : The Copp-CIark Co., 1892. Pp. 176.

Foote, G. W. Infidel Death-beds. New York :
Truth-Seeker Co., 1892. Pp. 98. 25 cents.

Gardener, Helen H. Pulpit, Pew, and Cradle.
New York : Truth-Seeker Co., 1892. Pp. 30. 10
cents.

Hall, Henry. Ethan Allen, the Robin Hood of
Vermont. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1892.
Pp. 207. $1.

Hakes, H. Discovery of America by Christo-
pher Columbus. Wilkesbarre, Pa. : R. Bover &
Son, Printers, 1892. Pp. 132.

Harper and Miller. Virgil's ^Eneid. Six Books.
New York : American Book Co., 1892. Pp. 461.

Hayes, Charles W. An Expedition through the
Yukon District. Washington : National Geo-
graphic Society, 1892. Pp. 48. 50 cents.

Hitchcock, Romyn. The Ancient Pit-dwellers
of Yezzo, Japan. Washington : Smithsonian In-
stitution, 1892. Pp. 10. Illustrated.

Hopkins, C. T. Shall we educate our Politi-
cians ? Reprint, 1892. Pp. 17.

Hudson, W. H. The Naturalist in La Plata.
London : Chapman & Hall, 1892. Pp. 388. $4.
Illustrated.

Hunter-Duvar, J. The Stone, Bronze, and
Iron Ages. New York : Macmillan & Co., 1892.
Pp. 285. $1.25.

Huxley, T. H. Essays upon some Contro-
verted Questions. New York : D. Appleton &
Co., 1892. Pp. 289. $2.

Industrial Art School of Philadelphia. Objects,
Rules, Course of Instruction, etc. Philadelphia :
Burk & McFetridge, 1892. Pp. 20. With Dia-
grams.

Journal of Morphology. Vol. VI, Nos. 1 and
2. Edited by C. O. Whitman. Boston : Ginn & Co.
May, 1892.

Keen, W. W. Nephrotomy for Calculous Pye-
litis. 1892. Pp. 10.— Arteriovenous Aneurism
of the Common Carotid Artery and Internal Jugu-
lar Vein. 1892. Pp. 5. Illustrated.— Resection of
the Liver. 1892. Pp. 5. Illustrated. Reprints.

Kinney, H. C. Why the Columbian Exposi-
tion should be opened on Sunday. Chicago :
Rand, McNally & Co., 1892. Pp. 57.

Longshore, T. E. The Higher Criticism in
Theology and Religion. New York : Truth-Seek-
er Co., 1892. Pp. 533.

List, N. A. American Charts of Literary
Archaeology, Vol. I. Folio, pp. 24.

McKendrick, J. G. Life in Motion. London
and Edinburgh : A. & C. Black, 1892. Pp. 202.
Illustrated. $1.50.

Mayo, A. D. Southern Women in the Recent
Educational Movement in the South. Washing-
ton : Bureau of Education, 1892. Pp. 300.

Mechanical Engineering Teachers' Associa-
tion. List of Officers, Members, and Rules. 1892.
Pp. 23.

Milling. Illustrated Monthly Magazine. In-
dianapolis : D. H. Ranck Publishing Co., June,
1892. 25 cents a copy, $2 a year.

Milne, William J. High-school Algebra. New
York : American Book Co., 1892. Pp. 360.

National Popular Review. An Illustrated
Journal of Preventive Medicine, Vol. I, No. 1.
July, 1892. J. H. White, San Diego, Cal. Pp. C6.
25 cents a number, $2 a year.

Philosophical Society of Washington. Bul-
letin. Vol. XI, 1888-1891. Pp. 618.

Proceedings American Philosophical Society,
Nos. 137 and 138. Philadelphia, 1892. Published for
the Society by MacCalla & Co. Pp. 134 each.

Proceedings of the Newport Natural History
Society, 18aS-1891. Newport. Printed for the
Society, April, 1892. Pp. 31.

PCP ULAR MIS CELL AN Y.

711

Prosser, C. S. Thickness of the Devonian and
Silurian Rocks of Western New York. Rochester
Academy of Sciences, 1802. Pp. 54.

Ridgway, Robert. The Humming-bird. Smith-
sonian Institution, 1892. Pp. 128. Illustrated.

Riley, C. V. Some Interrelations of Plants
and Insects. Biological Society of Washington.
Pp. 22. Illustrated.— On the Time of Transforma-
tion in the Genus Lachnosterna. Entomological
Society of Washington. Pp. 3.— Speech at the
Second Trustees' Banquet of the Missouri Botani-
cal Garden. Pp. 4.— List of the Tineina of Boreal
America. Pp. 21.— The Mexican Jumping Bean.
Pp. 4.— Directions for collecting and preserving
Insects. Smithsonian Institution, 1892. Pp. 147.

Shinier, P. W. A Microscopic Sediment-col-
lector. Reprint, 1892. Pp. 8. Illustrated.

Shufeldt, R. W. Indian Tvpes of Beauty.
Reprint, 1891. Pp. 24. Illustrated.

Smith, E. A. On the Phosphates and Marls
of Alabama. Montgomery, Ala, 1892. Pp.82.

Smith, E. E. The Chemistry of Peach-yel-
lows. Reprint, 1891. Pp. 16.

Spalding, J. L. The Catholic Educational Ex-
hibit in the Columbian Exposition. Reprint, 1892.
Pp.6.

Stone, C. H. The Problem of Domestic Serv-
ice. St. Louis : Nelson Printing Co., 1892. Pp.
46.

Stone. An Illustrated Monthly Magazine. In-
dianapolis : D. H. Ranck Publishing Co., June,
1892. 25 cents a number, $2 a year.

Taylor, W. E. The Ophidia of Nebraska.
Reprint, 1891. Pp. 47.

Thayer, W. H. Errors in Ventilation. Two
Papers. Reprints, 1892. Pp. 6 and 4.

Thein, John. Christian Anthropology. New
York : Benziger Brothers, 1892. Pp. 576.

Transactions of the Technical Society of the
Pacific Coast. Vol. IS, No. 5. San Francisco,
June, 1892. Pp. 17. Illustrated.

Trevert, E. Electric Railway Engineering.
Lynn, Mass. : Bubier Publishing Co., 1892. Pp.
186. Illustrated.

Troy, D. S. The Value of Money, etc. Mont-
gomery, Ala. Reprint, 1832. Pp. 26.

Weismann, August. Essays upon Heredity.
Vol.n. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892. Pp.126.
$1.30.

Westland, Albert. The Wife and Mother.
Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son & Co., 1892. Pp.

282. $2.

Whiting, C. E. The Complete Music Reader.
Boston : D. C. Heath, 1891. Pp. 224. 85 cents.

Winchell, N. H. The Geological and Natural
History Survey of Minnesota. Nineteenth An-
nual Report. Minneapolis, 1892. Pp. 255. Illus-
trated.

World's Columbian Exposition. Memorial to
Congress on a Comprehensive Exhibit of Roads,
their Construction, etc.

Yandel, D. W. Temperament. Louisville, 1892.
Pp. 21.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Moral, Manual, and Science Training in
the Boston Public Schools. — The report of
Mr. Ellis Peterson, of the Board of Supervis-
ors, on the Revision of the Courses of Study
in the Boston Public Schools, begins with a
notice of the rules concerning moral teach-
ing. Teachers are expected to give instruc-
tion for a few minutes in good manners and

good morals at the opening of the school, and
at other favorable opportunities, avoiding
sectarian subjects. Conversations and writ-
ten exercises on good manners and good
morals are prescribed for the upper classes.
Referring to the standard of proficiency
in scholarship, the report advises, that in-
stead of considering absolutely what the
pupil has accomplished, when the naturally
brightest one will easily carry off the reward,
the teacher should look to relative ability,
and commend those who have done their
best. Physical training is given through the
Ling system of gymnastics. Manual training
appears in the course of study for the first
time. The principle on which it is given is
represented in the sentence, " All drawing
should be the expression of facts which they
have been led by their teacher to observe in
solid forms." The observation of Nature,
plants, and animals by pupils is closely fol-
lowed by lessons in manual training ; while
drawing and oral and written language are
used to express the results of observation
and manual work. The work of observation
begun in the primary schools is continued,
under the name of elementary science, in the
grammar schools. The first line of work in
this direction is in physiology and hygiene.
Books have to be depended upon for this
study, and their statements taken upon trust.
"The information thus gained is of little
educational value, but is believed to be of
great practical use." The second line of
science work is in the direction of natural
history. The observation of animals, plants,
and minerals is continued. Pupils are ex-
pected to study plant-life with the help of
window gardening, or a school garden ; to
collect specimens of grains, woods, pressed
leaves, and wild flowers, and of some typical
animals, plants, and minerals ; and to learn
the relation of mineral, vegetable, and animal
products to arts, industries, and commerce.
The third kind of science-work required
by the course of study is the observation of
physical phenomena. The educational value
of these lines of science-work is in propor-
tion to the degree in which the method of
work is observational, inductive, and sys-
tematic.

Mnir Glacier, Alaska. — Muir Glacier,
Alaska, as described by Harry Fielding

712

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Reid, in his Studies of its features (National
Geographic Society, publishers), occupies a
depression in the mountain about thirty-five
miles long and between six and ten miles
wide. It is fed by a great number of tribu-
taries, the largest of which are again made
up of many smaller glaciers. A total area
of about eight hundred square miles is
drained by the system, and the actual sur-
face of the ice is about three hundred and
fifty square miles. The area draining into
Muir Inlet is about seven hundred square
miles. Most of the precipitation which falls
on this area flows off as water in the sub-
glacial streams; the rest, compressed into
ice, is forced through the narrow gateway
two miles and a half wide into the inlet,
where the glacier terminates in a vertical
wall of ice varying from one hundred and
thirty to two hundred and ten feet above the
water surface, whence large masses are con-
tinually separating to become icebergs. The
water is in places seven hundred and twenty
feet deep, and, as this is not enough to float
a mass of ice rising so high above the water
as the glacier, the ice must reach to the very
bottom and must attain a thickness of nine
hundred feet. The actual length of the ice-
front facing the water is nine thousand two
hundred feet, or a mile and three quarters.
On each side the glacier sends forward a
wing, which rises in the shape of a wedge
over the stratified sands and gravels of the
shore. The wings are fringed by treacher-
ous quicksands, which support large stones
and look firm ; but the tourist who steps on
them carelessly will sink in over his ankles.
The ice-front has a wonderful coloring.
Places from which ice has recently broken
off are deep blue, sometimes almost black.
This color lightens under exposure to the
air and sun, and in a few days becomes pure
white. All shades of blue, in striking vari-
ety, are represented in the ice-front.

The Action of Fungicides. — The princi-
ple involved in the use of fungicides for plant
rusts, according to Prof. Byron D. Halsted,
in the Report of the New Jersey Agricultural
Experiment Station, consists in the applica-
tion to the susceptible plant of a fine spray
containing the substance that, when in con-
tact with the spores, will either kill them or
prevent their development. The whole prac-

tice of using fungicides depends upon the
fact that these mildews, rusts, blights, and
other fungous decays produce minute spores,
which are easily disseminated and thereby
propagate the trouble far and wide. These
spores, either as such or when undergoing
germination, are easily injured by various
chemicals, notably the compounds of copper.
It therefore follows that if these fungicides
be placed upon the foliage in a thin film, it
will go far toward destroying the spores al-
ready there and prevent those subsequently
falling upon it from germinating. The ways
in which this principle is carried out are
many, depending upon the nature of the in-
fected plant. The progress made during the
last ten years in the study of fungous dis-
eases is unparalleled. A few workers began
collecting and describing some fifty years
ago. This was followed a quarter of a cent-
ury later by a critical study of the injurious
species. The first systematic tests of fungi-
cides do not date back more than a decade
ago, and since that time, through the Depart-
ment of Agriculture, experiments were begun
which have been continued with well-defined
practical results. By means of the experi-
ment stations a new impetus was given to the
subject about three years ago, and to-day
there is a well-organized crusade against the
fungous enemies of crops. The nature of
the several blights, molds, and rots has been
studied out in the laboratory, while fungi-
cides in large numbers have been tested in
the field. The result has been that several
of the worst are practically subdued, provid-
ed the methods of warfare are followed.

Shnswap Traits. — Among the customs of
the Shuswap people of British Columbia re-
corded by Mr. George M. Dawson is one
from primitive times, by which, in the case
of a man dying and leaving behind him a
widow or widows, his brother next in senior-
ity took the widow to wife. The right of a
man to the widow of his deceased brother
was considered as incontestable as that to
his own wife or wives, and the women had
equally a claim to receive from him the duty
of a husband. The proper name of a man was
changed from time to time during his life,
when he would assume the name of some
kinsman. Young men on reaching manhood
were accustomed to separate themselves and

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANT

713

go away alone into some solitary part of the
country, where they would often remain for
three or four months. They might hunt or
trap, but must avoid contact with other peo-
ple and keep away from habitations. Oc-
casionally a young man thus engaged would
clear a course in the woods or arrange bars
for running or for jumping, and thus en-
deavor to increase his strength and endur-
ance. They also meditated and dreamed
dreams till each discovered his particular
guardian spirit. Young women, at the time
of reaching maturity, and thereafter at re-
current periods, were accustomed to wander
forth alone after dark for considerable dis-
tances, breaking small branches from the
trees as they went, and scattering them about
or suspending them upon the limbs of other
trees. Young fir trees, a few feet in height,
were thus often split and torn apart for sev-
eral feet, or the branches or growing tops
were tied in knots. This custom still pre-
vails, and the tokens of it may often be ob-
served near Indian camps. No explanation
of its meaning can be offered. An Indian
who invited another to go hunting with him,
gave to his friend the first deer, if several
were killed. If but one was killed, it was
divided, but the skin belonged to the friend
in any case. If a man was hunting beyond
the border of the recognized territory of his
people, and one of the men holding claims to
the region upon which he had thus trespassed
heard him shoot, the owner of the locality
would head for the place, and on arriving
there expect to be feasted on the game ob-
tained by the hunter.

Origin of the Jardin des Plantes. — Ac-
cording to M. Germain Bapst, in the Revue
des Deux Mondes, the Jardin des Plantes, in
Paris, was till the middle of the eighteenth
century simply a botanical institution which
had been created by Louis XIII in favor of
his Doctor Herouard, under the name of
Jardin des plantes medicinales et polageres.
When Buffon was appointed steward of the
garden by Louis XV, he augmented its
service, founded a course of lectures and a
museum of zoology, and continued the col-
lection of miniatures of the Duke of Orleans.
On his death, in 1*788, the Museum of Nat-
ural History was far less important than it
is now ; the rapid growth which has made it

the most complete and extensive establish-
ment of its kind in the world, began during
the Revolution : First, the Royal Menagerie,
which had been kept in the garden of the
Chateau at Versailles, was sent to the mem-
bers of the Commune in Paris, in 1792.
They, not knowing what to do with their new
charges, sent them to the Jardin des Plantes,
with orders to the steward to accommodate
them there. That was the beginning of the
menagerie. The other collections originated
in the custom of the princes and great lords
of the eighteenth century of interesting
themselves in natural history and collecting
objects of different kinds. Then, when the
confiscation of the estates of absconders was
decreed during the Revolution, there were
found in them various collections of this
kind. These were turned over to the state
and were deposited in the public storing-
places, especially in the Jardin des Plantes.
The French conquests throughout Europe
gave them possession of numerous museums
which their generals removed to Paris and
placed in the national establishments. Thus
the collections of the Stadtholder of Holland,
and that of the Prince of Conde, kept at
Chantilly, came to constitute the physical
and mineralogical departments of the mu-
seum.

Variety of Motions in the Atmosphere. —

Espy's convection theory of storms assumes
that the latent heat of vapor is the main-
taining power, while the original ascent of
the moist, warm air is due to conditions of
density. Therefore, we could have no cy-
clonic motion without ascending moisture
and clouds. The studies of other investiga-
tors have satisfied Prof. Cleveland Abbe that
another important cause exists in the slow
cooling by radiation and descending of the
upper air flowing northward from the equa-
tor as a return trade. It eventually reaches
the earth here and there in spots which are
small areas of clear sky in the tropical re-
gions, but are large areas of cold, dry air and
high pressure in northern latitudes. " If the
air is cooled by radiation faster than it is
warmed up by the compression of its slow
descent, then it reaches us as clear, cold, and
dry air ; and only after reaching the earth's
surface does it begin to warm up in the day-
time faster than it can cool again at night

7H

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

As this dry cold air underruns the moist warm
air at the earth's surface, or as two areas of
high pressure flowing toward each other
must lift up the lighter air between them
and set it into cyclonic rotation, we must,
therefore, recognize the general conclusion
that Espy's aspiration cyclone as developed
by Fen-el is not the only form of cyclone,
but that those due to descending cold air,
and, therefore, having the general circula-
tion of the atmosphere as their fundamental
cause, are equally entitled to consideration.
To this last and latest development from the
theoretical side, I need only add that the
study of the motions of the clouds has en-
abled me to assert that there is no form of
motion known to the student of mechanics
of fluids but what is to be found beautifully
illustrated in some important phenomena of
the atmosphere. The experiments on the
motions of water and of air, and the meas-
urements thereon that you may make in a
well-appointed physical laboratory, are re-
peated by Nature on a large scale in the at-
mosphere."

Antiquity of the Wheelbarrow. — The in-
vention of the wheelbarrow has been gener-
ally ascribed to Blaise Pascal, who lived about
the middle of the sevententh century. M.
Littre, in his Dictionary, attributes it to one
Sieur Dupin, in 1669, seven years after Pas-
cal's death. M. Gaston Tissandier, however,
found in a copy of the Cosmography of Se-
bastian Munster, 1555, a curious woodcut
representing a wheelbarrow pushed by a
workman. Another plate in the same book
shows a tramway wagon running on rails.
Still earlier evidences of the existence of the
wheelbarrow have been found by if. Bixio
and M. F. Guerrero, who organized the retro-
spective exposition of the means of trans-
portation, which was held at Paris in 1889.
A manuscript history of the sangreal of the
thirteenth century contains' a picture of one
man shoving another in a wheelbarrow of a
style now in general use. A manuscript —
Vita et Passio S. Dionysii Areopagi — of the
fourteenth century, has a representation of a
wheelbarrow of another model, which is used
in carrying a bundle. A very artistic picture
in a manuscript — La Vie et les Miracles de
Notre Dame — of the fourteenth century,
represents a hospital where Sisters are tak-

ing care of wounded, lame, deformed, or
paralytic persons, to which a man is wheel-
ing a new patient. A miniature in an illus-
trated edition of Quintus Curtius, of the
fourteenth century, shows a workman wheel-
ing building material, who is assisted in sus-
taining his load by a strap over his shoulders.
These evidences testify to the use of the
wheelbarrow as early as the thirteenth cent-
ury, and it may have been an old invention
then.

Trees and Extreme Temperatures. — The

power of trees, says a note in Garden and
Forest, to regulate their own temperature to
a certain extent is seen in the fact that their
twigs are not frozen through in winter ; nor
does their temperature increase in summer
in proportion to the temperature of the sur-
rounding atmosphere. The bark is a bad
conductor of heat, and is to a certain extent
the clothing in which the plant is wrapped.
The surface evaporation of the leaves pro-
duces in summer a freshness in them that
causes them to feel cool even on hot days.
Evaporation, however, does not explain the
coolness of many kinds of fruit that are in-
closed in a hard envelope, through which it
seems almost impossible. Hooker mentions
a fruit grown by the Ganges in a soil hav-
ing a temperature of from 90° to 104°, the
temperature of the juice of which had only
72° Fahr.

Liquid Air and Liquid Oxygen. — A lect-
ure was recently delivered at the Royal In-
stitution, London, by Prof. Dewar, embodying
the results of his recent investigations into
the properties of matter at excessively low
temperatures, and in particular of oxygen
and atmospheric air in the liquid condition.
The lecture was illustrated by experiments
such as have never before been attempted in
a lecture-room. Liquid oxygen was produced
in the presence of the audience literally by
pints, and liquid air was handed round in
claret glasses. While oxygen boils in air at
182° C. below zero, the researches of Lord
Kelvin and Prof. Tait indicate that tempera-
tures below —274° C. will not suspend all
the activities of matter. As this is far be-
low even the calculated boiling-point of liquid
hydrogen, the absolute zero seems to recede
as we advance. The purely chemical rela-

P OP ULA R MIS CELL ANY

7i5

tions of oxygen disappear in the liquid con-
dition. Phosphorus or potassium may be
plunged into the liquid without any sign of
combination. But the magnetic properties
of the gas are intensified, and the action of
the liquid upon light is identical with that of
an equivalent quantity of oxygen in the gase-
ous condition. But while thus strongly mag-
netic, liquid oxygen is an extremely bad
conductor of electricity. The boiling-point
of liquid air is 192° C. below zero, or 10° C.
lower than that of oxygen. The doctrine of
the text-books that the oxygen liquefies first
and the nitrogen afterward is erroneous. Air
liquefies as air ; but the boiling liquid parts
with its nitrogen first, and becomes gradually
richer in oxygen. Both in appearance and
in spectroscopic behavior liquid air is sim-
ply diluted liquid oxygen. The blue tint of
the oxygen is lost, and the absorption bands
in the red are proportionately faint. Were
this globe cooled down to some 200° C. be-
low zero, it would be covered with a sea of
liquid air thirty-five feet deep, of which about
seven feet would be oxygen.

The Eleventh Census. — In an address de-
livered before the American Statistical Asso-
ciation Robert P. Porter, Superintendent of
the Eleventh Census, stated that sixty thou-
sand persons took part in the work of this
census, and that its reports will make not
less than twenty-five quarto volumes of one
thousand pages each. Of the thirty experts
and chiefs of divisions, at least twenty-three
held similar or prominent positions in the
tenth census. By the use of the electric tab-
ulating machine it has been possible for the
first time to aggregate from the schedules
all the information which appears in any way
desirable. Taking warning from the fate of
educational statistics in the tenth census,
which largely failed of publication, it was de-
termined to confine the inquiries in the elev-
enth census to a small number of essential
questions most readily answered. The sta-
tistics of mortgage indebtedness was a novel
feature of this census. Under this head was
made only the simple inquiry whether the farm
or home was owned or rented, and, if owned,
whether free from debt or not. Although
these and some other inquiries increased the
cost and added to the difficulties of the con-
stitutional enumeration, the superintendent is

confident that the work did not thereby suffer
to any serious extent. In conclusion, Mr.
Porter points out some defects of our census
system, and urges a permanent Census Bu-
reau.

The First Cigars in Paris. — Some inter-
esting information has recently been pub-
lished respecting the time when cigars first
came into use. A passage in Hippolyte Au-
ger's Memoires, now very rare, relates that
" our return to Paris (in 1823) was made by
way of Orleans. On the road we met quite
frequently officers returning from Spain.
They swaggeringly had cigars in their mouths
— a new habit, which has since become gen-
eral." Another document carries back the
use of the cigar to a somewhat earlier date.
The Hermite de la Chaussee cPAntin (vol.
iv, 1813), going to call upon his nephew, a
young officer on leave in Paris, found him at
his hotel in morning costume with a black
silk cap on his head, and smoked a Havana
cigar with him. The taste for the cigar was
so common at that time that grocers, alive
to their interests, were accustomed to present
them to their customers. A set of compli-
mentary verses, composed by Armand Gouff e
for the actor Chapelle, of the Vaudeville,
who had added to his professional occupa-
tions dealing in colonial produce, included in
the nomenclature of articles that might be
obtained in his shop —

" Gum, marshmallows, rum and rack.
Barley-sugar, almonds, and cigars."

Natural Selection among Egyptians. —

"In spite of what appears to us a meager bill
of fare, the Egyptian fellah," says Prof.
Robert Wallace, "is very often a man of
splendid physique, superior in strength and
in endurance to the Indian ryot, whom he
strongly resembles in many of his ways of
working, his habits, his stolid lack of
nervousness, and the absence of fear of
sudden danger to his person. It is believed
that the fellahin are almost exact reproduc-
tions of their predecessors for generations,
and that, although the country has beeji fre-
quently conquered, the new-comers were in-
significant in numbers to the mass of the
people, and consequently became rapidly
absorbed. It is also a common belief that
the soil and climate, and possibly the Nile

716

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

water, exercise an influence in producing a
certain type; for example, the nut-brown
skin of natives of Lower Egypt. This is so,
but the direction in which the influence
works is frequently misunderstood. The
result is more probably brought about by
natural selection than by the modification in
a given direction of the individual units of
successive generations. Thus the negroes,
though coming in numerously and inter-
marrying with the Egyptians, gain no
ground, because the climate of the Delta is
unfavorable to them, and they die of pul-
monary disease within a few generations.
Again, Europeans and strangers to the
country generally suffer and die from ty-
phoid fever in vastly greater proportions
than the natives."

Magnifying Glasses in Antiqnity. — Proba-
bly the earliest mention of magnifying glasses
is quoted by Mr. Henry G. Hanks, in the Pa-
pers of the Astronomical Society of the Pa-
cific, from the Vanity of Arts and Sciences of
Henry Cornelius Agrippa, of the early part
of the sixteenth century, where it is said :
" So we read, as Ccelius in his ancient writ-
ings relates, that one Hostius, a person of an
obscene life, made a sort of glasses that made
the object seem far greater than it was ; so
that one finger should seem to exceed the
whole arm, both in bigness and thickness."
There is difficulty in fixing the date of Coelius,
but he probably lived before Livy ; and Hos-
tius was a still more ancient personage.

Funeral Customs in New Guinea. — The

death of a chief recently gave the Rev. S. B.
Fellows, one of the Wesleyan missionaries in
New Guinea, an opportunity of observing the
native funeral ceremonies, which are some-
what similar to those of the Maories. From
the time of death until burial, the corpse
lies on the floor of the house, with no other
covering than it had in life. In the present
case a man, a near relative, was seen lying
across the corpse, which he hugged and
stroked, with loud crying and bitter sobbing.
The women kept up an unceasing wailing and
crying, signs of a grief which seemed genu-
ine enough. The virtues of this chief were
chanted as the mourners repeated again and
again the names of the islands he had
visited in his canoe, the amount of food he

had brought home, the fish and pigs he had
caught, etc. Large fires were kept burning
underneath and round the house during the
night to scare away the " debil debil." On
the morning of the second day after death,
the body, wrapped in rough mats, was buried
soon after sunrise, without any rites ; and on
that day a feast was made for the friends
and mourners. An old cocoanut palm, of
great value, is cut down, and the leaves are
used for the roof of the small house that is
built over the grave. At the funeral of a
woman a yam was placed on each side of
the head, and a native cooking -pot with the
bottom knocked out was put on the head
cap-fashion. A dish of cooked food is
passed up and down the corpse before it is
covered ; and an annual offering is made at
the grave. The soul of the dead person,
called barnaqum, is supposed to linger near
the body until it is buried ; then it quietly
takes its departure, by way of the mountains
of Misima, for a place deep down in the
earth, called tuma. Souls are permitted to
revisit the earth, when their presence is
made known by a peculiar low whistle.
After remaining in tuma for a long time,
they undergo a change similar to the death
of the body, and are then transmigrated to
the bodies of infants yet unborn.

Development of Exotic Gardening. —

Charlemagne is called, according to the Gar-
tenlaube, the first aesthetic gardener in west-
ern Europe ; for he it was who took pains
to transplant into German gardens the use-
ful and ornamental plants that grew wild in
the woods and the fields, and to introduce
those which flourished beyond the Alps. As
men increased in good living and their
tastes became refined, they were not satisfied
with useful plants alone, and the gardens of
the more wealthy were adorned with the
choicest ornamental and fancied plants of
the East. The proverb, " Gardens are visit-
ing-cards ; what they are shows what their
owner is," is illustrated in the history of the
development of the German garden, which
is really a chapter in the history of civiliza-
tion. With great extension of trade in the
beginning of the sixteenth century, rich ac-
quisitions were made to gardens from all
foreign countries — a process of growth
which has not yet ceased, but seems to be

POPULAR MISCELLANY

717

going on more actively than ever. Prof. G.
Kraus has well said that, if some giant hand
should remove at one stroke all the plants
which have not grown native among us from
time immemorial, our gardens and large
spots in our cultivated fields would be re-
duced to the condition of deserts. From the
annals of the botanical gardens, beginning
with the establishment of that of the Uni-
versity of Padua, in 1545, an important
chapter could be gathered in the history of
the migrations of plants. A few American
guests appeared there about the middle of
the sixteenth century, which were at first
called Indian or Spanish plants. Among
them was the Papas peruanorum, which
was cultivated as an ornamental plant with-
out a suspicion of its coming destiny — the
potato. There were preferences among the
strangers, and the fashions changed ; Oriental
bulbs were succeeded by Canadian plants,
among which the Robinia, or locust, the
Virginia creeper, asters, and evening prim-
rose, were high in favor. Then came green-
house plants from the Cape of Good Hope
— scarlet pelargoniums, dracsenas, charming
heaths, and others, which are still in favor.
American trees were then sought for park
plantations, with the crab-apples and flower-
ing shrubs of Siberia. After these improved
commercial facilities favored the introduction
of the curious eucalypti and other plants of
Australia; botanists are traveling every-
where with their Wardian cases, collecting
and bringing safely home the rarest and
most delicate orchids and palms of the tropi-
cal forests, and plants of every region where
vegetation flourishes. About 1,500 species
of plants grow wild in England. In 1891
there were cultivated in the botanical gar-
dens at Kew 19,800 species and varieties ;
in Berlin, in 1890, 19,000 sorts ; and in St.
Petersburg, 25,000 varieties with 71,850
specimens.

Chinese Characters and Hieroglyphics.

— In a paper on the social and religious
ideas of the Chinese, as illustrated in the
ideographic characters of the language,
Prof. R. K. Douglas shows that the Chinese
ideographic characters are picture-writings,
and as such supply an interpretation of the
meaning of words as they were understood
by the inventors of the characters represent-

ing them. These characters, developed from
the original hieroglyphic forms, were con-
sidered illustrative of the ideas of the people
on political, social, scientific, and religious
subjects. For example, the importance at-
tached to the qualities of the sovereign is
exemplified in the choice of the symbol em-
ployed to express a supreme ruler, the com-
ponent parts of which together signify
" ruler of himself." By means of the same
graphic system a kingdom is shown as " men
and arms within a frontier." The domestic
life is illustrated by ideograms descriptive
of household arrangements and relationships.
The speaker in succession traced in the writ-
ten characters the ideas associated with men
and women — their virtues and failings ; the
notions associated with marriage ; and the
evidences of pastoral and agricultural habits
among the people. The discussion of the
popular religious faiths showed how promi-
nent is the belief in the god of the soil,
whose presence brings blessings, and whose
averted countenance is followed by misfor-
tunes.

Death-week in Baral Rnssia. — Some
very curious ceremonies are observed by the
peasants of rural Russia, on the breaking up
of the ice toward the end of March. The
breaking is supposed to be due to the water-
spirit, who, waking hungry and angry after
his winter's sleep, bursts the ice and sends
the floes drifting, drives the fish from their
haunts, and causes the streams to overflow.
Previous to this the peasants prepare a sac-
rifice as the beginning of their " death-
week" celebration, to be offered to the
spirit. They combine to buy a young horse,
which must be purchased, not given, each
contributing an equal amount. The horse
having been sumptuously fed for three days,
is taken on the fourth day at midnight,
decorated, conducted by all the villagers in a
body, tied, weighted, and plunged through a
hole in the ice. In some districts fat, in
others a horse's head, is thrown in instead of
a living horse. A sacrifice is then made to
the house spirit. A fat black pig is killed
and cut into as many pieces as there are
residents of the village, of which each resi-
dent receives one and buries it under the
doorstep at the entrance to his house. The
principal ceremony of the season is that of

7i8

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

driving out death. All the villagers bring
old clothes, rags, straw, sticks, and other
stuff of the kind, from which a dummy fig-
ure representing an old woman is made, and
painted as hideously as possible, to represent
death — death being a woman in Slavic my-
thology. The figure is perched on a long
pole and carried by a peasant dressed in
what are left of the rags, etc., who is ac-
companied by a procession of the people
provided with everything with which they can
make a noise. The dummy is carried to the
nearest river or stream, and cast into the
water, or sometimes only ducked, and then
thrown upon the nearest piece of vacant
ground, or sometimes cast into the territory
of a neighboring village, when a quarrel
is likely to arise. On returning to the vil-
lage, more noisy instruments are collected,
and the men, women, and children run round
to drive out the evil spirits death is supposed
to have left behind. The faster the people
go, and the more noise they make, the more
effectually the place is supposed to be
cleared, and the greater will be the blessings
of the coming season. To make all sure, the
villagers camp out for the night, to wait for
the hour when the gates of heaven are sup-
posed to be opened, and special blessings
asked for are granted. All the trees are said
to bear golden fruits at that instant, and
whoever is lucky enough to grasp them just
then can keep them as his own. Unhappily,
the people are always too wearied with the
day's work and drinking to be alert enough
to seize the exact moment.

The New Stone Age in Iceland. — Accord-
ing to a lecture before the English Society
of Arts on Iceland, by Dr. Tempest Ander-
son, in the more remote parts of the country,
such as the Skaptadals, many articles of bone
and stone are still in use which in more ac-
cessible districts have been replaced by
metal or earthenware. A photograph ex-
hibited showed a wheelbarrow with a stone
wheel, a steelyard with a stone weight, a
hammer with a stone head, and a net with
bone sinkers. At the same farm a quern, or
stone hand-mill, was in use, and also horn
stirrups, and harness fastenings of bone in-
stead of metallic buckles, bone pins, and
rude bone dice. At a neighboring farm was
a basin formed of the cup joint of a basalt

pillar. Truly we still have a survival of the
stone age. Less remote than this is the
meeting-place of the county council of the
district in a spacious cave in the lava. It
would be difficult to find anything more ap-
propriate in such a primitive land. Mr. E.
Magnusson, speaking on the author's address,
said that in some places the people, though
descended from those who had long left the
stone age behind, had found it necessary, be-
cause it was so difficult to procure iron, to
create a new stone age for themselves. They
were the creators of a new stone age, not the
followers of a tradition.

Oxygen by the Brin Process. — The man-
ufacture of oxygen on a commercial scale is
developing into a new and important branch
of business enterprise. The process em-
ployed, called the Brin process, depends
upon the property of barium monoxide of
absorbing oxygen from the atmosphere when
heated to about 1,000° F., and giving it off
again at about 1,700° F. Barium oxide
closely resembles lime, and is found com-
bined in nature as heavy spar and witherite.
The nitrate, commercially known as baryta,
is used. In the preparation of oxygen, air
is forced by pumps into retorts containing
baryta, where the oxygen is absorbed and
the nitrogen is allowed to escape. When suf-
ficient air has been pumped in, and after an
interval, the process is reversed, and the
oxygen yielded by the baryta is pumped into
a holder. It is sent out to consumers com-
pressed to a pressure of eighteen hundred
pounds to the square inch, in cylinders of
steel, ranging in size from three and a half
to five and a half inches in diameter, and
from one to eight feet in length. It is used
in laboratories, in various manufactures, in
medicine, as a disinfectant, and in the cal-
cium light.

A Versatile Animal. — Among the curious
animals of the pampas, described by Mr. W.
H. Hudson, in his Naturalist in La Plata, is a
hairy armadillo, an animal that will live on
almost everything, from grass to flesh ; that
catches mice and kills poisonous snakes,
" and having killed them, cuts them in pieces
and swallows as much as it needs. ... It is
much hunted for its flesh," says Mr. Hudson,
" dogs being trained for the purpose ; yet it

NOTES.

7^9

actually becomes more abundant as popu-
lation increases in any district ; and, if ver-
satility in habits or adaptiveness can be
taken as a measure of intelligence, this poor
armadillo, a survival of the past, so old on
the earth as to have existed contemporane-
ously with the glyptodon, is the superior of
the large-brained cats and canines."

Destruction of Qnail and the Plagne of
LotnstSt — The great and fearful increase of
locusts in Algeria is ascribed by the French
journal I? Eleveur to wholesale destruction
of quail by sportsmen. It is estimated that
a quail consumes daily from fifty to sixty
grammes of food, and that twenty tiny lo-
custs of the size of a hemp-seed go to a
gramme. Hence one quail may destroy daily
1,000 locusts, or from 20,000 to 25,000 dur-
ing the period when the insects are small
enough to be swallowed by it. The Tunisian
sportsmen who on the 8th of May of last
year shipped off 50,000 quails to France are,
then, in a great measure to blame for 150,-
000,000 locusts less than usual having been
destroyed by those birds during the year.

NOTES.

The portrait of William Bartram, referred
to in the Popular Miscellany department last
month, is inserted as the frontispiece of this
number of the Monthly. A sketch of John
and William Bartram appeared in our num-
ber for April, 1892.

A curious series of experiments on the
hereditary transmission of mutilations has
been made by Dr. C. G. Lockwood. By the
in-and-in breeding of white mice for ninety-
six generations he obtained a larger and finer
animal than the original pair. Da order to
breed their tails off, he selected a pair and
putting them in a cage by themselves and
clipping their tails he got a breed of tailless
mice in the seventh generation. Then, by
taking one with a tail and one without a tail,
and alternating the sexes in each generation,
he finally again got a breed of all-tail mice.

It results from the researches of Mr. C.
M. Pleyte, of the Ethnological Museum at
Amsterdam, that the use of the sumpitan, or
blow-pipe, and of the bow, is separated by a
line corresponding with that which distin-
guishes between the western and the eastern
branches of the Malayo-Polynesian languages.
The sumpitan is found nowhere to the east
and the bow only sporadically to the west of
the boundary. It is ingeniously argued that
the blow-pipe was the primitive instrument,

from the fact that it survives as a toy where
it has ceased to be a weapon.

The debate on the fitness of aluminum
to be used in food- vessels is continued, with
the report of the experiments of M. Balland.
He discredits the representation that it is too
readily corroded by many food-substances,
and finds that air, water, wine, beer, cider,
coffee, milk, oil, butter, fat, etc., saliva, and
other substances have less action upon it than
on such metals as copper, lead, zinc, and tin.
Vinegar and sea-salt attack it, but not vio-
lently enough to make its use hazardous.

The works of Prof. Wilhelm Weber, the
physicist, are to be published by the Royal
Society of Science at Gottingen.

The optically inactive form of tartaric
acid, known as racemic acid, has been ob-
tained by M. Gensesse as an eventual prod-
uct of the action on glyoxalic acid — an acid
found in gooseberries, grapes, and other
fruits — with nascent hydrogen liberated from
a mixture of zinc-dust and acetic acid.

A fund, called the De Laincel fund, has
been dedicated to the promotion of the study
of the graphic system of the ancient Mayas,
by collecting vocabularies and obtaining re-
productions of the mural inscriptions of Cen-
tral America and of their manuscripts. The
work will be carried on under the direction
of a committee of recognized qualifications ;
and the explorations will be directed by Dr.
Hilborne T. Cresson, of Philadelphia, an ex-
perienced ethnologist and a Maya student.

A novel view of the puma, or panther,
as it is commonly called, is taken by Mr. W.
H. Hudson, in his Naturalist in La Plata, who
insists that it never attacks man except in
self-defense. In the Pampas, where it is
common, the gaucho confidently sleeps on the
ground, although he knows that pumas are
close by; and it is said that a child may
sleep on the plain unprotected in equal se-
curity. This is not on account of fear or
dislike of man, but of an apparent cat-like
fondness for being near him. The gauchos
call the animal "the friend of man."

Interest in stilt - walking — concerning
which we published an illustrated article sev-
eral months ago — has been revived by a stilt-
walking match which was contested on the
27th of May last, under the auspices of the
journal La Gironde, of Bordeaux, France.
The course, from Bordeaux to Biarritz, 257
kilometres, was passed over by the victorious
contestant in 55"30 hours, or at an average
speed of 4'650 kilometres per hour. This is
not much if any better than could be done
by an ordinary walking-match pedestrian.

Remains of a mammoth and other pre-
historic animals have been found in Endsleigh
Street, London, at a depth of twenty-two feet
below the surface. They include two tusks
nine or ten feet long, one of which is two

~zo

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

feet in circumference at its thickest part, and
a lower jaw and other bones of a younger
mammoth. The seeds of about twenty spe-
cies of contemporary marsh-growing plants
have been found in the soil in wdiich the re-
mains were imbedded.

The American Metrological Society has
prepared a petition asking Congress to order
the metric system to be used exclusively in
the customs service in the United States.
The Geographical International Congress at
Berne, Switzerland, last year, entreated Eng-
lish men of science in future to use only the
units of the metric system in scientific and
technical publications. The new Decimal
Association in London has petitioned the
proper authorities to prepare alternative
questions, based on the metric system, to be
used at the option of the candidate in the
May examinations of the Science and Art De-
partment.

A novel and interesting feature of the
first United States Food Exhibition to be held
in Madison Square Garden, New York, in
October, will be a national exhibit of dairy
products. It will be in charge of Prof. James
Cheeseman, a recognized dairy expert and
authority in all matters pertaining to dairy
interests, who represented the United States
in that department at the late Paris Exposi-
tion. He is also known to our older read-
ers by his suggestive article on Selection
in Grain - growing, in The Popular Science
Monthly for July, 1883.

We are informed by the Rev. Stephen D.
Peet of the existence of three considerable
collections of cave-dwellers' relics in the
West — one in Denver, one in Chicago, and
one in the far West. The relics in the col-
lection of the Rev. Mr. Green in Chicago
were carried two hundred miles on horse-
back, from Grand Gulch in Utah, a distant
and retired branch of the San Juan Valley.

Dr. Cyrtts Thomas announces in Science
that he has at last discovered the key to the
reading of the Maya Codices, and probably
of the Central American inscriptions. The
progress of decipherment will be slow, but,
the clew having been obtained, it will ulti-
mately be accomplished. The author has
already determined the signification of some
dozens of characters, and has in several in-
stances ascertained the general sense of a
group forming a sentence.

A remarkable ice-cave or well, at Creux
Perce, near the village of Pasques, depart-
ment of Cote d'Or, France, is described in La
Nalvre by M. E. L. Martel. It opens horizon-
tally in the field, is fifty-five metres deep, with
a mouth forty metres by twenty, and about
two thirds of the way down narrows abruptly
like a funnel to ten metres by five. The ice
in the bottom is plainly visible from the top.
On descending, which M. Martel did very
easily with a ladder, the cave is found

fringed with stalactites and stalagmites of
ice from ten to fifteen metres long, and six
or eight by two or three metres thick. The
light at the bottom is sufficient to permit the
ice to be photographed.

Carnaba wax is a substance which has
been used lately for hardening paraffin and
making it less fusible, for improving the
quality of the inferior kinds of beeswax, and
in making candles, varnishes, encaustics, etc.
It is derived from the palm tree known as
Copemica cerifera, of Brazil, and is there-
fore sometimes called Brazil wax. It is
very hard, breaks up into sharp-angled pieces
under the hammer, and is yellow, gray, red,
or maroon in color.

OBITUARY NOTES.

Admiral Ernest A. B. Mouchez, a dis-
tinguished French naval officer and astrono-
mer, has recently died, in the seventy-first
year of his age. His scientific career began
with hydrographic and coast -survey work.
He had charge of the French expedition to
the island of St. Paul to observe the transit
of Venus in 1874, concerning which he read
a report before the five academies in 1875.
In 1878 he succeeded Le Verrier as Director
of the Paris Observatory. Having already
organized at Montsouris a school of astrono-
my for officers of the marine and travelers,
he carried out the same idea on a more ex-
tensive scale at Paris ; and for eight years
past his school has been a nursery of young
astronomers for the French observatories.
He also organized a curious and varied astro-
nomical museum at Paris. He was honorary
President of the Astronomical Congress
which has met three times at Paris ; and he
is credited with having conceived the idea of
the map of the sky in the making of which
all civilized countries are now co-operating.

The death is announced, at Buenos Ayres,
May 2d, of Hermann Burmeister, the dean of
South American naturalists, aged eighty-five
years. He was of German birth, was Pro-
fessor of Zoology at the University of Halle,
and took up his residence in South America
after having made several voyages there.
Since 1861 he had been Professor and Di-
rector of the Museum of Natural History of-
Buenos Ayres, and Curator of the University
of Cordova. Besides several works of natu-
ral history published in Europe, he was au-
thor of many important studies on the fauna
and paleontology of South America, the most
considerable of which were published in the
Anales of the Public Museum of Buenos
Ayres, a periodical founded by him, and of
a Physical Description of the Argentine Re-
public. He is credited with having given an
"enormous impulse" to science in South
America, particularly in the La Plata coun-
tries.

ALEXANDER WINCHELL.

.Mercantile Lion ah '

NEW YORK.
THE

POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY.

OCTOBER, 1892.

AMERICAN CHILDHOOD FROM A MEDICAL STAND-
POINT.

A

By HENRY LING TAYLOR, M. D.

GOOD deal has been said and written about our national
temperament and physique, and it is doubtless true that
the various stocks of the Old World, transplanted to our soil and
subjected to new conditions of life, have felt the molding influ-
ences of changed surroundings. The human organism is pre-
eminent in its marvelous adaptability to the most varied condi-
tions of life. It has complex mechanisms which convey, store
up, modify, and discharge the showers of impressions constantly
received through nerve-endings in the skin, membranes, and
tissues, as well as through the organs of special sense. We recog-
nize that different individuals and races react somewhat differ-
ently to stimuli ; they have inherited or acquired special char-
acteristics of mind and body, largely due to habits evoked
by special surroundings and ingrained by frequent repetition,
whether in themselves or in their ancestors. If inherited bias
counts for very much in molding the organism, this is equally
true of impressions frequently repeated, or the steady push of
constantly acting, though it may be scarcely noticed, forces.

Conspicuous factors in modern life are the extreme specializa-
tion of pursuits and occupations tending to narrow and restrict
experience, and the herding together of dense masses of popu-
lation in large cities, toward which the more venturesome and
ambitious individuals tend to gravitate, and where larger oppor-
tunities are provided, only at the cost of more strenuous competi-
tion, and in many respects less favorable hygienic conditions.
Success is paid for, both directly and remotely, in pounds of flesh.

VOL. XLI. 52

722 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It lias been claimed that the strongest blood can not endure con-
tinuous city life for more than three generations, but must be
kept alive by the infusion of country blood or by the return in
some degree to country life. Thus our large cities are a kind of
biological furnace, which in the end consumes the lives supplied
to it, in order to obtain the product in trade, science, and art
which we so much admire. If, in the course of this fiery ordeal,
the individual receives a keener temper or a finer polish, he may
not become stronger physically or better balanced mentally, and
thousands, unable to endure the strain, are cast off or incapaci-
tated, while hundreds of thousands are not able to transmit to
their children the physical endowment which they themselves
originally possessed. It is the purpose of this paper to study the
physiological tendency of the forces to which many American
children are subjected, especially in our largest cities, where the
logical effects of characteristic habits or traits are most strikingly
evident. Physicians know that city children get too little light
and air, do not take enough of the right kind of exercise, are
often overfed or underfed, are pushed or pampered too much in
their studies, and especially in their emotions, and frequently
shorten their childhood to become little men and women before
emerging from pinafores and knickerbockers. Such criticisms
have been frquently passed, and that they are not unfounded
we can all testify.

We instinctively recognize more truth than jest in Henry
James's description of the little girl who rushed into the hotel
parlor on roller skates, shouting : " Get out of the way ! " and we
have at once a clear mental picture of her pale, eager face, slim
figure, shallow chest, attenuated limbs, and weak ankles ; so inevi-
tably does the simple exclamation suggest a correlated and too
familiar physique. Healthy immigrants, or country people com-
ing to the city to live, usually lose their fresh, ruddy color in a
few months, and their firm flesh becomes flabby, though city
people are, as a rule, better walkers and can stand more of certain
kinds of exertion. We may take the physique of the little girl on
roller skates as a type of frequent occurrence. In children of the
corresponding class the feelings may be intense or sluggish, but
in either case betray the lack of proper balance and correct disci-
pline. There is a precocity in knowledge of people and social rela-
tions, darkest ignorance with regard to most natural objects and
processes. The mind and body may be restlessly active or listless
and indolent ; in either case the fundamental qualities of docility
and poise are lacking ; there may be much development on the
aesthetic side, or much in comparison with the neglect of the
practical. The city child is handicapped from the start. He is
usually produced with difficulty from overtaxed and under-

CHILDHOOD FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT. 723

nourished, not necessarily underfed, stock rather than from the
superabundant vitality of robust natures. The cultured mother
rarely has sufficient vigor to nurse her infant, and it is brought
up on some substitute, which at the best is but a makeshift.
Whatever modern life and culture may have done for our women,
they hardly seem, in their extreme forms, to have prepared them
for the intelligent care of their offspring, whose arrival is often
regarded with pathetic helplessness. There is, however, enough
of New England's " inflamed moral sense " in our midst to furnish
our women with a fair share of conscience, so that their errors
are as apt to be due to over-solicitude as the reverse. Take
the matter of clothing, for example : this is frequently piled on
till the hapless youngster presents the appearance of a bale
of millinery, impeding movements, keeping the child over-
heated, and forming a conspicuous part of the hot-house life
which the child is henceforth to lead. Literally " hot-house," for
there is something in our houses, their heating apparatus, or the
habits of the people, which keeps our residences at a tropical heat
during the cold season. I am inclined to think it is partly a
result of our high-pressure life. A tired brain and exhausted
nerves crave warmth ; and indolent or sedentary habits do not
predispose one to bear a bracing temperature. Be that as it may,
the little ones grow up in an atmosphere of steady, relaxing
warmth, and the continual endeavor is to protect them from any-
thing approaching cold. Their baths are usually hot, and there
is a noticeable absence of that skin culture which comes naturally
to country children, living out of doors, sleeping in a cold room,
skating or snow-balling in winter, and swimming in the neigh-
boring pond in summer. It seems that the whole tendency of city
life is toward "making it easy," physically, for the individual
by the elimination of all except the simplest demands on the
organism, forgetting that our powers are developed by their cul-
tivation, and inevitably deteriorate with disuse. Our life is so
artificial that we require gymnasiums, field-sports, and outings to
keep a decent physical equilibrium, and we ought in addition to
give particular attention to vascular gymnastics and to the culture
and development of the unstriped muscular fibers, which play so
fundamental a part in vital economy, by placing more dependence
on their adjustive and resisting powers, through a systematic and
judicious exposure of the skin to cold water, cold air, and the
vicissitudes of weather. As to the diet of children after the
nursing age, it is likely that our city children fare better than
many of their country cousins. There is probably no country in
the world where there is such an attractive variety of cheap and
wholesome food of all classes, meats, cereals, vegetables and fruit,
as in our own. The general habit of fruit-eating, which seems to

7 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

be growing, is, I believe, salutary, and to be encouraged. Good
fruit is practically within the reach of all at all seasons, and we
are probably the only nation out of the tropics where fresh fruit
is a staple article of diet every day in the year. The temptation
and tendency in the diet of children is toward an over-indulgence
in animal and saccharine food, and in elaborate made dishes ; and
the practice of allowing children to eat at the same hours with
their elders, and substantially the same things, is liable to result
in a trying regimen for the child.

In regard to fresh air, the youthful citizen of the metropolis
is not likely to get too much of it indoors, and the few hours
a day spent on the sidewalk or in a perambulator are a sorry
substitute for rolling over the grass or tumbling about the
door-yard. When the child is a few years older the difficulty is
increased. Young children are in constant motion, and this is
Nature's method of educating the muscles and nerve-centers in
the selection and development of those complicated associated
movements and correlated reactions which finally form the auto-
matic groundwork of our life. We are brought by these means
into contact with all kinds of natural objects, in order that we
may become aware of their attributes and react promptly and
advantageously to their stimulation. The city child, however,
instead of soil with its diversified coverings, has hard and mostly
level ffoors or pavements ; instead of grateful greenish, bluish, or
brownish tints, the patchwork surface of our houses and streets ;
and instead of restful silence or simple and harmonious sounds,
the irritating jar of complicated, intense, and discordant noises.
We may compare the conditions to which the city child is sub-
jected to the life of a trainman, who is hampered in his move-
ments and at the same time subjected to storms of auditory,
visual, and other impressions in unending succession.

I recently had occasion to compare the development of a typi-
cal city boy of eighteen months with that of a little girl of fifteen
months brought up in a small inland town. The boy was the
only child of cultivated city parents ; the little girl was the young-
est of several children, and her parents were plain trades-people.
Though the girl had congenital club-foot and had never walked,
she had remarkably good control over the movements of the arms,
legs, head, and trunk. She placed her finger on or grasped an
object with exactness, threw a ball with force and precision, and
hitched herself about the floor with great dexterity and rapidity.
All her movements were well planned and well executed, and
many of them complicated, such as putting a tin cup upon the
end of a stick and shaking it without letting it fall off. She could
speak only a few words, but had a great deal to say in her baby
language. The expression on her face was placid and contented,

CHILDHOOD FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT. 725

thougli often animated, and she would sit for hours on the floor
and amuse herself. She rarely cried, took her daily naps as a
matter of course, and slept quietly all night. Teething did not
annoy her, and, in spite of irregular feeding, her digestion was
good.

The little boy refused to creep or sit on the floor at all, but
ran about incessantly. His movements, except locomotion, were
far less complicated and precise than those of his playmate. He
could not put the cup on the stick, though he tried repeatedly,
nor throw a ball nearly so well. He was incessantly and intensely
interested in the things he saw, but only fixed his attention on an
object for an instant. He had no initiative, and, as he was unable
to amuse himself, he was never left alone. He talked a great deal,
but not plainly, and understood nearly everything that was said to
him ; and it pleased him to mimic the little girl's ways and prattle.
He was very fond of having the piano played to him, and could
always distinguish the tunes he had heard a few times. He was
bright and intelligent, and, when feeling well, very good and hap-
py, but was a bad sleeper, and at times cross and fretful ; in spite
of scrupulous attention to diet, he was a martyr to indigestion,
and teething caused him much suffering.

It is noticeable that many city children are thrown more
among adults and less with children than is desirable, partly from
the custom of relegating a large part of the parental responsibil-
ity to a nurse, partly from the small average number of children
in a family, and partly from the limiting conditions of city life,
which are somewhat unfavorable to real sociability. The chances
are that unless a child runs the streets he will see more of two or
three or half a dozen adults than of all the rest of the world put
together. This is abnormal and unwholesome, as it deprives the
child of the kind of mental stimulus and discipline suited to his
age, and substitutes something wholly inappropriate and harmful
in its tendency. When the school years come, the children have
companionship, at least in school hours, but also in many instances
an imperfect school hygiene, with its bad air, poor light, cramped
positions, and other drawbacks. Dr. C. F. Folsom says of city
school children: "Pale faces, languid work, poor appetite, dis-
turbed sleep, headache, and what is vaguely called nervousness,
are more common among them than they should be among chil-
dren of their ages," and speaks of " constitutions weakened during
the school years, instead of strengthened, as they should be."

On account of lack of familiarity with country life, many city
children of the lower school grades, as shown by President G.
Stanley Hall, have the most extraordinarily distorted ideas about
the commonest natural objects and phenomena, and much of this
mass of misinformation remains in adult life. On the other hand,

726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

they may be keen judges of character and conduct and "be well
able to hold their own in a bargain or an argument. Of a class
of about thirty girls from eight to thirteen years of age living
east of the Bowery, only three had been in Central Park and only
four had ever visited the country. When taken to Central Park
by a friend, they first asked if they might step on the grass, and
then, with the natural instinct of young animals, lay down and
rolled on it.

As already remarked, it is natural for the young child to move
about and change its attitude almost incessantly ; in the words of
Sir William Jenner, " it joys to exercise every muscle " ; and it is
equally true that its eyes, attention, and mind should never be
directed continuously at one object for very long. A child loves
to glance at this object, pick up that, reach out for a third, not
restlessly but wonderingly, caressingly, and joyously, just as a
short time before the infant played contentedly with its rattle or
its ring, waving it about or putting it into its mouth with end-
less repetition, but always without studious observation or strain
of attention. I am afraid we often injure these small eyes and
tender brains by requiring continuous repose of body and fixa-
tion of eye and attention on some one object, as is often done in
the kindergarten and primary work, at the cost of ocular and
nervous strain; and this combined with bad light and general
driving may account for much of modern myopia, headache, and
nervous troubles. We should advance in the education of mus-
cle, eye, and brain from the general to the particular, and impose
no task requiring precision or intense application upon young
children. Nature is a good schoolmistress, and her lessons are fun-
damental ones, no matter how much we may supplement them at
school or university. The infant is learning fundamental lessons,
in the correlation of muscle, brain, and sense, through the almost
incessant activity of his arms and legs — at first without purpose,
afterward in reaching, grasping, or trying to move about, and
also when it smiles back at its mother or is quieted by her voice ;
so is the child repeating nursery rhymes or busy with its quiet
play or romping games ; or the youth with his carpenter's tools,
or riding, swimming, or hunting, and learning just as truly, and
perhaps more truly, than the student burning midnight oil over
Greek and calculus. Nature is never systematic in the school
sense ; and, however much we may systematize, we must at the
same time cultivate our powers and round out our individuality
by keeping in touch with so much of Nature and man as lies with-
in our horizon in a restful, informal way. If a man is to develop
into something more than a machine or formula, he should be en-
couraged from childhood to bring all his powers into relation
with his environment and to seek a wide range of adjustments

CHILDHOOD FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT. 727

between himself and the outer world, beyond the tread-mill round
of special or formal pursuits which necessarily occupy much of
his attention. Many fail to appreciate the importance of this in-
dispensable natural culture, and endeavor to supplant the spon-
taneous by the formal. I know of a little girl whose interest in
flowers was destroyed by an attempt to teach her technical botany
at too early an age, forgetting that it means more to love flowers
than to know botany. In another case the attempt was made to
substitute history for a boy's ordinary reading, with the result of
spoiling the boy. On reaching manhood his favorite author was
E. P. Roe.

Correct mental reactions must be based upon correct physical
reactions, which are naturally evoked by a free open-air life. As
Lowell puts it : u The driving-wheels of all-powerful Nature are
in the back of the head. . . . But it is ill with a nation when the
cerebrum sucks the cerebellum dry, for it can not live by intellect
alone. The broad foreheads always carry the day at last, but
only when they are based on or buttressed with massive hind-
heads. . . . Moreover, brain is always to be bought, but passion
never comes to market."

The city boy's supplemental training at school is far from
perfect, but his fundamental, unstudied training by contact with
Nature in the free use of his proper activities is wofully deficient.
If restricted to the city, he can hardly become familiar with any
natural objects but a few animals, building materials, and food-
stuffs; his notion of such fundamental objects as the sky or
horizon must be extremely hazy. His relations with people, or at
least with certain individuals, are likely to be too close ; he can
not escape from them, and is over-stimulated or overpowered.
This leads me to speak of family life as we observe it, perhaps
the most important factor of all in the child's development, physi-
cal as well as mental and moral.

It is sometimes claimed that women are not as good house-
keepers and home-makers as formerly, and if this be true it is not
altogether their fault. It is not to be denied that the number of
families in New York, for instance, is far in excess of the number
of homes. The tendency with us is for the mistress of the house
to participate less and less in the details of household manage-
ment, and much of the work is left to hirelings inside and outside
of the premises. The desire to diminish some of the difficulties of
city housekeeping has caused the wholesale introduction of flats,
which are, as a rule, cramped and poorly lighted, and, to say the
least, ill adapted for the rearing of children. Rooms in suites
have made it possible to dispense with the kitchen and its auto-
crat, and the disintegration of the home is complete in boarding-
houses and hotels. The promiscuity of the tenement is equally

728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

unfavorable to a home atmosphere and home employments. The
modest requirement of a small, plain house with light and air on
all sides, is beyond the reach of the millionaire. Unless we stop
to think, we are apt to forget how high a price we pay for the
privilege of much laborious striving and cramped living.

So much has been said about the frivolity, incompetence, or
f ussiness of American mothers that it will not be amiss to inquire
into the characteristics of our fathers of families. With the best
intentions in the world the time that a city man can spend with
his family is usually very limited, and he is not always in the
mood to exert a helpful influence, when he returns at night worn
out with business cares, and often prefers the club, lodge, or
neighboring corner to his family circle ; his wife may see little of
him and his children less. It is not a matter of indifference, how-
ever, even in regard to health, whether the children enjoy a due
proportion of their father's companionship, for that is or should
be a vital factor in the children's growth and education, and,
whenever they are deprived of it, certain elements of character and
mind are almost always absent. Look around among your friends
where the children have grown up without a father, and see if
your observation does not show that there is some quality of
mind or heart, some check or balance wanting, that no one else
could supply. I observe that American fathers, whether from the
exactions of business or other reasons, do not ordinarily come to
my office with their ailing children. The whole matter is often
left in the hands of the wife or some relative. Germans are more
apt to come than Americans, and Hebrews most of all ; and
indeed I can not refrain from expressing my admiration of the
domestic life of the better class of Jews in New York, which, so
far as I have observed it, is in many respects more nearly what it
should be than that of any class in our community.

Body and mind grow together ; what affects the one must affect
the other, so that if the influence of either parent is withdrawn the
due proportion or balance is lost and certain physical as well as
mental peculiarities in the children are dwarfed or accentuated.
The home atmosphere often determines the mental and moral, and
consequently the physical tone of the children. I claim distinctly
that an atmosphere of frivolity, indolence, self -consciousness, fus-
siness, discontent, sentimentality, or meanness can not be with-
out serious effects not only on the character but on the physique.
Selfishness in any form is not only unattractive, but it is un-
wholesome ; it is a depressant to the system. Per contra, high and
well-rounded living not only makes sound thinking, but it ab-
breviates doctors' bills. It is a truism to say that no one has so
much' to do with the child's acquisition of a healthy moral and
physical tone as his parents, but few realize how tremendous a

CHILDHOOD FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT. 729

factor in the evolution of the individual we touch at this point.
We need the mother's influence and the father's influence in the
family, and also the influence of the children on each other.
First children, last children, only children, children of small and
large families, all have their special attributes and defects. The
child is receiving and adjusting every instant, impressions that
will positively determine not only his future career but his bodily
structure. Parents and care-takers must see that these im-
pressions are useful and true. The means in the control of the
physician are as nothing compared to home influences and con-
ditions in shaping a healthy mind and body. The reactions most
frequently evoked will be the dominating ones. As Bacon puts
it : " Therefore since Custome is the principle Magistrate of a Man's
life ; let Men by all Means endeavour to obtain good Customes.
Certainly Custome is most perfect when it beginneth in Young
Years. This we call Education ; which is in effect but an early
Custome " ; or as another says : " In the conduct of life, habits
count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, be-
come flesh and instinct. To reform one's maxims is nothing ; it
is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is
everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a
tissue of habits " (Amiel's Journal, page 7). All of which applies
as cogently to the physical as to the mental. " Nothing has ever
been invented to take the place of a ' bringing up.' " The home
has been compared to the ship-yard where the vessel's construction
is slowly and painstakingly elaborated step by step, so that the
structure may be able to outride the strains and disintegrating
tendencies that are sure to attack it later, just as the growing hu-
man organism is built up, under fostering influences, by the grad-
ual incorporation of helpful habits and useful physical reactions.
Self-control and transparent honesty in the parent are as essential
as obedience and self-reliance in the child. " He that will have a
cake of the wheat must tarry in the grinding." The child does
not exist who can grow up natural or healthy without a fair
share of wholesome neglect and judicious exposure. Few real-
ize the tremendous risk of over-caution and over-attention. A
youngster is invariably happier with few and simple playthings
than with a multitude of complicated toys. There is no such
good fun or good training as making one's self useful, and it is
cruelty to deprive the child of this pleasure and stimulus. Let
the brain and body be trained through hand, foot, and eye.
Dump a load of sand into the back yard and let the children roll
in it. Give the boys a carpenter's bench ; encourage the girls to
do housework. Where possible, let both boy and girl have a little
garden-patch, if only a few feet square, and the care of a few
plants. A woman in her home, a man in his garden : this seems

730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to be a fundamental type from which we can not entirely depart
without risk to body and mind. The training of the muscular
reflexes should go hand in hand with the cultivation of simple,
natural, beneficent reactions in the higher planes. Cheerfulness,
sincerity, industry, perseverance and unselfishness may be ac-
quired by practice and constant repetition, as much as the art of
correct speaking or of playing the piano, and are far more neces-
sary to health. We must have a basis of correct fundamental
physical and psychical reactions as a help toward a proper balance
between feeling and will, or our subsequent building will rest on
a foundation of sand. How often is a physician hampered in his
efforts to help some sufferer, because the latter has never acquired
the art of obedience, or because he can not tolerate a tongue-de-
pressor, or swallow a pill or any unpalatable mixture, or take
milk or some mainstay of diet ; or because he can not be left
alone, or sleep in the daytime, or wear flannels, or sit still, or bear
pain, or use his muscles, or take in certain classes of facts or
ideas! These and similar peculiarities, which are a formidable
hindrance to the physician, and may be a matter of life or death
to the sufferer, can usually be prevented by a little care, or over-
come by proper training. They are often the result of careless-
ness or over-indulgence, or that kind of cowardice which in-
stinctively avoids the disagreeable, instead of facing a difficulty
fairly and conquering it.

Another way in which children are injured is by being used as
playthings for the amusement of relatives and friends. There is
the temptation, well-nigh irresistible, to show them off, if they are
bright, or later to push them along in school or society, sacrific-
ing wholesome symmetry to immediate showy effect. This tend-
ency has largely molded our private schools, for girls especially,
whose basis is too often sentimentality of some sort ; and sentimen-
tality is a form of narrowness, an incapacity for seeing things in
their true proportions.

There is one characteristic of our metropolitan life so salient
that it can hardly fail to make itself felt even in childhood. I mean
the mad chase after the dollar, the cause of much of the killing
tension of city life. It is curious to note that the nation that is
conspicuous by the absence of this spirit — I mean the Japanese —
has probably the best-behaved children in the world, and is the
land of happy childhood. A crying baby is to them a curiosity.
This straining of powers till they crack, this incessant fiddling at
the nerves, is apt to make our city life restless, asymmetrical, and
unsatisfactory ; the children feel it and show it in their faces, in
the sensitive structure of their bodies, and in the affections and
diseases to which they are subject. And this nervous tension, as
much as our tropical summer climate, has necessitated that peri-

CHILDHOOD FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT. 731

odical return to Nature or summer outing, which is a national
habit, and is the one efficient means, if properly used, of combat-
ing the disintegrating tendencies of city life.

The children of the poor, in spite of many drawbacks, fare
better in some respects than those of the well-to-do. They often
respond better to treatment when they are sick ; they are at
least not deprived of that contact with their fellows and struggle
for existence which is absolutely essential to health ; whereas
the children of the so-called higher classes are too often edu-
cated in sensitiveness, and false and hurtful views of life, not
always by precept or example, but by force of circumstances.
A colleague, who is intimately acquainted with the physical con-
dition of some eight thousand children, taken from the worst
classes in New York, who have in the course of several years
passed through a public institution under his care, says that they
improve so much, after having enjoyed for a few months the
ample diet and simple and regular life provided, that their physi-
cal condition compares favorably with that of any class of chil-
dren in New York.

Much of what has been said applies to certain classes in cer-
tain restricted localities, and it may be thought that the picture
is an exaggerated one, but I maintain that the physique of the chil-
dren that are now growing up under our eyes is not on the whole
satisfactory, and that it is a difficult matter to bring up whole-
some, hearty children in New York, for example : if this is true,
it is well to recognize the fact. The average conditions both
within and without the family seem restricted and unnatural ;
fortunately, there is a large amount of sturdy stock throughout
the land, brought up to individual independence in contact with
Nature, and in wholesome home surroundings, upon which we can
draw indefinitely.

It is true that the advantages are not all on the side of country
life ; that the struggle with Nature may be strenuous, and the
living narrow and poor, and that on the other hand the conditions
of city life may bring a better diet and a better knowledge of
personal hygiene. Indeed, it is claimed that during our civil war
certain city regiments stood campaigning better than the men
from the country, possibly because they better understood how to
take care of themselves. All this does not militate against my
position that the conditions of country life are, or may be made,
more favorable for children.

Just because life in our large centers puts such pressure on
men and women do we get such remarkable effects in certain
directions. Much of the world's best work is the direct result, but
it is usually the effect of such stimulation on broad and healthy
natures developed partly or wholly in the country; and ulti-

732 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

ruately, unless there are considerable interruptions, the individual
or the family is stamped out, as is every individual or family
which pursues a too restricted, too artificial, or too one-sided
career.

■♦»♦

SPECIFICS FOR THE CURE OF INEBRIETY.

By T. D. CKOTHERS. M. D.

W'HEN any great truth begins to receive public recognition
it is always first welcomed by the credulous and visionary
enthusiast, who surrounds it with the most extravagant expecta-
tions. This brings out the charlatan and empiric who studies to
turn all such facts and conditions to his own personal profit. In
this way the credulity of the one and the charlatanism of the other
envelop the truth with a confusion and mystery that often conceal
it for a long time. Only the student and the scientist realize that
behind this glamour and illusion there is a uniform evolutionary
movement along different lines from that suggested to the popular
mind.

The growth of truth may be compared to that of plants — first
seen in the seed, then the stalk, the shrub, and finally the tree, al-
ways following a distinct and fixed line of march through separate
periods and stages. The first stage is that of indifference, neglect,
and denial. Then follows the credulous period, in which the truth
is partially recognized and accepted, with extravagant conceptions,
associated with wild empirical efforts to incorporate it into practi-
cal life. Finally, the truth is fully understood, studied, and ac-
cepted, and becomes a part of the world's great possessions. This
is the natural history of every new fact of science and every new
discovery concerning the evolution of humanity. Often these
stages extend over long periods of time and are unrecognized ex-
cept by a few persons ; or they follow each other rapidly, but al-
ways along the same lines.

The dawning truth that the drink evil is a disease, and curable
as other diseases are, has passed the first period of neglect, indif-
ference, and denial, and has come to the second stage of partial
recognition and acceptance. The same army of the credulous,
the enthusiasts, and marvel-hunters are welcoming this fact, and
the same wild expectations of its practical possibilities fill the
air. This is followed by the same old charlatanism and empiric
efforts to make personal profit out of these truths by the use of
the same old quackish means and methods.

These efforts are prominent by the same assumption of supe-
rior knowledge of discovery of new facts, of new remedies, and
new methods, all of which are concealed. Then follow claims of

SPECIFICS FOR THE CURE OF INEBRIETY. 733

extraordinary cures under extraordinary conditions, the proof of
which, depends alone on the statements of the cured.

Then comes the old story of persecution by physicians and sci-
entists, and of posing as martyrs, public benefactors, and pioneer
discoverers, with indirect appeals for sympathy from the broad
and liberal minded. Back of all this is a pecuniary field actively
tilled which yields rich harvests, and altogether it is the same old
familiar history of empiricism, which is always to be found on the
advancing frontiers of science. Within two years a large num-
ber of charlatans have appeared, claiming to have found remedies
and specifics for the certain and permanent cure of the drink dis-
ease. A great variety of means and drugs are offered, each one
claiming to be superior to all others. Recently one of these em-
piric specific cures has led all the others in boldness and promi-
nence. Starting from an obscure Western village, it has spread
out into many branches, all organized and conducted on one gen-
eral plan, and federated together. Physicians have been enlisted
to conduct each branch, companies have been organized, houses
hired, and elaborated arrangements made for the work. Special
papers have been established to defend its interests, and the pul-
pit and press have indorsed and freely praised these efforts.
Every possible avenue to attract public attention has been in-
dustriously cultivated to keep the subject before the people.

Large numbers of persons who claim to be cured have organ-
ized into clubs, and display hysterical enthusiasm to prove the
reality of their cure and the greatness of the projector.

It is assumed that the inventor of this specific was the first to
urge the theory of disease in modern times; also that he has
made a great discovery of a new remedy the nature of which he
carefully conceals from the rest of the world. The most wonder-
ful and complete cures of the most incurable cases are accom-
plished in two or three weeks on some unknown physiological
principle. These assertions are sustained by certificates of clergy-
men, reformed men, and others, and are accepted as facts without
question or other evidence. Dogmatic statements and bold as-
sertions, coupled with savage criticism of those who dare to doubt,
together with half-truths and wild theories, mark all the literature
of this specific. The commercial side of this remedy is equally
startling and Napoleonic as a business success. It is a curious
fact that this particular cure is very closely followed in all its de-
tails and claims by a number of imitators, who have made equally
wonderful discoveries in precisely the same way, but all are con-
cealed for the same pretended reasons. It is equally curious to
note the absence of novelty and originality of methods compared
with the means and efforts used to make popular and create a sale
for most of the proprietary articles on the market to-day. All

734 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

these specifics for the cure of inebriety are without any practical
interest except as phases of the psychology of the drink disease.
It is very evident that they could not attract attention on their
merits, and the means and appliances used to bring them into no-
tice. Their existence depends on a psychological subsoil, which
would favor the growth and culture of any remedy involved in
mystery, and promising marvelous cures in a brief time. This
subsoil is simply the expectant credulity of a large number of
persons, who recognize the possibility of disease in inebriety.
Without this all specifics, no matter how wisely and shrewdly
presented, would fail. The conditions are all ripe for such em-
piricism, and its growth, life, and death are governed by causes
unknown to and beyond the control of its boastful authors.

Every temperance revival movement depends on some psycho-
logical subsoil of expectant credulity, and is followed by the
same dogmatic empiricism and the same wonderful cures, and
hysterical confidence of permanent results. Certificates of cure,
and enthusiastic praise of means and methods of far greater
magnitude than that which follows any specifics, could be gath-
ered and noted after every temperance revival.

The specific cures of inebriety to-day have appeared many times
before in the history of the past. Often the empiricism associ-
ated with it has been entirely moral and ethical, and at other
times it has been pecuniary and selfish. The old Washingtonian
movement was a good illustration of a great specific cure, bound
up with a great tide of moral empiricism, which for years created
intense interest.

The presidential campaign of 1840 was notorious for the ex-
cessive use of hard cider, whisky, and rum. Every political
meeting was marked by the free use of these spirits, and as the
excitement of the struggle increased, temperance men drank,
moderate drinkers became drunk and delirious, and never before
or since has the excitement of politics been so intimately associ-
ated with inebriety in all its forms.

At the close of the campaign it was estimated that over half
a million voters were practically inebriates, or had been repeat-
edly intoxicated during the excitement and excesses of the cam-
paign.

Newspapers and court records showed clearly that a high
tidal wave of drunkenness and moderate drinking existed at that
period. Then followed the inevitable reaction, and at this mo-
ment the Washingtonians appeared. A few months before, a
small drinking club in Baltimore changed to a temperance soci-
ety, and called themselves Washingtonians. Its members were
reformed men, and its leader, John Hawkins, was an enthusi-
astic, passionate orator, who urged the pledge as a remedy for

SPECIFICS FOR THE CURE OF INEBRIETY. 73 5

drunkenness with intense earnestness. The excitement of the
political campaign and its drink excesses had prepared the public
mind for this great emotional remedy — the pledge. John Haw-
kins's infectious earnestness animated his followers, and roused up
an army of lecturers which scattered to every town and hamlet
all over the country. The campaign excitement of 1840 appeared
again in a great temperance reform wave, which steadily grew in
numbers and enthusiasm up to 1847, when a high tidal point was
reached and reaction began. Over a million persons signed the
pledge, and the evils of drinking and alcohol were discussed in
almost every neighborhood in the country. Never before had
any reform movement been prosecuted with such terrible earnest-
ness and contagious enthusiasm. All selfish motives and personal
interests seemed to disappear in the one great purpose to pledge
the victim and inspire him to avoid spirits and lead a temperate
life. The spirit of the old crusaders seemed to have reappeared
again. This was literally a psychological storm-wave, the reac-
tion in part of the campaign of 1840, and the outgrowth of
obscure psychological conditions, which had been prepared for
a long time before. It crossed the continent and was felt every-
where, and a few years later was only known in the history of
the past. While a number of inebriates were restored, its real
work and value were in a different direction, not yet fully realized.
It seemed to be a great force that fused and mobilized a tide of
oncoming truth, and was literally a forerunner, indicating new
and clearer conceptions of inebriety. It not only broke up old
theories, but opened up new ranges of work, and gave glimpses
of more effectual methods for cure.

The first inebriate asylum in the world grew out of this move-
ment, and all the various temperance organizations date from the
same source. Even the Prohibition party is the outgrowth of
this reform-wave.

It was the first great psychological evolution of the drink ques-
tion, giving an impetus and inspiration to its study, above all
moral and political considerations. It was also a great empirical
epidemic which assumed that the drink evil was the result of a
feeble will, the remedy for which was the pledge, supported by
personal sympathy in organized societies. It was a moral and
ethical empiricism, based on the purest and highest motives ; had
it been founded on truth, would have lived as a great power in
the upward movement of the race. In this connection it will be
of interest to trace another great wave of empiricism, that created
intense interest for a time. Unlike the Washingtonians, it was
thoroughly mercenary, and, like the present specifics for inebri-
ety, it was born in mystery and sustained by credulity and dog-
matism.

736 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The experiments of Galvani in 1785 attracted great attention.
The most extravagant expectation of the practical value of gal-
vanism in curing disease gradually spread among non-experts
all over the scientific world. Various empirics appeared claim-
ing remarkable results based on this new force. Finally, in 1796,
Dr. Perkins, of Connecticut, announced that he had discovered
two metals which, combined in a secret way, possessed marvelous
powers of galvanism, which he called tractors, or pullers-out of
disease. These tractors resembled a piece of gold and silver fitted
together, about four inches long, and were used, by being moved up
and down over the part affected, to draw out the disease and re-
store the vital forces. Almost every disorder known was cured or
relieved by this means. The discoverer challenged the world of
science everywhere, and invited criticism, and pointed to the per-
sons cured for irrefutable evidence. The psychological soil was
prepared, and the army of credulous enthusiasts were all ready to
welcome him. In two years these tractors attained great popu-
larity in this country. They were literally recommended and in-
dorsed by the faculties of three medical colleges, and vast numbers
of clergymen, members of Congress, and public officials. A spe-
cial patent was issued, and signed by George Washington, as a
slight recognition of the great service the inventor had rendered
the world. Pamphlets, sermons, lectures, papers, and even books
were written and scattered everywhere, giving the theories and re-
sults following the use of these tractors. In 1798 Perkins went to
London. His boldness and dogmatism immediately commanded
popularity. After a time a hospital was established, called the
Perkinson Institute, officered by the nobility, with Lord Revois
as president. Large sums of money were given for the treatment
of the poor by this method. Free dispensaries were opened, and
trained assistants used these tractors for all cases, with boasted
success. Lectures were given on the philosophy of this method,
and students were instructed and sent out to open branch insti-
tutes. The rich purchased these tractors and became their own
doctors, and the poor were obliged to accept treatment from oth-
ers. With empiric shrewdness, certificates of cure were gath-
ered, which exceeded ten thousand in number, and were signed
by princes, ministers of state, bishops, clergymen, professors,
physicians, and wealthy laymen. The inventor was recognized
as a great public benefactor and pioneer, also one of the few im-
mortals who would live down the ages. Perkinsism seemed to
have won a place in the scientific history of the world. By and by
this gilded cloud of popularity burst, and the charm was dissolved.
Two physicians made tractors of wood and sold them as the origi-
nal, producing the same results and the same crop of certificates
of cure. After making a respectable sum of money, they pub-

SPECIFICS FOR THE CURE OF INEBRIETY. 737

lished their experience, together with the thanks and public
prayers for the great blessing conferred on the world by these
means. Like the " South Sea bubble," Perkinsism dissolved and
was no more. The branch institutes for treatment by the tract-
ors closed for want of patients, and the tractors disappeared.
Behind all this tremendous enthusiasm for the good of science
and humanity appeared a commercial spirit that was startling.

These tractors were claimed to be gold and silver, and sold
at from ten to twenty-five dollars each. In reality, they were
made of brass and polished steel, at a cost of about twelve cents
each, in an obscure Connecticut village, from which they were
shipped to the inventor, who sent them all over the world. Of
course, Perkins made a fortune, which compensated in a meas-
ure for his sudden fall from greatness.

While this was a great empirical epidemic, with a mercenary
object, based on a few half -defined truths, it materially furthered
the growth and evolution of this subject. Many of the wild
theories which gathered about Perkinsism suggested clearer con-
ceptions to later observers. Like the specific inebriety epidemic,
it began as an assumed discovery of some new power, claimed
from metals (not used), with some new physiological action by
some new process, enveloped in mystery and only known to the
discoverer. The tractors were patented, and only made by Per-
kins, and the certificates and statements of those cured furnished
all the evidence. Literally, the effects were entirely mental,
depending on the credulity and expectancy of those who claimed
to be helped.

The present epidemic wave for the cure of inebriety is hardly
up to the average of former empiric efforts in adroit manipula-
tion of the credulous public.

The successful charlatan of modern times has always ex-
hibited some psychological skill in the display of assumed truth
and the concealment of his real motives. In these inebriety cures
there is a coarseness of methods, with brazen assumptions and
display of pecuniary motives, that quickly repel all except the
unthinking. The circulars, statements, and appeals to the pub-
lic are overdone, and sadly lacking in psychological skill. A
certain crankiness, with strange combinations of rashness and
caution, stupidity and cunning, strongly suggests that inebriate
intellects are the guiding spirits in the management of these
cures.

On the other hand, the very spirit and hurry of the movement
suggest a full recognition of the brevity of the work and the need
of active labor before the "night cometh when no man can
work." In this the highest commercial and psychological skill
appears. Dependence for popularity of the cure on the emotional

VOL. XLI. 53

738 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

enthusiasm of reformed inebriates also suggests a short life and
early oblivion, of which every temperance and church movement
for this end furnishes many illustrations.

There can be no doubt of the fact that a certain number of
inebriates are restored by each and all these various methods of
cure, and a certain other number, always in the great majority,
are made worse and more incurable and degenerate by the fail-
ures of such means. But, above the mere curing of a certain num-
ber of cases, a great psychological movement is stimulated, and a
wider conception of the evil follows of permanent value. The
inebriety specifics are epidemics of empiricism that will pass
away soon, but they will rouse public sentiment and bring out the
facts more prominently as to the disease of inebriety and its cura-
bility. This second stage of this truth resembles the " squatter
period " of every new Territory — a stage of occupation by squat-
ters, fortune-hunters, and irregulars of every description, who
rouse great expectations, build canvas towns, making a show of
permanent settlement, and attract crowds of credulous follow-
ers, only to prey on them. These persons always disappear when
the real settlers come. They never develop any lands or dis-
cover any new resources, but prepare the way and concentrate
public attention for the final occupation. The specific vaunter of
to-day is the squatter settler, who will soon disappear, and be fol-
lowed by the real settler and the scientists.

Inebriety, its causes and possible remedies, are a vast, un-
known territory, the boundary lines of which have been scarcely
crossed. The facts are so numerous and complex, and governed
by conditions that are so largely unknown, that dogmatism is
ignorance and positive assertions childishness.

The recognition of disease is only recently confirmed by the
accumulation of scientific facts, although asserted and defended
for a thousand years as a theory. The realm of causation is still
invested with moral theories, and moral remedies have been used
in the same way for a thousand years. While science has pointed
out a few facts and possible laws of causation, and indicated cer-
tain general lines of treatment, it gives no support to the possi-
bility of any specific remedy that will act on an unknown con-
dition in some unknown way. Inebriety is literally an insanity
of the border-line type, and a general condition of central brain
defect, unknown, and at present beyond the power of any
combination of drugs. To the scientists, all this confusion of
theory and empiricism hides the real movement, and is in itself
unmistakable evidence that somewhere in the future the entire
subject will be known, not as a statement or theory, but as
scientific truths established on scientific evidence beyond all
doubt.

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING. 739

The specific epidemic delusions for the cure of inebriety will
quickly disappear, as others have done before, and its real value
to science and the world will appear from future psychological
studies.

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING.

By LEE J. VANCE.

|~N his Descent of Man, Mr. Darwin refers briefly to the queer
J- antics and dancing performances of birds during the excite-
ments of courtship. He shows that such actions are made by the
male to charm the female. The plain inference is that from the
amatory feelings arises not love-dance only, but dancing in gen-
eral.

Now, I think Mr. Spencer would say that the relation between
courtship and dancing is not a relation of cause and effect ; that
the two are simultaneous results of the same cause — namely, over-
flow of animal spirits and vivacity of every kind. The spirit that
moves men to shuffle their feet, kick up their heels, even to gam-
bol madly until they swoon from exhaustion, may come from dif-
ferent feelings : now from youth, health, and exuberant spirits,
and now from joy or triumph, defiance and rage.

" On with the dance ! Let joy be unconfined ;
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet."

In brief, dances as representations of love-making are not fre-
quent among the lower races, while mystic, festive, and erotic
dances are numerous enough. Only among the more advanced
races, as the semi-civilized peoples of Asia and among the Euro-
pean peasantry, do we read of love-dances, and, oddly enough,
these are performed usually by women, not by men.

Dancing, as an art, has been of gradual growth, and subject to
the law of evolution. Wild, irregular, and fantastic dancing per-
formances take after a while more regular and more artistic
forms. Thus, we are able to show how savage dances, as of the
Australians, develop into barbarous dances, as of the American
Indians, while these in turn are modified, or perhaps improved,
by more advanced peoples, as the Egyptians ; how, again, in the
early dances of Greece, in the Greek mysteries, there are survivals
of the " mad doings," as Plutarch calls them, of savage races.

Folk-dancing was the first to rise into finished art. It has been
rightly called " the eldest of the arts," just as music is the young-
est. Beginning as a desire to kick, dancing grows into panto-
mime, which expresses a thought. As an art factor folk-dance

74°

T

HE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

can not be overrated. Out of the old rural songs and the lo-
cal cultus dances — known as mysteries and religious festivals —
the marvelous structure of Greek drama was evolved. Dionysus,
the god of orgies, of wine, of Bacchic revel, became in course of
time the patron of the drama. Indeed, several of the great dram-
atists, as ^Eschylus and Sophocles, were clever and skillful dan-
cers, who led in the chorus. They introduced the traditional dances

Fig. 1. — An Iroquois Dancer in Costume, with Mask. Staff, and Turtle-siiki.l

Rattle.

in their plays for an artistic purpose ; while the songs that were
sung to the accompaniment of the dance took a more formal shape
in that kind of poetry known as the ballad.

For the purposes of this discussion, folk-dancing may be di-
vided into three classes : First, we have social dances. They are
for pleasure or amusement, sometimes comic and sometimes erotic.
In the second class let us place war-dances. They are expressions

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING. 741

of defiance or rage, and they survived in the military dances of
the Greeks and Romans. Thirdly, we have religious dances of
various kinds. They are arranged usually by " medicine-men "
or priests ; they are magical in character, and are connected with
some rite or superstition. The savage invariably confounds danc-
ing with religion. His most elaborate dances are associated with
mystery -plays, setting forth in action the story of some traditional
event or some deity. The leaders of the revels are medicine-men
or chiefs.

Now, it is a matter of common report that uncivilized people
spend half their time in dancing. Thus, we read that the chief
occupation of the Indians of southern California used to be danc-
ing when the men were not engaged in procuring food.* The
Spaniards have been noted for their saltatory expertness, and yet
Cortes and his followers were surprised to find the art so much in
favor in Mexico. The Spanish historian Herrera says that in
dancing " no part of the world exceeds New Spain." He adds,
" though many of those dances were performed in honor of their
gods, the first institution of them was for the diversion of the
people, and therefore they learned the same from their child-
hood and were singularly exact." f

Aside from the speculation as to " the institution " of dancing,
the phrase " singularly exact " is here worthy of some notice ; for
it is a mistake to suppose that the savage dances hap-hazard,
without any rule of action. On the contrary, the " medicine-
dances" of the Indians are danced in a certain, definite way.
Whether it be for rain, for green corn, or for success in the
chase, the dancer follows the steps and paces fixed and regulated
by tradition or custom.

Let me observe that mystic dance is a serious business. It
behooves the dancer to be " singularly exact " when a faux pas
would result in his death. This point is very strongly put by Dr.
Franz Boas, who studied the dances of the coast tribes of British
Columbia. Among the Kwakiutl Indians, " any mistake made by
a singer or dancer is considered opprobrious. At certain occa-
sions the dancer who makes a mistake is killed." X The ancient
Mexicans did not mind putting an awkward dancer out of the
way, and the savage practice has been found in one or two other
parts of the world.

The punishment does not seem so severe, when we consider the
cruel rites and initiations a dancer must pass through, ere he
knows the secrets of the order or of his tribe. The savage is great
on fierce initiations. He joins this or that secret order, this or

* United States Geological Survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian, vol. vii, p. 29.
f History of America, vol. iii, p. 227. % Journal of American Folk Lore, vol. i, p. 51.

742

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that dancing society, either to show his endurance or to learn the
awful revelations which may make him a priest or chief. The
cruel rites begin in childhood days.* Thus, every Zuiii boy of the
age of four or five has no choice about being initiated into the
kok-ko, the principal feature of which is a brutal whipping.

Fig. 2. — Dancing Paraphernalia : Shaman's Shirt. (Front view.)

This practice reminds us of the initiations into the mysteries of
Artemis, wherein Spartan boys were cruelly scourged. f

What makes early dancing sacred are cruel ceremonies which
give sanction to secrecy. The more severe the initiation the more
sacred is the dance. " A man who wanted to get the secrets," said
Pipe Chief to George Bird Grinnell, " had to go through a severe
trial, such as dancing and fasting.'' J The severe trial in the
Pawnee Young Dog's Dance consisted in the candidate having his
breast cut, and strings or sticks passed through the slits, which
were tied to posts, and then the dancer endeavored to break loose
by tearing out the skin.

Mr. Paul Beckwith describes a Dakota "medicine-dance,"
given in midwinter, and " one can readily imagine the agony
the candidate must undergo, clothed only in a coat of paint."

* Mrs. Stevenson, in the Fifth Annual Report on Ethnology, p. 552.

\ Pausanias, iii, 15. % Journal of American Folk Lore, vol. iv, p. 307.

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING.

743

The Sioux have a " Sun-Dance," in which the dancers move their
bodies from side to side, forward and backward, so as to stretch
the gashes in their breasts and shoulders to the fullest extent.
"To see one undergoing this fearful torture called dancing,"
writes Mr. Beckwith, "naked, painted black, hair streaming,
blood trickling from their gashes, is a dreadful sight indeed." *

Let us next observe a remarkable feature of early dancing.
There are dances that women may not see, on pain of death. So,
too, the women have dances from which the men are rigorously ex-
cluded. The Aleuts, according to Mr. Dall, have mysteries sacred
to the males and others to the females. \ He says that " hundreds

Fig. 3. — Shaman's Shirt. (Back view.)

of women, wearing masks, danced naked in the moonlight, men
being rigidly excluded, and liable to death if detected in intrud-
ing." Mrs. Erminnie Smith mentions a moonlight dance by
women of the Iroquois tribe. As to the exclusion of the women
from secret dances of the men, and the men from dances per-
formed in secret by women, a number of interesting instances
might be added.

* Smithsonian Report, 1886, Part I, p. 250. In Harper's Weekly, December 13, 1890,
there is a full-page picture of a Blackfeet brave undergoing the torture in the sun-dance.
The spirited drawing was made by Mr. Frederic Remington on the spot.

\ Third Ethnological Report, p. 139.

Fig. 4. — Whistles and Rattles.

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING.

745

The natives have stories of the awful consequences that follow
if a man or woman intrudes upon a dancing party or place. The
Eskimos build large houses for dancing, "which are devoted to
spirits.'' * One evening a woman with more curiosity than pru-
dence entered the sacred house. She touched the tornaq, or spirit
of the house, and " all of a sudden she fell down dead." Accord-
ing to Mr. Derby, the Indians of the upper
Xingu dance within a feast-house or " flute-
house," and " any women who should venture
to enter this house would die." f A rattle is
used by these Indians to call the dancers to-
gether, and to warn away the women. In
Brazil, some tribes make a loud noise on
" jurupari pipes," which answer the same pur-
pose. No woman is allowed to see the pipes.
Again, a little instrument known to English
boys as the " bull -roarer " is used in mystic
dances. In Australia, the turndun (as the
bull-roarer is there called) is never shown to
women, who flee and hide themselves when
the sound is heard. J Wherever found, be it
in Australia, in Zululand, or in New Mexico
among the Zunis, the bull-roarer is regarded
with religious awe.

Another feature of these medicine-dances
is the habit of daubing a candidate with, clay,
paint, or dirt of any kind. As to the mean-
ing of the practice there is a difference of
opinion. The daubing is meant sometimes to
be weird and grotesque ; sometimes totemistic,
when animals, plants, and stars are repre-
sented. In the Young Dog's Dance, above
mentioned, the braves were painted red over the whole body, and,
among other decorations, on the pit of the stomach a black ring,
which " represented themselves — their life " — so Mr. Grrinnell in-
terprets it.

Then there is the habit of wearing masks and odd costumes.
Some of the masks represent the human face ; others are fashioned
after the totem ; others, again, are nondescript. The Aleuts, says
Mr. Dall, " had the usual method of dancing with masks on dur-
ing the progress of the several sorts of ceremonies."* For ordi-

Fig. 5. — The Whizzek.

* Sixth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 59*7. f Science, Sept. 7, 1888, p. 118.
% It is a flat piece of wood tied to a string, and, when whirled around, causes a peculiar

muffled roar. Kamilaroi, etc., by Howitt, p. 268.

* Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 138, 141,

746

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nary dances the masks are " excellent representations of the
Aleutian type of face." In the New Hebrides group of islands,
" masks are used in dances which the women are prohibited from

* "

Fig. 6. — Agricultural Dancf.

seeing." * Now, just as with the bull-roarer, so it is with masks
used in secret dances — the women are forbidden to see them.

We now pass to dances of people in the agricultural stage.
They are performed for rain, for the fertility of the land, for
bountiful harvests, and in honor of the deities that preside over

* Third Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 141.

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING. 747

the department of agriculture. As a rule, dances appropriate to
seedtime and harvest are partly secret, partly public. At one
time or another the whole people participate in the festivities.
Among the Seminole Indians, the Rev. Clay MacCauley informs
us, as the season for holding the " green-corn dance " approaches,
the medicine-men assemble and, through their ceremonies, decide
when it shall take place.* The Iroquois have also a green-corn
dance — a September festival lasting three days. The " Great
Feather-Dance " is performed at this time by a band of costumed
dancers. It is one of the most imposing dances of the Iroquois.
" The Great Feather-Dance/' says Mrs. Converse, who witnessed
the ceremonies in the fall of 1891, "is quite unlike the war-dance.
In its performance the dancer remains erect, not assuming those
warlike attitudes of rage and vengeance which plainly distin-
guish the two dances." f

The most elaborate dances in vogue among the Zuni Indians
are those performed to obtain rain for the growing crops. The
course of the sun at the summer solstice is watched by the priest,
who counts the days for the dances. Then the herald announces
from the house-tops that the time for the rain-dances has arrived,
and all are summoned. J During the summer there are eight kor-
kok-shi, or " good dances " for rain." A strange feature of one
or two of these rain-dances is the appearance of clowns, who in-
troduce a comic element into the sacred ceremonials.

But stranger still is the use of serpents in the medicine-dances
around seed time. The striking example is that of the Moqui
"Snake-Dance," an account of which fills a book.* As to the
origin and significance of this wonderful dance, in which venom-
ous snakes are carried in the hands and mouths of the performers,
we do not undertake to decide. Captain Bourke says that " one
of the minor objects of the snake-dance has been the perpetu-
ation, in dramatic form, of the legend of the Moqui family." He
inclines to the belief that the dance is a form of serpent-worship.
On the other hand, Mr. Walter Fewkes has recently put forth the
suggestion that the Moqui snake-dance " is a simple form of
water ceremonial." | According to his view, the snake was first
introduced into the dance as a symbol of water, and the predomi-
nance given to the snake in the ceremonials is the result of later
additions to the primitive ceremonial. A

* Fifth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 522.
f Journal of American Folk Lore, vol. iv, p. 75.

% This summons or invitation to the harvest or agricultural dances is a common
practice.

* The Snake-dance of the Moquis. By Captain John G. Bourke.

|| The Meaning of the Snake-dance, in Journal of American Folk Lore, vol. iv, p. 137.
A See also Mr. Fewkes's paper, A Few Summer Ceremonials at Zuni Pueblo. The curi-

<

P

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING. 749

It is not generally known that Pawnee, Dakota, and Zuni rites
and initiations were retained in the religious dances of ancient
Greece. The use of the conus, or bull-roarer, the practice of
daubing the candidate with clay or dirt, the wearing of masks,
the use of serpents — these all are found in the Greek mysteries.
It is undeniable that, in their mysteries, the Greeks danced much
as the Iroquois, Kwakiutls, and Zunis dance in their secret rites.
The goddess Artemis, at Brauron, in Attica, was served by young
girls, who imitated in dances the gait of bears. So, too, we have
the wolf-dances of the Hirpi, in which the performers clothed
themselves in the skin of the wolf whose feast they celebrated.*
Even after the Greeks gathered into walled cities, mystic dances
{" medicine-dances " the Indians would call them) took place
in the local fanes of the tribal gods and around the ancient
altars.

Take, for example, the mysteries of Demeter, " she of the har-
vest home," " of the corn-heaps." Two mysteries are well known
to classical scholars as the Eleusinia and the Thesmophoria. In
the former, after purifications, the mystce, the initiate, performed
wild and erotic dances, and in later days, when the Eleusinian
rites became part of the state religion of Athens, there was, in
conclusion, a spectacular miracle-play representing the sorrows
and consolations of Demeter — the most touching, most pathetic
figure in Greek mythology. The Thesmophoria was the feast of
seed time. The Greek matrons performed certain sacred rites and
secret dances, which the men were prohibited from seeing. He-
roditus says that the Thesmophoria were brought from Egypt,
where the women danced in similar fashion before the altar of the
bull-god in the Memphian temples. There must have been some
licentious doings in the Greek mystery, or else the plain-spoken
historian would not have " omitted them by silence." His apology
for concealment is neatly put : " As they refused to tell for religion,
so we desired not to hear for modesty."

The important feature of all mysteries, savage or Greek, is
dancing. Lucian, in his Treatise on Dancing, says : " You can
not find a single ancient mystery in which there is not danc-
ing. . . . This much all men know, that most people say of the
revealers of the mysteries that they 'dance them out." Mr.
Andrew Lang, who has made a close study of Greek mysteries,
quotes the reply of Quing, the Bushman, who was asked about
some myths of his people. Quing replied : " Only the initiated
men of that dance know these things." Hence to "dance out"
this or that, observes Mr. Lang, means to be acquainted with this

ous masks and customs are represented by photographs ; the music was taken with the
phonograph. * Aristophanes, Lysistratra, 646.

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING. 751

or that myth, which is represented in a dance or ballet d' action*
This brings us to the point we would be at. The medicine-dances
develop into mystery plays, setting forth this or that myth,
which in turn reached artistic development in the old Greek
drama.

The most striking example of barbaric drama is that of "The
Mountain Chant " of the Navajo Indians. The ceremonial, last-
ing nine days, presents in a dance or series of dances a myth of
tribal history, beginning at a time when the Navajo became a
distinct people. \ The significance of the " chant " has been stated
concisely by Major J. W. Powell : " This ceremony dramatizes
the myth with rigorously prescribed paraphernalia and formu-
laries, with picturesque dances and shows, scenic effects, and
skillful thaumaturgic jugglery. It is noticeable also that here
the true popular drama is found in the actual process of evolution
from religious mysteries or miracle plays. ... It is to be re-
marked that the Shaman has become the professional and paid
artist and stage manager, under whom is gathered a traveling
corps of histrions and scenic experts/' J

Here is the proper place to observe that dancing has a bearing
on the development of the social order. The medicine-men or
priests gain and retain political and social powers through their
skill in leading the dance. According to Mr. Beckwith, "the
high priest in the religious ceremonies of the Dakotas is invari-
ably a chief who, through these dances, retains his influence in
the tribe." # Thus, dancing gives sanction to the powers of the
chief, and is one of the necessary qualifications for the office. It
is thus associated with position and rank. In the Vedic age
(2000 B. a), before the rigid division of castes, the priests were
leaders of the dance at the festivals. || Later on they became all-
powerful Brahmans. The Homeric chiefs were distinguished
dancers. Lucian says that Troy was taken, Zeus was saved, and
Ariadne ruined by a dance. And David led the dance before the
ark. The ancients regarded dancing as a necessary accomplish-
ment. Socrates learned the art in his old age ; while Plato, in his
Commonwealth, advocated the establishment of dancing schools.
The Romans celebrated their victories and pastoral festivals by
elaborate dances. They excelled in pantomime dances, from
which the ballet was evolved.A The Emperor Domitian forbade

* Custom and Myth, p. 42.

\ A description of the ceremonies, together with sketches, has been furnished by Dr.
Washington Matthews (Fifth Report Ethnology, pp. 385-468).
% Fifth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. xlvi.

* Smithsonian Report, 1886, Part I, p. 245.
|| Weber, p. 37.

A Until early in the seventeenth century the performers in the ballet were meu.

752

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

the senators to dance, and for so doing removed several members
from the senate. Grave statesmen and politicians of high degree

have excelled in the eldest of the arts. Both Sully and Cardinal
Richelieu were expert dancers. Think of the august cardinal

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING. 753

paying his court to Anne of Austria, by performing a saraband
before her in jester's dress of green velvet, with bells on his feet
and castanets in his hands ! *

Long after dancing became secularized, it remained part and
parcel of divine services. Gregory Thaumaturgus introduced
prancing into Christian ritual; and Scaliger derives prcesules —
a name given to the bishops — from a prcesiliendo, from the fact
of their "skipping first," or leading the clergy, in the altar-
dances. In the middle ages the Mystery Plays were simply cho-
ral dances and songs. There were biblical stories and " moral les-
sons " told to the folk. The famous Dance of Death was a pop-
ular spectacular play, in which pope, cardinal, king, prince, and
pauper were invited by the gay and festive skeleton to dance
with him, and there was no alternative. Finally, as a survival
from the inedigeval Church, we have the Corpus Christi dances,
which were performed until within late years by the congrega-
tion in the Seville Cathedral. \

The orgiastic impulse is one of the wildest and most rebellious
passions in human nature. It is continually breaking through
the thin veneer that civilization supplies. It has shown itself at
different times in Europe. X This " passion of Dionysus " takes
possession of the folk, of the people in the country, on heath or
by sea. The impulse which seizes girls in modern Greece is so
strong that they dance themselves to death on the hills. The
dancers are victims of the Nereids, say the peasants. In ancient
Greece, as Mr. Lang observes, they would have been saluted as
the nurses and companions of Dionysus, and their disease would
have been hallowed by religion.*

It needed only a young Cheyenne to fall into a trance, to dream
that he had seen and talked with the Christ, to proclaim himself
a prophet of the new religion, to begin dancing in fast and furi-
ous fashion — it needed only this to start the " Messiah craze " in
the fall of 1890. || The dancing mania soon seized the Indians,
and, within a month, the Cheyennes, Pawnees, Comanches, Arap-
ahoes, Kiowas, Wichitas, and other smaller tribes were perform-
ing the " dance to Christ," called by the whites the " Ghost-

* In the days of Queen Bess — the queen herself an adept in the art — " the grave Lord
Keeper led the brawls," without losing his own respect and dignity.

\ In the autos sacratnentales, or miracle plays, dancing was introduced in honor of the
sacrament. The little choir boys of the cathedral still dance before the Host every evening
at five o'clock.

% See Leeky's Rationalism in Europe, vol. i, p. 7*7, for the " dancing mania " of Flanders
and Germany.

* Myth, Ritual, and Religion, vol. ii, p. 241.

|| Miss Alice Fletcher says the " craze " would have died out had it not been for the

medicine-men or conjurers, who " multiplied stories and marvels." — Journal of American
Folk Lore, vol. iv, p. 60.
vol. xll. — 54

754 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Dance." " They will dance," says one witness, " from Friday
afternoon till sundown on Sunday. They keep going round in
one direction until they become so dizzy that they can scarcely
stand, then turn and go in the other direction, and keep it up until
they swoon from exhaustion. That is what they strive to do, for
while they are in a swoon they think they see and talk with the
new Christ." Now, observe : " At the end of the dance they have
a grand feast, the revel lasting all Sunday night." *

Thus far little has been said about the different movements
and steps of ancient dances. What the figures " woven paces and
waving hands " in early Greek dances were, no one can say with
exactness. The earliest description of dancing which we can re-
produce is the account of the dance on the shield of Achilles,
which bore the sculptured scene

" Of youths and maidens bounding hand in hand.

• •••••••••

Now all at once tbey rise, at once descend,

"With well-taught feet; now shape in oblique ways

Confus'dly regular the moving maze;

Now forth at once, too swift for sight, they spring,

And undistinguished blend the flying ring :

So whirls a wheel in giddy circle tost,

And rapid as it runs the single spokes are lost."

Here we have the simplest kind of dancing. Youths and
maidens take one another by the hand, and spin round and round
like a potter's wheel. This form of Homeric Greek dance in the
dance of Bacchus is known as the dithyramb. It survives to the
present day in the " jiggering " of children, who join hands and
prance around in a circle.

Later on, the Greeks divided dances into round and square.
Their round dances — the word " round " meaning something more
than our " round " — were dances of pleasure and revelry. Their
square dances were military and dramatic. The Spartans drilled
their men in Pyrrhic dance to the ringing sound of spear and
shield. The square dances of the ancients required some art and
some practice, while little of either was necessary in their round
dances.

The real charm of true dancing consists rather in a graceful
swaying of the body and arms than in violent movements and
complicated steps. Take, for example, the dances performed by
the Nautch girls — the most enchanting and ravishing dancers in
the world. In their dances you see no springs, no vehement
pirouettes, no violent sawing of the arms, no painful contortions

* Journal of American Folk Lore, March, 1891.

THE EVOLUTION OF DANCING.

755

of the limbs, no bringing of the legs at right angles with the
body as in our ballet, no dizzy gyrations — in short, "none of that
exquisite precision of step and pedal dexterity which constitute
the chief charm of European artists." * The Spanish dances —

Fig. 10. — Csakdos, Hcngarian Folk-Dance.

which of late have become popular — are free from violent move-
ments and intricate steps. Indeed, the feet play so small a part in
the action that the dancer seems scarcely to raise them from the
ground. The dances are little more than graceful writhings and
twistings of the body ; the arms and legs moving in sinuous folds
and contortions, like the movements of a snake ; the dancer all
the while beating time with the castanets held in each hand.

This brings us down to the more developed or modern forms
of dancing. Different people have arranged their peculiar dances.
The French have devised many intricate steps ; the English had
their " country-dances " round the May-pole ; the Scotch invented
the reel ; the hornpipe was originally a Cornish dance, and so on.

* The Oriental Annual, or Scenes in India. By Rev. H. Gaunter. London, 1836, p.
where there is a fine description of the Nautch girls in their charming dances.

756

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Tims, we have all kinds of " national dances," so called. Oddly
enough, the national dance of Hungary sets forth the drama of
courtship — the shy advance, the maidenly modesty and retreat,
the proposal, the rejection, but finally the open-armed acceptance.
(See illustration.)

Finally, dancing follows a general law of mental evolution,
namely, that practices which occupy an important place in the
minds and daily doings of people in a savage stage of culture sur-
vive only as matters of amusement, or perhaps of aesthetic feeling,
in a period of civilization. And such is now the place occupied by
the eldest of the arts. When we regard the pavan, the gavotte,
the minuet, the Sir Roger de Coverle3r, or the waltz, we may see
in them the survivals of that primitive impulse which we often
fail to recognize in camp -meetings and church " revivals."

~***-

THE NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION.

VIII.— LESSONS FEOM THE CENSUS.
By CARROLL D. WEIGHT, A. M.,

UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF LABOR.

THE native and foreign-born population of the United States
has been given to the public in Census Bulletin No. 194.
The designations of the foreign-born as to countries from which
they came are not included in the bulletin. It is impossible,
therefore, to consider any question beyond that of the distinc-
tion between native and foreign-born, with the addition of im-
mediate parent nativity.

Native and Foreign-born Population, 1890.

States and Territories.

Total population.

Native.

Per cent
of native
of total
popula-
tion.

Foreign.

Per cent
of foreign
of total
popula-
tion.

The United States

62,622,250

53,372,703

85-2

9,249,547

14-8

North Atlantic Division. .

17,401,545

661,086

376,530

332,422

2,238,943

345,506

746,258

5,997,853

1,444,933

5,258,014

13,513,368

77-7

3,888,177

22-3

Maine

582,125

304,190

288,334

1,581,806

239,201

562,657

4,426,803

1,115,958

4,412,294

88-1
80-3
86-7
70-6
69-2
75-4
73-8
77-2
83-9

78,961

72,340

44,088

657,137

106,305

183,601

1,571,050

328,975

845,720

11-9

Vermont

19-2
13-3

Massachusetts

29-4

Rhode Island

308

Connecticut

246

New York ....

New Jersey

26-2
22-8

Pennsylvania

16-1

THE NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION 757

Native and Foreign-horn Population, 1890. — (Continued.)

States and Terbitoeies.

South Atlantic Division.

Delaware

Maryland

District of Columbia

Virginia

West Virginia

North Carolina

South Carolina

Georgia

Florida

Total population.

Native.

8,857,920

168,493
1,042,390

230,392
1,655,980

762,794
1,617,947
1,151,149
1,837,353

391,422

8,649,395

155,332

948,094

211,622

1,637,606

743,911

1,614,245

1,144,879

1,825,216

368,490

Per cent
of native
of total
popula-
tion.

97-6

92-2
91-0

91-9
98-9
97-5
99-8
99-5
99-3
94-1

Foreisni.

208,525

13,161

94,296
18,770
18,374
18,883
3,702
6,270
12,137
22,932

Per cent
of foreign
of total
popula-
tion.

2 4

90
8-1
11
2-5
0-2
0-5
0-7
59

North Central Division . .

22,362,279

Ohio

3,672,316
2,192,404

Illinois

3,826,351

Michigan

2,093,889

Wisconsin

1,686,880

1,301,826
1,911,896

Missouri

2,679,184

North Dakota

182,719

South Dakota

328,808

Nebraska

1,058,910

1,427,096

18,302,165

3,213,023

2,046,199

2,984,004

1,550,009

1,167,681

834,470

1,587,827

2,444,315

101,258

237,753

856,368

1,279,258

81-8

87-5
933
78-0
74-0
69-2
641
83-0
91-2
55-4
72-3
80-9
89-6

4,060,114

459,293
146,205
842,347
543,880
519,199
467,356
324,069
234,869
81,461
91,055
202,542
147,838

18-2

125
6-7
220
26-0
30-8
36-9
170
88
446
27-7
19-1
104

South Central Division.

Kentucky .
Tennessee .
Alabama . .
Mississippi.
Louisiana. .

Texas

Oklahoma .
Arkansas . .

10,972,893

1,858,635
1,767,518
1,513,017
1,289,600
1,118,587
2,235,523
61,834
1,128,179

10,651,072

1,799,279
1,747,489
1,498,240
1,281,648
1,068,840
2,082,567
59,094
1,113,915

97-1

96-8
98-9
99-0
994
95-6
93-2
95-6
98-7

321,821

59,356
20,029
14,777

7,952

49,747

152,956

2,740
14,264

2-9

3 2

11

1-0

06
44

6-8
44
1-3

Western Division.

Montana
Wyoming.. .
Colorado . . .
New Mexico

Arizona

Utah

Nevada ....

Idaho

Washington.

Oregon

California . .

3,027,613

2,256,703

132,159

60,705

412,198

153,593

59,620

207,905

45,761

84,385

349,390

313,767

1,208,130

74-5

770,910

89,063

45,792

328,208

142,334

40,825

154,841

31,055

66,929

259,385

256,450

841.-S21

67-4
75-4
79-6
92-7
68-5
74-5
67-9
793
74-2
81-7
69-7

43,096
14,913
83,990
11,259
18,795
53,064
14,706
17,456
90,005
57,317
366,309

255

32-6
24-6
20-4
7-3
31o
255
321
20-7
25-8
18-3
30-3

The historian Bancroft stated that in 1775 the colonies were
inhabited by persons " one fifth of whom had for their mother-
tongue some other language than the English." The French, the
Swedes, the Dutch, and the Germans contributed this one fifth,

758

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and in the order named. In 1890 the total foreign population
numbered '.1,249,547, while the total number having foreign-born
parents, but who themselves were born in this country, was
11,503,075, making a total of foreign-born and children of foreign-
born parents of 20,753,222 — that is, one third of the total popula-
tion of the United States consists of people born in foreign coun-

Native and Foreign-born Population, 1S80.

States and Terri-
tories.

Total population.

Alabama

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Dakota

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida

Georgia

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

Ohio

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming ,

United States

1,262,505

40,440

802,525

864,694

194,327

622,700

135,177

146,608

177,624

269,493

1,542,180

32,610

3,077,871

1,978,301

1,624,615

996,096

1,648,690

939,946

648,936

934,943

1,783,085

1,636,937

780,773

1,131,597

2,168,380

39,159

452,402

62,266

346,991

1,131,116

119,565

5,082,871

1,399,750

3,198,062

174,768

4,282,891

276,531

995,577

1,542,359

1,591,749

143,963

332,286

1,512,565

75,116

618,457

1,315,497

20,789

50,155,783

Native-born
population.

1,252,771

24,391

792,175

571,820

154,537

492,708

83,382

137,140

160,502

259,584

1,531,616

22,636

2,494,295

1,834,123

1,362,965

886,010

1,589,173

885,800

590,053

852,137

1,339,594

1,248,429

513,097

1,122,388

1,956,802

27,638

354,988

36,613

300,697

909,416

111,514

3,871,492

1,396,008

2,803,119

144,265

3,695,062

202,538

987,891

1,525,657

1,477,133

99,969

291,327

1,497,869

59,313

600,192

910,072

14,939

43,475,840

Foreign-born
population.

9,734

16,049

10,350

292,874

39,790

129,992

51,795

9,468

17,122

9,909

10,564

9,974

583,576

144,178

261,650

110,086

59,517

54,146

58,883

82,806

443,491

388,508

267,676

9,209

211,578

11,521

97,414

25,653

46,294

221 700

8,051

1,211,379

3,742

394,943

30,503

587,829

78,993

7,686

16,702

114,616

43,994

40,959

14,696

15,803

18,265

405,425

5,850

6,679,943

Per cent I Per cent
of native- of foreign-
born of | born of
total popu- total popu-
lation, lation.

99-23
6031
98-71
66-13
79-52
7912
61-68
93-54
90-36
96-32
99-31
69-41
81-04
92-71
83-89
88-95
96-39
94-24
90-93
91-14
75-13
76-27
65-72
99-19
90-24
70-58
78-47
58-80
86-66
80-40
93-27
76-17
99-73
87-65
82-55
86-27
73-24
99-23
98-92
92-80
69-44
87-67
99-03
78-96
97-05
69-18
71-86

80-68

0-77

39-69

1-29

33-87

20-48

20-88

38-32

6-46

9-64

3-68

0-69

30-59

18-96

7-29

16-11

11-05

3-61

5-76

9-07

8-86

24-87

23-73

34-28

0-81

9-76

29-42

21-53

41-20

13-34

19-60

673

23-83

C-27

12-35

1745

13-73

26-76

0-77

1-08

7-20

30-56

12-33

0-97

21-04

2-95

30-82

28-14

1332

THE NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION. 759

tries or the children of people so "born.
It is impossible to go further back
than one generation in this calcula-
tion ; but in all probability, when the
facts are known, we shall find that at
least one half of the inhabitants of this
country at the present time were either
born abroad or are the children or
grandchildren of persons born abroad,
while one third, instead of one fifth,
have for their mother - tongue some
other language than the English. Fu-
ture bulletins will enable us to under-
stand this feature of the nativity of
the population more clearly.

The first of the preceding tables has
been constructed from those given in
the bulletin named ; which, however,
did not give the percentages stated. It
shows the total population in the
United States, June 1, 1890, separated
as to native and foreign-born, and the
percentage of each of the total popula-
tion ; the second table gives like facts
for 1880. (In the first table I have fol-
lowed the form now in use at the Cen-
sus Office, giving the States by divis-
ions ; while in the second table, for 1880,
the States are alphabetically arranged.)

The State having the greatest pro-
portion of foreign-born is North Dako-
ta, where that element constitutes 44*0
per cent of the total population. In
1880 the State having the highest per-
centage of foreign-born was Nevada,
it being then 41 '2. Nevada now has
32*1 per cent. The State having the
lowest percentage in 1880 was North
Carolina, it then being *27 per cent,
and North Carolina still has the lowest
percentage of foreign-born, it being
but *2 of 1 per cent in 1890. Of the
population of the whole country 14*8
per cent are foreign-born. The facts
are given for the different census years
in the adjoining table.

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760

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

From this short table we see the changes that are going on.
Taking the last census decade of years, we find that the aggregate
population increased 24*86 per cent. Analyzing this, it is seen
that the native-born population increased 22*70 per cent and the
foreign-born 38*47 per cent. The heaviest increase in the foreign-
born was between 1850 and I860, when it was 84*38 per cent. This
was soon after the great tide of immigration set in toward this
country. The highest percentage of increase in the native-born
population was between 1870 and 1880, so far as the decades in
the table are shown, it then being 31*78 per cent. The percentage
of the native and foreign-born of the total population is given in
the following tabular statement :

Census Years.

NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN.

Native.

Foreign.

The United States :

1890

Per cent.
85-23
86-68
85-56
86-84
90-32

Per cent.
14-77

1880

13-32

1870

14-44

1860

13-16

1850

9-68

This little table answers very fully the question as to whether
the foreign-born are increasing out of proportion to the increase
of population. Leaving out 1850, as immigration had just then
begun to be felt strongly, and commencing with the decade of
1860, the percentages are very interesting. In that year the for-
eign-born constituted 13*16 per cent of the total population of the
country. In 1890 it constituted 14*77 per cent, or an increase of
'61 of 1 per cent in the thirty years, certainly not a very alarm-
ing figure. In 1870 the foreign-born population constituted 14*44
per cent, while in 1890 it was, as stated, 14*77 per cent, an in-
crease in percentage of '33 per cent in twenty years. The native
population in 1860 was represented by 86*84 per cent of the total
population, and in 1890 by 85*23 per cent.

If we examine particular sections of the country, however,
we find some extraordinary proportions. Massachusetts, for in-
stance, in 1880 had 443,491 foreign-born persons as part of her
population. This was 24*87 per cent of the total population. In
June, 1890, her foreign-born population numbered 657,137, and
was 29*04 per cent of the total. The foreign-born population in
Rhode Island increased from 78,993 in 1880 to 106,305 in 1890.
The great State of New York had 1,211,379 foreign-born persons
in her borders in 1880, while in 1890 this body had increased to
1,571,050. Pennsylvania showed like proportions. In Wisconsin
the foreign-born population increased from 405,425 in 1880 to 519,-

THE NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION. 761

199 in 1890, but the percentage in relation to the total population
did not increase. In fact, in some of the Western States, where the
percentage of foreign-born population of the total population in
1880 was very high, it is found to be lower now. This is because
the increase in population comes to some extent from the children
of the foreign-born, who figured as such in 1880. When the full
results as to parent nativity are ascertainable, the comparison as
to changes and the relative proportion of the foreign-born ele-
ment as such in different localities can be clearly brought out, as
stated.

The total native population of the country is 53,372,703, while
the total foreign-born population is 9,249,547. This latter figure
represents the total number of foreign -born living persons out of
the total foreign immigration during the history of the country.
Prior to 1819 the Government took no account of the number of
immigrants, but the accepted estimate gives the total number
between 1790 and 1819 at 250,000. In 1819 the Federal Govern-
ment took account of immigration,,, and the reports have been
very regular since then. The total immigration from 1819 to
1890 was 15,086,158. On June 1, 1890, therefore, there were living,
of this total number of immigrants, 9,249,547. The reports of
the Treasury Department furnish the information as to the
character of this body of immigrants. Future reports of the
Census Office will furnish information relative to the charac-
ter of the living foreign-born, not only as to the countries fur-
nishing foreign-born population, but all the other social facts
relating thereto gathered by the census. A complete analysis,
therefore, must be reserved for future publications of the Census
Office. But, looking at the primary facts as furnished by the
Treasury Department, it is learned that, of the 15,686,158 immi-
grants who have settled in this country since 1820, 3,503,227 came
from Ireland and 4,546,800 from Germany, including Prussia.
Adding these two numbers together, we find that Ireland and
Germany have furnished 8,050,027 out of the total number of im-
migrants, or more than 51 per cent of that total. The number
coming from Germany is one million, in round numbers, greater
than the number coming from Ireland.

A study of the nationalities represented in the immigration to
this country shows that a little more than 50 per cent of the
whole number have come from Protestant countries, and if we
should look closely into the matter we should find that the two
great political parties in the United States absorb equal propor-
tions of the total volume of immigration. In a theological and
political sense, therefore, immigration has been quite equally
divided.

When we look at industrial conditions, however, it is learned

762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

that the absorption of immigrants has not been equal. The facts
in this respect can not be given for 1890, but for 1880 they indi-
cate what may be expected when the full facts for 1890 are re-
ported. In 1880 the whole number of people engaged in agri-
culture was 7,070,493. Of this number 812,829 persons were of
foreign birth ; that is to say, 10*06 per cent of the whole number
employed in agriculture in 18S0 were foreign-born. The total
number employed in manufacturing, mechanical, and mining in-
dustries in the United States in 1880 was 3,837,112. Of this num-
ber 1,225,787 were of foreign birth, and this number is 32 per cent
of the whole number of persons engaged in these industries. The
tendency, therefore, of our immigrants is to assimilate with our
mechanical industries. This increases the supply of labor in
comparison to the demand, and may in some localities tend to
lower wages, and sometimes to cripple the consuming power of
the whole body of the people. In 1880 12'52 per cent of the whole
number of foreign-born persons were engaged in agriculture,
while 18"88 per cent of the foreign-born were engaged in manu-
factures.

MUD AS A BUILDING MATERIAL.

Br WILLIAM SIMPSON, E. L, M. E. A. S.

IT is necessary to premise that under the term " mud " I include
sun-dried bricks. When bricks have been burned in the fire,
the material becomes entirely changed and ceases to be mud, so I
exclude them from consideration in the present paper as a build-
ing material. Wet earth made into blocks and dried in the sun
differs in no way from a layer of the same laid on a wall.* Both
methods were used in the East, and often combined in the same
building. The reason for this is soon found out if you attempt
to raise a mud wall. A layer of two or three feet thick must be
allowed to dry and consolidate before another is placed on it, be-
cause the weight above would press out the soft material below,
and the whole would tumble down. In some localities a layer of
mud is put down at the commencement, and while that is drying
bricks are made to be placed above.

It was during the cold season of 1884-'85, in traveling through
Persia at the time of the Afghan Boundary Commission, that the

* Bricks of this kind, " when placed one upon another after being imperfectly dried,
combined, under the influence of the weather and their own weight, into one homogeneous
mass, so that the separate courses became undistinguishable. This latter fact has been
frequently noticed in Assyria, by those who had to cut through the thickness of walls in the
process of excavation." — Perrot and Chipiez, A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, vol. i,
p. 113.

MUD AS A BUILDING MATERIAL.

763

importance of mud in connection with building and architecture
first attracted my attention. I had to pass from Tehran eastward,
through Khorassan and into Afghan Turkestan. Along the whole
of this route mud is the building material. Some of the serais —
that is, caravan serais for the accommodation of travelers — are of
burned brick, but these are about the only exceptions. Not only
villages, but large towns, are built of mud or sun-dried brick.
The defensive walls are of the same material ; even such large
towns as Sabzawar, Nishapur, Meshed, and New Sarrakhs are for-
tified with walls of this kind. On realizing this almost exclusive
use of one building material, in one region, my mind naturally
recalled what I had seen in India, where, although stone and fire-

jfr'fi^.j

Fig. 1. — The Meshed Gate, New Sarrakhs, on the Heri Kcd.

burned brick are largely used, yet the villages are over very large
districts wholly constructed of mud. In Afghanistan it is the
same. The fort at Peshawer, which was Afghan territory up to
Runjit Singh's time, is a mud one. Jellalabad is surrounded by
a mud wall. From the Khyber Pass to Tehran the towns and
their defenses, as well as the villages, are almost identical in their
material as well as in their general appearance.

These statements show that over a large geographical space in
the Eastern world the building material at the present day is al-
most exclusively mud. I have been thus far speaking of what I
have seen with my own eyes. To this may be added the practice
of other countries. I believe that it is the same over most of
Central Asia. It is now accepted that in Mesopotamia it was
largely employed ; and we know that in Egypt, from the earliest
times to the present day, it has been the principal means employed
in structural erections. It was largely used in Greece in ancient
times, and also in Spain. It was known in South America and all
along the Pacific coast, from Peru to San Francisco. The word
" dobies," for sun-dried bricks, is a familiar term — this is derived

764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

from the Spanish word adobes * In 1873 I visited the original
church dedicated to St. Francis, which gave its name to the now
well-known town in California — this church was constructed with
"dobies." Mud houses were not uncommon in England in the
past, and they are yet known in Devonshire, where the stuff they
are constructed with is called " cob." I am under the impression
that the importance of mud in connection with building has
hitherto been overlooked.

Once begun, the progress of mud architecture would be con-
siderable. Those who began their architectural style with
branches of trees could not have made any advance until some
kind of implement was invented by means of which the wood
could be cut and fashioned ; and the " stone age," when stone tools
came into use, is a comparatively late one in man's history. The
mud builder, on the contrary, required no tools ; his hands were
sufficient for every purpose. He may have been content at first
with an inclosure formed by four walls. A covering of grass or
reeds would soon suggest itself ; this, although rude and primitive,
would be the first complete human habitation. But, more than
that, it would be the beginning of the " house " — the " home,"
which, from the relations and associations it produced, must have
been one of the most important steps in the history of early civil-
ization.

The great antiquity of the use of mud as a building material
can be established from a number of references to history. In
Persia, at least, we have traces of it. Firdusi, in the Shah Namah,
relates how Jemshid, now known as a mythical personage, intro-
duced a better civilization among the people ; among the improve-
ments it is told how " he taught the unholy demon train to mingle
water and clay, with which, formed into bricks, the walls were
built, and then high turrets, towers, and balconies, and roofs, to
keep out rain, and cold, and sunshine." It is naturally inferred
that the bricks made by the children of Israel in Egypt were sun-
dried from the use of the straw in them. The making of bricks
is often represented in the sculptures of Egypt.

The first use or invention of mud for building was ascribed to
mythical personages, thus attributing to it a kind of divine origin.

I shall now give a few details of the manner of building in
mud, most of which are derived from what I saw in Persia. Many
of the methods I saw there I have since found are also practiced
in other parts of the world.

It was pointed out to me that, in the larger towns, on entering
a house, you have often to descend from the level of the street to

* Adobes, or dobies, is probably a variant of the Arabic tob or toob, allied again to the
Coptic tobi, which was also the Egyptian word for brick.

MUD AS A BUILDING MATERIAL.

765

the ground-floor. It was explained that this results from utilizing
the earth on which the house stands, thus saving the expense of
transporting the building material from outside the town.

In good houses a foundation is laid, varying from two to four
feet in depth, formed of rough stones or broken fire-burned bricks,
and piled up with mud and lime. This is carried up a foot or so
above the ground, before the mud wall is commenced. In villages,
where everything is rude, this foundation is made of any kind of
rubbish that is found handy. This is a very interesting feature
of mud architecture. Its object is no doubt to give strength
where the wall would be liable to friction from the street traffic ;
and probably to prevent to a certain extent damp from rising. It
would also be a safeguard against another serious danger — that
is, if water were to accumulute by any chance round the base of
the mud walls, and remain long enough to soak through, a very
serious catastrophe might take place from the house tumbling

Fig. 2. — Mud-built Houses, Village of Sivah, Kiiorassajt.

down. I can not recall to my memory any foundation of this
kind in the mud houses of India. Village houses in the north-
west of that country are usually built on a chabootra, which is
a raised platform of mud, about a couple of feet in height, and
this forms the floor of the house. This platform, by raising
the foundation of the walls above the ground, may perhaps
serve some of the purposes of the layer of stones in the Persian
foundations.

The walls of Persian houses vary from two to four feet in
thickness. This depends entirely on the quality of the house and
the means of the builder. Thick walls make a cool house, and
that is a desirable thing in the climate of Persia. If upper rooms
are required, a greater strength of wall will be necessary. The
mud is either laid on in layers or in the form of bricks.* In garden
walls hollow bricks are used for the top, to give lightness. These
bricks are called sanduh, a word meaning " box," which is de-

* Sun-dried bricks are called khest in Persian ; the fire-baked bricks are ajur or axjur.
In Afghanistan, khist is used for both burned and unburned bricks. Gill, with a hard g, is
Persian for mud.

766

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

scriptive of their character.* The tendency in mud-building to
produce thickness below in the walls, and lightness above, is
most marked in the walls of villages and towns. These are all
built with a visible batter. The earth taken out to form the ditch
gives an abundant supply of material for a town wall, and a thick,
solid mass at the base is necessary to give strength to the defense.
Where wood is plentiful, as in the province of Mazenderan,
flat roofs are the rule. In large districts of Persia wood is scarce.

Fig. 3. — Tomb, constructed of Mud, with Dome.

I understand that south of Tehran there is very little timber, and
there is also great danger from the white ants, so the vault or
barrel roof is the usual means employed. According to Strabo,
it was the same in Mesopotamia ; he says, " All the houses are
vaulted on account of the want of timber." These vaulted roofs
were frequent enough along the route I traveled. I have seen
whole villages with them. Square buildings would have a dome ;
and a semi-dome at one end of a barrel-roof seemed to be a favor-
ite method in that part of Persia. What struck me with surprise
was the facility with which these villagers could construct such
roofs. If there was any irregularity in the plan of the house, the
barrel-roof was extended or drawn in, as the case might be, to
cover the space. Of course, in the villages it was all a very rough-
and-ready kind of work, evidently done by no better principle

* This recalls an old practice of Eastern architects, in constructing domes with pots,
thus producing a considerable reduction of weight, and consequent diminution of thrust.
A well-known example of this is the dome of St. Vitale, at Ravenna.

MUD AS A BUILDING MATERIAL.

767

than that of rule of thumb. I was still more surprised when I
learned that these vaulted roofs were constructed without centers.

In Persia the mud walls are covered over with a mixture
called JcahgiU* which is composed of mud and chopped straw;
this serves to prevent the rains from washing away the walls, as
it hardens the surface. The application of this mixture is gen-
erally repeated every two years.

The general impression in most minds will no doubt be that
mud-building only belonged to a rude condition of civilization,
and produced houses that were little better than hovels. I have
now to point out that this manner of building was developed into
a highly decorative style which in itself would entitle it to a
place in the history of architecture. This position, it appears to
me, has been almost entirely overlooked by those who have writ-
ten histories of architecture. Architectural writers always treat
upon primitive wood constructions, because forms can be traced
from it up to the highly developed styles of Greece, Egypt, and
India. The same process can now be gone through with the primi-
tive mud as a building material. At present my purpose is to
show that it was carried to a pitch of finish and refinement that

Fig. 4.— Persian Mid Village.

rendered it worthy for the palace or the temple. The following
letter sent to me by General Sir Charles Wilson would in itself
be a sufficient evidence. Sir Charles is well acquainted with west-
ern Asia, and, being an engineer officer, he may be trusted as an au-
thority. He says : " It may interest to you know that in Anatolia
there is much mud-building ; and that most of the great build-
ings of the Seljuks, more especially their great palace at Konieh,
were of mud faced with glazed tiles. Some of the minarets of
their mosques, built with sun-dried bricks, arranged in patterns
and faced with glazed tiles, or with the ends of the bricks glazed,

* The word is Irak = straw, and gill = mud. In Indian villages the mud floors are

washed over with a thin mixture of mud and cow-dung.

768 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

are extremely beautiful in tlieir decay. The Seljuk architecture
is Persian with a development of its own." Here are mosques,
or temples, and a palace constructed with sun-dried brick, which
are declared by this high authority to be beautiful even in their
decayed condition.

A somewhat similar development was reached in Peru, but
with different materials. Squier, in his Land of the Incas, de-
scribes the palace of Chimu, where the adobes, or sun-dried bricks,
were covered with stucco, on which beautiful arabesques were
produced in relief.* From these ornaments he calls one of the
great apartments the " Hall of Arabesques " ; * of which he speaks
in warm admiration, and adds, "No description can give an idea
of the character of these rilievos." In describing other ornamen-
tation of the same kind, he says, " Here, as elsewhere, there are
traces of color." f

I understand that the higher developed condition of this style
of architecture in Persia was attained by covering the mud walls
with glazed tiles. The tiles, it must be understood, were covered
with ornament.

The interior of a mud building may also be decorated with
glazed tiles ; but in Persia gatch, or gypsum, is plentiful, and
where ornament is required it is much used. In an old tomb, at
Sarrakhs, I saw some particularly good ornament in this ma-
terial ; and it appeared to me to be all hand-work. I chanced to
come upon one room that impressed me with the capabilities of
this manner of decoration. It was at a place called Mazinan, on
the first march eastward within the Khorassan frontier. There
appeared to be the remains of more than one town here ; I strolled
over to that which was nearest, and found that it was all formed
of mud. The mass forming the mound was artificial, for I found
bits of red burned bricks or vessels imbedded in it. The top was
a curious maze of rooms, courts, stairs, and roofs, much of it in a
tumble-down condition. The solid mass of mud or earth was
about twenty feet high, and the houses were above that ; still,
they were not all on the same level, for I went up and down short
flights of steps. The whole was of mud or sun-dried bricks. The
mud must have been carefully put on at first, but the high finish
was produced by gatch, or gypsum. There were very handsome
niches all round the walls, and the fireplace had been elaborate,
but some act of destruction had taken place, and the fragments
lay on the floor where they had fallen. The ornament was sim-
ple ; there were some slight moldings on the space between the
niches. Lines had been drawn into the gypsum, and an ornament

* Peru, or the Land of the Incas, p. 135.
f Ibid., p. 154 ; also at p. 411.

MUD AS A BUILDING MATERIAL.

769

had been repeated by means of a stamp which had been pressed
or imprinted when wet, producing a raised pattern ; the impres-
sion left was so clean and perfect, it might have been gilt, and it
would have been quite equal to the work we have at home on
picture-frames.

Mud was the exclusive building material of that part of the
world. The simple houses of the villages are formed of it ; the
defensive walls of the towns, which, owing to the Turkomans,
were an absolute necessity to every village, were constructed of

.'VWvVVi

SSftK

mi-

/ l> I ■_<=*. ,1.1 1

MM^M

i 1

. - .

*A

1 mm

W

!f^

Fig. 5. — The Mud Walls of Nishapur, Khoeassan.

the same. The houses of the rich were also formed with it, and
it had been developed into a highly decorative style of archi-
tecture.

One would not expect much durability from such walls, yet I
was informed that there are walls of sun-dried brick in Ispahan
which are over three hundred or four hundred years old. This
quality of durability will no doubt depend upon the character of
the soil. In the northern part of Persia, according to Mr. A. Finn,
of the consular service, the walls of the old city of Erig are still
standing, and they are said to have existed for twelve hundred
years. There still remains at Cacha, in Peru, a wall of adobes, or
sun-dried bricks — part of the Temple of Viracocha, which was in
a ruined condition about three centuries ago, when Garcilasso
described it, and this wall is still standing to a height of forty
feet.* There are the remains of very old walls in Egypt. There
is a Devonshire saying regarding the " cob," or mud walls, of that

* Squier's Peru, p. 407.

vol. xli. — 55

770 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

locality, " A good hat and a good pair of shoes is all that cob
wants." The pair of shoes here meant is a stone foundation such
as I have described in the Persian houses — that is, to protect
the lower part of the wall ; and the hat is a sufficient amount
of thatch, or covering, to the top of the wall to save it from the
influence of rain. With such conditions, I believe that mud walls
in Devon, even in our own damp climate, have stood for long
periods of time.

The sloping jambs of doors and windows are peculiar to many
old styles of architecture, such as the early Greek and Etruscan.
Theories of origin for this have been often suggested, but we have
no difficulty in accounting for them, if we suppose that the nar-
rowness above was a form, and the natural result of the sloping
walls of mud.

I have already explained how builders in mud — and which is
well exemplified in Persia — construct their walls with a broad
base, to give solidity below, and with a marked batter upward to
reduce the weight above. It has been suggested — and, I think,
with every reason in its favor — that this explains the very marked
slope of the perpendicular lines of the Egyptian pylons. All the
authorities agree in stating that in the old temples the outer wall
forming the temenos of temples of Egypt was made of crude brick,
and as the pylon was the gate through this wall in front of the
temple, the great probability of its being constructed of the same
material is obvious.

When I had seen village after village in Persia with vaulted
or domed roofs, and learned that such roofs could be formed with-
out centers, the idea immediately suggested itself that these
methods of building had existed from the most primitive times.
While the necessity for wooden centerings for building vaults
and domes was believed in, we never could have credited an early
state of civilization with this invention. Let this assumption re-
garding centers be removed, and the whole problem is changed.
The earlier workers in mud or clay could not have been long in
discovering how to spread their material over the space inclosed
by four walls. They would, no doubt, have begun at first with
small spaces, and a very little experience would soon have enabled
them to deal with greater. If any one considers the matter, I
think he must arrive at the conclusion that mud must have been
first used for a long period of time before burned brick came into
existence ; and now that we know how easy it is to produce a roof
with the mud, there is no great improbability in the assumption
that the vault or dome, as well as the arch, all date back to a
period when that material alone was in use.

I have described the foundations of a mud wall, such as they
are in Persia, formed of burned bricks or stones and lime ; and also

■<
i-l

0

772 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

in Devonshire, where they are known as a " good pair of shoes/'
because they protect the feet, or lower part of the wall. In the
remains of the Temple of Viracocha in Peru the mud walls have a
stone base eight feet in height. With these examples before us,
and understanding the necessary purposes they served, we may
assume that such protective substructures were generally em-
ployed wherever this particular manner of building was in use.
It is highly probable that in this rude constructive detail we have
the first origin of that part of the architecture in the palaces of
Assyria to which the great winged bulls in the British Museum
belonged. It seems now to be accepted that these palaces were
constructed of crude brick, or at least this material was the princi-
pal one employed; baked or perhaps glazed brick may have been
used in the exterior of the walls, but the interior was of sun-dried
brick, and covered with stucco. This latter part is exactly what I
saw in Persia. Along the base of these walls slabs of marble were
placed, varying from three to about eight feet in height. These
were generally sculptured, and the great bulls were represented
on the portions of the slabs on each side of the doors. The
development of this highly ornamental dado in the palace, from
the base of the mud wall, is not a difficult problem to solve. The
foundations I saw in the villages were formed of stones, half-
bricks, or rubbish of any kind. In the better class of houses
a more regular construction would be followed ; and in palaces
the covering of this with marble is what might be expected. I
accompanied a visit of ceremony to the palace of one of the
Shah's sons in Tehran, and I noticed that, in the room where we
were received, slabs of alabaster, about three feet in height,
went all round the base of the walls. These alabaster slabs in
Persia are the counterpart of the marbles in the palaces of As-
syria. In both cases they served the same purpose — they pro-
tected the lower part of the walls.

It was a source of some surprise to me to find that the Per-
sian villages were, as a rule, exactly similar to those I had seen
in the Khyber Pass and other parts of Afghanistan. They are
square, formed with four high crenelated walls, and a round
tower at each corner. The gateway is in the center of one of
the walls, and the mud houses are huddled together inside, one
might say, " anyhow." Larger villages may have six or eight
towers ; small towns or large ones have more wall and a larger
number of towers. One of the first things that drew my atten-
tion to mud as a building material in Persia was, when in pass-
ing a small town one morning on the march, I saw some men
either building or repairing the walls and towers of the place.
It then struck me that these defensive walls were, with only
some trifling details of difference, almost identical with the walls

MUD AS A BUILDING MATERIAL.

Ill

we are so familiar with on the Assyrian sculptures. There is
the same repetition of crenelated wall and tower, and constructed
of the same material. I said to myself, " These men, in the pres-

Fig. 1. — Stone Door, Lasgird.

ent day, are building an old Assyrian wall of fortification."
Such defenses must have begun at a very early date in Meso-
potamia, long before the sculptures were produced from which
we know what they were in appearance, and their construction

VOL. XLI. 56

774 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

has never ceased from that to our own time. This presents a
very striking illustration of the continuity of type.

About one hundred miles east of Tehran, there is a curious
village called Lasgird * (Fig. 6). It is supposed to be very old, and
its circular plan is said to have been first drawn on the ground
by Las, the son of Noah. The statement has already been made
that the villages in Persia are square; such is the rule, and it
will explain so far how a round one in their midst appears as
something strange and remarkable. This great circular wall is
so massive that the houses of the people are constructed on the
top of it, and form in a rather irregular manner two stories.
There are rude balconies, or I ought to say narrow ledges, on
the outside which form communications. These are made of
untrimmed branches of trees interlaced with twigs, on which
mud is laid, but without a protective railing of any kind. The
interior space formed by the circular wall is filled with store-
rooms and places where the cattle can be safely housed in case
of an attack from the Turkomans. The only entrance into this
strange structure is by a small opening about four feet by three,
which can be closed by a stone door turning on pivots. The
smallness of this doorway was intended to prevent raiding ene-
mies from entering during the chances of a rush, for it would
be necessary to keep it open to the last moment to admit those
of the villagers who were running home for protection.

I have dealt with this building material in the past ; regard-
ing its future I can say but little. In England here it was
largely in use, so was wood, and that which is well expressed
by the words " wattle and dab," which might be described as a
combination of wood and mud. All these, as our material condi-
tions have improved, have been slowly supplanted by the burned
brick or stone. "Cob" is still in use, to a limited extent only,
in north Devon. It may be assumed that it is not suited for
our damp climate. In dry climates, such as Persia and Egypt,
it is likely to continue, for the simple reasons that it is a
cheap material, and that a comfortable dwelling can be made
from it. f

I might mention a country like California as one where this
material might be valuable. California has a dry climate.
When I was in San Francisco, in 1873, that town was almost

* Gird in this word is said to have the same signification as " girdle " in English —
which may be rendered as " circle."

■f- The author might have dwelt, to a greater extent than he has done, on the mud build-
ings of North America, which are abundantly exemplified in the adobe structures of Mexico,
California, and New Mexico. As it is, he only refers to them incidentally. The log-
cabins of our early settlers were of a mixed construction, in which the " dabbing " of mud
played nearly as important a part as the framing of logs. — Ed.

LANGUAGE AND BRAIN DISEASE. 775

wholly constructed of wood. Stone was feared, owing to the
chances of earthquakes. While there, I visited the church of
St. Francis, built of adobes a century before, and it had stood
firm and secure all that time. It occurs to me — but I have no
right to speak as an expert — that a house built of thick mud
walls and wooden joists and rafters would be tolerably safe dur-
ing an earthquake, unless it was a very severe shock ; such a
house would also be safer than a wooden one from fire, which
has always been a great danger in San Francisco.

LANGUAGE AND BRAIN DISEASE.

By HOWELL T. PERSHING, M. So., M. D.

"ATOTWITHSTANDING the great number of persons engaged
-L-^ in learning and teaching languages, there is no general agree-
ment as to what is the best method that can be employed. Indeed,
there seems to be no belief that there can be one method which is
best for both modern and ancient languages, for the pupil who
must learn to converse and for him who wishes only to read. Nev-
ertheless, there are well-ascertained facts concerning the brain,
which point unmistakably to one method as the best. Hence, I
have ventured to believe that all engaged in linguistic work
would find it interesting and profitable to consider these facts,
which, though far outside the linguist's usual field, are capable of
throwing a strong light upon his work.

All the motions and sensations of the various parts of the
body are represented on the surface of the brain as on a map.
Thus, there is a separate brain area necessary for sight, another
for hearing, another for the motions of the fingers, and so on.
Each of these areas is called a center. Four of these are es-
pecially concerned in the use of language, and may therefore be
called language centers: the auditory center, by which words
are heard ; the motor speech center, which excites and controls
the vocal organs in speaking ; the visual center, by which written
words are seen ; and the writing center, which guides the motions
of the hand in writing. These centers are capable of individual
development by practice, and, in order that each one may receive
its due share of cultivation, it is necessary to know its relative
importance in the different ways of using language.

Disease instructs us on this point by making some interesting
though ruthless experiments. Inflammation, or the growth of
a tumor, or the rupture or plugging of a blood-vessel, may de-
stroy any of these centers, involving, of course, a loss of the cor-
responding function. Consequently, the various defects in the

776

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

use of language are the subject of a large and very important
chapter in the treatises on brain disease. So far as I am aware no
practical use has been made of this knowledge outside the domain
of medicine. Yet it would be very strange if, from the ways in
which the use of language is lost, or suffers varying degrees and
kinds of impairment, we could learn nothing as to how it may
best be acquired. The loss occasioned by the destruction of any
language center is an indication of the defect that must result
from neglecting to cultivate the same center by practice ; and, as
disease selects now one and now another center for attack, we

Diagram of the Left Side of the Brain. (Modified from Ecker.) A, auditory center;
M, motor speech center; V, visual center; G, writing center ; Sm and T. probable centers
for smell and taste (dotted because on inner surface) ; S, provisional location of areas for
perception of touch, pain, and temperature ; Mu, provisional area for muscular sense.

learn the extent to which each is necessary in hearing, speaking,
reading, or writing.

In the accompanying diagram of the left side of the brain, the
areas marked A, M, V, and G are the four language centers. The
dotted lines indicate the paths of fibers which connect them with
one another and with other centers, carrying nervous impulses
somewhat as a wire carries an electric current. The correspond-
ing centers on the right side of the brain are for the most part
rudimentary, and may for the present purpose be neglected.

The auditory center, A, receives the nervous impulses started

LANGUAGE AND BRAIN DISEASE. 777

by sound. When it is aroused by impulses coming from the ears,
the sensation of sound occurs ; but when it is aroused by nerve-
currents, not from the ears, but from other parts of the brain, we
have only the memory of sound. For a word to be understood,
the auditory center alone is not sufficient. The sound must
awaken the memories of other sensations. The word " orange,"
for instance, has a meaning because the auditory center, when the
word is heard, arouses in the visual center the memory of the
color and form of an orange ; in the centers for touch, tempera-
ture, posture, and muscular sense, the memory of the sensations
which occur when the fruit is grasped by the hand ; in the cen-
ters for smell and taste, the memory of its peculiar odor, flavor,
and tartness. These sensations are said to be associated with the
sound of the word, and together with it they constitute the con-
cept " orange." The nerve-currents passing from one center to
another are called association impulses. If we have often eaten
oranges, and at the same time heard the name, the auditory center
whenever it perceives or remembers the sound will send vigorous
impulses to the other centers, and the idea will be vivid. But if our
experience of oranges has been very limited, or if the name has
been rarely heard, or if instead of the correct name a merely similar
sound has been heard, the association impulses will be sent slowly,
feebly, and uncertainly, so that the idea will be vague. Prompt and
strong associations should be cultivated as a means of securing
clear and vivid ideas. The auditory center is the first language
center to be developed. A child hears soon after birth, and to-
ward the end of its first year the sounds of a few words are un-
derstood. Up to this time no words have been uttered, but the
child now begins to imitate the sounds it understands and soon
can use them. This requires the co-operation of the motor speech
center, M, which by connecting fibers and the currents they carry
combines the simpler movements of the vocal organs to form
words. In the case of Gambetta, who was a loquacious politician
and very successful orator, this center was excessively developed,
though the brain as a whole was not remarkable. On the con-
trary, a study of the brain of the distinguished statistician, Ber-
tillon, who was diffident and reticent, showed a high degree of
general development, with an almost rudimentary motor speech
center.

In speaking, the guidance of the auditory center is necessary.
The sound of a word must be remembered when it is uttered. On
the other hand, the effort of the motor speech center to utter a
word reacts upon the memory of the sound, causing it to be more
vivid. In the main the two centers work and develop together,
but the auditory center is the more independent and fundamental.
If a child becomes deaf, even as late as the tenth or eleventh year,

778 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

it also becomes mute, unless special educational measures are em-
ployed ; and in adults destruction of the auditory center inter-
feres sadly with talking, while destruction of the motor speech
center does not seem to interfere at all with the understanding of
speech.

When reading is first undertaken, the auditory and motor
speech centers with their association fibers are already well de-
veloped. The visual center, V, now begins to work with them.
When impulses from the eyes reach this center, the sensation of
sight occurs. The appearance of each letter calls up the memory
of its sound through the association fibers, V A, and a number of
these elementary sounds uttered in quick succession are recog-
nized by the learner as a word. Its meaning is awakened by the
auditory center, and at first it is necessary to read aloud in order
to make the association impulses from this center sufficiently
exact and vigorous. Later, the memories of the sound and of its
utterance suffice without its actual reproduction, but in most per-
sons these memories remain an essential part of the reading pro-
cess throughout life. As this is read, the reader is doubtless con-
scious of the sound and of the incipient utterance of each word.

In learning to write, the motions of the hand become auto-
matically associated with the memory of the corresponding utter-
ance. It might be supposed that in writing the appearance of
each word is recalled and copied ; but this is not the case, al-
though the visual memory may be an aid to correct spelling.
Words may be written with no recollection of their appearance.

The correctness of the foregoing statements is proved by the
effects of disease of the language centers, as shown by observation
of speech defects during life, followed by post-mortem examina-
tion of the brain.

Destruction of the visual centers of both sides causes blindness ;
but when these centers themselves are unharmed, disease may be
so situated as to cut off their communication with other centers.
In this case the patient sees, but does not recognize what he sees,
and is said to be mind-blind. If the affection is so slight that he
can still recognize ordinary objects, but not written or printed
words, which are more difficult, he is only word-blind. To a per-
son afflicted with word-blindness the print of his own language is
like that of a foreign one. George Eliot, with her usual sure
touch in medical matters, gives an interesting illustration of this
affection in the case of Tito's foster-father, Baldasarre ; yet Ro-
mola was finished in 1863, when very few physicians were aware
of the existence of such cases. Reading in such a case is, of
course, impossible ; but writing is not prevented, although the
patient can not read what he has just written. Speaking and the
understanding of speech are not interfered with at all.

LANGUAGE AND BRAIN DISEASE. 779

Destruction of the motor speech center causes a much more
extensive interference with the use of language. The motions of
the vocal organs being no longer co-ordinated, an inarticulate
jargon, or the senseless repetition of a word or phrase, is all that
is left of the power to talk. The ability to write is also lost.
Reading aloud is, of course, impossible ; but it is also a matter of
common observation in such cases that the ability to understand
print is lost or greatly impaired. This proves that in most per-
sons direct associations between visual words and ideas, if they
exist at all, are too weak to be depended upon. So the under-
standing of spoken words is the only way of using language that
is independent of the motor speech center.

But it is destruction of the auditory center that causes the
most extensive loss of language. In such a case words (though
they may be heard through the right side of the brain) are not
understood. This failure to understand is called word-deafness.
But there are other serious defects. Although the vocal appa-
ratus is in perfect order, and there are ideas seeking expression,
the words uttered are mutilated, deformed, and often totally dif-
ferent from the ones intended, so that intelligible speech is well-
nigh impossible. This shows that in talking the most important
association impulses do not go directly from the centers for ideas
to the motor speech center, but to the auditory center, which, re-
membering the sounds, by fresh impulses arouses the motor center
to utter them. Writing is still more interfered with, because it
depends upon the utterance-memory, which goes astray without
the sound-memory.

Does destruction of the auditory center also prevent reading ?
We should expect it to do so, from the way in which reading is
learned, and excellent authorities say that it does. There is not
enough simple and direct evidence (consisting of the inability to
read during life, followed by the discovery of disease limited to
the auditory center after death) to prove this, on account of the
small number of available cases and the lack of attention to read-
ing in the observation of many of them. Making allowance, how-
ever, for the difficulties in the way of gathering direct evidence
on this point, the cases published support the view that in most
persons the auditory center is essential to the understanding of
what is read. But there is other evidence that is quite convinc-
ing. We have seen that in reading the visual center can not, as a
rule, call up the ideas, else destruction of the motor speech center
could not interfere with reading as it does. Nor is the motor
speech center directly connected with the centers for ideas ; if it
were, destruction of the auditory center could not interfere with
talking as it does. This leaves only the auditory center, which is
abundantly capable, for the sounds of words readily awaken ideas

78o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

before the other language centers begin to work and after they
have been destroyed. Therefore, the auditory center must do the
essential work of rousing ideas in reading. But if it does this,
why is the motor center needed at all ? We have seen that a be-
ginner has to read aloud to stimulate the auditory center to do its
work. In quiet reading the utterance-memory probably reacts
upon the sound-memory, making it more vivid, and thus causing
the auditory center to send out stronger association impulses.
Possibly visual words first arouse a memory of the utterance
instead of that of the sound, as I suppose. But, be this as it may,
the facts clearly indicate that, in the evolution of language, the
auditory center has acquired the position of a central station,
through which the other language centers communicate with the
centers for ideas. The sound of a word is the word itself. Printed
words are only convenient symbols for recalling the sounds.

This gains in interest when considered in the light of Max
Muller's views concerning the relation of language to thought.
His motto is : " No reason without language ; no language with-
out reason." He contends that the scattered sense-memories can
not be bound together to form a concept without a word, so words
are essential to thought. He does not mean thought to include
the inference that a dog makes when he sees his master start for
a walk, or that which a driver makes when he sees a stone ahead
of him and pulls the rein to avoid it. Undoubtedly such mental
processes may go on without words. But it must be acknowl-
edged that general or abstract thinking, such as places man so
far above the lower animals, does require the use of words.

Now, what are the words that are essential to such thinking ?
Surely not visual words, but the words heard and uttered, as any
one may know by attending for a few moments to his own think-
ing. And do not all the philologists tell us that the laws re-
vealed by a study of the life and growth of language are phonetic
laws ?

Max M filler also alludes to the interesting distinction made by
the German language in the two forms for the plural of Wort.
Worte means living words actually engaged in conveying con-
cepts from one mind to another ; Woerter means words consid-
ered as mere objects. Visual words are only Woerter, dead bod-
ies unable to support the burden of thought, mere effigies of the
living sounds.

It is not meant, however, to deny the possibility of a different
relation of the language centers to one another in abnormal or in
exceptional individuals. Deaf-mutes may learn to read and even
to speak, and doubtless to use visual words in thinking ; but it
is with much more than ordinary difficulty, and, in the opinion
of some of their ablest teachers, the results are not so satisfac-

LANGUAGE AND BRAIN DISEASE. 781

tory as to warrant the abandonment of the more primitive sign-
language. And it is a fact of great significance that those deaf-
mutes who have once been able to hear, though the subsequent
deafness was total, have a great advantage over those deaf from
birth, not only in learning to read and speak, but in general men-
tal capacity.

We are now ready to apply our facts to the practical question
of how best to learn another language than our own. One meth-
od, still prevalent in schools and colleges, attempts to extract the
language almost by sheer force of memory from grammar and
dictionary. It has never been claimed that by this method the
ability to converse could be acquired, but it has been generally
assumed that by it the pupil could at least learn to read, and per-
haps, if diligent, to write to advantage. Yet, even for this pur-
pose alone, the grammatical method must be a failure in so far as
it neglects to train the pupil to a quick perception and a ready
utterance of the sounds of the language, for we have seen that the
auditory and motor speech centers do an essential part of the work
in reading and in writing. Even if direct associations from the
visual center may be cultivated, as in the case of deaf-mutes, why,
instead of an easy and natural method, choose an unnatural and
difficult one that leads to poor results ? If it should be claimed
that the grammatical method, without special attention to pro-
nunciation, does enable pupils to read, and read well, in spite of
any theorizing on the subject, then it must be said without hesi-
tation that the claim is not warranted by facts. The remarkable
unanimity with which the vast majority of our college graduates
neglect to read the ancient authors is a very significant thing. It
seems that they are not really able to read the Greek and Latin
writers, but only to make a translation, and that they find no
sufficient reward for this slow and irksome process.

As applied to the modern languages, the grammatical method
is, even at its worst, supplemented by considerable exercise in
pronunciation, and the ability to read with pleasure and profit is
attained in a correspondingly higher degree. Yet, in estimating
this ability, there is much room for self-deception. The pupil,
after memorizing inflections and rules of arrangement, begins,
with the constant use of the dictionary, to read, or rather, at first,
to make a translation. Persevering, he finds that he needs the
dictionary less and less, and perhaps he begins to understand
without the use of English equivalents. Now, let us suppose that
he has reached that point where he is able to read page after page
without any absolute necessity of referring to the dictionary, or
even of calling up an English word. Has he, as he is apt fondly
to imagine, mastered the language as far as reading it is con-
cerned ? Not at all. He has made a respectable and useful acqui-

782 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sition, but it is far from being perfect. Let him read a chapter of
French or German, learned in this way, and then read the same
amount of English — on the same subject, and, as nearly as may
be, in the same style — and he will find a great difference in the
time required. Let him read a plain narrative in the foreign
tongue, and he will find that weariness importunes him to stop
much sooner than it would if he were reading a good English
translation.

Nor is this all. The meaning has been more or less misty
throughout, as can readily be proved by taking the individual
words out of connection and finding that many fail to call up any
definite idea. Arid, although the ideas have appeared during the
reading, they have been faint instead of vivid, because the asso-
ciation impulses have been sluggish and uncertain instead of
prompt and true. Moreover, the subtile correspondences between
sense and sound, which are allied to the unexplained power of
music, together with almost all that constitutes the charm and
effectiveness of style, have been lost in a struggle to get the bare
meaning — no, not even the bare meaning, but a bare skeleton of
the meaning. If this is a serious loss in reading plain narrative
or scientific exposition, how fatal is it to the full enjoyment of
poetical or rhetorical writings, where every word has been chosen
with some reference to its sound ! The readers of Hamerton's
wise and charming essays on The Intellectual Life will remember
how Tennyson's Claribel was read by a thoroughly cultivated
Frenchman, who had long studied English and read abundantly
of the literature, but had never become really familiar with Eng-
lish sounds :

"At ev ze bittle bommess

Azvart ze zeeket Ion
At none ze veeld be ommess

Aboot ze most edston
At meedneeg ze mon commess

An lokez doon alon
Ere songg ze lintveet svelless
Ze clirvoiced mavi dvelless

Ze fledgling srost lispess
Ze slomb:-oos vav ootvelless

Ze babblang ronnel creespess
Ze ollov grot replee-ess
Vere Claribel lovlee-ess."

Ought we to be content to read the French and German or the
Greek and Latin poets in any such fashion ?

But even such absurdly incorrect sounds serve some purpose,
for they keep the association currents in their natural course
through the auditory center. They are like a debased and muti-
lated currency, whose low and uncertain value discourages and

LANGUAGE AND BRAIN DISEASE. 783

confuses trade, but which may, in default of anything better, still
keep the stream of commodities flowing in the natural channels.

Now suppose a student, having reached the stage of progress
above indicated, visits the country whose language he has been
reading. What he hears at first is almost wholly unintelligible,
though the same words in print would be familiar. A little later
it is not uncommon to hear a sentence without comprehending it
at all, when suddenly it will flash upon the mind of the hearer as
though seen in print and pronounced by himself, and then it is
readily understood. The same thing occurs in listening to one's
native tongue when the auditory center has been slightly dam-
aged by disease.

In these cases the damaged or un practiced auditory center
recognizes but a part of what is heard, but this is enough to sug-
gest to the well-practiced visual center the complete memory of
the visual words, which then calls up their usual, possibly incor-
rect, sound and utterance, with the associated meaning.

As time passes, the strange sounds, through constant repeti-
tion and efforts to imitate them, grow familiar and become
strongly associated with every-day experiences, so that as soon as
a word is heard the idea is vividly present in consciousness. If
the student reads now, he finds his former disadvantages greatly
diminished. He reads faster and with less fatigue, finding a
clearness and vigor of meaning before unknown. It is not be-
cause his vocabulary is larger, but because it is more efficient.
The auditory center, which formerly, through lack of practice,
failed to properly perform an essential part of the work, is now,
at the suggestion of the visual center, quick to recall each sound,
and, re-enforced by the utterance-memory, it is quick, accurate,
and vigorous in reviving each idea. The work of exchange is
now done by the true coin of the realm.

The more carefully any teacher or thoughtful student will
consider his own experience, the more he will be convinced of
what the facts of brain disease demonstrate, that a good method
of learning any language, whether the aim be to speak or only
to read, must make the thorough training of the auditory and
motor speech-centers a fundamental object. This training can be
perfectly attained only by living where the language to be learned
is spoken ; but, although the difficulties at home are great, if the
essential requisite is only kept in view, a great deal can be accom-
plished. This we owe to the clear insight and faithful work of
the inventors of the natural method. Although this method is
well known, it may not be amiss to give a sketch of how the best
results may be obtained.

The first part of the course of instruction should be devoted
exclusively to the sounds of the commonest words, their reproduc-

784 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tion by the pupil, and the formation of strong associations be-
tween them and actual experiences.

The correct sounds must receive a degree of attention and
reverence that would do credit to a music-master. Inevitable
awkwardness in pronunciation should be corrected, not only by
repeated efforts to imitate what is heard, but also by careful
instruction as to the exact position and movements of the vocal
organs in making the difficult sounds. This is of great impor-
tance, as it reacts upon the auditory memory and does much
toward fixing a clear conception of the correct sound of each
word. Probably very few Germans or Frenchmen have a clear
conception of the sound of " tli" in English; but had they from
the first, whenever attempting this sound, been required to place
the tip of the tongue between the teeth (which is never done in
speaking French or German), there could be but little difficulty
in pronouncing or recalling it. And in the same way a clear
understanding of the fact that the French u and German Umlauts
require the lips to be thrust forward and partially closed, will
enable one to acquire these sounds far more readily than he
otherwise could.

An objective expression of the meaning of words and sentences
should always be sought. Things actually impressing the senses
cause a more vigorous action of the brain than any recollection of
them ; consequently they make associations stronger and mean-
ings more vivid. Although the exhibition of common objects
and pictures, in teaching a vocabulary, may to the superficial
observer seem childish and wasteful of time, it is in reality wise
and economical.

The memorizing of sentences, reading aloud, listening to
others read, and writing from dictation should all be employed,
in addition to simple conversations between teacher and pupil, as
valuable exercises. What is read at first should be carefully
graded, so that the ideas may be awakened without having re-
course to English, thus avoiding the habit of making a bad trans-
lation, which is often injurious to a school-boy's use of his own
language.

As a pupil in the first stage of progress is pretty sure to go
astray when left to himself, the work should be so arranged that
all the time allotted to the language may be spent with the
teacher. Tasks for outside preparation should not be assigned
until the appreciation of the correct sounds is keen enough to pre-
vent the contraction of vicious habits of pronunciation. Gram-
mar should at first be taught only as it becomes available for
immediate use ; but, later in the course, it should be taught sys-
tematically, and copious outside reading should be assigned.

A student who can neither go abroad nor command the serv-

LANGUAGE AND BRAIN DISEASE. 785

ices of a good teacher is at a great disadvantage ; but he may
still, if he has had a fair start, do much toward the cultivation of
the auditory and motor memories of the foreign words with their
proper associations, and thus greatly improve his ability to read.
He should attend carefully to pronunciation, and practice reading
aloud. When a new word occurs, the first thing is to get its cor-
rect sound, and the next to associate it with some actual experi-
ence, if possible ; if not, then with as vivid an idea as can be
recalled. The English equivalent must be dropped from con-
sciousness as soon as the idea is present, so that the association
may be a direct one. It is an advantage to use a dictionary with
words and definitions in the same language. Reading on subjects
in which one is specially interested is much better than general
reading. The memorizing and frequent repetition of interesting-
passages will pay abundantly for the time and trouble.

The great difficulty in working alone is to hear enough of the
language to keep the auditory center familiar with its correct
sounds. To this end, every opportunity should be taken to con-
verse, or to hear a sermon or a play, in the foreign tongue. In
many American cities such opportunities are not rare, especially
as to German.

For this purpose the phonograph will no doubt be made of
great service. With its aid choice passages in literature or scien-
tific exposition, as rendered by a good reader, can be repeatedly
heard and pronunciation and accent imitated at the pupil's con-
venience. I have no doubt that some process of cheaply multi-
plying the phonographic cylinders or ribbons will, before very
long, enable us to enjoy whole books in this way, thus saving
our weary eyes and economizing the energy of the brain, while
giving a greater pleasure.

I see no reason why Latin and Greek may not be taught to
advantage by some such method as the one that has been out-
lined. The uncertainty as to what the original sounds were,
though embarrassing, is not nearly so great as one would natu-
rally suppose. Philological science has reached such perfection
that at least a close approximation to the correct sounds could be
agreed upon and registered by the phonograph.

As Hamerton suggests, a phrase-book could doubtless be
made for teaching each language by the natural method. A stu-
dent once fairly started in this way could not fail to make greater
progress in grammatical and philological knowledge, as well as to
find the classical authors more interesting.

In conclusion, it may safely be said that the reader who has
given his assent to the deductions here made from the facts of
disease will not hesitate to go further and concur in the opin-
ion that pedagogy will in the future find a scientific basis in a

786 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

knowledge of the functions of the brain. Its career must some-
what resemble that of the art of medicine. There were great
physicians before Harvey found a starting-point for scientific
physiology ; yet the debt of practical medicine to physiology is
now well-nigh incalculable. So it will be with the art of teach-
ing: noble work has been done for its advancement in entire
ignorance of the organ whose best development it seeks ; but now,
since there is already a large and constantly increasing fund of
knowledge concerning the working of the brain, teachers who
are not bound to the traditions of the past, but are looking
eagerly for every means of improving their art, will assuredly
not fail to take advantage of the new knowledge.

The result must be an enormous gain for the children of the
future.*

An influence of a total solar eclipse on air pressure has been deduced by Herr
Steen from the comparison of the records of fourteen Norwegian ships between
Panama and Madagascar, during the eclipse of August 29, 1885, four of the ships
having been within the zone of totality and four others very near it. Two maxi-
ma of pressure, separated by a minimum, were revealed. The double wave is
explained by Herr Steen by assuming that during a solar eclipse day is changed
to night for a short time, and the transition is much like the ordinary change
from day to night in the tropics, where the twilight is short. There the curve
of air pressure has regularly a maximum about 10 p. m., some time after sun-
set, and a minimum about 4 a. m., shortly before sunrise; while a second maxi-
mum appears about 4 a. m. A total solar eclipse would naturally act in a simi-
lar way.

* References. — Any reader interested in the foregoing argument would do well to
verify the statements of fact on which it is based by reference to some of the following
well-known authorities :

For a very clear, popular account of the functions of the brain, see Prof. M. A. Starr's
article, The Old and the New Phrenology, Popular Science Monthly, October, 1889.

For a more complete account, consult the same author's Familiar Forms of Xervous
Disease ; Gowers's Diseases of the Nervous System, pp. 454-465, American edition ; and the
text-books of physiology by Michael Foster and by Landois and Stirling.

For defects in the use of language, besides the above, see Th. Ribot, Diseases of
Memory, chap, iii ; Moebius, Allgemeine Diagnostik der Nervenkrankheiten ; Ross, Dis-
eases of the Nervous System, chap, xviii ; H. C. Wood, Nervous Diseases and their Diag-
nosis, chap, ix ; Gowers, loc. cit., pp. 540-555 ; also Starr, The Pathology of Sensory
Aphasia, Brain, July, 1889, and Apraxia and Aphasia, Medical Record, October 27, 1888.

For a discussion of word-blindness and mind-blindness, illustrated by cases of great
interest, see Charcot, Lecnns sur les Maladies du Systeme Nerveux, tome iii, pp. 154—189.

For a discussion of the working of the brain in reading, with references to previous re-
searches, see Ein Beitrag zur Lehre von den Lesestoerungen, Weissenberg, Archiv f. Psy-
chiatric, xxii, 2.

The most philosophical and elaborate work on the disturbances of speech is that con-
tributed by Kussmaul to Ziemmsen's Cyclopaedia, vol. xiv.

In consulting any author on this subject the date of writing must, of course, be consid-
ered, as every year adds materially to the common store of available facts.

A CHAPTER IiV METEOROLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 787
A CHAPTER IN METEOROLOGICAL DISCOVERY.

By JOHN COLEMAN ADAMS.

ONE of the most interesting phases in the history of scientific
research is what may be called the co-operative feature.
No great machine is the invention of one mind. Few great
discoveries have been made in complete accuracy by any one
man. A locomotive is a mosaic of inventions, discoveries, and
improvements. It would be impossible to estimate the number
of minds which have contributed to the mighty structure, and
have slowly built up its complex perfections. The names of
Stephenson, Jervis, Winans, and Allen, in their successive con-
tributions to the devices by which the locomotive has increased
its capacities, but faintly hint the immense number who have
given some detail, some great or small modification and improve-
ment by which the vast and impressive result has been built up.
In the same way, every science grows to its completeness by the
accumulating discoveries of individuals, added from year to year
and century to century. Astronomy has gathered its harvest of
results by the hands of hundreds of patient toilers. Copernicus
established the true center of the solar system ; Kepler added the
three great laws which bear his name, relating to the orbits and
the periods of the planets ; Newton contributed the law of gravi-
tation. The science has been a growth, fed by the thoughts and
the painstaking labors of many minds. And while each of these
great men has furnished a distinct and complete contribution to
the total knowledge in the science, each has also depended upon
his predecessors for co-operation and the data which made his
own task possible of accomplishment.

Just such a process as this has been going on in the young and
growing science of meteorology. It may be doubted if any other
branch of science in our century furnishes a more curious and
valuable illustration of the progress of discovery in a given field,
the corrections applied by later discoverers to the work of their
predecessors, the accumulation of facts and data till they are suf-
ficient for the formation of a working hypothesis, the modifica-
tions of the hypothesis in the light of new data, the application
of the theory to practical affairs, and the unification of the set of
phenomena thus investigated with other and all facts in the same
branch of science. The history of the investigations which
created our great system of observation and record, and made it
possible for a whole people to get daily bulletins of the morrow's
probable weather, is one of the most striking in the whole history
of science. Let us sketch it as it lies in the annals of the learned
societies of America, as yet both uncollected and unconnected.

788 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

It will be seen how discovery started from a casual hint based on
the observations of a keen and well-trained mind; how it was
stimulated in a later observer, who bent himself to the painstaking
collation of facts bearing on one special set of phenomena ; how
these facts finally warranted him in advancing a hypothesis ; how
this hypothesis was opposed and criticised ; how it maintained
itself in the face of increasing light ; how more extended observa-
tions confirmed it and enlarged its application; how it became
the basis of all subsequent investigation ; how it was sustained
by the testimony of other observers working along similar lines ;
and how to-day it is at the very corner-stone of the meteorological
science in America. To this narrative let us turn.

It may be fairly presumed that the well-known suggestions of
Benjamin Franklin, based on the occurrence of a northeasterly
storm in Boston shortly after one was noted in Philadelphia, was
the first definite contribution to the scientific knowledge of North
American storms and their movements of transition. Though
that contribution was little more than a speculation, it was nev-
ertheless one of those sagacious anticipations of results which
marks the true scientific genius. In a letter to Jared Eliot, dated
at Philadelphia, July 16, 1747, Franklin says: "We have fre-
quently along this North American coast storms from the north-
east which blow violently, sometimes for three or four days. Of
these I have had a very singular opinion for some years — i. e.,
that though the course of the wind is from northeast to south-
west, yet the course of the storm is from southwest to northeast ;
that is, the air is in violent commotion in Virginia before it moves
in Connecticut, and in Connecticut before it moves at Cape Sable."
In another letter to Eliot, dated at Philadelphia some two years
later (February 13, 1749-'50), Franklin says : " You desire to know
my thought about northeast storms beginning to leeward. Some
years ago there was an eclipse of the moon at nine in the evening
which I intended to observe, but before night a storm blew up at
northeast and continued violent all night and next day; the sky
was thick clouded, dark, and rainy, so that neither moon nor stars
could be seen. The storm did a great deal of damage all along
shore, for we had accounts of it in all the newspapers, from Bos-
ton, Newport, New York, Maryland, and Virginia. But what
surprised me was to find in the Boston newspapers an account of
an observation of the eclipse made there, for I thought as the
storm came on from the northeast it must have begun sooner in
Boston than with us, and consequently prevented such observa-
tion. I wrote to my brother about it, and he informed me that
the eclipse was over there one hour before the storm began.
Since which I have made inquiries, from time to time, of travel-
ers and of my correspondents to northeast and southwest, and

A CHAPTER IN METEOROLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 789

observed the accounts of newspapers from New England, New
York, Maryland, Virginia, and South. Carolina, and I find it to be
a constant fact that the northeast storms begin to leeward, and
are often more violent there than to windward."

Those letters are probably the earliest literature on the sub-
ject of North American storms, the first documents of scientific
value in the long series of observations and of studies which have
brought us to our present valuable knowledge. Undoubtedly,
this fact, which had suggested itself to Franklin, had been ob-
served before by fishermen, by mariners, and others, accustomed
to the practical observation of the weather. But this is the ini-
tial point of its treatment as a scientific phenomenon. Between
the two kinds of observation there is a world-wide difference.
The observer is not always nor often the seer. There are a hun-
dred thousand who can note a fact for one who can draw an in-
ference from it. A good many myriads of generations had noted
the ebb and flow of the tides before anybody noted a connection
between these facts and the daily passage of the moon across the
meridian. It is likely that a good many fishermen and sailors
and captains had talked over the curious fact that the first signs
of the coming northeaster seemed to be from the leeward of its
characteristic wind. Perhaps some of these unscientific folk had
propounded their crude theories about the motions of storms to
the little knots of comrades about the cabin fire or under the
forecastle's dim lantern. But, being unscientific people, they did
not know how to gather and marshal their facts, draw their
inferences, and declare their hypotheses. And so Dr. Franklin
must have the credit of first propounding this doctrine about
American storms. Many years elapsed before his became the ac-
cepted view, and people understood that the easterly storms of
New England, and indeed of the whole country, were travelers
from west to east, and not visitants from the sea, drifting up the
coasts and inland. The lack of facilities for observation, the
dearth of data, the infrequency of communication, the almost
utter neglect of the phenomena whose study in recent years has
founded the science of meteorology, were all conditions which
greatly retarded the knowledge of meteorology in our own coun-
try, and made it impossible to trace the connection of weather in
one region with that in others.

William C. Redfield. — The serious and consecutive study
of the motions of North American storms may be said to have
begun with the investigations of William C. Redfield, one of the
most painstaking, broad-minded, and sagacious of American scien-
tists. So competent an authority as Commodore Maury has called
him " the Kepler of storm physics." Prof. Denison Olmstead, of
Yale College, in a brief memoir published in the American Jour-

VOL. XLI. 57

790 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

nal of Science (vol. lxxiv), says : " The honor of having established
on satisfactory evidence the rotary and progressive character of
ocean storms, and determining their modes of action and laws,
it is due alike to the memory of the departed and the credit of
our country to claim for William C. Redfield."

Redfield was a Connecticut man, born at Middletown in 1789.
He was a naval engineer, and, besides his valuable contributions to
this science, he was much interested in various other branches, and
especially in the problem of increasing the speed of steamboats.
Olmstead declares him to have been the first man to suggest a
great railway system between the Hudson and the Mississippi.

It was in the year 1821 that Redfield began the study of what
he called " Atlantic storms." He was led to it by a casual cir-
cumstance, like that which called out Franklin's hint as to the
direction of the movement of these storms. And let it especially
be noted, as the story of his investigation is told, how clearly that
story teaches the value of close and patient study along some
single line of facts, until their relations are laid bare and their
meaning uncovered. Redfield is an illustration of the value to
the world of men who know, not a great many things a little, but
a few things a great deal.

In the year 1821 a severe storm prevailed along the Eastern
coast, which for many years was known as the " great September
gale." It held that title until September, 1869, when another and
more remarkable one occurred, which rather disturbed its claim
to the honor. It was a little time after this first storm that Red-
field, while making a journey in Massachusetts, was struck by a
somewhat curious fact. He noticed that in Massachusetts the
trees prostrated by the wind, all lay with their heads to the south-
east, showing that the gale there was from the northwest ; but
in Connecticut the trees blown down in the same storm lay head
to the northwest, showing that the gale had been a southeast one.
He ascertained, moreover, that when the wind was blowing south-
east in Middletown, his home, it was northwest at a place not
seventy miles from there. It was then that the idea flashed
across his mind that the gale was a progressive whirlwind. That
was a great thought. It was such a flash of perception as came
to Newton when he connected the falling apple with the planets
in space. It was such an insight into the meaning of a fact as
James Watt had when he saw the possibilities of the force that
was rattling the lid of the kettle on his mother's fire. The de-
velopment of that idea was destined one day to put Redfield in
the ranks of the great scientific thinkers of his day. He made
this storm the basis of his investigations, following his researches
iDto its movements by a careful collection of facts in relation to
others like it. For ten years he studied, and examined and com-

A CHAPTER IN METEOROLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 791

pared his facts, before lie published his theory of storms. He
noted the occurrence of several great gales, and set about collect-
ing all the facts possible in reference to them, carrying on a wide
correspondence, and examining a multitude of witnesses. He
sought out the marine reports as to all vessels coming into port
soon after the storm, examined their log-books and talked with
their captains. In the case of the great Cuban hurricane of 1844,
he collated one hundred and sixty-four different accounts. He
noted the latitude and longitude of the vessels at sea, or the ob-
servers on the coast, when they took the gale, the direction and
force of the wind as they experienced it, the direction in which
it veered, the states of the barometer, and all cognate facts.
Then he charted the whole and studied its meaning.

It was in 1831, ten years from the time in which he first ob-
served the effects of the September gale and drew his inferences
from them, that he published an article, " On the Prevailing
Storms of the Atlantic Coast." In it he gave an account of the
gale of 1821, which he describes as " exhibited in the form of a
great whirlwind." He had now made several important conclu-
sions in reference to this class of storms : 1. He held that they
often originate in the tropical latitudes, frequently to the north
and east of the West India Islands. 2. That they often cover at
the same moment of time an area of from one hundred to five
hundred miles in diameter, and that they are most violent nearest
the center of this area, and least energetic about the exterior
lines. 3. That while in the tropics these storms move from east
to west till they reach the parallel of 30° north, when they sud-
denly recurve to the north and east, and move rapidly along lines
generally parallel with the Atlantic coast of the United States.

4. That the direction of the winds along the greater portion of its
storm-tracks is not the same as the direction of the storm itself '.

5. That when in these northerly latitudes these storms, while
moving in a northeast course, begin with a wind from east to
south, and terminate with a wind from west to north. 6. That
on the outer portion of the track, north of the parallel of 30° or
within that portion lying farthest from the American coast, these
storms exhibit at the commencement a southerly wind which, as
the storm comes over, veers gradually to the westward, a quarter
where it is found to terminate. 7. In the same latitudes, but
along the central portion of the track, the first force of the wind
is from the southeast, but after blowing for a certain period it
changes suddenly to a point nearly or directly opposite. 8. On
that portion of the track nearest the American coast or farthest
inland, if the storm reaches the continent, the wind commences
from an east or northeast point and veers more or less gradually
by north to northwest.

792 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

This was certainly a very important series of conclusions,
and it establishes certain principles or laws in regard to a certain
class of North American storms beyond cavil. Redfield had thus
shown that many at least of the great storms which traverse the
Atlantic coast come from the tropics east of the West Indies and
describe a great parabola in their course; that the direction of
the wind in these storms was entirely a distinct matter from the
direction in which the storm is moving ; and that this storm is
a system of winds, blowing whirlwind-fashion about a central
point, in a direction contrary to that of the hands of a watch.
That is the substance of Redfield's discovery ; and it is one of
the most important contributions ever made to the science of
storms, not alone in its purely scientific relations, but also, as we
shall see, in a most practical way in the service of mariners.

Just here we touch an interesting episode of Redfield's career,
in his connection with Sir William Reid, an English engineer-
colonel at Barbadoes, himself deeply interested in this subject, and
an investigator of the law of storms in general. Redfield and Reid
entered into a correspondence upon the subject which lasted for
twenty years, and which Redfield declares was most serviceable
to him. But, as Colonel Reid's earliest inquiries were based on a
storm of 1831, ten years later than the one which gave Redfield
his first hint of a theory, it may still be maintained that Red-
field was the first to grasp the new facts in all their meaning.
He acknowledges an indebtedness to Colonel Reid as well as
to Piddington, in his essay on " Asiatic Storms." But their work
could have done little more for him than to confirm his own
thought and guide his investigations. It remained for this early
student of these phenomena to follow the great storms of the
Atlantic from their breeding-place near the " doldrums/' in their
curving path through the Gulf of Mexico and along the United
States coast, proving that these vast hurricanes of the West
Indies are progressive storms, moving westward till central in
the Gulf and then recurving toward the northeast, retaining
their essential characteristics, though somewhat less violent than
in their beginnings. This was the scope of Redfield's investiga-
tions. He indicated the track of one entire class of American
storms, and showed them to be great circular movements of the
air, like immense whirlwinds or cyclones, traveling bodily over
wide areas.

A word more ought to be said before we pass from the work
of Redfield, as to his theory of the direction of the winds about
the center of a cyclone, a point much debated since his day,
and in which he was singularly correct in his judgment. At
the time he made his investigations, everybody supposed that
these great storms were disturbances in which the winds blew

A CHAPTER IN METEOROLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 793

straight away from one point of the compass; and one of the
theories advanced in opposition to this, held that the winds in
these systems blew radially in to a common center. Redfield,
however, maintained that they blew neither radially toward the
center, nor yet in circles around it, but as water or smoke in a
vortex, with a constant inclination to the center. Here, too, he
came very close to the most commonly received doctrine of this
present time ; and it proved in entire harmony with the law pro-
pounded by Ballot — a law which may be thus expressed : " The
wind which blows around an area of low barometer, blows neither
in circles returning on themselves, nor directly toward that point ;
but it takes a direction intermediate, approaching, however, more
nearly the direction of circular curves than of radii to a center."
Redfield's researches also showed that the winds about a low-
pressure space blow in a direction contrary to that of the hands
of a watch.

One fact more should be stated in reference to the nature
of Redfield's work and its practical value. Few discoveries in
science have ever been turned more quickly to the benefit of
mankind ; for one of Redfield's first undertakings, after estab-
lishing these laws of the great Atlantic storms, was to formu-
late certain rules for the management of vessels during these
gales, by which the heaviest force of the storm may be avoided.
One of the completest answers to the skeptical queries of matter-
of-fact people as to the utility of purely scientific studies, is
found in the fact that the outcome of Redfield's studies as at-
tested by United States naval officers like Commodore Rodgers
and Lieutenant Maury, was an immediate service to ship-masters
in showing them how to avoid the heaviest parts of a cyclone,
and save their vessels the risk and the wear and tear of an en-
counter with the violent winds of the storm-center.

James P. Espy. — But we must leave the work of Redfield,
important though it was, and move on, in fulfillment of our pur-
pose, to note the contributions of those other men who helped
to complete our knowledge of great American storms.

In the year 1850, Prof. James P. Espy, one of the most origi-
nal and talented of American meteorologists, published his con-
clusions in regard to the character of American storms, which
must be regarded as the next step in the enlargement of our
knowledge on the subject. His views were presented in a work
entitled The Philosophy of Storms, the fruit of earnest and
painstaking studies. The great feature of this work was its
presentation of a new class of storms. Espy directed attention
to those great atmospheric disturbances which no one hitherto
had dealt with, which move across the continent from west to
east and which do not originate in the West Indies. Redfield's

794 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

attention, was confined to his favorite West Indian storms, which
travel via the Gulf of Mexico. Espy reminded the public that
these were not the only great storms which visit the United States.
" There are rain and snow storms," said Espy, " which from No-
vember to March, at least, travel from west to east. These storms
are first heard of west of the Mississippi and sometimes as far north
as Iowa ; and they often travel from the Mississippi to the Con-
necticut in twenty-four hours." He concluded that these storms
must originate in the far West, at that time only a wilderness, and
so beyond the outposts of observation. Espy did not assert that
these storms differed in character from the ones with which Red-
field had dealt. He only reminded the world that the West Indies
were not the only place where storms were generated. In so doing,
he accurately pointed out the origin of a large proportion of
American storms. The storms which Bedfield studied were really
the least, in point of numbers, among the storms which visit the
continent. But Redfield's observations were confined to the sea-
board, so that he necessarily did not have his attention drawn to
this second class of great storms. Like many later Eastern men,
he did not realize what a prominent part the West plays in the
economy of the country.

In two respects Prof. Espy became the critic of William C.
Redfield. He held that the winds related to great storms blow
radially to a center, either obliquely or directly. He also believed
that the depression of- the storm-center was caused, not by the
centrifugal force generated by the motion of the winds, as Red-
field was inclined to maintain, but was on account of the rarefac-
tion of the air through the heat developed by the condensation of
vapor in the form of rain or cloud. The latter theory proved of
more value than the former, and will stand as one of Prof. Espy's
additions to the meteorology of North America. The Western
origin of many storms and the function of heat in the develop-
ment of cyclones — these are the two" contributions of Espy to the
science of American storms.

Prop. Hare. — But Espy's eyes were not sharp enough to see
all the facts about the origin and movement of our great disturb-
ances ; and so, as he made certain suggestions which added to the
value of Redfield's discoveries, his own in turn received amend-
ment. The chief of Espy's critics was that eminent American
scientist, Dr. Hare, whose queries in regard to Espy's conclusions
were pertinent and searching. He asked, among other things,
" whether agreeably to the observations of Franklin and general
experience confirming them, our storms producing northeasterly
winds do not travel from southwest to northeast ; whether their
traveling thus does not warrant the opinion that they originate
in the Gulf of Mexico : whether the observations of Redfield do

A CHAPTER IN METEOROLOGICAL DISCOVERY. 795

not establish the fact that certain storms travel from the Gulf
along the coast ; how the observations of Franklin, confirmed by
the general impression that they were sagacious, can be reconciled
with those made by Loomis (locating the place of origin of some
storms in the Northwest of the United States), unless there be two
kinds of storms, one of which travels from southwest to northeast
and the other from northwest to southeast ; and whether it can be
correct to confound these two kinds of storms under one gen-
eralization— i. e., storms moving from east to west." Of course,
these slight strictures did not seriously affect the validity of
Espy's conclusions, any more than they added materially to the
sum of Redfield's. They simply helped to bring all the facts now
discovered into relation, and take the emphasis off any especial
class, the peculiar study of individuals. They show how valuable
are all individual contributions to the growth of a science, and
how, when there is a number of observers in any one field, each
may be a check upon the others and supplement their defective
data or inferences. Redfield discovered the origin of one class
of storms, and laid down the laws of their movement and inter-
nal motions. Espy pointed out a new point of origin of storms,
and threw some new light on their internal winds. Hare pointed
to still another quarter whence these great whirlwinds arise, and
directed attention to the various tracks which they pursue ; and
the investigations which led to these results extend over a term
of perhaps thirty years, from the year 1821 to 1851.

Elias Loomis. — It was about this period that Prof. Loomis, of
Yale College, was prosecuting his studies in meteorology, and
especially in regard to storm-motions, which have since become a
valuable part of our knowledge. He was a later worker in this
field, and his labors were made the more valuable from the fact
that the country had been growing rapidly, especially toward the
Northwest, and he was thus enabled to command much new ma-
terial in the way of observations from this quarter of the country,
which had not been available for the others. Loomis found that
great storms, of like character to those reported from the south-
west and the Atlantic coast, also swept the northern parts of the
country, with identical details, in respect to winds and motions.
These were included in his studies, and thus the generalizations
in respect to our storms were greatly enlarged. Perhaps the gist
of Loomis's conclusions in this matter is condensed into this
paragraph from his Meteorology, which, by the way, was the first
treatise of any pretensions upon this subject published in this
country. He says : " The average direction of storm-paths across
the United States is toward a point nine degrees north of east,
but it varies somewhat with the season of the year, being almost
exactly east in summer and inclining more to the north in the

796 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

winter. Occasionally storms depart very much from the aver-
age track, their course being sometimes directed toward the
southeast and sometimes toward the northeast, and occasion-
ally their course for a day or so has been almost exactly north.
Their average velocity of progress is twenty-six miles per hour,
being twenty-one miles in summer and thirty miles in win-
ter ; but sometimes they attain a velocity of fifty miles in an
hour, and sometimes they remain for a day or two sensibly sta-
tionary."

Blodgett, Mitchell, Coffin. — Several other names deserve
mention, as belonging to earnest investigators and theorists
in the early fields of American meteorology. Loren Blodgett,
M. N. I., published in 1857 a work on the climate of the United
States, far superior to anything previously sent out. About the
time of Redfield's earlier work, Prof. Mitchell, of the University
of North Carolina, propounded a theory which seems to have at-
tracted but little attention — as indeed it deserves but little —
maintaining that certain storms, especially those of the Atlantic
coast, are the result of a gyratory motion about an axis parallel
to the plane of the horizon. This proposition he held in opposi-
tion to Redfield, whom he mentions as contending for the revolu-
tion of the wind about an axis perpendicular to the plane of the
horizon. This speculation of Prof. Mitchell was of less value
to science than his suggestion of the plan of daily maps, show-
ing the aspects of the sky, that cloud boundaries might be
traced, and thus their extent and movements discovered — an
idea which is incorporated into the every-day work of the Sig-
nal Service at Washington. Still another of the meteorologists
of service in the line of investigation we are describing was
Coffin, the author of Studies in the Winds of the Northern Hemi-
sphere.

Dr. Joseph Henry. — When the study of the laws of storms
and their movements in America had gone as far as this, it had
reached a point beyond which it could not proceed without a more
abundant material in the way of observations and statistics.
More data were required, if larger demonstrations were to be
made. The time had come when no great advance in the knowl-
edge of storms could be had, unless they were carefully studied
over large areas, their actions noted at a great number of points
at once, and the information thus gained reduced to order. Of no
other science is this so true as of meteorology ; of no branch of
meteorology is it so true as the observation of storms. Eternal
vigilance is the price of all knowledge in this great field. And
we are now at a point in the progress of the study of American
storms when a great advance was made. Prof. Joseph Henry,
the Director and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and one

A CHAPTER IN METEOROLOGICAL DISCOVERY.

797

of the very foremost of American physicists, put into execution a
plan long conceived and long agitated, securing a system of daily
observations throughout the United States and Canada. He first
arranged for daily reports by telegraph, and was the first to have
the atmospheric conditions over a large territory indicated on a
map. He paved the way for the systematic researches of that de-
partment of the public service which has since been organized as
the Weather Bureau, established in 1870, the most important work
in the interests of this science which has ever been undertaken.
For it is now possible to put in the hands of a few trained
minds at Washington, three times in every day, an amount of
data many times more than all that Redfield or Espy or Hare
collected in years of study. It is to the efforts of Dr. Henry, fol-
lowing upon the patient research of the men whose work we have
thus slightly traced, that we owe the rise and growth of the
science as it stands to-day. An army of observers, drilled to the
greatest precision of scrutiny, on land and on sea, on hill-tops and
in the valleys, in every latitude from the ecpiator to the polar
circle, scans the heavens and watches the earth for every mete-
orological change. The charting of great storms, the making of
forecasts, the posting of storm-warnings, all indicate the condi-
tion which this science has slowly attained, through the combined
and cumulative labors of so many patient observers. From the
conjecture of Benjamin Franklin, about the northeast storms be-
ginning to leeward, to the splendid system by which the move-
ments of a great storm are announced and described almost as
regularly and clearly as the movements of trains on a railway sys-
tem is a long advance. It is an advance which shows how much
we have to be proud of in this great national work, as it has
grown and developed at the hands of our own countrymen. It
illustrates, moreover, the fact that in the researches of science, as
in all the labors of humanity, every man's work tells, and enters
into the great result. Patient toil concentrated upon chosen sub-
jects never fails to yield its due results, valuable for all men.
Even the most abstruse scientific research may have, nay, will
surely have, its issue in practical good to men ; and the most retir-
ing and isolated student in his solitary studies is as true a ser-
vant of his kind as he who sows and reaps acres of wheat, or
weaves the cloth that clothes men's bodies. When William C.
Redfield was gathering the facts about his Three Great Atlantic
Storms, he was doing as direct a service to the future shippers
and navigators of the Atlantic coast, and the cotton-growers of
Georgia and Alabama, as if he had furnished cargoes for their
ships or markets for their cargoes.

VOL. XLI. 58

-♦♦♦

798 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOME INDIAN HOMES.

By R. W. SHUFELDT, M. D.

TTyHILE attached to a military expedition against the Sioux
VV in Wyoming in 1877, I saw those Indians construct at the
various camps we made what I take to be the most primitive form
of house built by human hands. It was simply a shelter, or tepee
as they called it, made with the green boughs cut from the cotton-
wood trees. Without any especial preparation of the ground, they
implanted the cut ends of the limbs in two parallel rows about eight
feet long and five feet apart. The tops were adroitly bent over the
inclosed space and fastened together along the middle line, thus
creating a semi-cylindrical shelter open at both ends. These tepees
were merely intended for two or three men to sleep in, all the
cooking and other arrangements being performed outside.

In permanent summer camps these tepees are built in a sub-
hemispherical shape, the ground upon which they are erected be-
ing previously cleaned off, moderately scooped out, and the earth
thus obtained banked around the in-stuck ends of the boughs on
the inside of the structure. They are then trimmed up and prop-
erly covered outside with long prairie grass, so placed as to shed
the rain. Often, too, they threw an old buffalo-hide over the top
as an additional protection.

In 1886 I observed the Navajos in northwestern New Mexico
building similar houses to the ones I have just described; but
those Indians also build a more durable structure in their hogan
— a conical house of logs plastered with mud, and with a door at
the side. Navajos, too, are improving in their home-building,
more especially where they have taken up their abode in the
neighborhood of frontier military garrisons. All this I have ex-
plained in a paper read before the Anthropological Society of
Washington (March 17, 1891), and which appeared in the Proceed-
ings of the United States National Museum.*

Many other Indians build these temporary shelter-houses, and
among them the Apaches of Arizona. In Fig. 1 of the present
paper they are well shown as they are constructed by those In-
dians in a summer camp. Here they have protected the top by
large pieces of old canvas, thus making one of them quite water-
proof. Corbusier, in the September number of the American
Antiquarian for 1886, well describes one of these shelters as
erected by the Apache-Mojaves. He says : " They live in circu-
lar brush huts (u-ivah') about five feet high, and from six to eight

* Shufeldt, R. W. The Evolution of House-building among the Navajo Indians. Vol.
xv, pp. 279-282, Plates XLI-XLIII. Washington, 1892.

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800 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

feet in diameter. To make one, a hollow space is excavated with
sharp sticks and their hands, and the earth is banked up around
the circumference until they have a bowl-shaped depression
about a foot and a half deep. Around the edge of this, bushes
or branches of trees are stuck, bent over and fastened together
to form a round top. In winter it is thatched with grass, tide, or
soap-weed, so that it will shed rain. An opening is left on one
side, which serves as an outlet for smoke as well as a doorway.
The fire is made just inside the opening. For a bed they break
up the ground, let it dry, pick out the stones, and then spread
down dry grass. Seeds, meat, buckskins, extra clothing, etc., are
hung outside on upright poles. Formerly only a few huts were
usually found together, and they were occupied by members of
one family, as these people had to scatter over the country in
small parties and move frequently in order to obtain a sufficient
supply of food ; but in seasons of plenty, villages of about one
hundred souls would be formed, when the huts of each family
were always built in a group by themselves."

As primitive as these dwellings now are, they were found to
be somewhat more so by Lieutenant Whipple in 1853, and he re-
ports that " an Apache wigwam is as rude, it is believed, as any
race of human beings have been known to construct for abodes.
These huts are usually isolated in some mountain gorge, near a
rivulet or spring, and are composed of broken branches of trees.
They are covered with weeds, grass, or earth, such as may be ob-
tained most readily. A large flat or concave stone, upon which
they grind corn or grass seed to flour, is the only utensil or article
of furniture that they do not remove in their wanderings. Visits
to the houses of Mexicans or their more enterprising Indian
neighbors excite no desire to improve their condition by the
erection of more comfortable habitations. Tents they do not use,
even when robbed from Mexicans or some poor party of emigrants
surprised and murdered. The Tontos, Yampais, and most of the
Apache Indians within New Mexico and California are equally
barbarous and rude in the construction of their habitations."

Those curious people, the Havesu-pai Indians, living in a
great, deep canon in Arizona, also build lodges of rushes and
limbs, but they are rather more substantial than those I have
described for the Navajos and Apaches. This is due to the fact
that they use rough timber uprights, and a few stout pieces for
rafters. Their houses are also more commodious, although they
rarely contain more than the one large living-room.*

* Sbufeldt, R. W. Some Observations on the Havesu-pai Indians. Proceedings of the
United States National Museum. Vol. xiv, pp. 387-390. Plates XXV and XXVI of this
paper show the plans of the houses constructed by these Indians. Washington, 1891.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOME INDIAN HOMES. 801

In my opinion, the next step taken in advance is by the
Mojaves of Arizona, and those Indians build for themselves
homes which are more or less permanent dwellings. One of
these is shown in Fig. 2, and its architecture is certainly very
remarkable. The upright portion of the frame is composed of
very heavy timbers, each piece being completely stripped of its
bark and firmly implanted in the ground. The rafters and the
frame and ridge-piece for them to rest upon are also of timber
much stouter than is at all necessary to support the roof. This

Yia. 2. — Style of House built by the Mojave Indians in Arizona.

latter is composed of long prairie grass overlaid with a thick coat
of mud-plaster. It is quite impervious to the rain, and the eaves
at one side are not more than a foot and a half above the ground.
Indeed, the peak or ridge of this house is hardly as high as an
ordinary man's head. All the sides and the front are left open,
but the back is usually built up with timber and filled in with
mud-plaster, or sometimes these Indians build this kind of an
abode into an embankment at its rear. Internally it is not parti-
tioned off into rooms at all, and the right-hand side of the dwell-
ing constitutes a sort of a porch or wing, wherein the roof is hori-

8oz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

zontal, being much thicker than it is over the gabled portion.
The floor is kept hard and clean inside, and most of the domestic
arrangements are carried on in the open air. It will be observed
that they have a lot of corn drying in a heap up on the roof, and
their pottery utensils are in front outside.

Formerly it would appear that these Mojaves built a some-
what better home for themselves than this, and Lieutenant
Whipple has said, * in reference to the figure of one he published
in his report, that " the large Cottonwood posts, and the substan-
tial roof of the wide shed in front, are characteristic of the archi-
tecture of this people. This particular house appears to run into
a sand-bank, and is peculiar. Others are formed in the valley,
with all their walls supported by posts ; and the longitudinal
beams have their interstices filled up with straw or mud-mortar."
.... The interior of a house consists of a single room with
thatched roof, sandy floor, and walls so closely cemented by mud
as to be nearly air-tight. It has no window, and receives no
light except by the door which leads to the shed, and by a small
hole at the top which gives egress to the smoke of fires. Struct-
ures similar to this are common throughout the lower portion of
the Colorado Valley, and may be found also among the Coco-
Maricopas and Pimas of the Rio Gila. With the latter, however,
the circular hut, described by Mr. Bartlett, is much in vogue. In
such gloomy abodes the Indians seek shelter from cold. Arranged
around the walls are large earthen jars, in which they pre-
serve their main supply of fruit and vegetables." Mojaves wear
scarcely any clothing, especially the men, as maybe seen from the
individuals shown in my figure.

The more nomadic tribes of Indians, such as the Sioux of
the North and others, when they come to build anything better
than a tepee, erect a regular wigwam, a large, commodious
structure of a conical form, supported by the cut trunks of sap-
lings, and covered with ornamented or non-ornamented tanned
buffalo-hides. Frequently I have been in one of those wigwams,
and at almost any time of the year they are very comfortable,
though rather warm in summer. All the buffaloes now being
practically exterminated, those tribes which formerly built hide
wigwams will now have to resort to the construction of other
kinds of homes. Probably they will do as the Navajos have done,
and come to erect houses more or less like the primitive one-room
buildings of the early squatters. Navajos, however, place the
timbers side by side in the vertical position, filling the interstices
with mud-plaster, whereas, as we know, in the ordinary log-cabin
they are laid one on top of another in the horizontal method, with

* Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. iii, p. 23, (1853-'54).

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOME INDIAN HOMES. 803

their ends molded upon each other by the aid of an axe, or an adz.
The Choctaws have long built such houses, and the more intelli-
gent tribes of the Indians on our frontier will undoubtedly follow
their example, as they become completely surrounded by our ad-
vancing line of civilization.

From this point, did the scope of my article admit of it, I
should like to show how, from such houses as have thus far
been described, we pass through easy transitional stages to the
higher types of architecture, or the communal homes of the
Indians of the pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. Such a
treatise, however, would form quite a volume, and far exceed
my limits.

In those transitional stages to which I refer, it can be shown
that a great many interesting forms of homes are built, or

Fig. 3. — Wolpai. a Moqui Indian Village.

used to be built, by the Indians. These present every imagin-
able form : in some the thatching is very well done, and very
ingenious ; in some the door is at the side, while in others it is
on the roof ; they contain single rooms, as well as rooms en
suite ; and finally they gradually pass from the use of brush,
poles, hides, and mud -plaster to the employment of adobe-
plaster, rubble-stone, and adobes. Mr. Lewis H. Morgan has said
that " a comparison will show that they belong to a common
indigenous system of architecture. There is a common princi-
ple running through all this architecture, from the hut of the
savage to the commodious joint-tenement house of the village
Indians of Mexico and Central America, which will contribute

8o4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to its elucidation." * And in the same work this distinguished
author adds that the same common principle runs through all
this Indian architecture, " from the ' long house ' of the Iroquois
to the ' pueblo houses ' of New Mexico, and to the so-called ' pal-
ace ' at Palenque and the ' house of the nuns ' at Uxmal. It is
the principle of adaptation to communism in living, restricted in
the first instance to household groups, and extended finally to
all the inhabitants of a village or encampment by the law of hos-
pitality. Hunger and destitution were not known at one end of
an Indian village while abundance prevailed at the other. Joint-
tenement houses, each occupied by one large household, as among
the Iroquois, or by several household groups, as in Yucatan, were
the natural and inevitable result of their usages and customs.
Communism in living, and the law of hospitality, it seems prob-
able, accompanied all the phases of Indian life in savagery and
barbarism."

Several years ago the present writer visited the pueblo of
Zuiii in New Mexico, and I have seen some of the others, as well as
the ruins of a number of the ancient ones. Both New Mexico and
Arizona to-day offer a rich field for the investigations of the
thoughtful, scientific anthropologist, for in many localities in each
Territory he will not only find, in all stages of preservation, the
old ruins of the almost extinct " cliff-dwellers, " the remains of
former pueblos ; but he will likewise have the opportunity of
comparing the previous states of those communal villages with
several of them still in existence. There are about twenty pueblos
in New Mexico that are still inhabited, and in Arizona we find
seven more that constitute the Moqui group. Many of these
have been studied by members of several of the Government ex-
ploring parties, and by other individuals, but there still remains
a vast store of knowledge in regard to them that no one has as
yet drawn upon. This to be done at all must now be done
quickly, for our own civilization presses closer upon them each
year that goes by, and will very soon work its invariable changes.

Some of these pueblos are built out upon the level, open plain,
several miles from any high or mountainous land, and are usually
near some river-course, as in the case of Zuni or Santo Domingo ;
or they may cap the extremity of some bold mesa, five or six hun-
dred feet above the surrounding prairie, as is the case with the
Moquian pueblo, Wolpai (Fig. 3).

Substantially their plan of structure is the same, though it
may differ considerably in detail, and this likewise applies to the

* Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines. Department of the Interior, United
States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region. Washington,
1881, pp. 104, 105.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOME INDIAN HOMES. 805

mode of life of their inhabitants. Massed together and built of
adobes of rock laid in mud-mortar, and reared in tiers or terraces
of from two to three or more stories high, they admirably fulfill

H£ V"1^ ^ * ,*^*9*l '"Mj?f*:*

Fig. 4. — Terrace Houses in the Pueblo of Acoma, New Mexico.

the triple purpose of a durable architecture, a communistic plan
of living, and as a fortress in the event of an attack from outside
marauders.

806 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Many of the pueblos, now in ruins, were at the time of Coro-
nado's expedition to New Mexico, in 1541-1542, at the height of
their vitality, and a study of a number of these go to show that
in their arrangement they were built upon some definite plan.
Their ground plans point to the fact that they were laid out upon
the quadrate of a circle in some instances, while in others the
three sides of a parallelogram were chosen, or roughly the arc of
a subellipse, the major axis joining the extremities, and repre-
sented by a double tier of houses. In other cases the entire
ellipse can be traced from the ruins, but houses were not erected
on the lines of its axes, as was the plan in Pueblo Penasca Blanca.
Most of these and the more elaborate ones are found upon the
Rio San Juan and its tributaries ; others are seen upon the Rio
Animas, in the canon of the Rio de Chelly, in the Ute Mount-
ains, and elsewhere.

Of the pueblos yet inhabited the best examples are seen in the
Moqui group, in Zuiii, Acoma, Santo Domingo, and Laguna.
Apart from the demoralizing influences of the Roman Catholics
upon some of them, and the changes brought about by our civili-
zation, these pueblos may be taken as fair examples, though by
no means of the highest type, of what existed in the country at
the time of the discovery. All these tribes have been termed the
sedentary Indians, and they enjoy a sort of crude civilization of
their own : engage in agriculture, make pottery, weave blankets
and many garments of wool, and have many other simple arts
and industries. They are the descendants of the inhabitants of
the ancient pueblos discovered by Coronado, and in many in-
stances are occupying, in the present villages, houses which cer-
tainly are as old as his time. Their government, religious rites
and ceremonies, their dances and customs, habits and dress, and
domestic life are all full of the greatest interest, but can not
properly be treated in the present contribution.

My view in Fig. 2 of some of the houses in the pueblos of
Acoma, New Mexico, shows very well their structure and ar-
rangement. It will be seen that they are built in three tiers or
terraces, one on top of another. The material used is adobe cobble-
stone flakes gathered from the country about, and laid in adobe
or mud-mortar. The roofs are made of cedar rafters, hewn and
brought in by the men, who also fetch in most of the stone material.
Plastering, however, is done by the women, who puddle the mud
and lay it on with their hands. While thus engaged, its consist-
ency is regulated by their squirting water upon it, which they
take into their mouths for the purpose. It will be observed that
the lower stories of houses have few or no entrances, and this is
undoubtedly for the purpose of defense. Their roofs form the ter-
race to the second tier, which is reached by the means of ladders.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOME INDIAN HOMES. 807

Sometimes, too, the partitions or vertical walls between the houses
are extended upward, and externally are formed into steps, each
step being made by a slab of stone as seen in the figure. Ladders
are also used to reach the other terraces, as well as the roof that
tops the whole of this human bee-hive. In Zuni I found doors
opening from the street directly into the rooms of the ground-
floor, and there were many hatchways in the roofs, the rooms
below being reached by the means of ladders, such as the long
ones shown in my picture of Acoma. Chimneys are built up with
stone and mortar, and frequently are topped off by a large clay
olla set in the latter, after having its bottom knocked out so as to
give egress to the smoke from the stone fireplace found in so
many of the rooms.

Small windows with four panes each admit a meager light to
the interior of these dwellings. These panes are most often com-
posed of mica obtained in the mountains, but of recent years they
have not infrequently obtained glass from the whites suitable for
the purpose, and they always prize that material very highly.
Rain which accumulates on the several roofs during the continu-
ance of storms, finds its escape at guttered apertures supplied with
small troughs, shown in the engraving. Often a dome-shaped
oven is built out on the roof in one of the angles, and in this they
bake their bread. One of these is also shown in the picture, and
at Las Nutrias Pueblo, in New Mexico, I saw that they built these
ovens out on the ground, and were baking tortillas in them at the
time of my visit.

One of these pueblan houses rarely has less than three rooms,
and may contain as many as eight or nine. Most of those that I
have been in — and I have been in a good many of them — are kept
scrupulously clean and neat. Their repair devolves entirely upon
the women, who consider it their especial prerogative. The floors
are evenly laid in moistened clay, and when that material dries,
an excellent surface is the result, hard and smooth. They make a
kind of whitewash of gypsum, with which the smoothly plastered
walls are kept constantly white.

The ceiling overhead is composed of a generous supply of stout
rafters of cedar that run horizontally across from wall to wall,
and at Zuni, the Indians had filled in the interspaces with osier
brush, covering the outside or roof with a heavy layer of adobe-
plaster. Often an entire family is confined to one large room, or,
if better circumstanced, they may control two or even more.

Conspicuous among its finishings in the living-room are the
arrangements to do the family cooking. Sometimes the fireplace,
built of the usual masonry, is fitted into one of the angles of the
room ; sometimes it juts out at the middle of the long side of the
apartment ; in either situation the chimney, smaller in its dimen-

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOME INDIAN HOMES. 809

sions, rests by its base on its horizontal upper plane, leaving al-
ways a mantel-shelf all round. In front of either one of these we
find the contrivance upon which they bake their tissue-bread or
ivaiavi, and projecting out above it the hood which conducts the
smoke into the chimney. This contrivance is nothing more than
an oblong stone slab, as smooth as polished glass upon its upper
surface, and raised on four legs at its angles about a foot and a
half above the cemented floor. Beneath this glowing embers are
raked in sufficient quantity to keep the slab hot, and it thus
answers its purpose admirably.

" In Zuni, as elsewhere, riches and official position confer im-
portance upon their possessors. The wealthy class live in the
lower houses, those of moderate means next above, while the
poorer families have to be content with the uppermost stories.
Naturally no one will climb into the garret who has the means of
securing more convenient apartments, under the huge system of
" French flats," which is the way of living in Zuni. Still, there is
little or no social distinction in the rude civilization, the whole
population of the town living almost as one family. The alcade
or lieutenant-governor furnishes an exception to the general rule,
as his official duties require him to occupy the highest house of all,
from the top of which he announces each morning to the people
the orders of the governor, and makes such other proclamation as
may be required of him." *

There is one other prominent object in the living-room of a
Zunian home which we can not afford to overlook in the present
account. I refer to the troughs in which they grind their corn,
and Mrs. Stevenson, whom I have just quoted, gives an excellent
account of one of these. She remarks that " the pueblo mills are
among the most interesting things about the town. These mills,
which are fastened to the floor a few feet from the wall, are rect-
angular in shape, and divided into a number of compartments,
each about twenty inches wide and deep, the whole series ranging
from five to ten feet in length, according to the number of divis-
ions. The walls are made of sandstone. In each compartment a
flat grinding-stone is firmly set, inclining at an angle of forty-five
degrees. These slabs are of different degrees of smoothness,
graduated successively from coarse to fine. The squaws, who
alone work at the mills, kneel before them and bend over them as
a laundress does over the wash-tub, holding in their hands long-
stones of volcanic lava, which they rub up and down the slanting
slabs, stopping at intervals to place the grain between the stones.
As the grinding proceeds the grist is passed from one compart-
ment to the next until, in passing through the series, it becomes

* Mrs. James Stevenson, in Lewis H. Morgan's report, cited above.
vol. xli. — 59

8 io THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

of the desired fineness. This tedious and laborious method has
been practiced without improvement from time immemorial, and
in some of the arts the Zunians have actually retrograded." *

The above is a faithful description of one of the pueblan mills ;
I observed a great many of them at Zuni, and elsewhere have said
that I " saw standing behind one of the stone slabs where they
grind their corn, a pretty Zuni girl, not a day over a year old, and
as naked as the hour she was born, with the stone grinder in her
hands, playfully showing her mother, who watched her with no lit-
tle pride in her face, how to grind the corn. The picture was a
charming one, and if the expressions of all could have been caught
at the proper moment, what a study it would have made ! " f

The tiers of houses at Zuili, in common with a number of the
other New Mexican and Arizonian pueblos, are clustered about
two open squares or public plazas of no very great size, a por-
tion of one of them being used as a graveyard in front of the
abandoned mission church in Zuni. In Fig. 5 of the present
article I give the court at Laguna Pueblo of New Mexico, which
is there kept clean and neat. This picture well shows the ar-
rangement and relation to each other of these conglomerate
homes. In this engraving the annual " corn-dance " of the La-
gunas is being performed — a very interesting ceremony.

Thus in the present account I have passed briefly in review
the study of the homes which the American Indians build for
themselves in these days. The subject could easily be enlarged
upon, and, indeed, treated in detail, would fill three or four ample
volumes. My labor, however, will have been well repaid should
it be the means of inciting the student in anthropology, with a
knowledge of the present literature of the subject, to broaden the
field by published accounts of his or her own observations. Much
yet remains to be carefully studied and compared, much that is
yet obscure or totally unknown to science. It must be done in
the near future, for already many of the facts are rapidly fading
upon the unturned pages of aboriginal American history.

The forests of Chaga, the temperate zone of Mount Kilimandjaro, Africa, as
described by Dr. W. L. Abbott, have a most curious appearance. The trees, al-
though often of very thick trunks, are not tall but somewhat stunted. The
trunks and larger branches are completely covered with orchids, lichens, ferns,
and moss. From every limb and twig hang long festoons of gray moss, while the
ground is thickly carpeted with ferns of a species resembling "love in a tangle."
Some of the huge tree-trunks are perfect botanical gardens, from the number and
variety of the plants growing upon them.

* Lewis H. Morgan's report, p. 140.

\ Shufeldt, R. W. Zuni as it is. Forest and Stream, New York and London, July 2,
1885, pp. 446-448.

RECENT SCIENCE. 811

RECENT SCIENCE.

By P. KEOPOTKIN.
I.

THE world of chemical phenomena is so immensely wide, and
the phenomena themselves are so complicated, that the
founders of modern chemistry were compelled to limit the area
of their investigations, and sharply to separate their own domain
from those of the two sister-sciences, physics and mechanics,
leaving it to the future to find out the bonds which might unite
all three branches into one harmonious whole. They and their
followers elaborated their own methods of investigation; they
discovered their own chemical laws and worked out their own
hypotheses and theories; and, with the aid of these methods,
laws, and hypotheses, they created a science which not only in-
terprets, discovers, and predicts the phenomena it deals with, but
already has brought us within a measurable distance of a general
theory of the structure of matter altogether.

In proportion as chemical research went deeper into the study
of the wonderful movements and interactions of molecules and
atoms, the intimate connection which exists between chemistry,
physics, and mechanics became more and more apparent. The
physical and the chemical properties of matter proved to be so
closely interdependent that they could be explained no longer
with the aid of chemical theories alone; the very fundamental
laws of chemistry appeared to be but so many expressions of
physical facts ; and chemistry stands now in such a position that
no further advance in its theoretical part is possible, unless it
enters the border-land which separates it from physics, recognizes
the unity of chemical and physical forces, and, availing itself of
the progress recently made in molecular mechanics, boldly attacks
the great problem of a physical — that is, a mechanical — interpre-
tation of chemical facts. This is the work which now engrosses
the attention of most chemists.

The points of contact between physics and chemistry are very
numerous, and the work is being carried on in several directions
at once. The discovery by Mendeldeff of the so-called " periodical
law of elements " has called into life numerous researches, some
of which accumulate correct numerical data to express the de-
pendence between the physical properties of various bodies and
their chemical constitution; while others endeavor to interpret
this very periodicity in the properties of the elements under the
assumption of their compound nature. On the other side, the
recent development of the mechanical theory of heat, and the

8 12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

interest awakened of late in electricity, have given rise to numer-
ous researches aiming at a representation of chemical reactions
as mere transformations of heat-energy or electricity. And,
finally, most skillful investigations are being made, and most sug-
gestive hypotheses advanced as regards the possible distribution
of atoms within the molecules, under the supposition of their
remaining in a state of equilibrium ; and thus the way is pre-
pared for a higher conception of the atoms — not motionless and
mutually equilibrated, but involved, like the planets of our solar
system, in complicated movements within the molecules. Works
of importance have appeared of late in each of these directions.
But no other domain has lately been explored with such a feverish
activity as the vast domain of solutions ; and to these researches
we must now turn our attention.

In former times it was supposed that if some table-salt or
sugar (or any other solid, liquid, or gas) is dissolved in water or
in any other liquid, the particles of the dissolved body will simply
spread, or glide, between the particles of the solvent, and simply
be mixed together — just as if we had made a mixture of two
different powders or two gases. But on a closer study a succes-
sion of most complicated and unexpected phenomena was revealed,
even in so simple a fact as the solution of a pinch of salt in a
tumbler of water. The solutions proved to be the arena upon
which phenomena cease to be purely physical, and become chem-
ical, and they were studied accordingly with the hope that they
might give a physical cue to chemical reactions. Hundreds of
researches are contributed every year to this subject ; * and al-
though there is yet no final result to record, we are bound never-
theless to examine the present state of investigations which so
much interest and excite chemists, f

* The committee appointed by the British Association for reporting on the bibliography
of solutions had catalogued no less than 255 papers, which appeared in 1890, in a few
periodicals only. The total was at that time 930 papers.

\ We know no general review of this extremely complicated question which we might
recommend to the general reader. The address delivered by Prof. Orme Masson before the
Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, in January, 1891; Prof. S. U.
Pickering's Report to the British Association, in 1890, on the hydrate theory of solution,
followed by a most interesting discussion between Profs. Gladstone, Arrhenius, Armstrong,
Fitzgerald, Van 't Hoff, Lodge, Ostwald, and Ramsay, and the elaborate report, by W. N.
Shaw, on electrolysis (British Association Reports, 1890, Leeds), are excellent sources of
general information. Ostwald's work, Solutions (English translation in 1891), as well as his
Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Chemie (Leipsic, 1885 ; new edition of first volume in 1892), and
the review, Zeitschrift flir physikalische Chemie, which he publishes since 188V, unhappily
take but little notice of the chemical aspects of the question. Mendeleeff's foot-notes in
his most remarkable Principles of Chemistry (London, 1891) are perhaps, on the whole, the
best means for gaining a general and impartial insight into the whole question. Though
himself one of the earliest promoters of the hydrate or chemical theory of solutions, he

RECENT SCIENCE. 813

Few scientific hypotheses have proved so productive in the de-
velopment of science altogether as the so-called " kinetic theory
of gases." A gas, according to this hypothesis, is an aggregate
of molecules which move very rapidly in all directions and
endeavor to disperse in space — the rapidity of their movements
being increased by every increase of the temperature of the gas.
In their endeavors to escape in all directions the molecules of the
gases continually bombard the walls of the vessels which contain
them. They break them if they are weak enough, or else they
exercise upon them a pressure which is nothing but the sum of
all energies of the molecules which strike a unit of surface in
a unit of time. In our steam-engines the molecules (or rather
particles) of steam bombard the walls of the cylinder ; they push
the piston by their aggregate energies, and, setting it in motion,
make it move the huge masses it has to move. This is, of course,
but a hypothesis ; but since it so perfectly explains the pressure,
the elasticity, the diffusion, and the internal friction of gases, and
permits us to predict the consequences of the invisible bombard-
ment ; and since its consequences, mathematically deduced by
Maxwell, Clausius, Boltzmann, and many others, fully agree with
the reality of facts — it can be considered no more as a mere guess :
it is a theory.

Now, the Dutch chemist Van 't Hoff proved in 1886 that the
same theory holds good for weak solutions as well. If some sugar,
or some sulphuric acid, or any other liquid or solid, be dissolved
in some liquid, the bonds which keep together the particles of
sugar or of the acid are torn asunder by the solvent. The particles
spread among those of the solvent, and they take up the same
movements which they would perform if the sugar or the acid
were brought into a gaseous state in a free space. They bombard
the walls of the vessel, and exercise upon them a certain pressure
which will be increased if the bombardment is rendered more vio-
lent by either raising the temperature of the solution, or increasing
the number of bombarding particles by a limited increase of its
strength. Though there is not the slightest reason for supposing
that the dissolved solid or liquid may be in a gaseous state within
the solvent, the very fact of scattering its particles over a broad
space is sufficient to free them from their mutual bonds ; they be-
have exactly as if the sugar or the acid were brought into a gase-
ous state by evaporation and filled the space occupied by the solu-
tion. They obey all the physico-chemical laws (the laws of Boyle,
Marriotte, Gay-Lussac, and Avogadro) which hold good for gases.

The kinetic theory of gases was thus extended to liquids, and

fully recognizes the importance of the physical theories, and sums them up with his usual
clearness.

8 14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this first step was soon followed by another, even more important
step, when Van der Waals — also a Dutch chemist — still more
effectively bridged over the gap between the gaseous and liquid
condition of matter. He studied that state of a gas when, under
an increasing pressure and a decreasing temperature, it becomes
a liquid ; and he found a mathematical expression (an equation)
which very approximately represents the mutual dependence be-
tween the volume occupied by the gas under a given pressure, its
temperature, the volume occupied by its particles, and their
mutual pressure. He thus expressed in a more comprehensive
way how, in proportion as the lengths of the paths of its particles
decrease, a gas becomes a liquid.*

The long-since suspected continuity between the gaseous and
liquid states of matter was thus demonstrated once more, and
rendered easy to investigate ; and the importance of these conclu-
sions was still more enhanced by Clausius, when he demonstrated
that a slight alteration of Yan der Waals's equation makes it also
represent the absorption or dissipation of heat-energy which al-
ways takes place when a body passes from the liquid to the gase-
ous state, or vice versa.

And, finally, another step in the same direction was made by
the French physicist, Raoult. "We all know that if some table-
salt, or saltpeter, or some other salt, be added to water, the water
may be cooled below zero without freezing. Its freezing tem-
perature is lowered. JSTow, Raoult studied the lowering of this
temperature caused in water and other liquids by the addition of
various amounts of various salts, and he came to a most remark-
able result. It appeared that, whatever the nature of the dissolved
salt may be, the freezing temperature of a solution will always
be lowered by the same amount (nearly six tenths of a degree) if
we add one molecule of the dissolved body to each hundred mole-
cules of the solvent, f Thus, again, a purely physical fact, such
as freezing, proves to be dependent upon a purely chemical fact —
the molecular weights of the solvent and the dissolved body ; and
this physical law is so general that it has become a very accurate
means for determining such chemical data as molecular weights.
Chemistry and physics appear again so closely interwoven that
there is really no means of separating them.

* See the interesting discussions which took place upon this subject in the Physical So-
ciety, in October and November last.

f Thus, if table-salt be used, the weight of its molecule (compared with a molecule of
hydrogen) is 58i ; while the weight of a molecule of water (also compared with hydrogen)
is 18. So that, if we add 58A ounces of table-salt to each 1,800 ounces of water, we shall
lower its freezing temperature by 0-62° of the centigrade scale. The same result will be
obtained if we take 141 ounces of potassium chloride, or 101 ounces of saltpeter, to the
same amount of water.

RECENT SCIENCE. 815

It is not possible to describe in a few words the impetus given
by tbe discovery of these connections to physico-chemical re-
search altogether. A school, headed by Ostwald, of most enthusi-
astic supporters of what has been termed (not quite properly) the
physical theory of solutions, has grown up ; and this school,
while bringing out a mass of important researches and widening
the field of chemical investigations, has naturally come to con-
sider itself as being on the right track for elaborating a complete
theory of the subject. Unhappily, this is not the case, because
the chemical reactions which undoubtedly take place in solutions
are not taken into account in the just-mentioned physical laws.
In reality, so long as but small amounts of solids, or liquids, or
gases are dissolved in a liquid, and so long as only such bodies
are brought into contact as have no strong chemical affinity for
each other, the above theories are quite correct. But as soon as
the solution is rendered stronger, or the solvent and the dissolved
body are endowed with a mutual chemical affinity, chemical reac-
tions set in. Part of the molecules of the dissolved body disso-
ciate, and the atoms of which they were composed, on being set
free, combine with the atoms of the solvent. Chemical forces,
much more energetic than the physical forces, enter into play,
and most complicated chemical reactions — the intensity of which
may be judged of from the changes of temperature — begin. To
deny them is simply impossible, although this has been done in
the excitement of polemics. The chemical reactions which take
place within the solutions, and especially the formation of defi-
nite though unstable compounds of salts, acids, and bases with
water, have been rendered evident by so many careful investiga-
tions of experienced chemists,* that the secondary importance
given to them by most adherents of the physical theory would be
simply incomprehensible were it not for the hope which they
cherish of ultimately explaining all chemical processes by the
above-mentioned molecular movements. At any rate, in order to
account for the effects of the chemical reactions, the followers of
the physical theory were compelled to seek support in an addi-
tional agency — electricity. Starting from the familiar fact of
solutions being decomposed by an electrical current, they ad-
mitted that in every solution part of its molecules dissociate,
breaking up into their component parts, which are charged with
either positive or negative electricity (the name of " ions " is usu-
ally given to those component parts). By means of this admis-
sion, they attempted to explain the discrepancies between observa-
tion and the conclusions drawn from the above-mentioned laws,

* We need only mention the names of Armstrong, Etard, Pickering, Mendeleeff, and
so on.

816 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

especially in the case of water solutions of salts, acids, and bases,
and the stronger solutions altogether. It must be recognized that
many important relations between electrical conductivity and
chemical action have been brought out in this way by Arrhenius *
and his followers, and many discrepancies between the laws of
Van 't Hoff and Raoult and the observed facts have been ex-
plained. But it is also evident that, once a partial dissociation of
molecules is admitted, the whole takes a chemical aspect, and ref-
erence to such an unknown cause as electricity does not simplify
the matter. All kinds of chemical reactions take place in solu-
tions. Some molecules of the dissolved body simply exchange
their atoms in succession, while maintaining the same grouping
of atoms, and consequently the same chemical composition. In
other molecules the grouping only of the same atoms is changed,
and we have reactions of replacement, or isomerism. But, at the
same time, new and more or less stable combinations between the
atoms of both solvent and dissolved body take place in various
proportions ; double decompositions most probably occur as well ;
while the physical phenomena of sliding of undecomposed parti-
cles continue at the same time — the physical movements of the
particles being impressed by, and acting upon, the chemical move-
ments of the atoms within the molecules.

It must be confessed that neither theory has as yet succeeded
in following this multitude of movements and of catching the
moment when the movements of particles are transformed into
atomic movements and redistribution ; and though we may name
several equally important works which have been published on
this subject during the last twelve months, we can mention none
which have thrown new light on the subject, f Let us only add
that the subject itself has been immensely widened of late by the
wonderful researches of Heycock and Neville on the lowering of
the temperature of solidification of metals, by the addition of other
metals, and of Roberts- Austen upon alloys — that is, metals dis-
solved in metals — which behave very much like all aqueous solu-
tions. However, a new departure in this branch has been made,
quite recently, by Messrs. Harold Picton and S. E. Linder. They
studied the structure of solutions of sulphide salts which offer the
advantage of giving a whole series of gradations between real so-
lutions (that is, liquids which seem to consist of liquid particles
only) and such as contain extremely small particles of solid mat-
ter in suspension. By submitting the series to various tests, it

* Svenska Vetenskaps Academiens Handlingar, 1863.

•j- Besides the leading chemical periodicals, an excellent analysis, by W. Nernst, of all
the chief work done during the year 1891, and its bearing upon the theory of solutions, will
be found in a chemical year-book which was started this year by Richard Meyer, the Jahr-
buch der Chemie. Frankfort, 1892.

RECENT SCIENCE. 817

was ascertained that all these solutions, even those reputed as
homogeneous, contain infinitely small solid particles, the presence
of which is revealed, on Tyndall's method, by a beam of light. In
some of them the particles — all of the same size and performing
rapid oscillatory movements — are even seen under the microscope,
when magnified a thousand times ; while in antimonium sulphide
the very formation of coarser agglomerations out of invisible
particles can be followed under the microscope. In short, the
authors came to the conclusion that there is no sharp limit be-
tween a state under which the mutual attractions between the
particles of the solvent and the suspended particles of the dis-
solved body are very feeble, and a state when, these aggregations
becoming of a smaller size, the forces which keep them in the
solution become of a decidedly chemical nature. A new and
promising method is thus given.

If we take into account the rapid accumulation of data rela-
tive to the subject of solutions and the various theories already
germinating, we may hope that the day is not far off when a com-
plete theory of these phenomena will be possible. Let us only
remark that all the work hitherto done confirms more and more
the idea which becomes more and more popular among chemists,
and which Mendele'eff has so well expressed in a lecture delivered
before the Royal Institution in May, 1889 ; * namely, that the
molecules of all bodies, simple or compound, borrow their indi-
vidualities from the characters of the movements which the atoms
perform within the molecules. Each molecule may be considered
as a system, like the systems of Saturn or Jupiter with their satel-
lites— each separate type of such systems giving a separate type
of molecules, and the chemical properties of the molecules being
determined by the character of the system and its movements.
It may already be foreseen that further progress in the great in-
vestigation into the mechanical basis of chemical energy will be

made in this direction.

11.

One of the chief objections to the theory of evolution which
was especially laid stress upon some thirty years ago, was the im-
possibility of producing at that time a series of "intermediate
links " to connect the now existing animals and plants with their
presumed ancestors from former geological epochs. To meet the
objection, Darwin had to devote a special chapter in his great
work to the imperfection of the geological record, and to insist
both upon its fragmentary character and our imperfect knowl-
edge of what it contains. The recent progress of both geology

* An attempt to apply to Chemistry one of the Principles of Newton's Natural Ph
losophy, in the Principles of Chemistry, vol. ii, Appendix I.
vol. xli. — 60

818 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and paleontology renders such explanations almost superfluous.
Geology, aided by the deep-sea explorations, has come to a better
comprehension of the mechanism of sediments, and it knows what
it may expect to find in the rocky archives of the earth, and what
it may not ; and, on the other side, the discovery of the missing
links between past and present has been going on of late with
such a rapidity as has outstripped the most sanguine expectations.
Our museums already contain whole series of fossil organisms
which almost step by step illustrate the slow evolution of large
divisions of both animals and plants ; our present mammals al-
ready have been connected by intermediary forms with many of
their Tertiary ancestors ; and the paleontologist can already trace
the pedigree of birds, and even mammals, as far back as the liz-
ards of the Secondary period — not merely deducing it from em-
bryological data, but by showing the real beings which once
breathed and moved about upon earth.

At the same time one point of great moment for the theory of
evolution, and only alluded to by Darwin, has been brought into
prominence. The part played by migrations in the appearance of
new species has been rendered quite obvious. Thus we know per-
fectly well that the ancestors of our horse migrated over both
Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa, and probably back to Asia, and
that each step in those migrations was marked, by the apparition
of some new characters which are now distinctive of the horse.
The same remark applies to the mastodons and their descendants,
the elephants ; to the common ancestors of the camel and the
llama, and to the Ungulata altogether. It may be taken now as a
general rule that the evolution of new species chiefly took place
when the old ones were compelled to migrate to new abodes, and
to stay there for a time in new conditions of climate and general
surroundings. The intermediate forms have not been extermi-
nated on the spot ; and if we want to obtain the intermediate links
between two allied species, the relics of which are found in two
geological formations of a given country, we must ransack for
fossils all the five continents upon which the intermediate links
have been scattered. This is why the discovery of intermediate
types has gone on so rapidly since North America, South Africa,
South America, New Zealand, and partly Asia began to be thor-
oughly explored by experienced paleontologists.

Many of the " missing links " were discovered, as is known,
in Darwin's lifetime. Thus, the first really bird-like, feathered
lizard, the ArchcBopterix, was unearthed as early as 1862 ; and
eight years later, Prof. O. C. Marsh already described, from the
Upper Cretaceous beds of North America, two more lizard-birds,
one of which (Hesperornis) must have resembled our present fish-
eating divers, while the other (Ichthyomis), provided with power-

RECENT SCIENCE. 819

ful wings, had — apart from its teethed jaws — all the appearance
of a bird of our own time.* And, finally, the discovery of a large
ostrich-like bird (Dasornis Londinensis) in the Lower Eocene of
the isle of Sheppey, and of another, also big and flightless bird
(Oastornis), in the Eocene of Meudon, Rheims, and Croydon,
established a further connection between the bird-like lizards of
the Triassic times and real specialized birds.

These last discoveries brought the series very near to our own
times, and they were the more valuable as the just-mentioned
Gastomis proved to combine some of the characters of both flying
birds and of those which, like the ostrich, the cassowary, and the
emu, do not fly ; while the Pliocene deposits of north India and
the numberless remains of the so-called moas of New Zealand
yielded specimens of still nearer ancestors of our flightless birds.
The New Zealand deposits of bones became known more than fifty
years ago, when Owen, on receiving (in 1839) a broken but char-
acteristic moa bone, determined the general characters of the
great ostrich-like Dinornis, which inhabited the island quite re-
cently, but is found no more in a living state. But it is especially
of late that the enormous accumulations of moa remains have
been explored in detail. Cart-loads of those bones have already
been shipped to Europe, and new accumulations continue to be
found — always with the same astonishing numbers of individuals
entombed on the same spot, and in the same excellent state of
preservation. Such a deposit — one of the most remarkable of its
kind — has been lately discovered by Prof. H. 0. Forbes, near
Oamaru, in the South Island of New Zealand. In a small hollow
which did not exceed twelve yards in width, no less than eight
hundred to nine hundred individuals were imbedded in solid
peat, under a superficial layer of a few inches of soil. Many
skeletons lay quite undisturbed, and in some instances the con-
tents of the stomach, which consisted of triturated grass and
small rounded and smooth quartz pebbles, were found lying in
their natural position, under the sternum. The bones of a giant
buzzard, a big extinct goose, the Cape Barron goose, the kiwi, and
so on, were mixed together with bones and full skeletons of sev-
eral species of Dinornis, big and small. f And again, as on pre-
vious occasions, the New Zealand scientists are at a loss to explain
the accumulation of so many various birds on such a narrow
space. However, the most interesting part of Prof. Forbes's dis-

* R. Lydekker's Catalogue of Fossil Birds of the British Museum, London, 1892. For
the general reader we can not but highly recommend a charming book of the same author,
Phases of Animal Life, Past and Present, London, 1892, which is a real model of scientific
and popular literature.

f Letter to Nature, March 3, 1892, vol. xlv, p. 416.

8zo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

coveries is that lie has finally succeeded in finding among this
mass of bones one bone, at least, which bears unmistakable traces
of having been connected with a humerus, the head of which
must have been as substantial as in cassowaries. He thus con-
siders it proved that the DinomithidcB, like the kiwis, descended
from birds which could fly.* The last missing link is thus dis-
covered, and the chief points in the genealogy of birds are thus
already settled, while many a gap which still remains will cer-
tainly be filled up when the rich materials recently excavated in
both Americas have been carefully examined by anatomists.

The same may be also said in regard to mammals, if the recent
discoveries in North and South America are taken into account.
The earliest traces of mammals have been found, as is known, in
the Triassic deposits of Germany, Basutoland, the Cape Colony,
and North Carolina ; and it is also known, through the previous
remarkable works of Professors O. C. Marsh and H. F. Osborn,
that the Jurassic deposits of Wyoming have yielded a rich fauna,
among which we find the remote ancestors of various orders of
the present mammalia. f But the most important finds, which
throw a new light both on the earlier and the subsequent forms,
have been made in that immense area of lacustrine beds which
have been deposited in the region of the great salt lakes of Utah,
Wyoming, and Colorado, from the end of the Cretaceous period
down to the middle parts of the Tertiary epoch. There, and espe-
cially in the Eocene " Puerco " and " Wahsatch " beds, as well as
in the Eocene " Uinta " formation, a rich fauna of mammals has
been unearthed. J All those Eocene mammals had something in
common in their leading features, and yet they offered a sufficient
diversity for being considered as the probable ancestors of nearly
all orders of placental mammals. To mention their feet only,
they were adapted, in all of them, for walking upon the sole, and
were provided with five toes ; but it is easy to recognize in the
structure of the feet of the different genuses such divergences as
necessarily ought to evolve, under certain conditions — on the one
side, the plantigrade foot of the bears, and, on the other side, the
digitigrade foot of the Ungulata (horses, camels, elephants, and
so on), who walk upon the points of their toes ; and, again, among

* Nature, 1892, vol. xlv, p. 257.

f 0. C. Marsh, in American Journal of Science, 1888 to 1S91 ; H. F. Osborn, The
Structure and Classification of Mesozoic Mammalia, in Journal of the Academy of Natural
Science of Philadelphia, vol. ix ; R. Lydekker, Catalogue of the Fossil Mammalia in the
British Museum, London, 1891.

\ Cope's Synopsis of the Vertebrate Fauna of the Puerco Series, and W. Scott and H. F.
Osborn, The Mammalia of the Uinta Formation, in Transactions of the American Philo-
sophical Society, new series, vol. xvi, Parts II and III, Philadelphia, 1889. Also R. Lydek-
ker's paper in Nature, vol. xliii, p. Ill ; and Phases of Animal Life.

RECENT SCIENCE. 821

these latter it is possible to find indications for an evolution which
must have ended in the appearance of two divisions — the odd-
toed and the even-toed ungulates. Most laborious anatomical re-
searches were required for properly interpreting these rich mate-
rials. But the result of the work is that we already know with
a great approach to certitude the genealogical trees of most un-
gulates ; we can go back to the ancestors of the ruminants, the
cameloides, the chevrotains, the horses, and even to the common
ancestors of the whole group of ungulates ; while the genealogy
of other large groups of mammalia has also been worked out to
some extent.

The just-mentioned discoveries in North America were soon
supplemented by still more remarkable finds in South America,
which finds follow each other with such a rapidity that anato-
mists will have to make strenuous efforts in order to keep pace
with the paleontological work. The formation which D'Orbigny
described as " formation guaranienne " proved to consist of marine
Cretaceous beds, covered by immense land deposits, which, like
the Laramie beds of North America, are of an intermediate age
between Cretaceous and Tertiary. These last beds offer an im-
mense interest, owing to their mammalian fossils (of much more
specified types than those of the Laramie), which are mixed to-
gether with relics of gigantic Dinosaurians, some of the latter
attaining lengths of more than one hundred and thirty feet. As
to the more recent deposits of the Argentine Republic and Pata-
gonia— partly Eocene and partly Pliocene — they are so rich in
mammals that more than two hundred species, some of them of
the most extraordinary types, have already been described by Dr.
F. Arneghino,* Burmeister, and Moreno ; and every number of
the Re vista Argentina brings some new descriptions of new fos-
sils both from the Argentine and Patagonia, which is now ex-
plored by Carl Arneghino. There are among them ungulates
which, to use Mr. Lydekker's words, are "totally unlike any
found in all the rest of the world put together," f and which com-
bine the characters of both the odd-toed and the even-toed ungu-
lates. Of them, the Macrauchenia seems to be a direct descend-
ant of a type which must have been a common ancestor to both
divisions. Another huge mammal, one of the Toxodontes, which
must have equaled in size the hippopotamus, also occupied an
intermediate position between the two groups ; while in the ear-
lier Tertiaries there are types which, so far as can be judged from

* His chief works are : Los mamiferos f osiles de la America del Sud, Buenos Ayres,
1880; Contribucion al conocimiento de los mamiferos fosiles de la ftepublica Argentina, 2
parts, forming vol. vi of Actas de la Academia de Ciencias de Cordoba, Buenos Ayres,
1889; and several papers in Kevista Argentina de Historia Natural, Buenos Ayres, 1891.

f Nature, vol. xlv, p. 608.

822 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

preliminary descriptions, must have stood near the source from
which both ungulates and rodents have taken their origin.

Very many interesting Edentata and rodents have been met
with in the same beds, but it is the marsupial group which sur-
passes all others in interest. One carnivorous animal of this
group (ProthyJ acinus) is almost identical with the now existing
pouched wolf (Thylacine) of Tasmania; while another fossil
genus (Protoproviverra) is quite akin to the most characteristic
carnivorous marsupial, the Tasmanian Devil. Although F. Ame-
ghino's descriptions are not yet complete, the best authorities on
this subject in this country and Germany do not hesitate to rec-
ognize a purely Australian type in these South American forms,
which, on the other side, can safely be connected with the group
of primitive carnivors (Hycenodon, Pterodon, etc.) which appeared
at a later epoch in Europe. Moreover, the same beds contain fos-
sil remains of primates (Homunculus, Anthropops, Homocentrus,
Eudiastatus) which seem to represent ancestors of all the subse-
quent apes, but stand also in connection with the lemurs, and also
with the ungulates, or, rather, with their Toxodon ancestors. They
seem to represent the most ancient primates known, and indicate
that the first representatives of the whole group must be sought
for as far back as the end of the Secondary period. Finally, we
must mention the discovery of remains of man which are consid-
ered by F. Ameghino as belonging to the Pliocene and Miocene
ages.*

The " missing links " are coming, as we see, in such abundance
that it will take several years before anatomists, in whose hands
this rich material will now be put, have disentangled the numer-
ous and striking affinities between so many different types which
we have briefly enumerated. But geologists will also have a
word to say about these discoveries, which raise again the very
great question as to the long-since noticed affinities between the
faunas of all southern continents and the presumed previous con-
nection between those continents. Apart from all other consid-
erations, the resemblance between the fossil marsupials of South
America and the marsupials now living in Australia is so great
that it is not possible to admit that forms so near to each other
(and both so abnormal) might have developed independently
upon two remote continents. It seems almost unavoidable to
admit that some direct land connection has existed between
South America and Australia, although all we know about the

* The Revista Argentina contains in its issue for December last a full description of
the primates discovered by Carl Ameghino in south Patagonia. The connections which
these fossils indicate between man, primates, ungulates, and rodents are of the highest
interest.

RECENT SCIENCE. 823

persistence of the chief outlines of the continents seems to be
opposed to the admission. Dr. Ihering, who has devoted a good
deal of time to the study of the fauna of South America, boldly
concludes from his own special researches that during the Sec-
ondary period a great continent extended from Chili and Pata-
gonia, through New Zealand, to Australia, while the connection
between South America and North America was broken during
both the Cretaceous period and a great part of the Tertiary
epoch. The striking differences between the faunas of both
Americas, and the identity of many representatives of the fau-
nas of South America and South Africa, make him also conclude
that the two latter continents were connected as late as the Oligo-
cene period.* R. Lydekker, whose opinion has such a weight in
the matter, also concludes from the many known affinities be-
tween the fossil faunas and floras of the four great southern pro-
longations of the continental mass of the globe that they must
have stood in a more or less intimate connection, and have been
partially isolated from the more northern lands, f As to F.
Ameghino, he also recognizes that, at least during the Oligocene
times, South America was in direct connection with the Old
World ; but he points out the similarity of the mammalian and
Dinosaurian faunas of both Americas, and concludes that the
two continents must have been connected, as well as North
America with Europe, at an earlier epoch.

It would be premature to attempt now the solution of this
complicated question. It may be permitted, however, to point
out that the hypothesis of a submerged antarctic continent is not
improbable from the point of view of the physical geographer.
The permanence of the continents, which is a fact, and seems to
be opposed to the hypothesis, must be understood in a limited
sense. In the equatorial and the two temperate zones we un-
doubtedly have huge continental masses, the great plateaus of
Asia, both Americas, and Africa, which, so far as our knowledge
goes, have not been submerged since the primary epoch; and
around these backbones of the continents we have huge masses
of land which have not been under the sea since the end of the
Secondary period. But their outskirts have witnessed several
retreats and invasions of the ocean, or of its Secondary period
seas. Moreover, the permanence of the continents does not seem
to extend to the circumpolar zones. When we consider the out-
lines of the two great plateaus of East Asia and North America,
we see that these two great continents of the Secondary epoch

* Revista Argentina de Ciencia Natural, No. 4 (Sobre la distribution geografica de los
Creodontes, and letter to F. Ameghino).
f Nature, 1892, vol. xlvi, p. 12.

824 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

were narrowing at that time toward the north, and that their ex-
tremities were pointing toward some spot in the vicinity of what
is now the Bering Strait, in the same way as South America,
South Africa, and South Australia are now pointing toward the
south pole. The great plateau of northeast Asia, which has re-
mained a continent ever since the Devonian age, has so much the
shape of South America pointing northeast that the resemblance
is simply striking.* On the other side, we know that the Mio-
cene flora discovered in Greenland, Spitzbergen, and New Siberia
indicates the existence of a great Miocene continent where we now
have but the ice-clad arctic archipelagos. So that we must con-
clude that, while the central (temperate and equatorial) parts of
the globe really offer a certain permanence in the disposition and
general outlines of their continents, the arctic region stands in a
different position. It was under the ocean during a large part of
the Secondary period, it emerged from the ocean and was occu-
pied by a large continental mass during the Tertiary period ; and
now it is again under water. Such being the conditions of the
arctic region, we may suppose that the same oscillations took
place in the antarctic region as well. In such case, the two cir-
cumpolar regions would have been periodically invaded by the
ocean (either alternately or during geological epochs closely fol-
lowing each other), and they would have periodically emerged
from the sea in the shape of continents more or less indented by
gulfs and channels. In short, a certain stability in the distribu-
tion of land and water in the equatorial and temperate zones, and
unstability in the circumpolar regions (with, most probably, an
unstable Mediterranean belt), would perhaps better express the
observed facts than a simple affirmation of stability of conti-
nents. If these considerations prove to be correct — and I venture
to express them only as a suggestion for ulterior discussion — then
the hypothesis of a former more or less close land-connection be-
tween the southern extremities of our present continents would
not appear unlikely, and the striking similarity between the fau-
nas of Patagonia and Australia would be easily accounted for.

in.

Few branches of science have developed with the same rapidity
as bacteriology during the last few years. The idea that infec-
tious diseases are due to some micro-organisms invading the body
of the infected animal is certainly old. It was ventilated many

* Petermann's and Habenicht's map of Asia, in Stieler's Hand Atlas (No. 58), shows
this shape of the plateau better than any other map. For more details see my map in the
Orography of East Siberia, in the Memoirs of the Russian Geographical Society, 1875, vol.
v (Russian).

RECENT SCIENCE. 825

hundreds of years ago ; and it was revived early in our century.
But scientific bacteriology is of quite recent creation. It dates
from the end of the fifties — that is, from Pasteur's researches into
the fermentation of beer and wine and Virchow's investigations
into cellular pathology. Progress has been very rapid since.
We have now numerous works, large and small, devoted entirely
to the description and study of the life-history of the microscopic
organisms which occasion disease ; and every year brings the dis-
covery of some new micro-organism to which some disease, or
group of diseases, may be attributed. Cholera, typhoid fever,
gastric affections altogether, malaria, and influenza ; tuberculosis,
leprosy, and cancer ; diphtheria, measles, and scarlet fever ; rheu-
matism, anthrax, small-pox, rabies, and tetanus ; nay, even
the poison of the cobra snake,* have been traced to separate
microscopical beings. The photograph of each separate bacillus
or micrococcus may be found in the text-books ; its manners of
life, and very often its modes of reproduction, have been carefully
studied, both in the animal body and in artificial cultures ; so
also its morbid effects when introduced into the bodies of various
animals. True that the general reader is often amazed on learn-
ing that such and such a microbe which was introduced a few
months ago, as the real cause of influenza or of some other dis-
ease, is recognized now as a common inhabitant of the human
body, and has nothing to do with the said disease ; while a few
months later the real enemy will again be discovered, but will
have no more success than its predecessor. But such ephemeral
discoveries are simply indicative of an unhappily general tend-
ency among modern scientists — that of hastening to announce
discoveries, and to attach one's name to something new, before
the supposed discovery has been submitted to the test of searching
experiment. The same tendency prevails in all sciences — the
only difference being, that the general reader is seldom gratified
by the daily press with the discovery of a new chemical " law,"
or of a new " type " of fossil mammals, while each discovery
which deals with disease, ephemeral or not, enjoys a wide pub-
licity so soon as it has found its way into a scientific periodical.
The very rapidity with which the would-be discoveries of new
bacilli are reduced to their real value only proves, on the con-
trary, the safety of the methods used by bacteriology for distin-
guishing between the seeming and the real causes of disease.

We may thus safely recognize that science already knows a
great number of micro-organisms which are capable, under cer-
tain circumstances, of producing certain specific diseases ; and we

* M. Calmette, in Archives de medeciue navale et coloniale, tnars, 1892 ; referred to in
Revue Scientifique, 23 avril, 1892.

826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

may note that even those researches which, at the first sight, seem
to overthrow established facts, only result in a deeper knowledge
of diseases and their modifications. Thus, the recent investiga-
tions of MM. Lesage and Macaigne, who have finally succeeded
in differentiating the typhoidic bacillus from the Bacterium call
— a microbe which is constantly met with in our intestines, and
only under certain conditions acquires an especial virulence — are
one of the best examples of how further research deepens our
knowledge of microbes ; and Dr. Cunningham's discovery of ten
different varieties of the choleraic bacillus * certainly will have
the same effect : it will simply widen our knowledge of the differ-
ent forms assumed by cholera.

Things stand, however, quite differently with the means of
combating infectious micro-organisms. Most of the specifics
which once awakened so many hopes have proved in the long run
to be as ineffective against bacilli as the specifics periodically pro-
posed by allopaths and homoeopaths are powerless against the dis-
eases themselves. And the more the study of bacteria is advanc-
ing, the more it is recognized that a healthy body which is
capable of itself putting a check on the development of morbid
micro-organisms is the best means of combating them ; that sani-
tary measures which prevent the very appearance of morbid
germs are the surest means against the possibilities and the risks
of infection. But what permits a healthy body to resist its inva-
sion by morbid organisms ? What gives several animals im-
munity against certain special diseases ? Why do rats resist
anthrax, and dogs and monkeys resist the tuberculosis of fowls,
while the same microbes are fatal to rabbits and guinea-pigs ?
And how can immunity against certain diseases be acquired
either by vaccination or by previously having suffered the same
disease ? We know the microbes ; but what is it that renders
them highly offensive in some cases, and quite inoffensive in
some others ?

Several theories have been constructed to explain the phe-
nomena of immunity ; and, although none of them has succeeded
in dispelling all doubts, it must be recognized that each of them
accounts for at least large groups of phenomena. In fact, of the
two leading theories, one being purely biological, while the other
pays its chief attention to the chemical aspects of the subject,
they rather complement than contradict each other. The broad-
est and most ingenious of all explanations of immunity is the
theory, elaborated in 1883 by Elie Metchnikoff, which represents
an extension of the leading principles of struggle for life to the

* Scientific Memoirs by the Medical Officers of the Army of India, Part VI ; analyzed in
Annales de Micrographie, 1892.

RECENT SCIENCE. 827

microscopic constituents of the animal body.* Besides the cells
which constitute the animal tissues, there are in the body of man
and all vertebrates a number of free cells — the white corpuscles
of blood and lymph and the wandering cells of the tissues — which
exhibit all the characters of real amoeba?. Four different varie-
ties of these amoeboid cells, usually known under the general
name of leucocytes, have been described — the distinctions between
them being chiefly based upon the shape and the numbers of their
nuclei ; but the commonest form is that of a speck of protoplasm
containing several nuclei which are connected by filaments of
nuclear substance, as well as a little radiated sphere which plays
such an important part in the bipartition of cells, f

The leucocytes of both the higher and the lowest animals have
all the distinctive features of simple amoeba?. They protrude
pseudopodia, and move about like amoeba? (only the smaller ones,
usually described as lymphocytes, possessing this capacity to a
smaller extent), and, like amoeba?, they are endowed to a high de-
gree with the capacity of ingesting all kinds of small granules
which they find in their way, such as grains of coloring matter
suspended in water, and various smaller micro-organisms. It is
very easy to observe how leucocytes of the frog, the pigeon, the
guinea-pig, and so on, ingest bacilli by surrounding them with
their protoplasm ; and an immense literature, with illustrations
by photographs and correct drawings, has already been published
in order to show how various bacteria and micrococci are ingested
by leucocytes. In some cases the thus ingested bacilli are digested
— that is, transformed into a soluble matter which is assimilated
by the protoplasm of the leucocyte, exactly in the same way as an
amoeba digests a diatom. In other cases the bacteria are for some
time kept alive within the leucocytes, and if the leucocytes have
been put into conditions which are unfavorable for themselves
but favorable for bacteria, the latter develop, and are set free. It
has also been seen pretty often that some bacilli propagate, by
means of spores, within the leucocytes, or that the spores which
have been kept for some time seemingly without life, begin to
develop and give origin to a new generation of bacilli. J

* See his paper Immunity, in British Medical Journal, January 31, 1891. Also his last
most attractive and profusely illustrated work, Lecons sur la Pathologie comparee de l'ln-
flammation, Paris, 1802, which can be safely recommended to the general reader, notwith-
standing its rather technical title. Its subject is the struggle for life carried on within
organisms by the amoeboid cells against the microbes.

f See Recent Science in the Nineteenth Century, May, 1892, p. 758. The best morpho-
logical description of leucocytes is to be found in Ehrlich's Farbenanalytische Untersuchung-
en zur Histologic und Klinik des Blutes, Berlin, 1891, quoted by Metchnikoff.

\ P. Netschajeff, Ueber die Bedeutung der Leucocyten bei Infection der Organismen, in
Archiv fur pathologische Anatomie, 1891, Bd. exxv, p. 415.

8z8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

These are facts, perfectly well proved, and confirmed by num-
berless observations made upon both the leucocytes of higher ver-
tebrates and the amoeboid cells of lower organisms. In fact, the
whole first part of Metchnikoff's Legons sur l'lnflammation is
given to the description of like observations upon the ingestion
and digestion of bacteria and other micro-organisms, and these
observations are so conclusive that we already see growing a new
science — comparative pathology — which will have to study the
diseases and the means of defense against disease in all classes of
animals. More than that. Not only those leucocytes which
happen to be near to a microbe introduced within the body, do
swallow it. It is now certain that as soon as microbes, or even
some foreign substance like a splinter or coloring matter, is in-
troduced into the body, the wandering white corpuscles of the
body immediately move toward the foreign matter or organism,
as if they were endowed with a certain irritability or sensibility,
which directs their movements. This fact is so usual that Metch-
nikoff is even brought to advocate the idea that the distinctive
feature of every inflammation is such a gathering of leucocytes
around the infected spot, in order to destroy, if possible, the cause
of infection. The defense of the living body by means of its
phagocytes would thus be a fundamental character of all organ-
isms, high and low, acquired and perfected during their evolution
under the necessities of struggle for life.

However, not all bacteria are ingested by leucocytes. Thus,
the leucocytes of mice (which so easily succumb to anthrax) do
not swallow the anthrax bacilli ; and those of pigeons and rabbits
(who succumb to chicken-cholera) do not swallow the bacilli of
that special disease. This fact has, however, nothing very as-
tonishing in it, as it has its analogy in the life of the lowest
organisms. Thus it has been proved that the Plasmodium of the
slime-fungi, or Myceiozoa (it occurs as a gelatinous mass on the
surface of trees), which consists of numberless nucleated amce-
bula?, and creeps by itself over the bark of the trees, most dis-
tinctly displays a certain option in choosing the direction of its
movements. If cauterized at some spot of the part which moves
foremost, it changes the direction of its motion, and leaves the
cauterized spot behind. A decoction of dead leaves attracts it,
while a solution of sugar or salt repels it.* The same is known
of isolated amcebse. So also the leucocytes immediately attack
and ingest some microbes, living or dead, but avoid some others,
and various kinds of leucocytes behave in various ways. The
mono-nuclear leucocytes of man seem loath to attack the bacilli
of erysipelas, while the many-nuclear ones display no such re-

* Metchnikoff's Lecjons sur l'lnflammation, pp. 38 et seq.

RECENT SCIENCE. 829

luctance. Altogether, some substances exercise upon leucocytes
a decidedly attractive power, while other substances repulse
them.

As to what happens with microbes which have been ingested
by leucocytes, the result may be very different in various condi-
tions. The red corpuscles of blood, when ingested by leucocytes,
are digested ; globules of pus and fragments of muscular tissue
also are digested by means of a special ferment (discovered in 1890
by Rosbach). And the same happens with microbes if the leu-
cocytes of the organism are healthy and the animal is refractory
to a given disease, either from natural causes or in consequence
of vaccination. The bacilli of anthrax are undoubtedly destroyed
by the leucocytes of the dog, as well as by those of such rabbits
as have been vaccinated against anthrax. If the leucocytes are
healthy, they prevent the germination of the spores which they
have ingested ; but they maintain this power so long only as they
are healthy ; because, if the animal has been submitted to cold
(or to heat in the case of a frog), or if it has been narcotized,* it
loses its immunity. Moreover, the very affluence of phagocytes
to an infected place may be accelerated through nervous action,
or slackened by various narcotics.

Such being the facts, it was quite natural to explain them, as
Metchnikoff did, by maintaining that the phagocytes are the natu-
ral means of defense of organisms against infectious disease. The
very necessities of struggle for life have evolved this capacity of
the organisms of protecting themselves by sending armies of pha-
gocytes to the spots attacked by noxious micro-organisms. The
struggle may evidently end in either the defeat of the phagocytes,
in which case disease follows, or the defeat of the microbes, which
is followed by recovery ; or, the result may be an intermediate
state of no decisive victory on each side, as is the case in various
chronic diseases, f

As to the force which attracts the leucocytes toward the mi-
crobes, it is already indicated by the extensive researches of the
other school, which has devoted its chief attention to the chemi-
cal aspects of infection. It may be, as it is maintained by Mas-

* E. Klein and C. F. Coxwell in Centralblatt fur Bacteriologie und Parasitenkunde, 1892,
Bd. xi, p. 464.

f Besides the powers of ingesting and destroying noxious granules, the leucocytes also
contribute to the defense of the body by forming capsules around the granules, as well as
by carrying them out of the organism through the skin. Transpiration is a familiar instance
of the latter case. Mr. Herbert E. Dunham's observations on the Wandering Cells of
Echinoderms and the Excretory Processes in Marine Polyzoa (Quarterly Journal of Micro-
scopical Science, December, 1891), and Brunner's researches on transpiration (Berliner
klinische Wochenschrift, January 23, 1892), are especially worthy of note under this head-
ing.

830 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

sart, Bordet, and Gabrichevsky, that the leucocytes are attracted
by the chemical poisons secreted by the micro-organisms ; or the
protein of the bacterial cells themselves may bring them on the
spot, as is maintained by Buchner, who also has conclusive ex-
periments in favor of his theory. Only further research will be
able to decide which of these views is correct, and to what extent.
But under the present state of knowledge the question can not be
answered with certainty — the more so as Behring, Kitasato, Buch-
ner, Emmerich, Vaillard, Tizzani, Cattani, Ch. Richet, and many
others have weighty arguments in favor of the opinion that the
immunity of animals depends upon some ferment-like albumin-
ous substance contained in the serum of their blood. Strenuous
efforts have been made of late by Koch, Buchner, E. H. Hankin,*
and many others to come to some more definite knowledge of these
" defensive proteins," which are known in science under the names
of " alexines," " sozins," " phylaxins," and so on. But it will prob-
ably take some time before our notions about these substances
take a definite form. One thing seems, however, to become more
and more certain — namely, that the serum of the blood of immune
or vaccinated animals, although in many cases it does not destroy
the microbes themselves, is nevertheless possessed of a vaccinating
power. This fact is settled beyond doubt ; it is continually con-
firmed by fresh experiments ; and it is recognized by the follow-
ers of the biological theory as well. As to its explanation, it may
be sought for in the direction indicated by Metchnikoff — namely,
that the serum, though not destroying the microbes themselves,
destroys the poisonous substances which they are developing in
the organism. In such case, organisms would be endowed with
two means of defense instead of one ; the two theories would
naturally complete each other; and, may be, in some not very
distant future they would enable man to combat with success
some of the worst microscopic enemies of the human race. —
Nineteenth Century.

A curious illustration of the indirect influence of the environment on human
character is given in Mr. Greswell's Geography of South Africa, where it is ob-
served that the indigenous woods of the country do not seem especially adapted
for boat and ship building. The dearth of good ship-timber must partly account
for the complete degeneracy of the Dutch colonists at the Cape as a seafaring peo-
ple. With no good harbors at hand, with no navigable rivers, and no ship-timber
for spars or masts, the change in their character and traditions as a maritime and
fishing folk to a nomadic, pastoral, and continental people, might almost have
been conjectured from the beginning. At the present time the up-country Boer
has extremely vague ideas of the ocean and of all things.

* See the reports of the last Hygienic Congress held in London, in September, 1891.

WARMING AND VENTILATING OF DWELLINGS. 831

WARMING AND VENTILATING OF DWELLINGS.

THE best practical application of the principle of warm walls
and cold air is undoubtedly the house which M. Sornesco,
civil engineer, has built for himself at Creil. We were fortunate
in visiting M. Somesco on a day when a strong northeasterly
gale was blowing. Wind creates greater difficulties than cold ;
but on this occasion we had both wind and cold. It is important
to note that M. Somesco's house is built on marsh land. On both
sides of the house there is a river, and but for the construction of
embankments flood would constantly occur in this spot. It was
necessary to dig six feet below the level of the cellar floor to find
a foundation. As much masonry had to be placed under the
house to form a foundation as would have sufficed to build it.
The garden, in the midst of which the house stands, was also
artificial. Nor is there any shelter from the winds. The house
stands alone in the midst of what is now a garden, but which
used to be a dismal swamp. The system of warming and of
ventilation has therefore been tested under the most trying
circumstances. In shape M. Somesco's house is square, measur-
ing twelve metres. It has cellars, two floors, and above these
under the roof a large sort of hall which serves as a billiard-
room. The hollowed walls are fifty-five centimetres thick. The
external wall is twenty-two centimetres and the inner wall eleven
centimetres, so that there is an intervening space between the
walls of twenty to twenty-two centimetres. These walls are made
with porous bricks, but in the basement the walls are massive.
The house is like one box inside another box, with a space of four
to five inches between the two boxes.

Outside, at the back of the house, there is an ordinary coal-
furnace. The smoke and heat from this furnace pass into a
chamber built in the cellar of the house, measuring about six
feet in length and not quite two feet square. From this heat-
chamber and going all round the outer walls of the cellar there
is an inclosed passage. Suspended in the center of this passage
and also going the whole way round the house is a metallic flue
of more than a foot in diameter (thirty-five centimetres internal
and thirty-seven centimetres external diameter). This serves as
a chimney and draws off the smoke and the heat from the furnace
and heat-chamber, traveling horizontally round the four sides of
the house ; and then, when it is nearly back to the furnace, the
flue opens into a chimney ; the smoke and what heat remains go
up vertically to the roof. In other words, the basement of the
house is surrounded by a narrow closed passage, in the center of
which is suspended the flue or chimney from the furnace, and

832

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

this flue serves to warm the air in this passage. To keep the
cellar cool and to retain the heat that goes round the cellar,
the wall of this passage is covered over with " sluck wool " or
" silicate cotton," as it is sometimes called, which is considered a
better non-conductor than asbestos. All round the house com-
municating with this hot-air passage there are inlets of fresh air
from the garden, which measure eighty by fifty centimetres and
are protected by metallic gauze or webbing. If the wind is very
violent, a coarse canvas may be hung in front of these air inlets
on the windward side of the house. There are ten such inlets,
the fresh air being delivered, as will be seen in the sectional
drawing A B, below the hot-air flue. The pipe or flue rests on
iron bars and on a socket that permits the easy dilatation and

Plate No. 1.

B.D.

CH.

CD.

W-

A w-

■ -
1

m

'?j>..'-\\;w,.'A:\',i-/;,A:;'s/,

,

i :i

J ^.\v>},'/.>-S/.,*.

n.-a Qssa !

DRAWING ROOM

...l

'■'■y , :■;„,>,./

- r - *

Li

-?^.-':-T,:^?;;,,l ... ■■ i ','m ■*

ttm
■ i in
nut

i'nii.

!i

DINING
ROOM

li

ill!

1 1 1 » i

ENTRANCE
<-, HALL

_ O"

¥-■

U,

- --- ~~~- .<. •■■•■ '.-■ ■■ ■■■•■'>■.

-'■■ : ■■'

■'

m

-w

<— w

-w

w

F-D.

Plan of Ground-floor of M. Somesco's House at Ckeil, Oise, France.

The dotted lines indicate the warming flue passing down the center of the hot-air passage in
the basement of the house. The plan gives the walls underneath the windows and indi-
cates the space for hot air between the outer and inner wall. C C C, the arrows show the
hot-air space between the walls. C D, the door from the garden into the. basement. B D,
the back door. F D, the front door. DRD, the door from the entrance hall to the draw-
ing-room. F, the furnace lit in the garden outside the house. The arrows from the fur-
nace indicate how the smoke and hot air pass horizontally round the house till they reach
C II, where a chimney carries the smoke vertically up to the roof. P P P P, apertures
through which brushes may be passed from the garden into the smoke-flue to clean away
the soot. W W W W, position of the windows.

WARMING AND VENTILATING OF DWELLINGS. 833

Plate No. Z.

SECTION

SECTION

AT C-JD

Plan of Basement of M. Somesco's House at Creil, Oise, France.

Section A-B, showing inlet of air into the basement passage where the air is warmed. G L,
the ground level of the garden. C L, the ground level of the basement or cellar. GR. F.,
the parlor floor, or first floor of the house. The inlet of air as indicated by the arrows is
below the smoke-flue, which is suspended in the center of the passage, so as to warm the
air in this passage. — Section C-D. G. R. shows the outlet of the air above the smoke-
flue. The air warmed by contact with this flue passes upward in the intervening space
between the inner and outer walls of the house, so as to warm the entire substance of the
walls.

contraction of the iron with which it is made. The drawing C D
shows how the air warmed in this passage ascends into the space
between the two walls of the house. There are a number of these
openings into the hollow of the wall all round the house.

The temperature in the hot-air passage varies from 114° to
122° Fahr. This suffices to bring up the temperature of the inner
wall on the ground-floor from 86° to 92° Fahr. The temperature
of the inner wall decreases by about one degree centigrade per
metre of height. Thus, if the wall on the ground-floor level is
at 35°, it will be 32° C. on the level of the first floor, which is
three metres higher up. The hot air that travels up the hollow
of the walls comes out in the large attic under the roof of the
house. If this air is warmed to from 114° to 122° Fahr. when it
enters the space between the walls it will have fallen to about
104° Fahr. as it emerges from the wall into the attic. From this
attic the hot air filters into the open through the porosity of the
roof and by the various openings, chinks, etc.

Much of the success of this experiment depends upon the
porosity of the walls. Every precaution is taken not to interfere
with this porosity. There is no plaster-work put on the walls,
and there is no paint or paper. A light wooden frame is nailed
on to the walls, and from this tapestry — that is, a tissue, as far as
possible a woolen tissue — is suspended and replaces paper. Some
hangings of this description can be obtained that are hardly any
dearer than good paper, and though for artistic purposes expen-
sive woolens are employed, the expense in the long run is not
great, for the cloth lasts an indefinite time, and, unlike paper, can
be taken down and cleaned. It also contributes very materially

VOL. XLI. — 61

834 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to maintain the warmth of the walls. M. Somesco has now lived
in this house for some years. Without the aid of fires, when the
windows were shut, he has never known the temperature of the
rooms fall below 54° Fahr., and this during the hardest frost. If
the windows were thrown wide open the temperature indoors
would not fall below 30° Fahr. in spite of the frost. The air com-
ing through the windows is absolutely cold and frosty, but the
thermometer rises under the influence of the heat radiated from
the walls. There is a fireplace in each room, though fires are
very rarely lighted. When, however, it is very cold weather and
the windows have been open for a long time, then it is expedient
to light a fire for an hour or so. As there is no loss of heat
through the coldness of the walls, the room is warmed in a very
short time. On the day of our visit the drawing-room windows
had been open for two hours, and as the weather was very cold a
fire was lighted, but soon the fire was let out, the room was too
warm, the thermometer marking 78° Fahr. We left the drawing-
room for some time. We opened the front door leading to the
garden, and the drawing-room door, which was from four to five
feet from the front door. Thus the fresh air from the garden blew
freely into the drawing-room. Yet, and though there was now
no fire, the radiation of heat from the walls was such that the
thermometer marked 66° Fahr. In the garden the temperature
was below 50° Fahr., and a strong northeasterly gale was blowing.
Thus we were while indoors breathing cold, pure air from the
garden.

We have seen that M. Somesco's house was built on a swamp ;
and yet the principal, if not the only, inconvenience from which
he has suffered is extreme dryness. We visited other houses in
the neighborhood and found the walls stained by the damp to a
height of six or seven feet ; some of M. Somesco's furniture and
other objects were spoiled because the wood had split in conse-
quence of its extreme dryness. To counteract this inconvenience,
M. Somesco has been obliged to place a large number of plants in
different parts of the house, a measure which, however, adds con-
siderably to the charm and beauty of the place.

The heat and dryness thus secured cost M. Somesco ten tons of
English household coals per annum. His house has fourteen
rooms, and ten persons could live comfortably in it. The cost
would then be one ton of coal per head per annum. But then it
must be noticed that the furnace and the system of warming the
passage round the basement of the house are somewhat roughly
contrived, and that more economical methods of obtaining the
necessary heat could be easily devised. Then it must also be
noted that it is not a question of warming one room or a portion
of a room, but that the entire house is equally warmed, and

WARMING AND VENTILATING OF DWELLINGS. 835

warmed to such an extent that doors and windows are constantly-
opened, and this in spite of the exceptionally cold and damp na-
ture of the surrounding soil and the exposed position the house
occupies.

Over and above all these considerations M. Somesco maintains
he has realized the ideal that a dwelling should be like our clothes,
only not portable, but permeable. It should be warm, because it
should be made of materials that are bad conductors of heat.
Indoors we should possess means of counteracting the chilling
effect of the outer air. We ought to live indoors as we live out
of doors, and we should consider our house merely as if it were an
extra great-coat. The coat, if porous, will be warm and healthy.
One of the reasons, he says, why we are apt to feel uncomfortable
when it rains is that the rain blocks up the porosity of the walls,
and that, too, on the windward side. As for microbes, M. Somes-
co proudly pointed to the artistic drapery which covered the bare
bricks of his porous walls. " These are," he exclaimed, " my mi-
crobe traps. If I have any reason to believe that injurious
microbes have been introduced into my house, I know pretty well
where to find them. It would take but little time or trouble to
unhook all this drapery, to put it into the disinfecting stove, and
there superheated steam under pressure, without injuring the
cloth, would assuredly kill the microbes. Even without these
artificial methods of purification, if the walls were porous, oxygen
would go wherever the microbe went, and Nature would effect its
own cure." How far a porous wall can filter and purify air, as
earth filters and purifies sewage, is a matter which has not yet
been investigated. He is of opinion that if we leave our walls
alone, and do not block them up with paint and paper, we have
for ordinary house walls in ordinary weather two cubic feet of
air going through every square foot of wall in the course of an
hour, and this is probably enough to insure the sufficient oxida-
tion, if it goes on at all, of the materials of which the wall is
made. Further, the porosity of the walls must also materially
assist in the ventilation of the room which they surround. It
was M. Somesco's delight to think that even when the doors and
windows of his house were shut the pure air of his garden was
blown upon him through the porous walls.

M. Somesco's house can, of course, only be taken as an experi-
ment. The principles of which it is a practical application have
not yet been adopted by the public. Already a private house is
in the course of construction at Beauvais built on the same prin-
ciples, and they are also to be applied to the military hospital at
Madrid. To sum up these new theories and methods, the teach-
ings of M. Trelat, the practical experiments of M. Somesco, sug-
gest that the natural porosity of our walls, especially the outer

836 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

walls, should not "be destroyed. These walls should be decorated,
not with paper and paint, but with porous, non-conducting sub-
stances, such as woolen drapery. The outer walls on the side
nearest to the inner surface should be hollowed throughout, thus
constituting a double wall, with a space of about four inches be-
tween the two walls. A heating contrivance of whatever descrip-
tion may be found most expedient or economical should be placed
in the basement of the house. A warm-air chamber or shaft trav-
eling round the base of the outer walls should supply to the hollow
in the walls air taken from the outside and warmed at the point
of admission into the wall to a temperature of from 100° to 120°
Fahr. This should maintain the temperature of the inner wall at
from 80° to 90° Fahr. Then, he considers, the walls will radiate
sufficient heat through the rooms to enable the inhabitants to con-
stantly open the doors and windows, and to breathe cold, fresh,
outer air without inconvenience. As a rule, fires will be unneces-
sary, dampness will be completely banished from the house, and
to maintain some moisture in the air it would, he thinks, be expe-
dient to decorate the house with numerous evergreen plants. The
inhabitants should then be able to benefit by unlimited ventila-
tion, and could breathe pure, cold, and fresh air coming upon
them directly from the outside. — Report of the London Lancet
Sanitary Commission.

The address of T. Baldwin Spence, President of the Biological Section of the
Australian Association, dealt with the fresh-water and terrestrial fauna of Tas-
mania, and the introduction of the present animals of Australia and the way their
descendants had become distributed. The struthious birds — the ostriches, emus,
cassowaries, and kiwis — were, with the exception of the African ostrich, which
ranged into Arabia, confined to the southern hemisphere, while they were sup-
posed to have originated in the northern hemisphere and migrated southward.
But by this hypothesis there were great difficulties in explaining how the struthi-
ous birds reached Australia and New Zealand without being accompanied by pla-
cental mammals. Also, the struthious birds of New Zealand, including the lately
extinct moas, were smaller, and made a nearer approach to the flying birds, from
which the struthious birds were descended, than did any of the others, and they
should expect to find the least altered forms near the place of origin. The tina-
mus of Central and South America, although flying birds, resembled the New Zea-
land struthious birds in several particulars ; and as a former connection between
New Zealand and South America was shown by the plants, the frogs, and the land
shells, it seemed more probable that the struthious birds of Australasia originated
in the neighborhood of New Zealand from flying birds related to the tinamus, and
that they spread thence into Australia and New Guinea, rather than that they
should have migrated southward from Asia. Probably the ostriches of Africa and
South America have a different line of descent from the struthious birds of Aus-
tralasia, and might have originated from swimming birds in the northern hemi-
sphere.

SKETCH OF ALEXANDER WINCH ELL. 837

SKETCH OF ALEXANDER WINCHELL.

WHILE lie was industrious and versatile as an original in-
vestigator, Prof. Alexander Winchell was best known as a
successful, instructive, and entertaining lecturer on subjects of
science, especially of geology and evolution, and as the author of
numerous books which have found their way into the households
of our country, describing in a style interesting and comprehen-
sible to all the latest results of research and of his own labors in
those fields.

Alexander Winchell was born in Northeast, Dutchess Coun-
ty, N. Y., December 31, 182-4, and died in Ann Arbor, Mich., Febru-
ary 19, 1891. His family were in moderately comfortable circum-
stances. His father and mother had been teachers in the public
schools of the town. He showed a taste for mathematics at an
early age, which was illustrated by his having completed the first
part of Emerson's arithmetic and his reciting the entire multipli-
cation table without mistake on the day he was seven years old.
When a little more than ten years old he had completed Willett's
arithmetic, and had transcribed all the definitions, rules, prob-
lems, and full solutions in a manuscript book. He attended the
Stockbridge Academy and the village school. It had been in-
tended that he should study medicine, but on his expressing, when
sixteen years old, a desire to teach, his father engaged a district
school in which he taught during the winter of 1840 and 1841.
As by-pursuits he collected and solved arithmetical problems, and
began the practices, which he never discontinued, of recording
the results of his reading and study, and keeping a diary and a
strict account of expenditures. He continued his mathematical
studies, soon acquired an enlarged idea of the preparation needed
to fit him to become a doctor, became more attached to the pro-
fession of teacher, and had " his imagination fired " by the study
of astronomy. In 1843 he became assistant in Amenia Seminary,
where he had attended for a year as a student. Having entered
Wesleyan University in 1844 as a sophomore, "he encountered
with indignation," says his editorial biographer in the American
Geologist, " the first check in his educational ardor and success in
a rigorous ' marking system,' which at that time laid special stress
on the literal reproduction of the words of the text-books.
Though ambitious for honors, he refused to compete for them
under those conditions. Having been graduated in 1847, he was
appointed teacher of natural science in Pennington Male Semi-
nary, New Jersey, " when he entered with irrepressible zeal and
delight upon the study of the flora of the vicinity. The Morse
telegraph having just come into operation, he attempted with suc-

j*

838 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cess, and with no special knowledge beyond the fundamental
principles, the production of a working instrument, which he ex-
hibited at a public lecture.

His ambition was now extending beyond mathematics. De-
clining offers of a tutorship in that science in Wesleyan Univer-
sity and of continued position in Pennington Seminary, he ac-
cepted the chair of Natural Science in Amenia Seminary. Here
he gave his first public geological lectures ; explored the flora of
the vicinity, of which he contributed a catalogue to the regents
of the university; observed solar spots; and began a series of
meteorological observations.

He removed in 1850 to take charge of an academy at Newbern,
Ala. Finding the prospects of the institution not equal to his ex-
pectations, he undertook to revive a suspended institution at Eu-
taw in the same county. Here he began a course of scientific in-
vestigations which he had been indefinitely projecting for some
time. He communicated to the American Journal of Science
notes on the cold of January at Eutaw, and on the aurora bore-
alis of September 29, 1851 ; opened a correspondence with the
Smithsonian Institution, to which he sent collections of plants,
alcoholic specimens, and preserved skins, including the new species
of fish, Hybopsis Winchelli ; and communicated to the American
Association in 1853 the first scientific description of the Creta-
ceous Choctaw Bluff, on the Black "Warrior River. In 1853 Prof.
Winchell became President of the Masonic University, Selma,
Ala., and made a tour of the southern part of the State, to interest
the people in the institution. The tour was also a geological one,
and took him through a country rich in Cretaceous and Tertiary
fossils, where Hippurites encumbered the ground and were burned
into lime, and the " precious vertebrae " of Zeuglodon were used
for andirons, stiles, and gate-weights. He sent a collection of
fishes to the Smithsonian Institution, in acknowledging which
Prof. Baird predicted that in not many years he would be called
to a big professorship somewhere North or East. " Nine days
after these words were penned/' says his biographer in the Amer-
ican Geologist, " he was elected to a chair in the University of
Michigan." This was in 1853; the professorship was that of
Physics and Civil Engineering. He found on taking his chair, in
January, 1854, that no good elementary text-books on civil engi-
neering were in existence, and that he had to originate matter
and methods. As a branch of physics he attended to the keeping
of a complete series of meteorological observations, which, while
he held the chair, he reported to the Smithsonian Institution. In
the next year he was transferred, in accordance with an under-
standing that was had when he first went to the university, to the
newly created chair of Geology, Zoology, and Botany. In a paper

SKETCH OF ALEXANDER WINCH ELL. 839

On the Importance of the Study of Natural History, read be-
fore the State Teachers' Association in 1856, he advocated the in-
troduction of that subject into the Union schools and the lower
classes of the colleges. In the fall of 1857 he opened a class in
comparative osteology. A geological survey of the State of
Michigan having been ordered, he was commissioned as its
director, and began, in 1859, with one assistant, the examination
of the southern part of the lower peninsula. He fixed the posi-
tion of the salt waters of East Saginaw to within two feet of their
actual level, and in his report, published in August, 18G1, fully
anticipated the vast development of the salt interest in the Sagi-
naw Valley. The official survey was suspended by the breaking
out of the civil war, but the paleontological investigations were
carried on privately. Prof. Winchell pointed out the gypsum
bed near Tawas, which had been pronounced barren, but has
proved marvelously rich ; studied the " Marshall group " and its
relations with the Chemung ; investigated the cherry slug and
currant worm ; published numerous geological papers and an ad-
dress on the soils and subsoils of Michigan, in which he insisted
on the agricultural value of the pine lands ; studied the oil-pro-
ducing regions of the United States and Canada ; and published a
report on the Grand Traverse region, and a paper on the fruit-
bearing belt of Michigan, in which attention was first called to
the influence of Lake Michigan in ameliorating the climate of the
State and prolonging the growing period. The Geological Sur-
vey of Michigan was reorganized in 1869, and Prof. Winchell was
again appointed its director. He had learned much during the
interval since the survey was suspended, as our enumeration
shows, in his private travels for economical surveys, of the rock
structure and physical features of the State. In 1871 he had pre-
pared a preliminary report ; but hostile political and personal in-
fluences had been working against him, and the appropriation for
printing the report failed to pass the Legislature. He resigned
his position, and the report, embodying the results of two seasons
of field work in the lower peninsula, largely remains unpublished.
A part of the material intended for it was condensed for Walling's
Atlas of Michigan, and these memoirs were afterward collected
in a volume, accompanied by topographical, geological, and iso-
thermal charts.

In 1873 Prof. Winchell was called to the position of Chan-
cellor of Syracuse University. He held it only for about one year,
when the anticipated financial resources of the institution having
shrunken considerably in the actuality, and he having been asked
to take part in public efforts to augment the endowment, he
resigned it. He had been told that the authorities of the in-
stitution had been attracted to him by his scientific reputation,

84o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and that they wished him not to discontinue his pursuits in that
line. He had, however, already found the presidency interfering
with his scientific work, and the additional burden was too much.
" For the duties of solicitor of money," says his biographer, " he
had no qualification. Between paleontologist and financial agent
was a gap so broad that he had never contemplated crossing it/'
He, however, in December, 1874, accepted the chair of Geology in
the same university. For this department he prepared an extended
syllabus of a proposed course of geological lectures, which should
possess interest for the general public, but found it difficult in
the financial condition of the institution to equip and maintain
laboratories corresponding with his ideas of the professorship of
Geology. While occupied with this problem, he was invited to
become Professor of Geology, Zoology, and Botany, in Vander-
bilt University, Nashville, Tenn. He accepted an engagement
for three months, without severing his connection with Syra-
cuse University, for he opened there a School of Geology, in
January, 1876, which he wished to make a permanent feature
of the institution ; but the enterprise was not fully success-
ful till 1878. He divided his time between Syracuse and Van-
derbilt Universities. He found the authorities of the latter
institution attached to the old ideas, and in no way disposed
to give ear to the new theories of evolution. He nevertheless
began his course under what might be considered favorable au-
spices. In 1877 he published a theory of a relation of meteorites
to the disturbances of the satellites of Mars, and several papers
in strictly orthodox books and newspapers, unfolding his theory of
Preadamites, or of the existence of races of men before Adam ;
which, he held, was not contrary to divine revelation, but was
authorized by a proper construction of the Scriptures. His views
were kindly received, even when they were not believed, in the
North, but were very unwelcome to his Southern friends. At the
commencement season of Vanderbilt University of 1878, Prof.
Winchell was warned that his " heterodox " position in reference
to Preadamites and evolution was having an influence adverse
to the interests of the university, and was asked to decline a re-
appointment to his professorship. He refused to do this on such
grounds as were alleged. On the same evening he delivered one
of the addresses of the commencement occasion ; and on the next
morning the Board of Trust of the university abolished his chair.
It had been intended to have the thing quietly done, but Prof. Win-
chell published all the facts, and was not the one who suffered in
reputation from the transaction. Of this incident, Dr. Andrew D.
White says, in his New Chapters in the Warfare of Science : " That
his lectures at the Vanderbilt University were learned, attractive,
and stimulating, even his enemies were forced to admit ; but he

SKETCH OF ALEXANDER W INC HELL. 841

was soon found to "believe that there had been men earlier than
the period of Adam, and even that all the human race are not de-
scended from Adam. His effort in this was to reconcile science
and Scripture, and he was now treated by a Methodist Episcopal
bishop in Tennessee just as, two centuries before, La Peyrere had
been treated for a similar offense by a Roman Catholic vicar-
general in Belgium. The publication of a series of articles on
the subject, contributed by the professor to a Northern religious
newspaper at its own request, brought matters to a climax, for,
the articles having fallen under the notice of the leading South-
western organ of the denomination controlling the Vanderbilt
University, the result was a most bitter denunciation of Prof.
Winchell and of his views. Shortly afterward the professor was
told by Bishop McTyeire that ' our people believe that such views
are contrary to the plan of redemption,' and was requested by the
bishop to quietly resign his chair. To this the professor made the
fitting reply : ' If the Board of Trustees have the manliness to dis-
miss me for cause, and declare the cause, I prefer that they should
do it ; no power on earth could persuade me to decline.' ' We do
not propose,' said the bishop, with gratuitous suggestiveness, ' to
treat you as the Inquisition treated Galileo.' ' But what you
propose is the same thing,' rejoined Dr. Winchell. ' It is ecclesi-
astical proscription for an opinion which must be settled by scien-
tific evidence.' Twenty-four hours later Dr. Winchell was in-
formed that his chair had been abolished, and its duties, with its
salary, added to those of a colleague ; the public were given to
understand that the reasons were purely economic; the banished
scholar was heaped with official compliments, evidently in hope
that he would keep silence. Such was not Dr. Winchell's view.
In a frank letter to the leading journal of the university town,
he stated the whole matter. The intolerance-hating press of the
country, religious and secular, did not hold its peace. In vain
the authorities of the university waited for the storm to blow
over. It was evident, at last, that a defense must be made, and a
local organ of the sect, which, under the editorship of a fellow-
professor, had always treated Dr. Winchell's views with the
luminous inaccuracy which usually characterizes a professor's
ideas of a rival's teachings, assumed the task. In the articles
which followed, the usual scientific hypotheses as to the creation
were declared to be c absurd,' ' vague and unintelligible,' ' prepos-
terous and gratuitous.'" While in Nashville Prof. Winchell
constructed some pieces of microscopic apparatus and a small
working steam-engine of one fifth horse-power, and completed a
survey of the sanitary geology of that city.

In June, 1879, Prof. Winchell was unanimously recalled by
the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan— a body that

842 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

was by no means united on most questions — to the professorship
of Geology and Paleontology in that institution. He went hack
under much more favorable conditions for scientific advancement
than had existed when he left the institution seven years before.
" His duties at that time were spread over the whole field of geol-
ogy, zoology, botany, museum and microscopical work. When
he returned, the faculty embraced a Professor of Geology and
Paleontology ; a Professor of Mineralogy and Economic Geology ;
a Professor of Zoology ; an Assistant Professor of Botany ; an
Instructor in the Microscopical Laboratory; and a Curator of
the Museum — all of whose duties devolved upon one man in 1872."
He began on his return to the university the preparation of an
extended syllabus of a course of instruction in general geology,
accompanied by copious references to sources of information. He
presided over the Section of Anthropology at the Montreal meet-
ing of the American Association. He spent the summer of 1886
in connection with the Geological Survey of Minnesota in field
work in the extreme northern part of the State, north of Lake
Superior. His work extended into twenty-four townships, where
he noted and studied the outcrops at eight hundred and ninety
localities, and he spent much time in the succeeding winter in the
study for his first Minnesota report of the Archaean problems thus
developed. The observations made in this survey were impor-
tant, and were found to throw much light on some of the prob-
lems of Archa?an geology. The pjlan of the next year's survey
extended over the original Huronian area, and also over the iron
regions of Michigan and Wisconsin and into the area of the Ani-
mikie in northern Minnesota. He entered into the study an.d dis-
cussion of practical questions touching the stratigraphic relations
of the older terrenes and accumulated a large mass of data, the
discussion of which he was never able to complete. He planned
for a thorough discussion and examination of the data of the Ar-
chaean rocks, including their field relations and petrographic char-
acters, and for the sake of it declined all but the most important
invitations to lecture. In pursuance of this work he communi-
cated to the eighteenth report of the Minnesota Survey (1889) a
review of American opinion on the Presilurian rocks, and pre-
sented further results of his work in northern Minnesota at the
Toronto meeting of the American Association. His last year
(1890) was one of his busiest, and was occupied with lectures, at-
tendance on scientific meetings, geological excursions, and the
preparation of plans for enlarging the laboratory of the univer-
sity. Prof. Winchell was a leading spirit in the formation of the
Geological Society of America and in the establishment of the
American Geologist.

His biographer in the American Geologist believes that Dr.

SKETCH OF ALEXANDER WINCHELL. 843

Winchell was perhaps the very first man of science in America
"who descended before popular audiences from that high-caste
and stately but dry and unpopular style in which the older scien-
tists had thought it fit to cloak the dignity of science. . . . He
simplified zoological themes rather than popularized them, and
lifted up his voice only . . . where the select appreciators of sci-
ence were numerous enough to constitute an audience." Societies
for scientific culture, summer institutes, and similar organiza-
tions, formed a large part of the audiences.

Prof. Winchell was a voluminous writer. The list of his
books and papers in the American Geologist includes two hun-
dred and fifty-five titles. A predominant idea running through
his Christian Theology illustrated from Nature was that of the
harmony between the indications and doctrines of science and
the central doctrines of the Christian religion. A similar thought
ran through several other of his works. His Geology of the Stars
and his World Life were attempts to extend the history of the
earth as recorded in the geological strata so as to include the
whole lifetime of a world, or to present, as he said in the preface,
" a thoughtful review of the processes of world formation, world
growth, and world decadence." Many of the thoughts in these
works were so novel that he was not able to get an expression of
opinion upon them from his fellow-students. A large proportion
of his books are scientific treatises for popular reading — vivacious,
suggestive, embodying the accurate results of scientific investi-
gation, sparkling with original thoughts, and well adapted to
their purpose.

The burden of his educational labor, according to his biog-
rapher, lay in the direction of widening the avenues of natural
science and of its introduction into secondary schools. " He in-
sisted that the young student is more observing than reflective or
analytic, that the education of the mind should be by an appeal
to its most accessible and most powerful impulses, and that the
influence of science on the human mind, especially in its forma-
tive stage, is more healthful to a normal growth, more conducive
to moral rectitude, and more stimulating toward a right ambition,
than any other field of knowledge. . . . He believed that there is
as much mental and ethical culture to be derived from the study
of natural science, when pursued with equal thoroughness and
exactness, as from the study of Greek or Latin literature or of
mathematics."

84-<

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE.

IN the present day, when so many
schemes for the reformation of so-
ciety are on foot, and so many experi-
ments are heing made in the treatment
of social diseases, it is of the very first
importance that the claims of science to
an authoritative voice in human affairs
should be faithfully and adequately pre-
sented. The efforts which such writers
as Spencer and Huxley have made in
this direction are known to all well-in-
formed persons, but there is still room
for the enforcement of the lesson, and
we welcome the appearance of a new
and vigorous champion of the good
cause in Prof. Karl Pearson, author of
the Grammar of Science, recently pub-
lished in the Contemporary Science
Series. There are many points touched
upon in Prof. Pearson's book which
might give rise to difference of opinion ;
but no one who is imbued with the true
scientific spirit can fail to concur most
heartily in what he says in his opening
chapter as to the " claims of science."

The first claim of science is founded
on the essential difference between sci-
entific and unscientific opinion. "The
classification of facts," says Prof. Pear-
son, "and the formation of absolute
judgments upon the basis of this classi-
fication— judgments independent of the
idiosyncrasies of the individual mind —
is peculiarly the scope and method of
modern science. The scientific man has
above all tilings to aim at self-elimina-
tion in his judgments, to provide an ar-
gument which is as true for each individ-
ual mind as for his own. . . . The sci-
entific method of examining facts is not
peculiar to one class of phenomena and
to one class of workers ; it is applicable
to social as well as to physical problems,
and we must carefully guard ourselves
against supposing that the scientific

frame of mind is the peculiarity of the
professional scientist." Not only is this
method not that of the average man,
but its very existence is scarcely sur-
mised by him. His method — if such
it can be called — of arriving at conclu-
sions is to fasten his attention on a few
salient facts, and to interpret them ac-
cording to his own prepossessions and
interests. If asked to take a point of
view from which, perhaps, other facts
would become salient, or to divest him-
self of self-interest as a canon of inter-
pretation, he will in general decline; in
many cases, indeed, he will be totally
incapable of responding to the invi-
tation. The idea of requiring a wide
range of facts as a basis for induction,
of checking the result of a first survey
or examination by that of a second,
third, fourth, or tenth, and of treating
self-interest or previously formed opin-
ion as a disturbing influence from which
the judgment is to be kept as free as
possible, is one which long ages ot
struggle with the problems of Nature
have at length bequeathed to the scien-
tific workers of to-day, but which has
no lodgment, and but slight recognition,
in the minds of the multitude. Prof.
Pearson is, however, of opinion that an
instruction in scientific method might
be very generally imparted, and that its
effect on the mind of the ensuing gen-
eration would be marked. He consid-
ers, very rightly, that a scientific frame
of mind is an essential of good citizen-
ship, seeing that it is that frame of
mind alone which leads a man to look
beyond proximate phenomena, andabove
all to put aside personal bias. It is the
peculiarity, as he well observes, of sci-
entific method that, when once it has
become a habit of mind, that mind con-
verts all facts whatsoever into science.
Good intentions are not enough to make

EDITOR'S TABLE.

845

a good citizen; a man may with the
best of intentions, and even at great
self-sacrifice, set himself in direct oppo-
sition to the best interests of the state.
The trouble in such a case is that the
man lacks knowledge, and, like an ig-
norant physician, either diagnosticates
badly the evils he would remedy, or, if
his diagnoses chance to be right — which
is very unlikely — applies the wrong
cure. Prof. Pearson does not pretend
that as yet science can pronounce defin-
itive and certain judgments upon all
social questions; but he properly main-
tains that science should, as far as pos-
sible, be our guide to-day, and that it
alone will ever lead us into a perfect
comprehension of our social duties. "We
are, therefore, in full accord with him
when he formulates what he calls the
first claim of science in the following
w ords :

'■'■Modem science, as training the
mind to an exact and impartial analysis
of facts, is an education especially fitted
to promote sound citizenship.''''

The first claim of science being that
it supplies the requisite method for
dealing with social questions; the sec-
ond, which flows naturally from the
first, is that it brings actual principles
to light which afford the most impor-
tant guidance in social matters. Such
Prof. Pearson holds to be Weismann's
discovery — if it be one — of the non-in-
heritance of characteristics acquired
during the lifetime of a parent organ-
ism. If Weismann's theory be correct,
then, in Prof. Pearson's words, "no de-
generate and feeble stock will ever be
converted into healthy and sound stock
by the accumulated effects of education,
good laws, and sanitary surroundings.
Snch means may render the individual
members of the stock passable, if not
strong, members of society ; but the
same process will have to be gone
through again and again with their
offspring, and this in ever-widening
circles, if the stock, owing to the condi-
tions in which society has placed it, is

able to increase in numbers. . . . If,"
our author significantly adds, "society
is to shape its own future, we must be
extremely cautious that, in following
our strong social instincts, we do not at
the same time weaken society by ren-
dering the propagation of bad stock
more and more easy." The argument
under thi3 head is not affected by the
truth or falsity of Weismann's theory.
If Weismann is right, we have to shape
our conduct in such a way as to make
the propagation of bad stock as difficult
as possible, and we shall depend for the
future welfare of society mainly upon a
careful selection of stocks; if he is
wrong, and stocks, no less than individ-
uals, can be improved by education and
outward circumstances, we shall apply
ourselves more energetically to work in
these directions. In either case, a ver-
dict which science alone can render, is
of the first importance in determining
social action.

The third claim which Prof. Pearson
makes for science is the obvious one
that its suggestive discoveries afford
means for the improvement of all the
material conditions of human life. In
the popular apprehension this is the one
incontrovertible claim of science, and
upon this point, therefore, it is not
necessary to lay much stress. It may,
however, be remarked that many of the
greatest practical triumphs of science in
the present age have flowed from dis-
coveries or observations which at the
outset it was hard to link, even in im-
agination, with any important practical
result. In the words of our author,
"The frog's legs of Galvani and the
Atlantic cable seem wide enough apart,
but the former was the starting-point of
the series of investigations which ended
in the latter." In like manner, it is
suggested, the recent discovery of Hertz,
that the action of electro-magnetism is
propagated in waves like light, and that
light, as conjectured by Maxwell, is only
a special phase of electro-magnetic ac-
tion, may in a generation or two do

846

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

more to revolutionize life than even the
discovery of Galvani as developed iu the
electric telegraph.

In the fourth place, science, instead of
repressing, as some erroneously believe,
tends to develop the imagination. Our
autlior puts the case well : " All great
scientists have, in a certain sense, been
great artists; the man with no imagina-
tion may collect facts, but he can not
make great discoveries. If I were com-
pelled to name the Englishmen who
during our generation have had the
widest imaginations and exercised them
most beneficially, I think I should put
the novelists and poets on one side, and
say Michael Faraday and Charles Dar-
win." When facts have been accumu-
lated and classified and their relations
have been carefully traced, the next
step is the discovery of some compre-
hensive formula which, conceived as a
law or principle in nature, will sum up
and explain the totality of the phe-
nomena. This, as Prof. Pearson states,
"is the work not of the mere cataloguer
but of the man endowed with creative
imagination."

Finally, science not only stimulates
but disciplines the imagination and, with
it, the aesthetic faculty. " "With the
growth of scientific knowledge," it is
well remarked, "the basis of the aes-
thetic judgment is changing and must
change. Many things in poetry and art
which pleased our grandfathers, or even
our fathers, are becoming to us, from
our changed point of view, insipid and
foolish. Many expressions that were
part of the recognized stock in trade of
poetry are losing, if they have not al-
ready lost, all their value for aesthetic
purposes. It is not that our generation
is growing less susceptible to beauty,
but that, it can not recognize as beaut y
that which is not felt to repose on the
true." In the conclusion of his introduc-
tory chapter Prof. Pearson states that
science endeavors to provide a mental
resume of the universe ; and, though
this great synthesis is not complete, and

probably never will be, "it is better to
be content with the fraction of a right
solution than to beguile ourselves with
the whole of a wrong solution " — words
which we heartily echo. We do not
think there is a point in this truly valu-
able chapter — the introduction to what
is on the whole a most valuable book —
on which we have not ourselves insisted
at one time or another ; but, as stated
above, we rejoice at the appearance in
the field of every new prophet of sci-
entific truth. Prof. Pearson is not a
new writer entirely, but in this work
he appeals to a new circle of readers, to
many of whom we have no doubt he
will bring home a new and salutary con-
ception of the place and function of sci-
ence in the modern world. The battle
of science seems to be nearly won, but
overconfidence is always dangerous, and,
as our author himself remarks, we see
in our time " the highest intellectual
power accompanied by the strangest re-
crudescence of superstition." Let the
guardians and champions of truth be,
therefore, unremitting in their vigilance
and ceaseless in their efforts, till science
has become to all mankind the symbol
of blessing and of hope.

TEE ROCHESTER MEETING OE THE
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION.

Under the dignified and tactful presi-
dency of Prof. Joseph Le Oonte, of the
University of California, the American
Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence held a pleasant and profitable meet-
ing at Kochester, August 17th to 23d.
The University of Eochester placed its
commodious buildings at the disposal of
the Association ; within a few paces
stood open the doors of the Ward Natu-
ral Science Establishment; the nurser-
ies, for which the city is famous, were
of easy access; and in its Silurian out-
croppings and glacial drift the vicinity
had much to attract the geologist. In
his address as retiring president, Prof.
A. B. Prescott, of the University of

EDITOR'S TABLE.

847

Michigan, showed how inseparable are
pure and applied science in the field of
chemistry, making a forcible plea for
the endowment of original research.
No laboratory work worth doing, he
argued, can ignore laboratory work al-
ready done ; study of the latest books,
memoirs, and periodicals must go hand
in hand with experiment. Nature is
best known face to face, but the printed
page is usually essential for the intro-
duction.

In Section A, that of Mathematics
and Astronomy, Prof. J. E. Eastman, of
Washington, as vice-president, delivered
an address on Neglected Fields in Funda-
mental Astronomy — in determining the
absolute position of the stars. Interest
in this section centered in the spectro-
heliographs taken and exhibited by Mr.
George E. Hale, of the Kenwood Astro-
physical Observatory, Chicago. These
pictures mark a notable advance in the
application of photography to astronom-
ical research, the solar faculas for the
first time being clearly seized. In ac-
quiring information regarding the earth,
Mr. R. S. Woodward described how he
had been able to approach accuracy
within one part in five millions : in
measuriDg the base-lines for the United
States Coast and Geodetic Survey he
had secured constancy of length in a
standard bar by immersing it in melt-
ing ice.

In Section B, that of Physics, Prof.
B. F. Thomas, of Columbus, Ohio, chose
for the subject of his address as vice-
president, Technical Education in Col-
leges and Universities. He held that
their mathematical courses of educa-
tion are usually too elaborate, are rarely
drawn as they should be from practical
examples, and ought as much as possi-
ble to be adapted to the special career
the student means to enter upon. He
noted with gratification how Stevens
Institute was doing one thing well, and
would rejoice to see other technical in-
stitutes each devoting itself to thorough
education in civil, mining, and other dis-

tinct departments of engineering or other
science. He commended literary studies
and the art of clear and ready speaking.
It is not so much what a man knows, he
said, as the proportion of it that he can
communicate, that makes him useful.
Papers of value in this section dis-
cussed the sensitiveness of photographic
plates, the photographic analysis of
vowel-sounds, and a photographic map-
ping of the magnetic field. Interest-
ing ascertainments of the distribution
of energy in the spectra of the glow-
lamp and the arc-light were also pre-
sented.

In C, the Chemical Section, the vice-
president, Prof. Alfred Springer, of Cin-
cinnati, spoke upon Micro-organisms of
the Soil, indicating the important part
they play in the chemistry of vegeta-
tion. Prof. H. C. Bolton, of New
York, stated that his bibliography of
chemistry, comprising ten thousand ti-
tles, is in press. Mr. Alfred Tucker-
man, also of New York, read a brief
note on a list of mineral waters, with
analyses, which he is preparing for pub-
lication.

In Section D, that of Mechanical Sci-
ence and Engineering, Prof. J. B. John-
son, of St. Louis, delivered an address
on The Applied Scientist. Much atten-
tion in this section was bestowed upon
instruments of precision and the diffi-
culties attending their manufacture.
Prof. W. A. Rogers, of Waterville, Me.,
had found the lack of homogeneity in
even the highest grades of steel to be a
grievous obstacle. Mr. J. A. Brashear,
of Allegheny, Pa., stated that he had
found a fortnight's labor necessary in
bringing a plate two inches square to a
satisfactory surface as a plane.

In E, the Geological Section, Prof. H.
S. Williams, of Yale, the vice-president,
gave a masterly address on The Scope
of Paleontology and its Value to Geol-
ogy. Prof. R. T. Hill, of Washing-
ton, read a paper on The Volcanic
Craters of the United States, of much
interest.

848

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

In Section F, Biology, Prof. S. H.
Gage, of Cornell University, set forth
The Comparative Physiology of Respi-
ration, in his address as vice-president.
Respiration, he said, is a mere mechani-
cal help to enable oxygen to permeate
living substance. Oxidation is not direct
in the living tissue, as in a burning can-
dle, but the tissue takes the oxygen and
makes it an integral part of itself as it
does carbon and other elements, and
when finally energy is freed the oxida-
tion occurs and carbon dioxide appears
as a waste product. An animated de-
bate in this section turned upon Weiss-
mann's criticisms of the Darwinian the-
ory that characteristics acquired dur-
ing the individual life are transmitted
to offspring. Prof. Manly Miles cited
Dr. Dallinger's experiments in support
of Darwin's view. These experiments,
conducted continuously for seven years,
had gradually brought micro-organisms,
extremely rapid in their rate of repro-
duction, to enduring a temperature of
158° Fahr. ; their normal temperature
having been 60°. Prof. C. V. Riley re-
marked that most insects are born or-
phans; if they do not inherit character-
istics acquired through the experience of
their ancestors, how can they come into
the world so richly endowed in aptitude
and instinct, and what can so clearly
difference the instinct of one insect from
that of another ? In this section the
pressure of papers has of late years been
so excessive that it was decided to divide
the section in two: what in future will
be known as Section F will take zoology
for its field, and Section G (G being
hitherto an unappropriated letter) will
be devoted to botany. It is proposed
that during each annual meeting a day
shall be set apart for joint sessions,
when papers occupying ground common
to zoology and botany will be read and
discussed.

In H, the Anthropological Section,
Mr. W. H. Holmes, as vice-president,
delivered an address on The Evolution
of ^Esthetics. Prof. F. W. Putnam out-

lined the archfeological and ethnological
exhibits to be presented under his direc-
tion at Chicago next year. He has a
staff of some seventy explorers at work
gathering anthropometrical statistics
and collecting material. His reproduc-
tions of Indian settlements will repre-
sent aboriginal life in North, Central,
and South America. The Canadian
Government, through Prof. "William
Saunders, of Ottawa, will extend im-
portant co-operation ; the New York
State Commissioners for the World's
Fair will provide an Iroquois stockaded
village, with its characteristic long house
of bark.

In the absence of Mr. S. Dana Hor-
ton, Section I, that of Economics and
Statistics, chose Prof. Lester F. Ward as
its vice-president. His thoughtful and
provocative address treated The Psy-
chological Basis of Social Economics.
Economists, he said, have laid undue
stress on the biological forces, the
strictly individualistic aims, to be ob-
served in human society. As intelli-
gence and sympathy increase, the effect
is that purely animal impulses are not
simply qualified, but often reversed ;
competition steadily gives place to an
ordered co-operation which, in the end,
is much more gainful to all concerned
than the first estate of universal con-
flict. The question as to what is best
to be done with the municipal services
which are in their nature monopolies,
received some elucidation at the hands
of Prof. E. W. Bemis, of the University
of Chicago. He brought down to date
his studies of municipal gas-works,
maintaining that they had yielded sub-
stantial benefits as contrasted with
works in corporate hands. Danville
and Alexandria, Va., and Wheeling,
W. Va., he said, operate their electric
lighting as well as their gas supply mu-
nicipally; and more than one hundred
towns and cities in the United States
own and manage electric-lighting plants.

The Entomological Club, which met
concurrently with the A. A. A. S.,

LITERARY NOTICES.

849

heard an interesting paper from Mr. L.
O. Howard, of Washington, detailing
his plan of campaign against the mos-
quito. He employs kerosene spread as
a thin film over the breeding-places of
the insect; the oil remains efficacious
for two weeks, and, as a little of it
goes a long way, the cost is a mere
trifle.

A capital lecture, fully illustrated, on
Hypnotism, was given to the Roches-
ter public by Prof. Joseph Jastrow, of
the University of Wisconsin. Mr. C. K.
Gilbert, of Washington, who discoursed
on Coon Butte and Theories of its Ori-
gin, did not prove so interesting. It
is perhaps in its endeavor in some meas-
ure to requite hospitality by its public
lectures that the management of the As-
sociation is most open to criticism. Had
popular elements in the Rochester pro-
gramme received more attention, it is
safe to say that the local accessions
would have exceeded the small total of
twenty-six.

Madison, Wis., was chosen for the
next place of meeting, with Prof. Will-
iam Harkness as president. The vice-
presidents elected were: Section A,
Mathematics and Astronomy, Prof. 0.
L. Doolittle, South Bethlehem, Pa. ; B,
Physics, Prof. E. L. Nichols, Ithaca,
N. Y.; C, Chemistry, Prof. Edward
Hart, Easton, Pa.; D, Mechanical Sci-
ence and Engineering, Prof. S. W. Rob-
inson, Columbus, O.; E, Geology and
Geography, Prof. C. D. Walcott, Wash-
ington; F, Zoology, Prof. H. F. Os-
born, New York ; G, Botany, Prof.
C. E. Bessey, Lincoln, Neb. ; H, An-
thropology, Prof. J. Owen Dorsey, Ta-
coma, Md. ; I, Economic Science, Prof.
William II. Brewer, New Haven, Conn.
The probable time of the next meet-
ing will be the week beginning August
19, 1893.

The Geological Society of America
accepted an invitation to hold its winter
meeting at Ottawa, Canada, December
28th-3lst.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Essays upon some Controverted Questions'
By Thomas Henry Huxley, F. R. S. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. 1892. Pp.

489. $2.

Most of these essays were first printed
from time to time in the Nineteenth Century,
and afterward republished here in the Month-
ly. They were written, the author says,
without premeditated purpose or intentional
connection in reply to attacks upon doctrines
which he holds to be well founded; or in
refutation of allegations respecting matters
lying within the province of natural knowl-
edge which he believes to be erroneous.
The circumstances of their origin gave them
a polemical tone, the traces of which dis-
appeared from his heart after the heat of
controversy was over, but which he has al-
lowed to remain as being most just on the
whole to all, and especially as excusing the
occasional severities his antagonists may
have indulged in. The author's main thought
in the papers has been to show that the
events of the world and of life have been
and are the outcome of a regular sequence
according to fixed laws, and that the inter-
vention of a supernaturalism on which much
stress is laid by the " other side " is super-
fluous— not necessary, and not proved; not
that he denies the existence of a supernat-
uralism, or of real powers and knowledge,
equivalent to those which the supematural-
ists predicate; for, "looking at the matter
from the most rigidly scientific point of view,
the assumption that amid the myriads of
worlds scattered through endless space there
can be no intelligence as much greater than
man's as his is greater than a black beetle's ;
no being endowed with powers of influencing
the course of Nature as much greater than
his as his is greater than a snail's, seems to
me not merely baseless, but impertinent.
Without stepping beyond the analogy of that
which is known, it is easy to people the cos-
mos with entities, in ascending scale, until
we reach something practically indistinguish-
able from omnipotence, omnipresence, and
omniscience. If our intelligence can in some
matters surely reproduce the past of thou-
sands of years ago, and anticipate the future
thousands of years hence, it is clearly within
the limits of possibility that some greater

vol. xli. — 62

850

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

intellect, even of the same order, may be
able to mirror the whole past and the whole
future; if the universe is peopled by a
medium of such a nature that a magnetic
needle on the earth answers to a commotion
in the sun, an omnipresent agent is also con-
ceivable; if our insignificant knowledge
gives us some influence over events, prac-
tical omniscience may confer indefinably
greater power." Thus the principle of scien-
tific naturalism of this age " leads not to the
denial of the existence of any supernature,
but simply to the denial of the validity of
the evidence adduced in favor of this or of
that extant form of supernaturalism." The
author here employs the words "superna-
ture " and " supernaturalism " in their popular
sense, but to him the term " Nature " covers
the totality of what is. The world of psy-
chical phenomena appears to him as much a
part of Nature as the world of physical phe-
nomena ; and he is unable to perceive any
reason for cutting the world into two halves,
one natural and one supernatural. As all of
the world's classics have been put to the test
of scientific criticism and dissection, Prof.
Huxley sees no reason why the Bible should
escape the same treatment ; and these essays,
as our readers may recollect, discuss certain
features of the biblical narrative from the
point of view of scientific and experimental
criticism. The author lays down a body of
" established truths," which he specifies, to
something like which theological speculations
will have to accommodate themselves. These
" truths " are irreconcilable with the biblical
cosmogony, anthropology, and theodicy, but
they are no less inconsistent with Voltairism
and kindred systems. But Prof. Huxley is
no enemy of the Bible. It appears to him
that " if there is anybody more objectionable
than the orthodox bibliolater it is the hetero-
dox Philistine, who can discover in a litera-
ture which, in some respects has no superior,
nothing but a subject for scoffing and an
occasion for the display of his conceited
ignorance of the debt he owes to former
generations." Twenty-two years ago he
pleaded for the use of the Bible as an in-
strument of popular education, but laid stress
upon the necessity of placing the instruction
in lay hands. He finds the further merit in
the Bible that both Testaments " have been
the great instigators of revolt against the

worst forms of clerical and political despot-
ism." While not believing that the highest
biblical ideal is exclusive of others or needs
no supplement, he does believe that " the
human race is not yet, possibly may never
be, in a position to dispense with it."

Christian Anthropology. By Rev. John
Thein. With an Introduction by Prof.
Charles G. Herbermann, Ph. D., LL. D.
New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: Benzi-
ger Brothers. Pp. 576.

The author of this work is pastor of St,
Martin's Roman Catholic Church, Liverpool,
Ohio. Prof. Herbermann sets forth in his
introduction that "the Church has taught
for ages that between the truths of revela-
tion and the truths of science there can be
no conflict. The Vatican Council has sol-
emnly repeated this teaching. On the other
hand, some men famed for scientific learning
and some famed for unscientific bluster pro-
claim that between faith and science no
reconciliation is possible. Educated Catho-
lics may well ask, How are such assertions
possible? Still, it is not hard to find the
explanation. If we could ascertain at once
what are the truths of science and what are
the truths of revelation, their comparison
would end the controversy. But what are
the truths of science ? " Inquiring, the pro-
fessor finds not the truths, but scientific
opinion of what they are, vacillating and not
wholly agreed. On the other hand, "we
look to the Church to tell us what are re-
vealed truths. . . . When the Church has
spoken, we know what revealed truth is.
But there are hundreds of opinions on dogma
and morals which the Church has neither
approved nor condemned, and thousands of
biblical texts the meaning of which she has
not defined." As it is not easy to find the
truths of science or of revelation in every
case, it is difficult to compare them with one
another. When doctrines seem to be in con-
flict, it is well to inquire whether they have
been established as truths by the Church on
the one side or by science on the other ; and
it is not necessary to be troubled about con-
flict till this has been made to appear. Never-
theless, there are apparent conflicts, and
"some scientific oracles" are doing their
best with them to assail the dogmas of the
Church. While the priests are informed only
respecting one side, " difficulties, arguments

LITERAR 7 NO TICKS.

851

on a new discovery, on scientific phenomena,
against revealed truth, present themselves
sooner or later to every priest in the exercise
of his ministry " ; and " the priest who knows
only his dogmatic and moral theology may
be surprised and confounded by objections
formulated in entirely new language, sup-
ported by pretended fact or by a discovery
wrongly interpreted." Father Thein, who is
said to be an enthusiastic student of science,
to have given years of study and research to
anthropology, and to have read the literature
of the subject exhaustively, has undertaken
in this book to inform his brother clergymen,
so that they may not have to go into the con-
flict unarmed. He reviews the whole system
of modern anthropological science and of
evolution, with clear knowledge of what has
been written and much force of argument.
When he finds a weak point, he exposes it
unmercifully, and is not above occasional
sarcasm. His treatise is intelligent, good-
tempered, and readable. But, because, while
he questions science everywhere, he accepts
the established dogmas of the Church as
fixed, his work is better adapted to satisfy
those young priests who want to be supported
in what they are determined to believe than
those inquiring minds who refuse to admit
that the dogmas are beyond investigation.

The Proceedings of the First Annual
Meeting of the National Conference
on University Extension. Compiled
by George Francis James. Philadel-
phia: J. P>. Lippincott Co. Pp. 292.
Price, §1.50.

The spread of the idea of university ex-
tension has been rapid, whether the results
it has worked out have all been mature
or not. Within a year after the first center
of extension teaching was established in
Philadelphia in November, 1890, Mr. James
informs us, more than two hundred such ex-
periments were being carried on in nearly
every State in the Union. The results of the
first year's work showed the need of thought-
ful conference and discussion on the part of
those engaged in it. Accordingly, a National
Conference on the subject was called under
the auspices of the American Society for the
Extension of University Teaching, and met
in Philadelphia in the last days of 1891. It
was attended by delegates from twenty
States, representing some fifty of the best

institutions of learning, and — either person-
ally or by written report — every center of
extension teaching which had so far been
established in the country. The seventeen
addresses aud papers made and read at the
meeting, and contained in this volume of
the proceedings, regard the subject from as
many different points of view. In addition
to them, reports are given of the condition
and prospects of university extension in the
several States.

Matter, Ether, and Motion. By Prof. A.
E. Dolbear. Boston: Lee & Shepard.
1892. Pp. 334.

Prof. Dolbear has essayed to give, in
this little volume of three hundred odd pages,
a brief account of the fundamental notions
of modern physics, and to show the direction
in which the thoughts of those are tending
who are endeavoring to understand the ulti-
mate mechanism of what we have been ac-
customed to call dead matter. The title of
his volume clearly indicates the trend of such
thought. To the physicist the hypothetical
ether, which Grove in the forties contempt-
uously referred to as the clothes-horse upon
which to hang the unknown, is becoming
more and more a very definite reality. It is
to him much more than a working hypothe-
sis. He assumes its existence, and is busily
occupied in trying to understand its ultimate
structure — that is, how it must be constituted
in order to explain the phenomena with
which he has to deal.

He sees in it now not only a medium for
the transmission of the wave-motions which
manifest themselves as light, heat, and elec-
tricity, but is attempting to find in it the ex-
planation of matter itself. The old concep-
tion of the atom as simply an ultimate parti-
cle, itself dead and inert, but endowed with
forces by means of which it acts upon other
particles, is giving place to a radically differ-
ent one. This conception is that of the vor-
tex ring. Any smoker can make one, and
they are frequently thrown from the funnel
of a locomotive in starting. Such a ring
consists of a circle of material, all the parts
of which are in rotation in the planes of the
radii of the ring. Physicists have conceived
that such rings formed in the ether — this be-
ing postulated as homogeneous and friction-
less — might constitute the ultimate some-

852

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

tiring which we term the atom. Such a ring
in Mich a medium would be indestructible, it
would be elastic, and the size of the ring and
its rate of motion would constitute the differ-
ences which we recognize between the ele-
mentary substances, instead of these differ-
ences being due to the size and shape of ul-
timate hard particles and their impressed
forces.

In this view matter itself becomes but
a mode of motion, and the old conception of
forces as entities disappears. Everything is
in the last analysis reducible to motion in the
ether, and whether any given set of motions
manifest themselves as heat, light, or elec-
tricity depends upon the character of the
motions. The ether is at once the medium
for the transfer of all motion and the store-
house of all energy.

Prof. Dolbear has set forth these new
views of modern physics briefly but clearly,
and without calling upon the reader for more
knowledge than that possessed by the aver-
age cultivated man. He does not present
them as demonstrated science, but as the
views which are gaming ground among scien-
tific workers, and which hold out the promise
of our ultimately understanding, in some great-
er measure than now, the ultimate structure
of the physical universe.

Waterdale Researches ; or, Fresh Light
on the Dynamic Action and Ponder-
osity of Matter. By "Waterdale."
London: Chapman & Hall, 1892. Pp.
293.

Since Newton first announced the law of
gravity there have been innumerable at-
tempts to formulate some working hypothe-
sis of a mechanism by which the observed
results might be produced. Newton himself
repudiated the idea of the particles of mat-
ter acting upon each other through void
space, and, though this conception of iso-
lated particles endowed with attractive forces
is commonly made use of in mathematical
analysis, it has never been regarded by
physicists as answering to any reality. They
have recognized that the universe must be a
plenum, and that gravity must in some way
result from strains set up in a medium which
fills all space. This view is now taking on
more definite shape, and it is hoped that be-
fore a great while it may be possible to

frame some intelligible and consistent theory
of the operation of gravity.

To do this appears to be the purpose of
"Waterdale" in these "researches," as he
is pleased to call them. The book does not
seem to have met with a very favorable re-
ception in England, where it was published
in the summer of 1891, and the author,
therefore, prefaces the present volume with
a wearisome plaint over his lack of recogni-
tion by scientific men. A dip into the book,
which is all we have had time for, seems to
amply confirm the judgment of the English
scientific world. It may be that the author
has arrived at some valuable ideas on the
subject, but until he either puts them him-
self in readable English or has some one else
do it for him he has not much cause for
complaint if busy men refuse to spend time
in hunting for the kernel of truth which may
lie hidden.

Ethan Allen, the Robin Hood of Ver-
mont. By Henry Hall. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 207.

The purpose of the author of this work,
who died, leaving it for his daughter to com-
plete, was " to make a fuller life of Allen
than has been written, and, singling him
from that cluster of sturdy patriots in the
New Hampshire Grants, to make plain the
vivid personality of a Vermont hero to the
younger generations." A picturesque hero
he is made to appear. Had the records
been less exact and romance been left to
deal unrestrained with his career, he might
in time have shone forth comparably with
the most airy heroes of ancient myth and
saga. He is compared with Robin Hood —
that is, the Robin Hood of Ivanhoe — whose
life was "an Anglo-Saxon protest against
Norman despotism," as Allen's life was " a
protest against domestic robbery and foreign
tyranny." Although never a citizen of the
United States, " he is one of the heroes of
the State and the nation." While we find
much about him to study profitably and ad-
mire, there are some features in his career
that we can not unqualifiedly commend for
imitation by our youth ; neither can we cen-
sure him, for he acted according to his con-
science, and consistently for a single end —
the freedom of Vermont. He is best known
for the capture of Fort Ticonderoga ; but

LITERARY NOTICES.

853

what he would have considered his most im-
portant service was the defense of the New
Hampshire Grants. This part of the story
reminds us much of some of the scenes of
the territorial history of Kansas. There is
the same mixture of lawlessness and submis-
sion to the law that the Free State men
showed there. It was a singular position
the New Hampshire grantees were in, of
acknowledging the political sovereignty of
New York, and opposing with violence its
conveyance of the lands they claimed by an-
other title. The story is well told, largely
in the words of the original documents.
Another most curious feature in Allen's ca-
reer is revealed in his coquetting with the
British for the recognition of Vermont's po-
sition, even at the expense of the United
States. As it is shown in this book, his con-
duct appears to have been controlled by
sound reason. Congress had not recognized
Vermont, and had refused to admit it to the
Union. What claim had the Government on
the allegiance of Allen or other Vermonters
who were thus denationalized, and forced, as
it were, to look out for Vermont alone?
Allen was ready to negotiate with Great
Britain or any authority that would secure
Vermont's independent position — and that
was all there was of it. The story of Allen's
capture at Montreal, his captivity and im-
prisonment, is graphically told, wholly in his
own words.

The Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. A
Popular Treatise on Early Archaeology.
By John Hunter Duvar. New York :
Macmillan & Co. Pp.285. Price, $1.25.

As this book claims to be no more than
a popular treatise, pains have been taken to
give it that character. It is a fairly full
treatise as to European archaeology, but less
so as to American, although most of the
more important recent American work is
mentioned. The subject is dealt with to
1 late, and in a very satisfactory manner.
The earlier chapters are occupied with the
consideration of the geological periods as
they relate to the appearance of man with
animals in the Tertiary, and man in the
Post-tertiary, the primeval condition of man,
the mastodon and other animals contempo-
rary with early man, and the presumed do-
mestic life of nomadic man (as primitive

man was supposed to be). The older stone
or palaeolithic age is characterized as the age
of ponderous flint clubs. Two chapters are
given severally to the cave-dwellers in Brit-
ain, and the cave-dwellers of other countries
than Britain — in which notice is taken of
American relics. Pursuing the subject, the
author finds a gap in the scale of gradation
between the close of the cave era and an
advanced system of weapons in which light
projectiles form the leading feature — the
newer stone or neolithic age. This is de-
scribed with considerable detail, both as to
the weapons and the articles of domestic use,
and is illustrated by a page of engravings of
typical mound-builders' arrow-heads. The
mound-builders have a chapter, and are sup-
posed to have been of a civilization about
equal to that of the Swiss lake-dwellers,
and of no higher antiquity. A chapter each
is devoted to the several topics of kitchen-
middens ; the age of bronze, pronounced the
shortest of the three ages, the lake-dwell-
ers, pottery, the iron age, sepulture (cairns,
cromlechs or dolmens, barrows, etc.), fossil
man, myth, and art. The author regards
myth as not the invention of early man, but
the fruit of a period of growth; and sup-
poses that the works of art found among
the relics, were the productions of specially
gifted persons, of whom there may not
have been more than one or two in an age,
and that they can not be regarded as indicat-
ing any extended art sense.

Manual Instruction : Wood-work (the Eng-
lish Sloyd). By S. Barter. London:
Whittaker & Co. New York : Macmillan
& Co. Pp. 343. Price, $2.

In this work, after an exposition of gen-
eral principles in the introduction, informa-
tion and instruction are given in drawing,
the varieties, qualities, etc., of timber and
other materials, bench-work, and the arrange-
ment and fittings of the workroom — furnish-
ing, among other things, the items of a com-
plete equipment for a class of twenty boys.
The chapter on bench-work contains twenty-
three exercises in mechanical operations of
wood-working, and thirty models of articles
that may be made. A preface is supplied
by Mr. George Ricks, who defines manual
training as " a special training of the senses
of sight, touch, and muscular perception by

852

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

thing which we term the atom. Such a ring
in such a medium would be indestructible, it
would be elastic, and the size of the ring and
its rate of motion would constitute the differ-
ences which we recognize between the ele-
mentary substances, instead of these differ-
ences being due to the size and shape of ul-
timate hard particles and their impressed
forces.

In this view matter itself becomes but
a mode of motion, and the old conception of
forces as entities disappears. Everything is
in the last analysis reducible to motion in the
ether, and whether any given set of motions
manifest themselves as heat, light, or elec-
tricity depends upon the character of the
motions. The ether is at once the medium
for the transfer of all motion and the store-
house of all energy.

Prof. Dolbear has set forth these new
views of modern physics briefly but clearly,
and without calling upon the reader for more
knowledge than that possessed by the aver-
age cultivated man. He does not present
them as demonstrated science, but as the
views which are gaining ground among scien-
tific workers, and which hold out the promise
of our ultimately understanding, in some great-
er measure than now, the ultimate structure
of the physical universe.

Waterdale Researches ; or, Fresh Light
on the Dynamic Action and Ponder-
osity of Matter. By "Waterdale."
London: Chapman & Hall, 1892. Pp.
293.

Since Newton first announced the law of
gravity there have been innumerable at-
tempts to formulate some working hypothe-
sis of a mechanism by which the observed
results might be produced. Newton himself
repudiated the idea of the particles of mat-
ter acting upon each other through void
space, and, though this conception of iso-
lated particles endowed with attractive forces
is commonly made use of in mathematical
analysis, it has never been regarded by
physicists as answering to any reality. They
have recognized that the universe must be a
plenum, and that gravity must in some way
result from strains set up in a medium which
fills all space. This view is now taking on
more definite shape, and it is hoped that be-
fore a great while it may be possible to

frame some intelligible and consistent theory
of the operation of gravity.

To do this appears to be the purpose of
"Waterdale" in these "researches," as he
is pleased to call them. The book does not
seem to have met with a very favorable re-
ception in England, where it was published
in the summer of 1891, and the author,
therefore, prefaces the present volume with
a wearisome plaint over his lack of recogni-
tion by scientific men. A dip into the book,
which is all we have had time for, seems to
amply confirm the judgment of the English
scientific world. It may be that the author
has arrived at some valuable ideas on the
subject, but until he either puts them him-
self in readable English or has some one else
do it for him he has not much cause for
complaint if busy men refuse to spend time
in hunting for the kernel of truth which may
lie hidden.

Ethan Allen, the Robin Hood of Ver-
mont. By Henry Hall. New York :
D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 207.

The purpose of the author of this work,
who died, leaving it for his daughter to com-
plete, was " to make a fuller life of Allen
than has been written, and, singling him
from that cluster of sturdy patriots in the
New Hampshire Grants, to make plain the
vivid personality of a Vermont hero to the
younger generations." A picturesque hero
he is made to appear. Had the records
been less exact and romance been left to
deal unrestrained with his career, he might
in time have shone forth comparably with
the most airy heroes of ancient myth and
saga. He is compared with Robin Hood —
that is, the Robin Hood of Ivanhoe — whose
life was "an Anglo-Saxon protest against
Norman despotism," as Allen's life was " a
protest against domestic robbery and foreign
tyranny." Although never a citizen of the
United States, " he is one of the heroes of
the State and the nation." While we find
much about him to study profitably and ad-
mire, there are some features in his career
that we can not unqualifiedly commend for
imitation by our youth ; neither can we cen-
sure him, for he acted according to his con-
science, and consistently for a single end —
the freedom of Vermont. He is best known
for the capture of Fort Ticonderoga ; but

LITERARY NOTICES.

853

what he would have considered his most im-
portant service was the defense of the New
Hampshire Grants. This part of the story
reminds us much of some of the scenes of
the territorial history of Kansas. There is
the same mixture of lawlessness and submis-
sion to the law that the Free State men
showed there. It was a singular position
the New Hampshire grantees were in, of
acknowledging the political sovereignty of
New York, and opposing with violence its
conveyance of the lands they claimed by an-
other title. The story is well told, largely
in the words of the original documents.
Another most curious feature in Allen's ca-
reer is revealed in his coquetting with the
British for the recognition of Vermont's po-
sition, even at the expense of the United
States. As it is shown in this book, his con-
duct appears to have been controlled by
sound reason. Congress had not recognized
Vermont, and had refused to admit it to the
Union. What claim had the Government on
the allegiance of Allen or other Vermonters
who were thus denationalized, and forced, as
it were, to look out for Vermont alone?
Allen was ready to negotiate with Great
Britain or any authority that would secure
Vermont's independent position — and that
was all there was of it. The story of Allen's
capture at Montreal, his captivity and im-
prisonment, is graphically told, wholly in his
own words.

Toe Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. A
Popular Treatise on Early Archaeology.
By John Hunter Duvar. New York :
Macmillan & Co. Pp.285. Price, $1.25.

As this book claims to be no more than
a popular treatise, pains have been taken to
give it that character. It is a fairly full
treatise as to European archaeology, but less
so as to American, although most of the
more important recent American work is
mentioned. The subject is dealt with to
date, and in a very satisfactory manner.
The earlier chapters are occupied with the
consideration of the geological periods as
they relate to the appearance of man with
animals in the Tertiary, and man in the
Post-tertiary, the primeval condition of man,
the mastodon and other animals contempo-
rary with early man, and the presumed do-
mestic life of nomadic man (as primitive

man was supposed to be). The older stone
or palaeolithic age is characterized as the age
of ponderous flint clubs. Two chapters are
given severally to the cave-dwellers in Brit-
ain, and the cave-dwellers of other countries
than Britain — in which notice is taken of
American relics. Pursuing the subject, the
author finds a gap in the scale of gradation
between the close of the cave era and an
advanced system of weapons in which light
projectiles form the leading feature — the
newer stone or neolithic age. This is de-
scribed with considerable detail, both as to
the weapons and the articles of domestic use,
and is illustrated by a page of engravings of
typical mound-builders' arrow-heads. The
mound-builders have a chapter, and are sup-
posed to have been of a civilization about
equal to that of the Swiss lake-dwellers,
and of no higher antiquity. A chapter each
is devoted to the several topics of kitchen-
middens ; the age of bronze, pronounced the
shortest of the three ages, the lake-dwell-
ers, pottery, the iron age, sepulture (calms,
cromlechs or dolmens, barrows, etc.), fossil
man, myth, and art. The author regards
myth as not the invention of early man, but
the fruit of a period of growth ; and sup-
poses that the works of art found among
the relies, were the productions of specially
gifted persons, of whom there may not
have been more than one or two in an age,
and that they can not be regarded as indicat-
ing any extended art sense.

Manual Instruction : Wood- work (the Eng-
lish Sloyd). By S. Barter. London:
Whittaker & Co. New York : Macmillan
& Co. Pp. 343. Price, $2.

In this work, after an exposition of gen-
eral principles in the introduction, informa-
tion and instruction are given in drawing,
the varieties, qualities, etc., of timber and
other materials, bench-work, and the arrange-
ment and fittings of the workroom — furnish-
ing, among other things, the items of a com-
plete equipment for a class of twenty boys.
The chapter on bench-work contains twenty-
three exercises in mechanical operations of
wood-working, and thirty models of articles
that may be made. A preface is supplied
by Mr. George Ricks, who defines manual
training as " a special training of the senses
of sight, touch, and muscular perception by

8S4

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

means of various occupations ; and it is a
training of those faculties, not so much for
their own sake, though that is important, as
it is for the training of the mind. While
the eye is being trained to accuracy and the
hand to dexterity and manipulative skill, the
mind is being trained to observation, atten-
tion, comparison, and judgment." The main
object of this training is educational, to per-
fect the system of education, and so to raise
the standard of practical intelligence through-
out the community.

Essays upon Heredity, and Kindred Bio-
logical Problems. By Dr. August Weis-
mann. Edited by Edward B. Poulton
and Arthur E. Shipley. Vol. II. The
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1892. Pp. 226.
Price, $1.30.

This volume is made up from four essays
upon the general subject of the title. In the
first, Prof. Weismann describes the place
and importance of retrogression in the de-
velopment of animal life. The second essay
deals with the musical sense in man and ani-
mals and its relation to natural selection.
The third essay is controversial, and is an
answer to certain criticisms of the views of
Prof. Weismann on sundry biological ques-
tions. The last essay deals with the question
of the reproduction of life, and is concerned
with an attempt to understand the signifi-
cance of the physical facts of the reproduct-
ive process. The work is addressed to stu-
dents of biology, and requires acquaintance
with the present state of biological inquiry
to be read understandingly.

Contributions to North American Ethnol-
ogy. Vol. II, in Two Parts. The Kla-
math Indians of Southwestern Oregon.
By Albert Samuel Gatschet, and Vol.
VI. The Cegiha Language. By James
Owen Dorsey. Washington : Department
of the Interior.

The monograph contained in the two large
quarto parts of Volume II is a portion of the
results of the Geographical and Geological
Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region carried
on under the direction of Major J. W. Powell.
As described in Mr. Gatschet's letter of trans-
mittal it deals with the beliefs, legends, and
traditions of the Klamath Indians, their gov-
ernment and social life, their racial and so-
matic pecularities, and, more extensively, with
their language. The group of Indians herein

described comprises two chieftaincies, the
Klamath Lake Indians and the Modoc In-
dians, the latter celebrated for their stubborn
war with United States troops in 1872-'73.
About a hundred pages in the first part of
the monograph are devoted to an ethno-
graphical sketch, the other seven hundred
pages treating of the Klamath language and
giving many Klamath texts. The whole of
the second part is occupied with a dictionary
having Klamath-English and English-Kla-
math divisions.

The language treated in Volume VI is
the speech of the Omaha and Ponka tribes
of Indians. Mr. Dorsey was a missionary to
the latter tribe from 1871 to 1873, and re-
sided with the Omahas from 1878 to 1880.
The material of his monograph consists of
myths, stories, and letters obtained from the
Indians, with translations, both interlinear
and consecutive. A dictionary and a grammar
of the Cegiha language are in preparation.

Mathematical Recreations of Past and
Present Times. By W. W. Rouse Ball.
London and New York : Macmillan & Co.
Pp. 241. Price, $2.25.

This is a book of curious interest, and,
although the author confesses that the con-
clusions are of no practical use, and most of
the results are not new, is not uninstructive.
In the first of the two parts into which it is
divided various problems and amusements of
the kind usually termed mathematical recrea-
tions are described. In successive chapters
are discussed questions connected with arith-
metic, geometry, and mechanics ; magic
squares ; and unicurval problems. In the
second are discussed the three classical
problems in geometry of the duplication of
the cube, the trisection of an angle, and the
quadrature of the circle, astrology, hypothe-
ses as to the nature of space and mass,
and the means of measuring time. Ques-
tions that involve advanced mathematics are
excluded from both parts. Among the par-
ticular topics considered are the arts of col-
oring maps, of expressing conditions of phys-
ical geography by contour maps, games of
position, the familiar " ferry-boat problems,"
geometrical puzzles, paradoxes on motion
(sailing quicker than the wind, etc.), prob-
lems on force, inertia, work, stability of equi-
librium, etc., perpetual motion, the boome-

LITERARY NOTICES.

855

rang, the puzzle of fifteen, the tower of
Hanoi, Chinese rings, and the like; the
knight's path on the chess-board, the art of
traversing mazes, geometrical trees ; the
speculations on spaces of one, two, and
four dimensions ; and hypotheses concerning
matter and gravity. Some of these prob-
lems are trivial ; others are associated with
the names of distinguished mathematicians ;
while several of the memoirs quoted have
hitherto not been accessible to English
readers.

The Atlantic Ferry : Its Ships, Men, and
Working. By Arthur J. Maginnis. New
York : Macmillan & Co. Pp. 304. Price,

$2.

This is a book of general interest and
considerable historical value. Many inter-
esting articles on its subject have been pub-
lished in various periodicals, but none that
in themselves have covered the whole ground,
and given, as the author says, an idea of the
routine, forethought, and general arrange-
ments necessary to carry on such a far-
reaching organization as a great steamship
line, and which would set forth the efforts of
the men who have instituted and maintained
such enterprises, and the nature and results
of the more remarkable examples of vessels
and machinery which they have employed.
The effort has been made in this book to
cover this ground ; and the book gives the
history, from the earliest institution of At-
lantic steamers, of the several lines ; chap-
ters descriptive of the working, sailing ex-
periences, and machinery of the Atlantic
lines; notices of the men who have made
and conduct the Atlantic ferry ; sketches of
eventful passages and scenes, etc. ; facts
concerning the manning, expenses, and cost
of Atlantic lines ; and Atlantic records and
tables.

In the Elementary Geography of the Brit-
ish Colonics, published by Macmillan & Co.
as one of their Geographical Series (price, 80
cents), the part relating to the British pos-
sessions in North America, the West Indies,
and the southern part of the South Atlantic
Ocean, is contributed by Dr. George M. Daw-
son, of the Geological Survey of Canada ; and
that concerning the colonies, dependencies,
and protectorates in the northern part of the

South Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, Africa,
Asia, Australasia, and Oceania is contributed
by Mr. Alexander Sutherland, of Melbourne.
India and Ceylon are not included, but are
described in a separate volume of the Geo-
graphical Scries. In both departments the
descriptions are systematic, full, and satis-
factory; and the geography is a valuable
manual for whatever purpose such a work
may be required.

In his book on Electric Railway Engineer-
ing (Rubier Publishing Company, Lynn,
Mass.) the author, Mr. Edward Trevert, has
endeavored to make the subject as plain and
interesting as the present advance in the sci-
ence will admit. The book is written wholly
from an electrical point of view, and aims to
make clear all the points connected with the
management of electric railways. The power-
house and its apparatus, generators, the con-
struction of the line, motors, rheostats, elec-
tric heaters, trolleys, locomotives for heavy
traction, trucks, car-wiring, and the storage-
battery system are described and illustrated
in the chapters severally assigned to them.
Accounts are given of some illustrative roads,
and remarks for motor men and station men ;
and some miscellaneous matters are treated
of in the appendix. The author predicts a
brilliant future for electric railroading.

We published a few months ago a paper
by M. Charles Henry on Odors and the Sense
of Smell, which included many facts and
principles of great interest — some of them,
doubtless, novel to most of our readers. Prof.
Henry's full discussion of these subjects,
with technical observations, tables, etc.,
which were not appropriate to a popular arti-
cle, with descriptions of some special appa-
ratus he has invented and applied, are given
in a hand-book, Les Odcurs ; Demonstrations
pratiques avee V Olfactometre et le Phe-vapeur
(Odors; Practical Demonstrations with the
Olfactometer and Vapor-Balance), which is
published in Paris as a number of the Forney
Municipal Professional Library of Art and
Industry.

The Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment
of the Prevalent Epidemic of Quackery — an
address before the graduating class of a
medical school — by Dr. George M. Gould, is
devoted very largely to the denunciation of
homoeopathy. The offer of a prize of $100
is made for the best essay that shall, histori-

856

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

cally and actually, show up the ridiculous pre-
tensions of modern homoeopathic practice.
Other medical " vagaries," like " Keeleyism,"
patent medicines, advertising, etc., are at-
tacked with earnest vigor. Philadelphia.

A compendium of information is fur-
nished by Dr. P. C. Rcmondino, concerning
a region which is attracting much attention
on account of its climatic advantages, in his
book on The Mediterranean Shores of Amer-
ica (F. A. Davis & Co., Philadelphia, $1.25).
The preparation of the book was suggested
while the author was trying to unravel the
intricate and contradictory information that
is encountered in the study of climatology
and its relation to the etiology of phthisis.
Then he made a special study of his home
climate, or rather climates, for he distin-
guishes seven kinds in southern California.
The introduction is devoted to the discussion
of generalities concerning the various features,

several and collective, of climate, location

>

soil, altitude, exposure, sunshine, electrical
conditions, etc., and is followed by descrip-
tions of the several health resorts of the
region and their peculiarities.

A book describing The Chinese, their
Present and Future ; Medical, Political, and
Social (F. A. Davis, Philadelphia, $1.*75), is
by a Presbyterian medical missionary, Dr.
Robert Coltman, Jr., who became fascinated
with the peoples of the far East, and par-
ticularly with those of China, by reading ac-
counts of them in missionary journals and
books. He was disappointed in his reading
by a lack of detail and a meagerness of de-
scription, especially in regard to the social
state of the people and country at present,
and sought an opportunity to go and see for
himself. Hence the book may be regarded
as a labor of love. It gives a lively running
account of what the author saw, experienced,
and learned in northern China, throws many
side-lights on the social conditions of the
people of all classes, and adds chapters on
the missionaries and their works, business
opportunities, the present political situation
of the country, and its future prospects.

The Hygienic Treatment of Consumption
has been prepared by Dr. M. L. Holbrook to
advocate the treatment of consumption by
hygienic remedies, which are accessible to all
who have the intelligence and the wisdom to
acquire a knowledge of them and their ap-

plication. It is methodical, and in the first
part considers the nature and causes of the
disease. Among the latter are the predis-
posing causes of various kinds, and the ac-
cidents which often result in consumption,
and the micro-organisms as the immediate
cause. The second and third parts discuss
the prevention and treatment of consumption
in its earlier stages and in more advanced
cases. Most important of the remedies is
enlargement of the chest and lungs, both as
preventive and as curative measures in the
early stages of the disease. They are se-
cured through expansion by breathing, vocal
culture, and a large number of physical ex-
ercises which are described. Food, clothing,
the dwelling, horseback-riding, the will and
will power, and many other physical agencies
much neglected are discussed; also resting
in the open air at various seasons and its ad-
vantages. The book is written mainly for
the patient, who may select from the various
remedies such as are more especially adapted
to his needs. (M. L. Holbrook & Co., New
York.)

Phases of Animal Life Past and Present
(Longmans, $1.50) is the name of a collec-
tion of essays by R. Lydekker, which are in-
tended to illustrate in a popular manner a
few of the various modes in which animals
— especially vertebrates — are adapted to sim-
ilar conditions of existence; and also to
demonstrate some of the more remarkable
types of structure obtaining among the high-
er vertebrates. Special attention is given to
the curious creatures of past geological ages,
but living forms are not neglected. The
animals described are classed as " mail-
clad," " flying," " swimming," " primeval
salamanders," " fish lizards " (short-necked),
" plesiosaurs " (long-necked), " tortoises and
turtles," "giant land reptiles" (dinosaurs),
"flying dragons" (pterodactyles), "giant
birds," " egg - laying mammals " (mono-
tremes), " pouched animals " (marsupials),
and " dogs and bears," followed by chapters
on teeth and their variations, horns and ant-
lers, and rudimentary structures. The style
is clear and entertaining, the descriptions are
specific, and the illustrations are excellent.

A book published by Putnams, on Ma-
terialism and Modern Physiology of the Nerv-
ous System, is the substance of an address
that was delivered before the Philosophical

LITER All Y NO TICES.

>S7

Faculty of Columbia College, by William If.
Thomson. The author finds the expressions
of modern physiologists on the connection
between nerve and consciousness indefinite
and unsatisfactory. He examines the devel-
opment of the nervous system from the low-
est vertebrates up to man, and discussing
the questions at issue, concludes that there
is that in consciousness and mental opera-
tions that can not be accounted for by nerv-
ous action alone, but something must be
called in to assist ; therefore matter, force,
and consciousness are three distinct realities.
In Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth
(Macmillan), a study is presented by W. R.
Letliaby of the influence of Nature and men's
ideas of the universe and of divinity on their
art. The author distinguishes between the
common use of the term architecture, which
is rather applied to building, and the sense
in which he employs it, as " the synthesis
of the fine arts." " As the pigments are but
the vehicle of painting, so is building but
the vehicle of architecture, which is the
thought behind form, embodied and realized
for the purpose of its manifestation and
transmission." The two are regarded as
" quite clear and distinct as ideas — the soul
and the body." Of these enumerated ulti-
mate facts behind all architecture, which
have given it form, the author studies par-
ticularly the influence of the known and im-
agined facts of the universe, the connection
between the world as a structure and the
building as a whole. His study brings him
evidence " of a cosmical symbolism " in the
buildings of the younger world, and of the
intention in the idea of the temple " to set
up a local reduplication of the temple not
made with hands, the world temple itself."
Beginning with the form of the world in the
first chapter of his study, the three or four
chapters that follow deal with the relation of
the building to it as a whole, and the rest of
the work with parts and details. The book
is an interesting one, the argument is re-
enforced with citations from mythology and
folk lore, and the whole is appropriately
illustrated.

In Philosophy and Physical Science — an in-
augural address as professor in Adalbert Col-
lege— Mattoon Monroe Curtis turns the tables
on the champions of scientific culture, and
sets forth the claim that " philosophy is the

central discipline about which all others
cluster, and by which they are to be esti-
mated ; that upon the great problems of
physical science there is at present little
ground for sweeping generalizations and
rigid dogmatisms; that principles of faith
are the foundations of all our beliefs con-
cerning external realities ; that the specula-
tive elements in physical science are its most
prominent and necessary features ; and that
in all speculative questions wisdom com-
mands honesty, moderation, and charity."

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Bardeen, C. W. The Song Patriot. Syracuse,
N. Y. Pp. 80.

Beal, W. J., and Wheeler, C. F. Michigan

Flora. Agricultural College, Michigan. Pp. 180.

Black, George Ashton, and Carter, Kathleen.
Natural History Lessons. New York : Henry
Holt & Co. Pp. 98. Price, 54 cents.

Bolles, Lieutenant J. Dix, United States Navy.
Chinese Relics in Alaska. Pp. 1, with Plate.

Branner, J. C. Annual Report of the Geo-
logical Survey of Arkansas, for 1800. Little
Rock. Pp. 443.

Calmire. New York : Macmillan & Co. Pp.
742.

Cheritree, Olive E. The Book of Life. Evo-
lution. Vol. n, pp. 68.

Conn, H. W. The Fermentations of Milk.
Washington : United States Department of Agri-
culture. Pp. 75.

Dumble, E. T. Geological Survey of Texas.
Second Report of Progress. Austin. Pp.91.

Ewald, Dr. C. A. The Diseases of the Stomach.
Translated by Morris Manges. New York : D.
Appleton & Co. Pp. 497.

Fewkes, J. Walter. A Journal of American
Ethnology and Archeology. Vol. H. Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. Pp. 193.

Foster, Michael, and others, Editors. The
Journal of Physiology. Vol. XIII, No. 5. Cam-
bridge, England. Pp. 150, with Plates. $5 a
volume.

Griswold, W. M. The Continuous Index.
June-July, 1892. $2 a year.— Descriptive List of
Novels and Tales dealing with Life in France.
Pp. 100. $1. Both Cambridge, Mass.

Harrington, H. H. Preliminary Report on the
Soils and Waters of the Upper Rio Grande and
Pecos Valleys of Texas. Austin. Pp. 2(j.

Hill, Robert Thomas. On the Occurrence of
Artesian and other Underground Waters in Texas,
etc., west of the Ninety-seventh Meridian. Wash-
ington, D. C. : Department of Agriculture. Pp.
10U, with Map, etc.

Hvde, William Dewitt. Practical Ethics. New
York : Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 208.

James, Prof. Joseph F. Of the Age of the
Point Pleasant (Ohio) Beds. P. 1.— On Problem-
atic Organism and the Preservation of Alg;e as
Fossils. P. 1.

Jones, E. E. Constance. An Introrluction to
General Logic. New York : Longmans, Green
& Co., publishers.

Kedzie, R. C. Fertilizer Analyses. Michigan
Agricultural Experiment Station. Pp. 11.

Leverett, Frank. The Cincinnati Ice-dam.
P. 1.— On the Signification of the White Clays of
the Ohio Region. Pp. 7.

853

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Government and the
Boston : New Nation

Lewie, Abram Herbert, D. D. Paganism sur
viving in Chrifitianity. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Pp. 309.

Linn.-ran Society of New York. Abstract of
Proceeding* 10 March 2, 1892. Pp. 8.

Lnchsingi r, John. The Planting of the Swiss
c.lony ai New GlaruSjWis. Madison, Wis., State
Historical Society. Pp. 45.

MacAdie, Alexander. Shall we erect Light-
ning-rods ? Boston : Cinn & Co. Pp. 8.

Massachnsi tts Agricultural Experiment Station
Bulletin. Feeding Experiments with Milch Cows.
Pp. 16.

Mays, Thomas J., M. D. Pulmonary Phthisis
in its Relation to Insanity and other Neuroses.
Pp. 27.

Moorhead, Warren K. Primitive Man in Ohio.
G. P. Putnam's Sous. Pp. 240.

Morse, Edward S., Salem, Mass. On the Older
Forms of Terra cotta Roofing-tiles. Pp. 72.

Palm, Andrew J., Editor. The American
Journal of Politics. Vol. I, No. 1. Pp. 112. 35
cents, $4 a year.

Parsons, Prof. Frank
Law of Equal Freedom.
Publishing Co. Pp. 29.

Phillips, William B. Preliminary Report on a
Part of the Lower Gold Belt of Alabama. Mont-
gomery. Pp. 97.

Powers, Edward. Should the Rainfall Experi-
ments be continued ? Delavan, Wis. Pp. 15.

Prosser, Charles 8. The Devonian System of
Eastern Pennsylvania. Pp. 12.

Qabezon Qarlos. Notas sobre la Reforma Or-
tografica (Xotes on Orthographical Reform). San-
tiago Chili.

Riley, C. V. Reports of Observations and Ex-
periments in the Practical Work of the Division
of Entomology. Pp. 950— Reports on the Dam-
age by Destructive Locusts, during the Season of
1891. Pp. 04. Washington : Department of Ag-
riculture.

Scientific Alliance of New York. Second An-
nual Directory. Pp. 33. 25 cents.

Scripture, E. W. Education as a Science. Yale
University. Pp. 4.

Spencer, Herbert. Principles of Ethics. New
York : D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 572.

Sternberg, George M., M. D. Practical Re-
sults of Bacteriological Researches. Pp. 17.

Stetson. John B., University, De Land, Fla.
Annual Catalogue, 1891-'92. Pp. 44.

Tarr. R. S. Reconnaissance of the Guadalupe
Mountains. Pp. 42.

Trclcase, William, St. Louis. Detail Illustra-
tions of Yucca, and Description of Agave Engel-
manni. Pp. 10, with 24 Plates.

Turnbull, M. M. The Free-trade Struggle in
England. Chicago : Open Court Publishing Co.
Pp. 288. 75 cents.

United States National Museum, Washington :
Notes on Avian Entozoa. By Ldwin Linton. Pp.
25, with Plates. — Contributions toward a Mono-

fraph of the Noctuidse of Boreal America. By
ohn B. Smith. Pp. 48, with Plates —On a Col-
lection of Birds made by H. Y. Henson, in Japan.
By Leonhard Stejneger. Pp. 72, with Plate.—
Fishes collected in Mexico by Prof. Duges. By
Tarleton H. Bean, M. D. Pp. 8, with Plate.— Cat-
alogue of Crabs of the Family Periceridaj. By
Mary J. Rathbttn. Pp. 50, with Plates.— Corystoid
Crabs of the Genera Telmessus and Erimacrus.
By James E. Benedict. Pp. 8, with Plates.— An-
notated List of Shells of San Pedro Bay and
Vicinity. By Mrs. Burton M. Williamson. Pp.
40, with Plates.— The Fishes of San Diego. By
Carl H. Eigenmann. Pp. 56, with Plates.— A New
Genus and Sped s of Blind Cave Salamander. By
Leonhard Stejneger. Pp. 3, with Plate.— The
Evolution of House-building among the Navajo
Indians. Pp. 4, with Plates. A Maid of Wol-

pai. Pp. 3, with Plate. Both by R. W. Shu-
feldt, M. D.— The Materials of the Earth's Crust.
Bv (ieorge P. Merrill. Pp. 100, with Plates.— The
Liu, or Woman's Knife of the Eskimo. By Otis
T. Mason. Pp. 4, with many Plates.— The Methods
of Fire-making. By Walter Hough. Pp. 13, with
Phite.— The Ainos of Yezo, Japan. By Romyn
Hitchcock. Pp. 75, with Plates.— The Log of the
Savannah. By J. Elfreth Watkins. Pp. 24, with
Plates.— The Catlin Collection of Indian Paint-
ings. By Washington Matthews. Pp. 18. with
Plates.— Anthropology at the Paris Exhibition in
18X9. By Thomas Wilson. Pp. 40.

United States Postal Guide, July, 1892. Phil-
adelphia : G. F. Lasher. $2 a year.

Waterdale Researches, or Fresh Light on the
Dynamic Action and Ponderosity of Matter.
London : Chapman & Hall. Pp. 293.

Wells. Charles R. Natural-movement Method
in Writing. Syracuse, N. Y. : C. W. Bardeen.
Pp. 44. 25 cents.

Whitimore, E. B., Rochester, N. Y. Relating
to the Disposition of some of the Stars in our
Region of Space. Pp. 20.

Who inspires our Modern Bishops ? London :
William Reeves. Pp. 16.

Willard, Deforest. M.D., and Lloyd, James
Hendrie, M. D. A Case of Porencephalon in
which Trephining was done, etc. Pp. 7.

Williams, Samuel G. The History of Modern
Education. Syracuse, N. Y. : C. W. Bardeen.
Pp. 395. $1.50.

Wolf, Alfred R. Some Moral Factors in the
Engineer's Career. Pp. 8.

Yale Observatory. Report for 1891-'G2. New-
Haven, Conn. Pp. 26.

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

Scientific Work of Rochester, N. Y.—

A large part of the address of Mayor Cur-
ran, of Rochester, to the American Associa-
tion on its meeting in that city was devoted
to the scientific record of the city. While
the people showed their mental activity in
numerous material applications and business
enterprises, he was also able to point with
pride to the advances made in scientific re-
search by certain of the population, quietly
and without ostentation. The Rochester Mi-
croscopical Society was organized in 1 879, and
has become the largest in the United States.
From this beginning sprang the Rochester
Academy of Science in 1881. It was divided
into twelve sections, including anatomy,
astronomy, botany, entomology, conchology,
hygiene, ichthyology, infusoria, literature,
microscopy, photography, and taxidermy.
Its establishment gave a great impetus to
scientific work, and afforded the citizens a
clearer conception of what was being done.
Among individual cultivators of science, Mr.
H. C. Maine, editor of a daily paper, has dis-
tinguished himself by his careful observa-
tions of the sun, carried on through many
years, and his theories as to the connection

POPULAR MISCELLANY.

859

between solar disturbances and terrestrial
meteorology. He has successfully photo-
graphed the sun and the moon with instru-
ments of his own manufacture, and has
gained fame as a microscopist by his ar-
rangement of diatom test plates. Mr. Lewis
Swift, another astronomer, " for years, while
engaged in the occupation of hardware mer-
chant, devoted every clear night to his favor-
ite study, perched upon an apple-barrel on
the near-by flat roof of a rickety cider-mill.
Here, while inhaling the pure air of heaven
from above, mingled with the fumes of acet-
ic and pomic acids from below, he scanned
the skies night after night with an absurdly
inferior instrument. But perseverance and
love for the science, in the absence of a well-
equipped tower, urged him to discovery after
discovery, forcing the great astronomers of the
world reluctantly to acknowledge the power
and genius of the man on the cider-mill." He
has been the first discoverer of ten comets,
the last one a most remarkable one with
twelve tails, and has observed nine hundred
and seventy new nebulae. Rochester is the
home of Prof. Ward, the learned biologist,
whose labors and undertakings in behalf of
science are well known in both hemispheres.
It was there, too, that Lewis H. Morgan, an-
thropologist, lived, labored, and died. The
University of Rochester some years ago be-
gan teaching anthropology to a small class ;
other institutions followed the example ; but
" to this university belongs the credit of
having introduced or added in America this
important branch to its curriculum." Side
by side with scientific labor in the city has
grown an optical manufactory which holds
a position peculiarly its own. In short, sci-
entific activity has taken deep root in Roch-
ester, and " is there to stay."

The Temperature of the Brain. — From
observations made upon animals under vari-
ous narcotics or anaesthetics, and man, with
an instrument capable of detecting changes
of not more than 0'002° C, Prof. Moso has
found that, as a rule, the temperature of the
brain is lower than that of the rectum, but
that intense psychical processes or the action
of exciting chemical substances may cause it
to remain 0-2° or 0-3° higher. An ordinary
interrupted current causes a rise in the tem-
perature, which is observed earlier in the

brain than elsewhere. Observations made
on an animal when awake seem to show that
the development of heat due to cerebral me-
tabolism is considerable, and that the mere
maintenance of consciousness belonging to the
wakeful state, apart from all intense psychical
activity, involves considerable chemical ac-
tion and consequent change in temperature.
But the variations of temperature as a result
of attention, or of pain or other sensations,
are very small ; and when an animal is con-
scious no change of consciousness, no psychi-
cal activity, however brought about experi-
mentally, produces more than a slight effect
on the temperature of the brain.

Roasted Potato-pulp. — A new method
of preparing and preserving potatoes — to be
fed to cattle or to be made the basis of dishes
for the table — has been devised by M. Aime
Girard, of the Conservatoire des Arts et
Metiers, Paris. The potatoes having been
ground, the pulp is exposed to pressure for
the exclusion of all the water that can be
removed by mechanical means. The pulp is
then sliced and heated in a furnace till it is
entirely dried, at a temperature high enough
to give it a pleasant taste, without being so
high as to convert the starch into dextrin.
The substance thus prepared is called by the
inventor torrefied pulp, and is suitable for
feeding to cattle. With boiling water it
forms a palatable soup ; ground and mixed
with wheaten or rye flour it forms a good
breadstuff.

Saxon Mnsical Instruments. — According
to the report of the Turkish consul at Leip-
sic, the making of musical instruments has
been from time immemorial the occupation
of the mountain villages of Klingenthal,
Georgenthal, Upper and Lower Lachsenfeld,
and Gera, in Saxony, and the instruments
are exported to all countries. Musical ma-
chines— aristons and orchestrions — are made
in Leipsic itself at six factories. Some of
the manufacturers in the country at large are
famous, like Herr J. Bluthner, who has
bought large forests in Galicia and Poland,
so that he can provide his own woods. The
factories do much work for tropical countries,
whither they send instruments the inner
parts of which are chiefly of iron. The
manufacture of German organs, harmoniums,

86o

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and accordeons is a specialty of Gcra. The
manufacture of physical, optical, and medi-
cal instruments is one of the special occupa-
tions in the forest of Thuringia. For many
years the people of Ilmenau, Mauebach, and
Stutzerbach have devoted themselves almost
entirely to the construction of thermometers,
barometers, baroscopes, and hygrometers.
Whole families are engaged in the work;
and children are set upon it from a very early
age. It is a surprising sight, on roads dis-
tant from the centers of trade, to see whole
trains of wagons loaded with physical instru-
ments. The products of this manufacture
are much appreciated in Germany. Their
construction is perfect; their accuracy is
guaranteed by a royal commission at Ilme-
nau ; and many of the universities and doctors
supply themselves directly from the country.

Snails of Mountain and Plain. — The in-
fluence of the medium on variation has been
specially studied by M. A. Locard in the case
of land-mollusks, or snails. First among
these elements considered is altitude. It
seems a simple matter, but is really compli-
cated, and includes among other elements
those of temperature, light, ventilation, and
food resources, the respective actions of which
are hard to separate. The author takes them
all in one. The same species of snails are
often found at the level of the sea and in the
mountains. But the number of individuals
greatly diminishes as the altitude increases,
under the influence, apparently, of the varia-
tions in certain vital conditions. There are
species, however, so well adapted to life in
elevated situations that they do not thrive
elsewhere. The Helix alpina, for instance,
lives only in the mountains. Though indi-
viduals of the species readily and constantly
stray into the valleys, they do not form stocks
there. As between the species of the mount-
ains and of the plains, the former are smaller,
and have thinner and plainer colored shells.
With increase of heat, below the degree of
intensity at which existence is threatened,
the size increases. Many species attain
double the size they reach in France, while
species transported from Algeria to France
shrink to one fourth the dimensions they
have in their native habitat. The character
of the shell is affected by variations in the
soil. Calcareous districts are rich in mol-

lusks, while those in which the soil is sili-
cious are poor in them, and the animals them-
selves are smaller and less vigorous. The
difference may be experimentally verified by
feeding half a lot of snails upon plants grow-
ing in sandy ground and the other half with
plants from calcareous soil ; a great difference
will be perceived in the size of the shells.

Size and Shape of Rain-drops. — Mr. E.

J. Lowe has made more than three hundred
sketches of rain-drops, and has gathered
some interesting facts respecting their varia-
tion in size, form, and distribution. Sheets
of slate in a book form, which could be in-
stantly closed, were employed. These were
ruled in inch squares, and after exposure the
drops were copied on sheets of paper ruled
like the slates. Some drops produce a wet
circular spot ; while others, falling with
greater force, have splashes around the
spots. The same drop varies considerably
in the amount of water it contains. The
size of the drop ranges from an almost in-
visible point to at least two inches in di-
ameter. Occasionally large drops fall that
must be more or less hollow, as they fail to
wet the whole surface inclosed within the
drop. Besides the ordinary rain-drops the
author exhibited to the Royal Meteorological
Society diagrams showing the drops pro-
duced by a mist floating along the ground,
and also the manner in which snow-flakes, on
melting, wet the slates.

Geographical Work of 1891. — In his

annual address as President of the Royal
Geographical Society Sir Montstuart E. Grant
Duff, reviewing the incidents of the geo-
graphical exploration accomplished during
the year, noticed Mr. Merzbacher's work in
the Caucasus and Mr. Howell's ascent of
Oraefa Jokull in Iceland as the chief mount-
aineering feats. In Asia military explora-
tion had gone on steadily on the northern
frontiers, and the society was making efforts
to have the results of such work made more
accessible to the public. Lord Lamington's
journey in the Shan states, and Captain
Bower's and Dr. Thorold's adventurous cross-
ing of Thibet also opened up new ground. In
Africa, Mr. A. E. Floyer crossed the Egyp-
tian Desert from Assouan to the Red Sea;
and in the region of the Great Lakes Cap-

P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY.

861

tain Lugard, Emin Pasha, Dr. Stuhlman, and
the late Father Schynse have added to our
knowledge. The Italians have been ener-
getic in exploring Somaliland, and the
French, despite the disaster to M. Crampel,
have not abandoned their efforts to reach
Lake Tchad from the west. Captain Gall-
wey and Mr. Gilbert T. Carter have made
important discoveries in Lagos and Benin.
Mr. Bent's well-known exploration of Zim-
babwe, and Mr. Joseph Thomson's study of
Lake Bangweola, which ill-health still pre-
vents him from writing up, are the most im-
portant pieces of work in South Africa. Sir
William MacGregor has been very active in
opening up British New Guinea.

The New Element Masrinni. — The prob-
able existence of a new element is reported
in the Chemiker Zeitung. It occurs in a
mineral which was discovered in 1890 by
Johnson Pasha in the bed of one of the
dried-up old rivers of Upper Egypt — a fibrous
variety of a mixed aluminum and iron alum
containing ferrous, manganous, and cobalt-
ous oxides ; in addition to which is a small
quantity of the oxide of another element,
having properties different from those of
any yet known. The supposed element has
been named masrium (Ms), from the Arabic
name for Egypt, and the mineral masrite.
Its atomic weight has been approximately
determined at 228, which nearly corresponds
with the number (225) for which an element
is wanted by the periodic system in the beryl-
lium-calcium group. The monoxide has been
obtained, and several salts.

Personality in Animals. — We are accus-
tomed to take but little account, says Le
Monde de la Science et de V Industrie, of the pos-
session of a sense of personal responsibility
by animals, but if we look carefully into the
matter we shall find that it is an important
trait among many of them. Many animals
know how to impose rules of conduct upon
themselves, to assign themselves duties, and
to observe them. Their females attend to
the wants of their young before securing
their own provision of food ; the sentiment
of the relations of command and obedience
is obvious in social animals, like monkeys,
deer, elephants, buffaloes, and birds of pas-
sage. The shepherd-dog controls the flock

that is intrusted to his care with as much
authority and self-confidence as his master
himself. The imposition of restrictions upon
themselves exists among animals to the ex-
tent that is necessary for the maintenance of
their health. Capacity to adapt its work to
the laws of Nature is perceptible in the bird
building its nest, as it is in the architect who
is constructing a monument. The fox is a
skillful constructor of the kind of burrow
best adapted to its needs. All these ani-
mals exercise a precise action upon their
medium for a definite purpose. Dogs seem
to have complete consciousness of their ex-
istence, and their slightest actions accord
with that view. They hunt with as much
ardor as men, and seem to take a genuine
interest in incidents of the expedition ; they
prance with joy when successful, and drop
their tails after failure. What right have
we to deny them consciousness ? The rudi-
ments of what we regard as the real bases
of personality certainly exist, in a more or
less marked degree, in even the inferior ani-
mals. If man is a person and derives rights
and duties from the fact, so also, to a certain
extent, are the elephant, the dog, and the
fox, each in its way. It is easier to talk
about the gulf that separates man from the
other animals than to measure it.

Soldering Metals to Glass. — According to
the Pharmaceutical Record, an alloy of nine-
ty-five parts of tin and five parts of copper
will connect metals with glass. The alloy is
prepared by pouring the copper into the
molten tin, stirring with a wooden mixer,
and afterward remelting. It adheres strong-
ly to clean glass surfaces and has the same
rate of expansion as glass. By adding from
one half to one per cent of lead or zinc, the
alloy may be rendered softer or harder, or
more or less easily fusible, as required. It
may also be used for coating metals, to which
it imparts a silvery appearance.

Age of the Central American Monu-
ments.— As a result of his studies of the
monuments of Central America and Yucatan,
Mr. Alfred P. Mandelay announces in Na-
ture the conclusions that the southern ruins,
including Palenque, Copan, and Quirigua,
are much more ancient than those of Yuca-
tan, and were probably in full decay before

862

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the Spaniards entered the country ; while in
Yucatan, whore the Spaniards first came in
contact with Indians who used stone as a
building material, some of the ruined struct-
ures now to be seen were inhabited by the
natives at the time of the conquest. The
author believes that the civilized portion of
the Maya race have at some time occupied
all the country lying between the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec and the western frontiers of
Honduras and Salvador, excepting perhaps a
strip of country along the Pacific seaboard ;
that this people spoke the same or nearly
allied languages, which they wrote or carved
in the same script ; that they were followers
of the same religion ; and that they built
stone-roofed temples and houses decorated
with the same class of design and ornament.
At the time of the Spanish conquest they
had abandoned their towns and religious
centers south of Yucatan, though from the
present condition of the mines it could not
have been many years before ; while in Yu-
catan, where they probably still occupied
some of the buildings, they were in a state
of decadence, and many of the larger centers
of population had been abandoned, although
the more important religious edifices may
still have been reverenced and kept in re-
pair. The early Spanish writers speak of
large numbers of books written and pre-
served by the natives of Yucatan. They
were written in the Maya language, and in
characters called hieroglyphical. The Span-
iards destroyed all of these books they could,
thinking them the work of the devil, but
copies of three of them escaped, and are
preserved in European museums. The char-
acters in which they are written are similar
to those of the inscriptions on the monu-
ments ; and both are believed to be in a
language that is still living and spoken in
the region, although it has probably been
much changed in the course of years.

The Sargasso Sea. — A theory of the
Sargasso Sea is proposed by M. Krummel,
different from that of Humboldt, which was
based, he avers, on less complete obser-
vations than we have now. This sea is
in the form of an ellipse with the major
axis nearly following the tropic of cancer.
Around the principal ellipse are other larger
ones, in which the vegetation is not so thick,

and the forms of which are affected by pre-
vailing winds. M. Krummel believes that
the sea-weeds come from the shore regions
of the Gulf of Mexico, the Antilles, Florida,
and the Bahamas, and not from the bottom
of the sea, as was formerly supposed, and is
in this supported by recent observations
of the Gulf Stream. This current is now
believed to be the resultant of numerous
currents coming from the Antilles, and there-
fore to carry a much larger quantity of sea-
weed than was formerly supposed. These
sea-weeds reach the Sargasso region in about
fifteen days after they enter the Gulf Stream.
They are carried slowly onward toward the
Azores till they become water-logged and
sink, to give place to others.

Secular and Periodic Changes in Lati-
tude.— A committee appointed by the Ameri-
can Association to secure data with regard
to secular and periodical changes in latitude,
reported that the investigation could best be
made in a method suggested by Prof. S.
Newcomb, of observations at three stations
somewhere near the same parallel of lati-
tude, but in widely different longitudes ; the
observations to be extended over a sufficient
interval of time to secure the elimination of
any effect arising from the recently discov-
ered short-period variations in the latitude.
Such a series of observations, followed after
an interval of from ten to twenty years by
another similar series, would furnish suit-
able evidence on the subject. It seems ad-
visable also to utilize as far as possible
some of the older determinations of latitude
at American stations, particularly the Bond-
Peirce determination at Cambridge in 1845
and the earlier Coast Survey determinations.
New observations are already promised at
Cambridge and Washington. The more de-
tailed recommendations of the committee, in
harmony with these views, were approved by
the Association.

Remedies for Defective Color-vision. —

A committee of the Royal Society appointed
to consider the question of testing for de-
fective color-vision has made a report rec-
ommending that a schedule be made of
employments in the mercantile marine and
on railways, the filling of which by persons
whose vision is defective, or who are igno-

NOTES.

863

rant of the names of colors, would involve
danger to life and property ; that the test-
ing should be compulsory, and intrusted to
examiners certificated by the central author-
ity ; that Holmgren's test be used for color-
vision, and that after passing it the candi-
date be required to name without hesitation
the colors that are employed as signals or
lights, and also white light ; that rejected
candidates have a right of appeal ; that can-
didates rejected for naming colors wrongly
who are proved to possess normal color-
vision be allowed to be re-examined after a
proper interval of time; that certificates of
the qualifications of candidates be given,
and schedules of the results of examinations
be sent up every year ; that persons filling
the scheduled employments be examined
every third year for form-vision ; that the
tests, etc., be inspected periodically; that
signal colors of ships and railways be as far
as possible uniform; and that witnesses in
judicial inquiries arising out of these matters
be themselves tested for color and form
vision.

A Curious Accident by Lightning. — A

singular wholesale effect of a stroke of light-
ning occurred at Bourges, France, on the
4th of May. A detachment of soldiers was
hastening to get under shelter from an ap-
proaching storm, when the whole body were
thrown by the lightning upon their faces.
One man, who was a little distance away
and in the rear, was also affected, but not
so seriously. Most of the men rose imme-
diately, but four remained prostrated for a
little while, and one was killed. The men
say they felt violent blows in the nape of the
neck and the legs, and a sensation of burn-
ing. None of the men saw the lightning,
except an officer in front, who was facing
them.

Types of Indian Beauty. — In an interest-
ing paper on Indian Types of Beauty, Dr. R.
W. Shufeldt has collected portraits, with
personal descriptions, of specimens represent-
ing several tribes of the Southwest, including
a Navajo man and his wife Anserino ; Iza-
shima, a belle of the Laguna Pueblo ; the
daughter and the wife of Paliwahtiwa, gov-
ernor of Zuni ; a girl of Moqui ; Natuende,
an Apache maiden ; Sowatcha and Luli-pah,

married Mojave women ; and a Yuma squaw.
The Yumas never have as good-looking
women among them as are to be found
among the Mojaves ; and, in the author's
opinion, " the prettiest and most intelligent
faces of all are possessed by the young un-
married girls of the pueblos."

Kerosene as a Preventive of Mosqui-
toes.— Mr. L. 0. Howard, of Washington,
read an interesting paper before the Associa-
tion of Economic Entomologists in Washing-
ton, on averting the mosquito plague by treat-
ing the breeding-spots of the pests with
kerosene. He gave the details of some ac-
curate experiments made during the first
part of July, which indicated that ninety-six
thousand square feet of water can be cov-
ered by one barrel of kerosene, at the cost of
$4.50. The effect of the treatment is that
the eggs and early stages of the mosquito
are destroyed, and all the female mosquitoes
alighting upon the surface of the water for
the purpose of laying their eggs will be
killed. The deadly effects on insects of such
application will remain for at least two
weeks, and will outlast all evidence by the
smell of the presence of kerosene.

NOTES.

A committee of five members, chosen
from different sections, was appointed by the
American Association to act with the corre-
sponding committee of the World's Congress
of the Columbian Exposition respecting such
matters as may appropriately come under its
cognizance.

The report of the American Associa-
tion's committee on indexing chemical litera-
ture recommends that communications be
entered into with the Royal Society, so that
a perfect index can be prepared. It was de-
cided to appoint a committee to secure a
certain number of experts to work on the
index which is to be published by the Smith-
sonian Institution.

The credit for the introduction of man-
ual training into the public schools is claimed
by Director J. L. Tadd, of the Public Indus-
trial Art School of Philadelphia, for Mr.
Charles G. Leland, who was chiefly instru-
mental in influencing the board to make the
first attempt, Mr. Leland was a skilled hand-
worker as well as literary man, and had a
complete idea of the practical side of the
question as well as of the theoretical. The
teachers in the Philadelphia school think

864

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

the results in their general studies are im-
proved by the relaxation and change given
by manual-training work in and between their

own studies.

Phof. W J McGEB adduced a consider-
able number of reasons at the Niagara Falls
Excursion of the American Association for
supposing that the recession of the Falls from
Lewiston to their present position has occu-
pied about seven thousand years — he regard-
ing Prof. N. H. Wine-hell's estimate of seven-
ty-eight hundred years as probably the best.
" On comparing this estimate with the march
of the secular seasons," he says, " a remark-
able coincidence is observed ; for, since the
longitude of perihelion is now 99° 30', the
middle of the last Platonic winter, which is
now just past in the southern hemisphere,
occurred seventy-one hundred years ago.
This coincidence strengthens the suggestion
of interdependence between cosmic and ter-
restrial conditions, and affords a basis for
comparing the natural time-unity of the as-
tronomer with the semi-arbitrary periods of
the geologist ; and so the date of the last
ice invasion recorded in the moraine-fringed
glacial deposit may be provisionally fixed at
seventy-one hundred years ago."

In his address before the Anthropologi-
cal Section of the American Association on
The Evolution of the Esthetic, Mr. W. H.
Holmes maintained that creations of art are
growths the same as are the products of
Nature, and are subject to the same inexo-
rable laws of genesis and evolution. The
several branches of testhetic art — painting,
architecture, sculpture, music, and the drama
— were reviewed, and their growth and evolu-
tion illustrated in support of this thesis.

The American Association decided to ask
Congress for a reduction of the tariff on
scientific instruments and periodicals ; also
to ask it to take steps for the preservation
of the ancient ruins which are situated on
Government lands.

Dr. H. Molisch, after investigation of
the subject, denies that iron is present in
chlorophyl, having never found a trace of it
in that substance. He says that iron occurs
in plants in two forms — in that of ordinary
iron-salts, and in the " masked " condition,
in which it is so closely combined with or-
ganic substances that the ordinary reagents
fail to detect it. In this form iron occurs
both in the cell-wall and in the cell-contents,
but does not enter into the living proto-
plasm.

The experiments of Mr. A. J. Cook, of
the Agricultural College of Michigan, appear
to show that bees require eleven pounds of
honey to enable them to secrete one pound
of wax.

The statement of Mr. George F. Kunz,
that the hardness of diamonds is not percepti-

bly reduced by cutting and polishing, is con-
firmed in .Science by Mr. W. A. Rogers, of
Colby University, who has had much expe-
rience in ruling with diamonds.

According to a paper by T. Forster, of
Amsterdam, the bacteria which produce the
light of phosphorescence are able to multi-
ply and develop at the freezing-point of
water. They not only live in the sea, but are
met with in brackish and fresh water, upon
victuals, manures, etc. This agrees with the
fact that victuals kept for some days in an
ice-chamber gradually assume a disagree-
able smell and taste ; and that meat can be
preserved from putrefaction for days, but
not for weeks. If foods are to be preserved
at a low temperature for a long time, be-
sides cold, a second element is necessary —
dryness.

Dr. H. J. Tylden, of England, has re-
cently died of typhoid fever, after having
been engaged in investigations of the etiol-
ogy of the disease — in which, it is supposed,
he contracted it. He had recently published
an article in Nature on The Bearing of Pathol-
ogy upon the Doctrine of the Transmission
of Acquired Characters.

A wild-flower exhibition — the fourth of
the kind — was recently held in Edinburgh,
Scotland, and is described by Mr. W. R.
Lazenby in Garden and Forest. It com-
prised seventeen hundred entries, including
hand-bouquets, baskets, bouquets of heather
and thistles, of heather and bluebells, of
wild grasses, of white heather, of wild ferns
in rustic baskets, wreaths of wild roses and
honeysuckles, collections of dried wild flow-
ers and of dried leaves of native trees taste-
fully mounted, crosses of wild flowers, and
window flower-boxes. All, with the excep-
tion of the last class, was the work of chil-
dren. The exhibition is given under the
auspices of a juvenile paper of the city.

A correspondent of the London Spec-
tator tells of a horse in India which lately
defended its master and saved his life
against a murderous attack made upon him.
Lieutenant Robertson, of the Engineers, when
out riding, was joined by a Ghazi — which is
Oriental for champion — entered into a friend-
ly conversation with him, then into a race
— and beat him. The Ghazi then attacked
the English officer with his tulwar and in-
flicted a severe gash upon his neck. " When
Lieutenant Robertson fell off his horse, and
was lying on the ground bleeding profusely,
the faithful animal protected his master
from further injury by kicking at the Ghazi
and attempting to bite him. But for this
remarkable behavior on the part of Lieuten-
ant Robertson's horse, it is supposed that the
Ghazi would have probably hacked Lieuten-
ant Robertson to death." The Ghazi was
seen by two Indian boys, was caught and
identified, and sentenced to be hanged.

IKDEX,

ARTICLES MARKED WITH AN ASTERISK ARE ILLUSTRATED.

ru,i;

Abbott, Charles C. Delaware Indian, The, as an Artist.* 586

Accidents, Incalculable. W. A. Eddy 666

Adams, John Coleman. A Chapter in Meteorological Discovery 787

Adams, John Couch, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 545

Agriculture, Energy as a Factor in. M. Miles. 87

Air, Bad, and Bad Health. H. Wager, and A. Herbert 07

Air, Liquid, and Liquid Oxygen. (Misc.) 714

Allen, Grant. A Desert Fruit 109

Almond Culture in California. H. J. Philpott 328

Aloe, American, Flowering Habit of the. (Corr.) G. Pyburn 41 '■■)

American Association, The Rochester Meeting of the (Editor's Table) 84(1

Ancient Civilization, The, of America. J. S. Newberry 387

Animal Friends, Miss North's. (Misc.) 428

" Versatile. (Misc.) 718

Animals, Miss North and her. (Misc.) 571

" Personality in. (Misc.) 801

Anthropological Work in America. * F. Starr , . . 28'J

" " in Europe.* F. Starr 54

Anthropology at the World's Fair. (Misc.) 561

" Value of the Applications of. (Misc.) 570

Assertion, Power of. (Misc.) 140

Atmosphere, Variety of Motions in the. (Misc.) . 713

Barrel-making. (Misc.) 502

Bartram, William, Portrait of. (Misc.) 501

Beaulieu, Anatole Leroy. State Intervention in Social Economy 403

Bibliolatry, The Decline of. T. H. Huxley 594

Biological Physiology. (Misc.) 285

Birds, Stronghold of. (Misc.) 284

Bolles, Frank. Ways of the Owl. * 313

Bolton, II. Carrington. Historical Notes on the Gold-cure 404

Books noticed 127, 268, 416, 553, 702, 849

Allen, H. Addresses on Anatomy, 133. Bailey, L. II. Cross-breeding and Ilybridiz-

American Journal of Morphology, vol, v, ing, 706.

No. 3, 422. Baldwin, Joseph. Psychology applied to

Armstrong, J. E., and J. H. Norton. Labo- the Art of Teaching, 7(M.

ratory Manual of Chemistry, 558. Ball, YV. W. R. Mathematical Recreations

Aulde, J. Pocket Pharmacy, 273. of Past and Present Times, 854.

Bacon, B. W. Genesis of Genesis, 12S. Ballance, C. A., ami W. Edmnnda. Liga-

vol. xli. — 03

S66

INDEX.

Books noticed :

tion of the Great Arteries in Continuity,
128.

Barnes, A. Agriculture of South America,
708.

Barter, S. Manual Instruction : Wood-
work, 853.

Beardmorc, W. L. Drainage of Habitable
Dwellings, 708.

Benedict, W. R. Psychological Table, 709.

Black, G. A. History of Municipal Land
Ownership on Manhattan Island. 424.

Bolton, H. C. Scientific Correspondence of
Joseph Priestley, 130.

Bottone, S. R. Guide to Electric Lighting,
419.

Brinton, D. G. Studies in South American
Native Languages, 707.

Brockney, F. J. Essentials of Physics,
274.

Bryant, W. M. World-energy and its Self-
conservation, 556.

Carlyle, Thomas. Last Words of, 555.

Cheney, S. P. Wood-notes Wild, 424.

Chisholm, G. G., and C. H. Leete. Long-
mans' New School Atlas, 705.

Ciaffli, F. Baratto dei Biglietti di Banca,
706.

Citizens' Money. A. B. Westrup, 425.

Claus, C. Elementary Test-book of Zool-
ogy, 131.

Colbert, E. Humanity in its Origin and
Early Growth, 708.

Coltman, R. The Chinese, their Present
and Future, 856.

Columbia College. Report of the President,
1891, 421.

Comstock, T. B. Resources of the Central
Mineral Region of Texas, 134.

Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Sta-
tion, Report, 421.

Cowperthwait, J. H. Money, Silver, and
Finance, 557.

Creighton, C. History of Epidemics in
Britain, 554.

Crosby, O. T., and L. Bell. The Electric
Railway in Theory and Practice, 129.

Curtis, M. M. Philosophy and Physical
Science, 857.

Davies, C. Elementary Algebra, 423.

Davies, N. S., Jr., M. D. Consumption ;
how to Prevent it, and how to Live with
it, 423.

Denning, D. Art and Craft of Cabinet-mak-
ing, 274.

Dolbear, A. E. Matter, Ether, and Motion,
851.

Dorsey, J. O. The Cegiha Language, 854.

Douglas, C. A. Financial History of Mas-
sachusetts, 425.

Duvar, J. H. The Stone, Bronze, and Iron
Ages, 853.

Encyclopedic Scientiflque des Aide-memoire,
420.

Engineering and Mining Journal. Mineral
Statistics for 1691, 423.

Evans, T. American Citizenship, 275.

Falkener, E. Games, Ancient and Oriental,
556.

Fernow, B. E. Timber Physics, 708.

Findlay, G. Working and Management of
an English Railway, 271.

Fisher, A. B. (Buckley). Moral Teachings
of Science, 268.

Fiske, J. Discovery of America, 416.

Flick, T. Three Circuits, 419.

Flower, W. H. Horse, The, 270.

Fliigel, E. Thomas Carlyle's Moral and Re-
ligious Development, 134.

Food, Monthly, 706.

Fraenkel, C. Text-book of Bacteriology,
128.

Fryer, J. Chinese Scientific and Industrial
Magazine, 273.

Gage, S. H. Microscope and Histology,
134.

Gatschet, A. S. The Klamath Indians of
Southwestern Oregon, 854.

Geography. Elementary, of the British Colo-
nies, 855.

Good Roads. I. B. Potter, Editor, 422.

Gordon, H. L. Feast of the Virgins, and
other Poems, 424.

Gould, G. M. Etiology, Diagnosis, and
Treatment of the Prevalent Epidemic of
Quackery, 855.

Gculey, J. W. S. Diseases of the Urinary
Apparatus, 272.

Greer, H. Recent Advances in Electricity,
132.

Greswell, W. P. Geography of Africa
South of the Zambesi, 708.

Griswold, W. M. Descriptive List of Ro-
mantic Novels, 132.

Hall, H. Ethan Allen, the Robin Hood of
Vermont, 852.

Hellyer, S. S. Principles and Practice of
Plumbing, 269.

Hempel, W. Methods of Gas Analysis, 274.

Henry, C. Les Odeurs, 855.

Holbrook, M. L. The Hygienic Treatment
of Consumption, 856.

Hudson, W. H. Satan of Theology, 135.

Humanity and Health. E. A. Jennings,
M.D., Editor, 423.

Humanity's Spreading Curse, 709.

Huxley, T. H. Essays upon some Contro-
verted Questions, 849.

Illinois. Report of the State Entomologist,
1889, 421.

Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station.
Report, 421.

International Prison Congress, Fourth, 422.

James, G. F., compiler. Proceedings of the
First Annual Meeting of the National
Conference on University Extension, 851 .
Jew, The, at Home, 558.
Journal of Comparative Neurology. C. H.

Herrick, Editor, 419.
Journal of Physiology. M. Foster, Editor,
422,707.

INDEX.

867

Books noticed :

Journal of the College of Science, Tokyo,

134.
Journal of the United States Artillery.

Quarterly, 424, 70S.
Kirkpatrick, T. J. Modern Cook-book,

132.
Lacroix-Danliard. Le Poil des Animaux et

les Fourrures, 422.
League of American Wheelmen Roads Im-
provement, 132.
Le Favrc, C. Delsartean Physical Culture,

132.
Lethaby, W. R. Architecture, Mysticism,

and Myth, S57.
Logan, C. How to Reduce your Weight, or

Increase it, 420.
Lovett, R., and C. Davison. Elements of

Plane Trigonometry, 274.
Lydekker, R. Phases of Animal Life, Past

and Present, 85(3.
McCalley, H. Coal Measures of Alabama,

133.
Maginnis, A. J. The Atlantic Ferry, 855.
Manual of American Water-works, 131.
Marble, A. P. Sanitary Conditions for

School-houses, 275.
Marshal], A. Elements of Economics of

Industry, 560.
Marshall, A. Principles of Economics,

vol. i, 270.
Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment

Station. Ninth Annual Report, 421.
Massee, G. Plant World, The, 558.
Maxwell, James C. Treatise on Electricity

and Magnetism, 705.
Maynard, C. J. Manual of North American

Butterflies, 706.
Merrill, F. J. H. Quaternary Geology of

the Hudson River, 134.
Meyer, L. Outlines of Theoretical Chemis-
try, 559.
Miller, E. Evolution of Love, 275.
Missouri Botanical Garden. Report, 1892,

707.
Money. Essays in Economics. J. Borden,

425.
Naegeli, C, and S. Schwendener. Micro-
scope, The, in Theory and Practice, 557.
National Educational Association. Jour-
nal of Proceedings and Addresses, 1891,
559.
National Museum. Report, 1889, 555.
Natural Science. Monthly, 418.
Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station.

Report, 421.
New England Meteorological Society. In-
vestigations, 1890, 709.
New Jersey Experiment Station. Repoit of

the Botanical Department, 133.
New Jersey Geological Survey. Report,

1891, 709.
New World, The. Quarterly, 424.
Newell, J. H. Outlines of Lessons in Bot-
any, 554.
Not on Calvary, 559.

Notes on Beauty, Vigor, and Development,

420.
Papers in Penology, 132.
Parsons, J. R. French Schools through

American Eyes, 707.
Pickering, E. C. Preparation and Discus-
sion of the Draper Catalogue, 423.
Pilling, James C. Bibliography of the

Algonquian Languages, 703.
Philosophical Review. J. G. Schurman,

Editor, 418.
Physical Education, 706.
Ralph, J. Along the Bowstring, 420.
Ramsey, S. English Language, The, and

English Grammar, 560.
Redding, Jacob. Physiology: its Science

and Philosophy, 707.
Remondino, P. C. The Mediterranean

Shores of America, 856.
Robinson, J. Our Trees, 134.
Rochester Academy of Science. Proceed-
ings, vol. i, " Brochure " 2, 422.
Rotch, A. L. Observations made at the
Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in
1889, 423.
Scott, A. Introduction to Chemical Theory,

557.
Semple, C. E. A. Elements of Materia

Medica and Therapeutics, 709.
Sidgwick, H. Elements of Politics, 269.
Smithsonian Institution. Report, 1890, 555.

Report, 1891, 133.
Solms-Laubach, H. Graf zu. Fossil Botany,

558.
Spencer, H. Social Statics, abridged and

revised, 553.
Stephens, C. A. Pluri-cellular Man, 707.
Strahan, S. A. K. Marriage and Disease.

702.
Sullivan, J. W. Direct Legislation by the

Citizenship, 131.
Taylor, F. M. Right of the Stale to be, 133.
Taylor, J. T. Optics of Photography and

Photographic Lenses, 275.
Thein, John. Christian Anthropology, 850.
Thomas, C. Prehistoric Works East of the

Rocky Mountains, 1.33.
Thomson, W. H. Materialism and Modern

Physiology of the Nervous System, 856.
Thorne, R. T. Diphtheria: its Natural His-
tory and Prevention, 130.
Trevert, E. Electric Railway Engineering.

855.
Tyndall, J. New Fragments, 127.
United States Commissoner of Education.

Report, 1889, 559.
United States Fish Commission. Bulletin,

1889, 704.
United States Geological Survey. Report.

1888-'89, 704.
University Extension, Monthly, 420.
Wagner, R. von. Manual of Chemical

Technology, 271.
Walker, S. F. How to Light a Colliery by
Electricity, 707.

868 INDEX.

Books noticed :

Ward, n. M. The Oak, 556. Whiteley, It. L. Chemical Calculations, 274.

Waterdale. Fresh Light on the Dynamic Whymper, E. Travels among the Great

Action and Ponderosity of Matter, 852. Andes of the Equator, 273.

Weisman, A. Essays upon Heredity, vol. ii, Winslow, A. Coal Deposits of Missouri,

854. 181.

PAGE

Boots and Shoes, Manufacture of. * G. A. Rich 496

Botany, Beginnings in. B. D. Halsted 515

Brain, Temperature of the. (Misc.) 859

Brakemen, The Protection of. (Corr.) A. Morgan 698

Buddha, A, and its Meaning. (Misc.) 285

Burial Custom, Ancient Japanese. (Misc.) 567

C, L. H. Survival of Ancestral Traits. (Corr.) 123

Cadalso, A. Ruiz. Savage Superstitions. (Corr.) 123

Campbell, Charles W. Korean Mountains and Mountaineers 229

Cave Dwellings of Men.* W. H. Larrabee 27

Census, Eleventh. (Misc.) 715

Central American Monuments, Age of the. (Misc.) 861

Chapin, Henry Dwight, M. D. The Survival of the Unfit 182

Character, Human, Influence of Natural Surroundings on. (Misc.) 569

Chemical and Geographical "Words, Changes in. F. A. Fernald 690

Chemung Geological Formation. (Misc.) 563

Childhood, American, from a Medical Standpoint. II. L. Taylor 721

Children, Scientific Observation of. (Misc.) 278

Chinese Characters and Hieroglyphics. (Misc.) 717

Churchill, Randolph. The Diamond Industry at Kimberley.* 455

Cigars, First, in Paris. (Misc.) 715

Color- vision, Defective, Remedies for. (Misc.) 862

Colors, The, of Water. C. Vogt 246

Common Sense wanted. (Editor's Table) 552

Contagions, Dealing with. (Misc.) 568

Cornwall, Tin Production of. (Misc.) 143

Correction, A. (Corr.) C. Paine 413

Crime, Natural Selection and. E. S. Morse 433

Criminality, Instinctive. (Misc.) 140

Crothers, T. D. Specifics for the Cure of Inebriety 732

Dancing, The Evolution of.* L. J. Vance 739

Davies, N. E. Yorke. Proper Diet for Hot Weather 365

Death-week in Rural Russia. (Misc.) 717

Delaware Indian. The, as an Artist.* C. C. Abbott 586

Dendrites.* S. Meunier 84

Desert Fruit, A. Grant Allen 109

Diamond, Genesis of the. (Corr.) J. F. Lewis 412

" Industry at Kimberley, The.* R. Churchill 455

Diatoms, What are ? * E. L. Gregory 200

Diet, Proper, for Hot Weather. N. E. Y. Davies 365

" •' (Corr.) M. Miles 697

Diphtheria, Distribution of. (Misc.) 277

INDEX. 869

PAGE

Disease, Physiology and the Prevention of. J. M. Rice 308

" Down Below " People. (Misc.) 280

Du Bois-Eeymond, Einil. Science and Fine Art 16

Dust and Fresh Air. T. P. Teale 238

Earthquake, Curious Effects of an. (Misc.) 138

Eddy, William A. Incalculable Accidents 666

Education, The "American Experiment " in. (Editor's Table) 267

Egypt, Agriculture in. (Misc.) 573

Egyptians, Natural Selection among. (Misc.) 715

Electric Light, New. (Misc.) 137

Embroidery by Machinery. (Misc.) 282

Families and Dwellings. C. D. Wright 474

Fernalcl, Frederik A. Changes in Chemical and Geographical Words 690

Fisheries, British. (Misc.) 286

Flame, Suspended Matter in. (Misc.) 142

Floras, American, Succession of. (Misc.) 429

Fog, Drops of. (Misc.) 139

Folk Lore, Evolution in. D. D. Wells 45

Food-vessels, Aluminum in. (Misc.) 569

Foot, The Prehensile, of East Indians.* F. Regnault 489

Forest Management, Objects of. (Misc.) 566

Fruit, Sulphuring Dried. (Misc.) 574

Funeral Customs in New Guinea. (Misc.) 716

Fungicides, Action of. (Misc.) 712

Fungus-nurseries, Wild Plants as. (Misc.) 572

Galileo Case, The Retreat of Theology in the. A. D. W7kite 145

Galvani, Luigi, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 408

Gardening, Exotic, Development of. (Misc.) 716

Geographical Work of 1891. (Misc.) 860

Geography. A. D. White 446, 577

Geology, Why we should teach. A. S. Packard 73

Glass, Soldering Metals to. (Misc.) 861

Gold-cure, Historical Notes on the. H. C. Bolton 469

Gore, J. Ellard. " New " and Variable Stars 396

Greenland Vegetation, Origin of. (Misc.) 136

Gregory, Emily L. What are Diatoms ? * 200

Gutta Percha, Sources of. (Misc.) 284

Halsted, Byron D. Beginnings in Botany 515

" " Pestiferous Plants 225

Healing Art, Limitations of the. H. Nothnagel 77

Heck, L. Two Rare Monkeys.* 389

Henderson, C. Hanford. Mica and the Mica Mines 652

Henry, Charles. Odors and the Sense of Smell 682

Herbert, Auberon, and Harold Wager. Bad Air and Bad Health 97

Homes, Some Indian, A Comparative Study of.* R. W. Shufeldt 798

Horses, Many-toed. (Misc.) 427

87o INDEX.

PAGE

Hudson, William IT. Herbert Spencer and the Synthetic Philosophy 1

1 1 uggins, William, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 260

Huxley, T. II. The Decline of Bibliolatry 594

Hypnotism as a Remedy. (Misc.) 564

Illegitimacy, Ratios of. (Misc.) 570

India-rubber Trees. (Misc.) 143

Indian Beauty, Types of. (Misc.) 863

Indian Trade, Influence of the. (Misc.) 282

Inebriety, Specifics for the Cure of. T. D. Crothers 732

Infectious Diseases: Causation and Immunity. G. M. Sternberg 616

Influenza, Weather and. (Misc.) 564

Intellectual Culture, Means of. (Editor's Table) 124

Janes, Lewis G. The Relation of Biology to Sociology 206

Jardin des Plantes, Origin of the. (Misc.) 713

Jastrow, Joseph. Further Study of Involuntary Movements.* 636

Kanjutis. (Misc.) 284

Kilmer, George L. First Actions of Wounded Soldiers 155

Kindergartens — Manual Training — Industrial Schools. Mrs. H. M. Plunkett. 375

Kingfisher. (Misc.) 286

Kingsley, J. S. The Marine Biological Laboratory * 604

Korean Mountains and Mountaineers. C. W. Campbell 229

Kropotkin, Prince. Recent Science 811

Lake Beaches. (Misc.) 431

" Waters, Temperature of. (Misc.) 427

Land, the Dry, The Waste and Gain of 403

Language and Brain Disease.* H. T. Pershing 775

Larrabee, W. H. Cave Dwellings of Men.* 27

Latitude, Oscillations in. (Misc.) 141

" Secular and Periodic Changes in. (Misc.) . . 862

Law, The, and the Doctors. (Editor's Table) 267

Leather-making.* G. A. Rich 339

Leaves, Primary Color of. (Misc.) 137

Lewis, Mrs. Julia F. Genesis of the Diamond. (Corr.) 412

Lightning, Curious Accident by. (Misc.) 868

Locusts, Our Destructive. (Misc.) 566

Lung-fish. (Misc.) 567

McMurrich, J. Playfair. More about the Penikese School. (Corr.) 412

McRae, Charles. Michael Servetus: Reformer, Physiologist, and Martyr 519

Magnifying Glasses in Antiquity. (Misc.) 716

Man, The Animal View of 256

Marine Biological Laboratory, The.* J. S. Kingsley , . . 604

Masrium, The New Element. (Misc.) S61

Meteoric Iron. (Misc.) 140

Meteorological Discovery, A Chapter in. J. C. Adams 787

Meteorological Poet. (Misc.) 285

INDEX. 871

PAGE

Meteorology Five Centuries ago. (Misc.) 188

Meunier, Stanislas. Dendrites.* 84

Mica and the Mica Mines. C. H. Henderson 652

Miles, Manly. Energy as a Factor in Agriculture 87

" Proper Diet for Hot Weather. (Corr.) 697

Mind, Pace of. (Misc.) 279

Minerals and Fossils, Preservation of. (Misc.) 565

Monkeys, Two Pare.* L. Heck 389

Moral Endeavor. (Editor's Table) 700

Morgan, Appleton.' The Protection of Brakemen. (Corr.) 698

" " Wanted— a Railway Court of Last Pvesort 212

Morse, Edward S. Natural Selection and Crime 433

Mortality and Morbidity by Professions. (Misc.) 139

Mosquitoes, Kerosene as a Preventive of. (Misc.) 863

Motherhood. (Editor's Table) 413

Movements, Involuntary, Further Study of.* J. Jastrow 636

Mud as a Building Material.* W. Simpson 762

Muir Glacier, Alaska. (Misc.) 711

Museums, Purposes and Arrangement of. (Misc.) 281

Musical Instruments, Saxon. (Misc.) 859

Mustagh Glaciers, Scenery of the. (Misc.) 563

Newberry, John S. The Ancient Civilizations of America 187

Notknagel, Herrmann. The Limitations of the Healing Art 77

Obituary Notes. Andrew Crombie Ramsay, J. W. Ewald, Henry W. Bates,
Wilhelm Junker, William Guy Peck, John Francis Will-
iams, Sereno Watson 144

Charles Meymott Tidy 288

Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp 432

August Wilhelm Hoffmann, Henri Duveyrier 576

Ernest A. B. Mouchez, Hermann Burmeister 720

Olives and Olive Oil. (Misc.) 278

Overwoi'k, Concerning. (Misc.) 573

Owl, Ways of the.* F. Bolles 313

Oxygen by the Brin Process. (Misc.) 71$

Packard, Alpheus S. Why we should teach Geology 73

Paine, Charles. A Correction. (Corr.) 413

Parapee Palm. (Misc.) 565

Penikese School, More about the. (Corr.) J. P. McMurrich 412

Pershing, Howell T. Language and Brain Disease * 775

Philpott, Henry J. Almond Culture in California 328

Photography in Colors. (Misc.) .... 569

Physiology of Over-exertion. (Misc.) 574

Plants, Pestiferous. B. D. Halsted 225

Plunkett, Mrs. H. M. Kindergartens — Manual Training — Industrial Schools. 375

Political Progress. (Editor's Table) 698

Population, The Native and Foreign-born. C. D. Wright 756

Positivism in France. (Editor's Table) 701

872 INDEX.

PAGE

Potato Disease, Treatment of. (Misc.) 568

" Pulp, Roasted. (Misc.) 859

Prehistoric Lapidaries, Skill of. (Misc.) 572

Psychology, Experimental, at the World's Fair. (Misc.) 561

Puma, The. (Misc.) 282

Pyburn, George. Flowering Habit of the American Aloe. (Corr.) 413

Quail, Destruction of, and the Plague of Locusts. (Misc.) 719

Railway Court of Last Resort, Wanted — a. A. Morgan 212

Rain-drops, Size and Shape of. (Misc.) 860

Regnault, F. The Prehensile Foot of East Indians * 489

Reno, Conrad. The Wage-contract and Personal Liberty* 644

Rice, J. M., M. D. Physiology and the Prevention of Disease 308

Rich, George A. Leather-making * 339

" " " Manufacture of Boots and Shoes* 496

Riley, C. V. The Yucca Moth and Yucca Pollination * 171

Rochard, Jules. Tobacco and the Tobacco Habit 670

Rochester, N. Y., Scientific Work of. (Misc.) 858

Royal Society, The ; or, Scientific Visionaries of the Seventeenth Century.

M. D. Steele 531

Sargasso Sea, The. (Misc.) 862

Scenery, Historical and Interesting, Preservation of. (Misc.) 429

Schools, Boston Public, Moral, Manual, and Science Training in the. (Misc.) 711

" of New York State. (Misc.) 562

Science and Fine Art. E. Du Bois-Reymond 16

Recent. Prince Kropotkin 811

Teaching in Preparatory Schools. (Misc.) 571

The Claims of. (Editor's Table) 844

Sea-coast Land, Destiny of. (Misc.) 279

Seeds, Fine Flower, Propagation of. (Misc.) 568

Sense of Smell, Odors and the. C. Henry 682

Servetus, Michael: Reformer, Physiologist, and Martyr. C. McRae 519

Shufeldt, R. W. A Comparative Study of some Indian Homes * 798

Shuswap Traits. (Misc.) 712

Silk-weaving Centers, French. (Misc.) 283

" Silver Thaw." (Misc.) 565

Simpson, W. Mud as a Building Material * 762

Slave Trade, Reason of the. (Misc.) 430

Snails of Mountain and Plain. (Misc.) 860

Snow Effects in the Pamirs. (Misc.) 280

Social Economy, State Intervention in. A. Leroy Beaulieu 463

Sociology, The Relation of Biology to. L. G. Janes 206

Species, Extermination of. (Misc.) 572

Spencer, Herbert. Veracity 482

" and the Synthetic Philosophy. W. H. Hudson 1

Spring Two Hundred Years ago and now. (Misc.) 574

Star Spectra, Characteristics of. (Misc.) 430

Starr, Frederick. Anthropological Work in America* 289

u
u

INDEX. 873

PAGE

Starr, Frederick. Anthropological Work in Europe * 54

Stars, " New " and Variable. J. E. Gore 396

Steele, Miss Mary Davies. The Royal Society ; or, Scientific Visionaries of

the Seventeenth Century 531

Sternberg, George M., M. D. Infectious Diseases: Causation and Immunity. 616

Stone Age, New, in Iceland. (Misc.) 718

Superstitions, Savage. (Corr.) A. R. Cadalso 123

Survival of Ancestral Traits. (Corr.) L. II. C 123

" The, of the Unfit II. D. Chapin 182

Swedish Wood and Iron. (Misc.) 141

Taylor, Henry Ling. American Childhood from a Medical Standpoint 721

Tea Plant. American. (Misc.) 426

Teale, T. Pridgin. Dust and Fresh Air 238

Technical School at St. Etionne, France. (Misc.) 281

Testimony, Human, Value of. (Misc.) 428

Theology, Progressive. (Editor's Table) . . 551

Timber-testing. (Misc.) 429

Title-pages, Early. (Misc.) '. 137

Trees and Extreme Temperatures. (Misc.) 714

" Venerable. (Misc.) 138

Typhoid Fever and Sewage in Drinking-water. (Misc.) 574

Vance, Lee J. The Evolution of Dancing * 739

Veracity. H. Spencer , 482

Vlachs of Turkey. (Misc.) 142

Vogt, Carl. The Colors of Water 246

Volta, Alessandro, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 117

Wage- contract, The, and Personal Liberty. C. Reno 644

Wager, Harold, and Auberon Herbert. Bad Air and Bad Health 97

Warming and Ventilation of Dwellings * 831

Watch-making, Swiss. (Misc.) 283

Weeds, Eastern and Western. (Misc.) 563

Wells, David D wight. Evolution in Folk Lore '. 45

Wheat- raising, Possibilities of. (Misc.) 277

Wheelbarrow, Antiquity of the. (Misc.) 714

White, Andrew Dickson. From Magic to Chemistry and Physics

" " " Geography 446, 577

" " " The Retreat of Theology in the Galileo Case 145

Winchell, Alexander, Sketch of. (With Portrait) 837

Wounded Soldiers, First Actions of. G. L. Kilmer 155

Wright, Carroll D. Families and Dwellings 475

" " " The Native and Foreign-born Population 756

Yucca Moth, The, and Yucca Pollination.* C. V. Riley 171

Zebra's Stripes. (Misc.) 567

END OF VOL. XLI.

^2&SfH01 LIBRARY

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