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Established by Edward L. Youmans

APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

EDITED BY WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS

VOL. LVI NOVEMBER, 1899, TO APRIL, 1900

NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1900




COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

[Illustration: GEORGE M. STERNBERG.]




APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

NOVEMBER, 1899.




THE REAL PROBLEMS OF DEMOCRACY.

BY FRANKLIN SMITH.


Much has been written of late about "the real problems of democracy."
According to some "thinkers," they consist of the invention of
ingenious devices to prevent caucus frauds and the purchase of votes,
to check the passage of special laws as well as too many laws, and
to infuse into decent people an ardent desire to participate in
the wrangles of politics. According to others, they consist of the
invention of equally ingenious devices to compel corporations to manage
their business in accordance with Christian principles, to transform
the so-called natural monopolies into either State or municipal
monopolies, and to effect, by means of the power of taxation, a more
equitable distribution of wealth. According to still others, they
consist of the invention of no less ingenious devices to force people
to be temperate, to observe humanity toward children and animals, and
to read and study what will make them model citizens. It is innocently
and touchingly believed that with the solution of these problems, by
the application of the authority that society has over the individual,
"the social conscience" will be awakened. But such a belief can not
be realized. It has its origin in a conception of democracy that has
no foundation either in history or science. What are supposed to be
the real problems of democracy are only the problems of despotism--the
problems to which every tyrant from time immemorial has addressed
himself, to the moral and industrial ruin of his subjects.

If democracy be conceived not as a form of political government under
the _régime_ of universal suffrage, but as a condition of freedom under
moral control, permitting every man to do as he likes, so long as he
does not trench upon the equal right of every other man, deliverance
from the sophistries and absurdities of current social and political
discussion becomes easy and inevitable. Its real problems cease to
be an endless succession of political devices that stimulate cunning
and evasion, and countless encroachments upon individual freedom that
stir up contention and ill feeling. Instead of being innumerable and
complex, defying the solvent power of the greatest intellects and the
efforts of the most enthusiastic philanthropists, they become few and
simple. While their proper solution is beset with difficulties, these
difficulties are not as hopeless as the framing of a statute to produce
a growth of virtue in a depraved heart. Indeed, no such task has ever
been accomplished, and every effort in that direction has been worse
than futile. It has encouraged the growth of all the savage traits that
ages of conflict have stamped so profoundly in the nervous system of
the race. But let it be understood that the real problems of democracy
are the problems of self-support and self-control, the problems that
appeared with the appearance of human life, and that their sole
solution is to be found in the application of precisely the same
methods with which Nature disciplines the meanest of her creatures,
then we may expect a measure of success from the efforts of social
and political reformers; for freedom of thought and action, coupled
with the punishment that comes from a failure to comply with the laws
of life and the conditions of existence, creates an internal control
far more potent than any law. It impels men to depend upon their own
efforts to gain a livelihood; it inspires them with a respect for the
right of others to do the same.

Simple and commonplace as the traits of self-support and self-control
may seem, they are of transcendent importance. Every other trait sinks
into insignificance. The society whose members have learned to care for
themselves and to control themselves has no further moral or economic
conquests to make. It will be in the happy condition dreamed of by all
poets, philosophers, and philanthropists. There will be no destitution,
for each person, being able to maintain himself and his family, will
have no occasion, except in a case of a sudden and an unforeseen
misfortune, to look to his friends and neighbors for aid. But in thus
maintaining himself--that is, in pursuing the occupation best adapted
to his ability and most congenial to his taste--he will contribute
in the largest degree to the happiness of the other members of the
community. While they are pursuing the occupations best adapted to
their ability and most congenial to their tastes, they will be able to
obtain from him, as he will be able to obtain from them, those things
that both need to supplement the products of their own industry. Since
each will be left in full possession of all the fruits of his own toil,
he will be at liberty to make just such use of them as will contribute
most to his happiness, thus permitting the realization, in the only
practicable way, of Bentham's principle of "the greatest happiness
of the greatest number." Since all of them will be free to make such
contracts as they believe will be most advantageous to them, exchanging
what they are willing to part with for what some one else is willing
to give in return, there will prevail the only equitable distribution
of the returns from labor and capital. No one will receive more and no
one less than he is entitled to. Thus will benefit be in proportion to
merit, and the most scrupulous justice be satisfied.

But this _régime_ of equity in the distribution of property implies, as
I have already said, the possession of a high degree of self-control.
Not only must all persons have such a keen sense of their own rights
as will never permit them to submit to infringement, but they must
have such a keen sense of the rights of others that they will not be
guilty themselves of infringement. Not only will they refrain from the
commission of those acts of aggression whose ill effects are immediate
and obvious; they will refrain from those acts whose ill effects are
remote and obscure. Although they will not, for example, deceive or
steal or commit personal assaults, they will not urge the adoption of
a policy that will injure the unknown members of other communities,
like the Welsh tin-plate makers and the Vienna pearl-button makers that
the McKinley Bill deprived of employment. Realizing the vice of the
plea of the opponents of international copyright that cheap literature
for a people is better than scrupulous honesty, they will not refuse
to foreign authors the same protection to property that they demand.
They will not, finally, allow themselves to take by compulsion or by
persuasion the property of neighbors to be used to alleviate suffering
or to disseminate knowledge in a way to weaken the moral and physical
strength of their fellows. But the possession of a sense of justice
so scrupulous assumes the possession of a fellow-feeling so vivid
that it will allow no man to refuse all needful aid to the victims of
misfortune. As suffering to others will mean suffering to himself,
he will be as powerfully moved to go to their rescue as he would to
protect himself against the same misfortune. Indeed, he will be moved,
as all others will be moved, to undertake without compulsion all the
benevolent work, be it charitable or educational, that may be necessary
to aid those persons less fortunate than himself to obtain the greatest
possible satisfaction out of life.

But the methods of social reform now in greatest vogue do not
contribute to the realization of any such millennium. They are a
flagrant violation of the laws of life and the conditions of existence.
They make difficult, if not impossible, the establishment of the moral
government of a democracy that insures every man and woman not only
freedom but also sustentation and protection. In disregard of the
principles of biology, which demand that benefit shall be in proportion
to merit, the feeble members of society are fostered at the expense
of the strong. Setting at defiance the principles of psychology,
which insist upon the cultivation of the clearest perception of the
inseparable relation of cause and effect and the equally inseparable
relation of aggression and punishment, honest people are turned into
thieves and murderers, and thieves and murderers are taught to believe
that no retribution awaits the commission of the foulest crime.
Scornful of the principles of sociology, which teach in the plainest
way that the institutions of feudalism are the products of war and can
serve no other purpose than the promotion of aggression, a deliberate
effort, born of the astonishing belief that they can be transformed
into the agencies of progress, is made in time of peace to restore them
to life.

To the American Philistine nothing is more indicative of the marvelous
moral superiority of this age and country than the rapid increase
in the public expenditures for enterprises "to benefit the people."
Particularly enamored is he of the showy statistics of hospitals,
asylums, reformatories, and other so-called charitable institutions
supported by public taxation. "How unselfish we are!" he exclaims,
swelling with pride as he points to them. "In what other age or in what
other country has so much been done for the poor and unfortunate?"
Naught shall ever be said by me against the desire to help others.
The fellow-feeling that thrives upon the aid rendered to the sick and
destitute I believe to be the most precious gift of civilization.
Upon its growth depends the further moral advancement of the race. As
I have already intimated, only as human beings are able to represent
to themselves vividly the sufferings of others will they be moved to
desist from the conduct that contributes to those sufferings. But the
system of public charity that prevails in this country is not charity
at all; it is a system of forcible public largesses, as odious and
demoralizing as the one that contributed so powerfully to the downfall
of Athens and Rome. By it money is extorted from the taxpayer with as
little justification as the crime of the highwayman, and expended by
politicians with as little love as he of their fellows. What is the
result? Precisely what might be expected. He is infuriated because of
the growing burden of his taxes. Instead of being made more humane and
sympathetic with every dollar he gives under compulsion to the poor and
suffering, he becomes more hard-hearted and bitter toward his fellows.
The notion that society, as organized at present, is reducing him to
poverty and degradation takes possession of him. He becomes an agitator
for violent reforms that will only render his condition worse. At the
same time the people he aids come to regard him simply as a person
under obligations to care for them. They feel no more gratitude toward
him than the wolf toward the victim of its hunger and ferocity.

Akin to public charity are all those public enterprises undertaken to
ameliorate the condition of the poor--parks, model tenement houses, art
galleries, free concerts, free baths, and relief works of all kinds. To
these I must add all those Federal, State, and municipal enterprises,
such as the post office with the proposed savings attachment, a State
system of highways and waterways, municipal water, gas and electric
works, etc., that are supposed to be of inestimable advantage to the
same worthy class. These likewise fill the heart of the American
Philistine with immense satisfaction. Although he finds, by his study
of pleasing romances on municipal government in Europe, that we have
yet to take some further steps before we fall as completely as the
inhabitants of Paris and Berlin into the hands of municipal despotism,
he is convinced that we have made gratifying headway, and that the
outlook for complete subjection to that despotism is encouraging. But
it should be remembered that splendid public libraries and public
baths, and extensive and expensive systems of highways and municipal
improvements, built under a modified form of the old _corvée_, are
no measure of the fellow-feeling and enlightenment of a community.
On the contrary, they indicate a pitiful incapacity to appreciate
the rights of others, and are, therefore, a measure rather of the
low degree of civilization. It should be remembered also, especially
by the impoverished victims of the delusions of the legislative
philanthropist, that there is no expenditure that yields a smaller
return in the long run than public expenditure; that however honest the
belief that public officials will do their duty as conscientiously and
efficiently as private individuals, history has yet to record the fact
of any bureaucracy; that however profound the conviction that the cost
of these "public blessings" comes out of the pockets of the rich and is
on that account particularly justifiable, it comes largely out of the
pockets of the poor; and that by the amount abstracted from the income
of labor and capital by that amount is the sum divided between labor
and capital reduced.

"But," interposes the optimist, "have the Americans not their great
public-school system, unrivaled in the world, to check and finally
to end the evils that appear thus far to be inseparably connected
with popular government? Is there any truth more firmly established
than that it is the bulwark of American institutions, and that if we
maintain it as it should be maintained they will be able to weather any
storm that may threaten?" Precisely the same argument has been urged
time out of mind in behalf of an ecclesiastical system supported at
the expense of the taxpayer. Good men without number have believed,
and have fought to maintain their belief, that only by the continuance
of this form of aggression could society be saved from corruption and
barbarism. Even in England to-day, where freedom and civilization
have made their most brilliant conquests, this absurd contention
is made to bolster up the rotten and tottering union of Church and
state, and to justify the seizure of the property of taxpayers to
support a particular form of ecclesiastical instruction. But no fact
of history has received demonstrations more numerous and conclusive
than that such instruction, whether Protestant or Catholic, Buddhist
or Mohammedan, in the presence of the demoralizing forces of militant
activities, is as impotent as the revolutions of the prayer wheel of
a pious Hindu. To whatever country or people or age we may turn, we
find that the spirit of the warrior tramples the spirit of the saint
in the dust. Despite the lofty teachings of Socrates and Plato, the
Athenians degenerated until the name of the Greek became synonymous
with that of the blackest knave. With the noble examples and precepts
of the Stoics in constant view, the Romans became beastlier than any
beast. All through the middle ages and down to the present century
the armies of ecclesiastics, the vast libraries of theology, and the
myriads of homilies and prayers were impotent to prevent the social
degradation that inundated the world with the outbreak of every great
conflict. Take, for example, a page from the history of Spain. At the
time of Philip II, who tried to make his people as rigid as monks, that
country had no rival in its fanatical devotion to the Church, or its
slavish observance of the forms of religion. Yet its moral as well as
its intellectual and industrial life was sinking to the lowest level.
Official corruption was rampant. The most shameless sexual laxity
pervaded all ranks. The name of Spanish women, who had "in previous
times been modest, almost austere and Oriental in their deportment,"
became a byword and a reproach throughout the world. "The ladies are
naturally shameless," says Camille Borghese, the Pope's delegate
to Madrid in 1593, "and even in the streets go up and address men
unknown to them, looking upon it as a kind of heresy to be properly
introduced. They admit all sorts of men to their conversation, and
are not in the least scandalized at the most improper proposals being
made to them." To see how ecclesiastics themselves fall a prey to the
ethics of militant activities, becoming as heartless and debauched as
any other class, take a page from Italian history at the time of Pope
Alexander VI. "Crimes grosser than Scythian," says a pious Catholic who
visited Rome, "acts of treachery worse than Carthaginian, are committed
without disguise in the Vatican itself under the eyes of the Pope.
There are rapines, murders, incests, debaucheries, cruelties exceeding
those of the Neros and Caligulas." Similar pages from the history of
every other country in Europe given up to war, including Protestant
England, might be quoted.

But what is true of ecclesiastical effort in the presence of militant
activities is true of pedagogic effort in the presence of political
activities. For more than half a century the public-school system
in its existing form has been in full and energetic operation. The
money devoted to it every year now reaches the enormous total of one
hundred and eighty million dollars. Simultaneously an unprecedented
extension of secondary education has occurred. Since the war, colleges
and universities, supported in whole or in part at the public expense,
have been established in more than half of the States and Territories
of the Union. To these must be added the phenomenal growth of normal
schools, high schools, and academies, and of the equipment of the
educational institutions already in existence. Yet, as a result, are
the American people more moral than they were half a century ago? Have
American institutions--that is, the institutions based upon the freedom
of the individual--been made more secure? I venture to answer both
questions with an emphatic negative. The construction and operation
of the greatest machine of pedagogy recorded in history has been
absolutely impotent to stem the rising tide of political corruption
and social degeneration. If there are skeptics that doubt the truth
of this indictment let them study the criminal history of the day
that records the annual commission of more than six thousand suicides
and more than ten thousand homicides, and the embezzlement of more
than eleven million dollars. Let them study the lying pleas of the
commercial interests of the country that demand protection against "the
pauper labor of Europe," and thus commit a shameless aggression upon
the pauper labor of America. Let them study the records of the deeds
of intolerance and violence committed upon workingmen that refuse to
exchange their personal liberty for membership of a despotic labor
organization. Let them study the columns of the newspapers, crowded
with records of crime, salacious stories, and ignorant comment on
current questions and events that appeal to a population as unlettered
and base as themselves. Let them study, finally, the appalling
indictment of American political life, in a State where the native
blood still runs pure in the veins of the majority of the inhabitants,
that Mr. John Wanamaker framed in a great speech at the opening of
his memorable campaign in Lancaster against the most powerful and
most corrupt despotism that can be found outside of Russia or Turkey.
"In the fourth century of Rome, in the time of Emperor Theodosius,
Hellebichus was master of the forces," he said, endeavoring to describe
a condition of affairs that exists in a similar degree in every State
in the Union, "and Cæsarius was count of the offices. In the nineteenth
century, M. S. Quay is count of the offices, and W. A. Andrews, Prince
of Lexow, is master of forces in Pennsylvania, and we have to come
through the iron age and the silver age to the worst of all ages--the
degraded, evil age of conscienceless, debauched politics.... Profligacy
and extravagance and boss rule everywhere oppress the people. By the
multiplication of indictments your district attorney has multiplied
his fees far beyond the joint salaries of both your judges. The
administration of justice before the magistrates has degenerated
into organized raids on the county treasury.... Voters are corruptly
influenced or forcibly coerced to do the bidding of the bosses, and
thus force the fetters of political vassalage on the freemen of the
old guard. School directors, supervisors, and magistrates, and the
whole machinery of local government, are involved and dominated by this
accursed system."

But Mr. Wanamaker might have added that the whole social and industrial
life of the country is involved and dominated by the same system. It
is a well-established law of social science that the evil effects
of a dominant activity are not confined to the persons engaged
in it. Like a contagion, they spread to every part of the social
organization, and poison the life farthest removed from their origin.
Yet the public-school system, so impotent to save us from social and
political degradation and still such an object of unbounded pride and
adulation, is, as Mr. Wanamaker, all unconscious of the implication of
his scathing criticism, points out in so many words, an integral part
of the vast and complex machinery that political despotism has seized
upon to plunder and enslave the American people. As in the case of
every other extension of the duties of government beyond the limits
of the preservation of order and the enforcement of justice, it is an
aggression upon the rights of the individual, and, as in the case of
every other aggression, contributes powerfully to the decay of national
character and free institutions. It adds thousands upon thousands to
the constantly growing army of tax eaters that are impoverishing the
people still striving against heavy odds to gain an honest livelihood.
It places in the hands of the political despots now ruling the country,
without the responsibility that the most odious monarchs have to bear,
a revenue and an army of mercenaries that make more and more difficult
emancipation from their shackles. It is doing more than anything else
except the post-office department to teach people that there is no
connection between merit and benefit; that they have the right to look
to the State rather than to themselves for maintenance; that they
are under no obligations to see that they do not take from others,
in the form of salaries not earned nor intended to be earned, what
does not belong to them. In the face of this wholesale destruction of
fellow-feeling such as occurred in France under the old _régime_ and is
occurring to-day in Italy and Spain, and the inculcation of the ethics
of militant activities, such as may be observed in these countries as
well as elsewhere in Europe, is it any wonder that the mind-stuffing
that goes on in the public schools has no more effect upon the morals
of the American people than the creeds and prayers of the mediæval
ecclesiastics that joined in wars and the spoliation of oppressed
populations throughout Europe?

Since the path that all people under popular government as well
as under forms more despotic are pursuing so energetically and
hopefully leads to the certain destruction of the foundations of
civilization, what is the path that social science points out? What
must they do to prevent the extinction of the priceless acquisition
of fellow-feeling, now vanishing so rapidly before the most unselfish
efforts to promote it? The supposition is that the social teachings
of the philosophy of evolution have no answer to these questions.
Believing that they inculcate the hideous _laissez-faire_ doctrine of
"each for himself and the devil take the hindmost," so characteristic
of human relations among all classes of people in this country, the
victims of this supposition have repudiated them. But I propose to
show that they are the only teachings that give the slightest promise
of social amelioration. Although they are ignorantly stigmatized as
individualistic, and therefore necessarily selfish and inconsiderate
of the welfare of others, they are in reality socialistic in the best
sense of the word--that is, they enjoin voluntary, not coercive,
co-operation, and insure the noblest humanity and the most perfect
civilization, moral as well as material, that can be attained.

Why a society organized upon the individualistic instead of the
socialistic basis will realize every achievement admits of easy
explanation. A man dependent upon himself is forced by the struggle
for existence to exercise every faculty he possesses or can possibly
develop to save himself and his progeny from extinction. Under
such pitiless and irresistible pressure he acquires the highest
physical and intellectual strength. Thus equipped with weapons
absolutely indispensable in any state of society, whether civilized
or uncivilized, he is prepared for the conquest of the world. He
gains also the physical and moral courage needful to cope with the
difficulties that terrify and paralyze the people that have not been
subjected to the same rigid discipline. Energetic and self-reliant, he
assails them with no thought of failure. If, however, he meets with
reverses, he renews the attack, and repeats it until success finally
comes to reward his efforts. Such prolonged struggles give steadiness
and solidity to his character that do not permit him to abandon himself
to trifles or to yield easily, if at all, to excitement and panic. He
never falls a victim to Reigns of Terror. The more trying the times,
the more self-possessed, clear-headed, and capable of grappling with
the situation he becomes, and soon rises superior to it. With every
triumph over difficulties there never fails to come the joy that
more than balances the pain and suffering endured. But the pain and
suffering are as precious as the joy of triumph. Indelibly registered
in the nervous system, they enable their victim to feel as others feel
passing through the same experience, and this fellow-feeling prompts
him to render them the assistance they may need. In this way be becomes
a philanthropist. Possessed of the abundant means that the success of
his enterprises has placed in his hands, he is in a position to help
them to a degree not within the reach nor the desires of the member of
the society organized upon the socialistic basis.

In the briefest appeal to history may be found the amplest support
for these deductions from the principles of social science. Wherever
the individual has been given the largest freedom to do whatever he
pleases, as long as he does not trench upon the equal freedom of
others, there we witness all those achievements and discover all
those traits that indicate an advanced state of social progress.
The people are the most energetic, the most resourceful, the most
prosperous, the most considerate and humane, the most anxious, and the
most competent to care for their less fortunate fellows. On the other
hand, wherever the individual has been most repressed, deterred by
custom or legislation from making the most of himself in every way,
there are to be observed social immobility or retrogression and all
the hateful traits that belong to barbarians. The people are inert,
slavish, cruel, and superstitious. In the ancient world one type
of society is represented by the Egyptians and Assyrians, and the
other by the Greeks and Romans. In the modern world all the Oriental
peoples, particularly the Hindus and Chinese, represent the former, and
the Occidental peoples, particularly the Anglo-Saxons, represent the
latter. So superior, in fact, are the Anglo-Saxons because of their
observance of the sacred and fruitful principle of individual freedom
that they control the most desirable parts of the earth's surface. If
not checked by the practice of a philosophy that has destroyed all
the great peoples of antiquity and paralyzed their competitors in the
establishment of colonies in the New as well as the Old World, there is
no reason to doubt that the time will eventually come when, like the
Romans, there will be no other rule than theirs in all the choicest
parts of the globe.

It is the immense material superiority of the Anglo-Saxon peoples
over all other nations that first arrests attention. No people in
Europe possess the capital or conduct the enterprises that the
English and Americans do. They have more railroads, more steamships,
more factories, more foundries, more warehouses, more of everything
that requires wealth and energy than their rivals. Though the fact
evokes the sneers of the Ruskins and Carlyles, these enterprises are
the indispensable agents of civilization. They have done more for
civilization, for the union of distant peoples, and the development of
fellow-feeling--for all that makes life worth living--than all the art,
literature, and theology ever produced. Without industry and commerce,
which these devotees of "the higher life" never weary of deprecating,
how would the inhabitants of the Italian republics have achieved the
intellectual and artistic conquests that make them the admiration of
every historian? The Stones of Venice could not have been written. The
artists could not have lived that enabled Vassari to hand his name
down to posterity. The new learning would have been a flower planted
in a barren soil, and even before it had come to bud it would have
fallen withered. May we not, therefore, expect that in like manner the
wealth and freedom of the Anglo-Saxon race will bring forth fruits
that shall not evoke scorn and contempt? Already their achievements
in every field except painting, sculpture, and architecture eclipse
those of their rivals. Not excepting the literature of the Greeks,
is any so rich, varied, powerful, and voluminous as theirs? If they
have no Cæsar or Napoleon, they have a long list of men that have been
of infinitely greater use to civilization than those two products of
militant barbarism. If judged by practical results, they are without
rivals in the work of education. By their inventions and their
applications of the discoveries of science they have distanced all
competitors in the race for industrial and commercial supremacy. In
the work of philanthropy no people has done as much as they. The volume
of their personal effort and pecuniary contributions to ameliorate
the condition of the poor and unfortunate are without parallel in the
annals of charity. Yet Professor Ely, echoing the opinion of Charles
Booth and other misguided philanthropists, has the assurance to tell us
that "individualism has broken down." It is the social philosophy that
they are trying to thrust upon the world again that stands hopelessly
condemned before the remorseless tribunal of universal experience.

In the light thus obtained from science and history, the duty of the
American people toward the current social and political philosophy
and all the quack measures it proposes for the amelioration of the
condition of the unfortunate becomes clear and urgent. It is to
pursue without equivocation or deviation the policy of larger and
larger freedom for the individual that has given the Anglo-Saxon his
superiority and present dominance in the world. To this end they should
oppose with all possible vigor every proposed extension of the duty
of the state that does not look to the preservation of order and the
enforcement of justice. Regarding it as an onslaught of the forces of
barbarism, they should make no compromise with it; they should fight it
until freedom has triumphed. The next duty is to conquer the freedom
they still lack. Here the battle must be for the suppression of the
system of protective tariffs, for the transfer to private enterprise
and beneficence, the duties of the post office, the public schools, and
all public charities, for the repeal of all laws in regulation of trade
and industry as well as those in regulation of habits and morals. As
an inspiration it should be remembered that the struggle is not only
for freedom but for honesty. For the truth can not be too loudly or
too often proclaimed that every law taking a dollar from a man without
his consent, or regulating his conduct not in accordance with his own
notions, but in accordance with those of his neighbors, contributes to
the education of a people in idleness and crime. The next duty is to
encourage on every hand an appeal to voluntary effort to accomplish
all tasks too great for the strength of the individual. Whether those
tasks be moral, industrial, or educational, voluntary co-operation
alone should assume them and carry them to a successful issue. The
government should have no more to do with them than it has to do with
the cultivation of wheat or the management of Sunday schools or the
suppression of backbiting. The last and final duty should be to cheapen
and, as fast as possible, to establish gratuitous justice. With the
great diminution of crime that would result from the observance of the
duties already mentioned there would be much less occasion than now
to appeal to the courts. But, whenever the occasion arises, it should
involve no cost to the person that feels that his rights have been
invaded.

Thus will be solved indirectly all the problems of democracy that
social and political reformers seek in vain to solve directly. With the
diminution of the duties of the state to the preservation of order and
the enforcement of justice will be effected a reform as important and
far reaching as the suppression of chronic warfare. When politicians
are deprived of the immense plunder now involved in political warfare,
it will not be necessary to devise futile plans for caucus reform, or
ballot reform, or convention reform, or charter reform, or legislative
reform. Having no more incentive to engage in their nefarious business
than the smugglers that the abolition of the infamous tariff laws
banished from Europe, they will disappear among the crowd of honest
toilers. The suppression of the robberies of the tax collectors and
tax eaters, who have become so vast an army in the United States,
will effect also a solution of all labor problems. A society that
permits every toiler to work for whomsoever he pleases and for whatever
he pleases, protecting him in the full enjoyment of all the fruits
of his labor, has done for him everything that can be done. It has
taught him self-support and self-control. In thus guaranteeing him
freedom of contract and putting an end to the plunder of a bureaucracy
and privileged classes of private individuals, the beneficiaries of
special legislation, it has effected the only equitable distribution
of property possible. At the same time it has accomplished a vastly
greater work. As I have shown, the indispensable condition of success
of all movements for moral reform is the suppression not only of
militant strife, but of political strife. While they prevail, all
ecclesiastical and pedagogic efforts to better the condition of society
must fail. Despite lectures, despite sermons and prayers, despite also
literature and art, the ethics controlling the conduct of men and women
will be those of war. But with the abolition of both forms of militant
strife it becomes an easy task to teach the ethics of peace, and to
establish a state of society that requires no other government than
that of conscience. All the forces of industrialism contribute to the
work and insure its success.

       *       *       *       *       *

"This thirst for shooting every rare or unwonted kind of bird," says
the author of an article in the London Saturday Review, "is accountable
for the disappearance of many interesting forms of life in the British
Islands."




AN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY.

BY HERBERT STOTESBURY.


[Illustration: MICHAEL FOSTER, K. C. B., M. A., F. R. S., Trinity.
Professor of Physiology.]

Most minds in America, as in England, if they think about the
subject at all, impute to the two ancient centers of Anglo-Saxon
learning--Oxford and Cambridge--an unquestionable supremacy. A halo
of greatness surrounds these august institutions, none the less real
because to the American mind, at least, it is vague. Half the books
students at other institutions require in their various courses have
the names of eminent Cambridge or Oxford men upon the fly leaf.
Michael Foster's Physiology, Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, and Bryce's
American Commonwealth are recognized text-books wherever the subjects
of which they treat are studied; while Sir G. G. Stokes, Jebb, Lord
Acton, Caird, Max Müller, and Ray Lankester are as well known to
students of Leland Stanford or Princeton as they are to Englishmen.
One can scarcely read a work on English literature or open an English
novel which does not make some reference to one or other of the great
universities or their colleges, inseparably associated as they are
with English life and history, past and present. Our oldest college
owes its existence to John Harvard, of Emmanuel, Cambridge, and the
name of the mother university still clings to her transatlantic
offspring. The English institutions have become firmly associated in
the vulgar mind with all that is dignified, venerable, and thorough in
learning, but, beyond a vague sentiment of admiration, little adequate
knowledge on the subject is abroad. American or German universities are
organizations not very difficult to comprehend, and a vague knowledge
of them is perhaps sufficient. The understanding, however, of those
complicated academic communities, Oxford and Cambridge, is a matter of
intimate experience. They differ widely from their sister institutions
in other countries, and in attempting to give some conception of
their peculiarities the writer proposes to restrict himself chiefly
to Cambridge, because there are not very many striking differences
between the latter and Oxford, and because the scientific supremacy
of Cambridge is sufficiently established to render her an object of
greater interest to the readers of the Science Monthly.

[Illustration: The Right Hon. LORD ACTON, M. A., LL. D., Trinity.
Professor of Modern History.]

First of all, it must be borne in mind that throughout most of their
history these institutions have been closely related, not to the body
of the people, but to the aristocracy. This was not so much the case
at first, before the university became an aggregate of colleges. Then
a rather poor and humble class were enabled, through the small expense
involved, to acquire the rudiments of an education, and even to become
proficient in the scholastic dialectic. But ere long, and with the
gradual endowment of different colleges, the expenses of a student
became much greater, and, save where scholarships could be obtained,
it required some affluence before parents could afford to give their
sons an academic training. Hence, the more fortunate or aristocratic
classes came in time to contribute the large majority of the student
body. Those whose intellectual attainments were so unusual as to
constitute ways and means have never been debarred, but impecunious
mediocrity had and still has little place or opportunity. It is well to
remember, in addition, that the Church fostered these universities in
their infancy, that it deserves unqualified credit for having nursed
them through their early months, and that it continues to have some
considerable influence over the modern institutions. Finally, the
growth of Cambridge and Oxford has largely been occasioned by lack of
rivals in their own class. In this branch or that, other institutions
have become deservedly famous. Edinburgh has a high reputation in
moral science; Manchester is renowned for her physics, chemistry,
and engineering; and London for her medical schools. But Oxford and
Cambridge are strong in many branches. Financially powerful, they are
able to attract the majority of promising and eminent men, whence has
resulted that remarkable _coterie_ of unrivaled intellects through whom
the above-named universities are chiefly known to the outer and foreign
world. This characteristic has its opposite illustrated in the United
States, where the tendency is centrifugal, no one or two universities
or colleges having advantages so decided as inevitably to attract most
of the best minds, and where, in consequence, the best minds are found
scattered from California to Harvard and Pennsylvania.

[Illustration: J. J. THOMSON, M. A., F. R. S., Trinity. Professor of
Experimental Physics.]

The characteristic peculiar to Cambridge and Oxford, and which
distinguishes them not only from American but also from all other
universities in England and elsewhere, is the college system. Thus
Cambridge is a collection of eighteen colleges which, though nominally
united to form one institution, are really distinct, inasmuch as
each is a separate community with its own buildings and grounds, its
own resident students, its own lecturers, and Fellows--a community
which is supported by its own moneys without aid from the university
exchequer, and which in most matters legislates for itself. The
system is not unlike the American Union on a small scale, with its
cluster of governments and their relation to a supreme center. The
advantages of this scheme might theoretically be very great. With
each college handsomely endowed and, though managing its own affairs,
entering freely, in addition, into those relations of reciprocity
which make for the good of the whole, one can readily imagine an
ideal academic commonwealth. And while the present condition of the
university can scarcely be said to approximate very closely to such
an academic Utopia, it yet derives from its constitution numerous
obvious advantages which universities otherwise constituted would and
do undoubtedly lack. The chief evils besetting the university are
perhaps more adventitious than inherent; they are largely financial,
and arise from carrying the system of college individualism too far. A
description of the college and university organization may make this
apparent. By its endowment a college must support a certain number
of Fellows and scholars. The latter form a temporary body, while the
former are more or less permanent, and therefore upon them devolves the
management of the college. Business is usually done by a council chosen
from the Fellows, and the election of new Fellows to fill vacancies is
made by this select body. The head of a college is known as the master;
he is elected by the Fellows save in one or two cases, where his
appointment rests with the crown or with certain wealthy individuals.
He lives in the college lodge especially built for him, draws a salary
large in proportion to the wealth of his college, and exerts an
influence corresponding to his intelligence.

[Illustration: G. H. DARWIN, M. A., F. R. S., Trinity. Plumian
Professor of Astronomy.]

The Fellows are in most cases chosen from those men who have achieved
the greatest success in an honor course. At Cambridge College
individualism has progressed so far that the Fellows of, say, Magdalen
must be Magdalen men, the students of Queens', St Catherine's, or any
other being ineligible save for their own fellowships. Oxford obtains
perhaps better men on the whole by throwing open the fellowships of
each particular college to the graduates of all, thus producing a
wider competition. A fellowship until recently was tenable for life,
but it has been reduced to about six years, the Fellows as a whole,
however, retaining the power to extend the period of possession. And,
further, the holding of a college office for fifteen years in general
qualifies for the holding of a fellowship for life, and for a pension
as lecturer or tutor. Thus a man is able to devote himself to research
with little fear that at the latter end of his career he will lack the
means of support. It is perhaps not too much to say that the offices of
college dean, tutor, and lecturer are more perquisites than anything
else. They are meant to keep and attract men of ability and parts.
However, their existence reacts upon the student body by augmenting
the expenses of the latter out of proportion to the benefits to be
obtained. For instance, instead of utilizing one set of lecturers for
one class of subjects, which all students could attend for a small fee,
each of the larger colleges, at any rate, pays special lecturers, drawn
from its own Fellows, to speak upon the same subjects each to a mere
handful of men from their own college only. The tutor is another luxury
inherited from the middle ages and therefore retained, and one for
which the students have to pay dearly. The chief business of the tutor
is not to teach, but to "look after" a certain number of students who
are theoretically relegated to his charge. He looks up their lodgings
for them, pays their bills at the end of the term, gets them out of
scrapes, and draws a large salary. The tutorships seem to the writer
to be a good illustration of how an office necessary to one period
persists after that for which it was instituted has ceased to exist.
When the students of Oxford and Cambridge were many of them thirteen
and fourteen years of age, as in the fourteenth century, nurses were
doubtless necessary, but they are still retained when the greater
maturity of the students renders them not only unnecessary but at times
even an impertinence.

The dean is not, as with us, the head of a department; his functions
are not so many, his tasks far less onerous. It is before a college
dean that students are "hauled" for such offenses as irregularity at
chapel, returning to the college after 12 P. M., smoking in college
precincts, bringing dogs into the college grounds, and other villainous
offenses against regulations. A dean must also attend chapel. Some
colleges require two deans to struggle through these complicated and
laborious duties, though some possessing only a few dozen students
succeed in getting along with one.

The line of demarcation between the university and the colleges is
very distinct. The legislative influence of the former extends over a
comparatively restricted field. All professorial chairs and certain
lectureships belong to and are paid by the university; the latter
has the arranging of the curricula, the care of the laboratories,
the disposition of certain noncollegiate scholarships; but, broadly
speaking, its two functions are the examination of all students and the
conferring of degrees. The supreme legislative body is the senate,
and it is composed of all masters of arts, doctors, and bachelors
of divinity whose names still remain on the university books--that
is, who continue to pay certain fees into the university treasury.
In addition to the legislative body there is an executive head or
council of nineteen, including the chancellor--at present the Duke of
Devonshire--and the vice-chancellor. Both these bodies must govern
according to the statutes, no alteration in which can be effected
without recourse being had to Parliament. The senate is a peculiar
body, and on occasions becomes somewhat unwieldy. It consists at
present of some 6,800 members, of whom only 452 are in residence at
Cambridge. Upon ordinary occasions only these 452 vote upon questions
proposed by the council; but on occasions of great moment, as when
the question of granting university degrees to women came up, some
thousands or more of the nonresident members, who in many cases have
lost touch with the modern university and modern systems of education,
swarm to their alma mater, annihilate the champions of reform, and are
hailed by their brethren as the saviors of their university.

[Illustration: R. C. JEBB, Litt. D., M. P., Trinity. Regius Professor
of Greek.]

The university's exchequer is supplied partly by its endowment, but
chiefly by an assessment on the college incomes, a capitation tax on
all undergraduates, and the fees attending matriculation, examinations,
and the granting of degrees. The examinations are numerous. Every
student on entering is required to pass, or to claim exemption from,
an entrance examination. In either case he pays £3 to the university,
and upon admission to any honor course or "tripos" to qualify for
the degree of Bachelor of Arts £3 more is exacted. The income of the
university from these examination fees alone amounts to £9,400 per
annum, £4,600 of which goes to pay the examiners. In America this is
supposed to be a part of the professor's or instructor's duty, no
additional remuneration is allowed, and hence it does not become
necessary to make an additional tax upon the students' resources. The
conferring of degrees is also made a very profitable affair. Each
candidate for the degree of B. A. pays out £7 to the voracious 'varsity
chest, and upon proceeding to the M. A. a further contribution of £12
is requested. In this way the university makes about £12,000 a year,
and, as though this was not sufficient, she requires a matriculation
fee of £5 for every student who becomes a member. By this means another
annual £5,000 is obtained. It must be remembered that these fees are
entirely separate from the college fees. When the £5 matriculation for
the latter is taken into consideration and the £8 a term (at Trinity)
for lectures, two thirds of which the student does not attend, when it
is understood that all this and more does not include living expenses,
which are by no means slight, and that there are three terms instead of
two, as with us, it will be obvious that Cambridge adheres very closely
to the rule that to them only who have wealth shall her refining
influence be given. That the greatest universities in existence should
render it almost totally impossible for aught but the rich to obtain
the advantages of their unusual educational facilities jars with that
idea of democracy of learning which an American training is apt to
foster. But, as we shall point out later, an aristocracy of learning
may also have its uses.

[Illustration: HENRY SIDGWICK, Litt. D., Trinity. Knightbridge
Professor of Moral Philosophy.]

With all the revenues the university collects from colleges and
students, amounting in all to about £65,000, Cambridge still finds
herself poor. Some of the colleges, notably King's and Trinity,
are extremely wealthy, but the university remains, if not exactly
impecunious, at least on the ragged edge of financial difficulties.
The various regius and other professorships, inadequately endowed by
the munificence of the crown and of individuals, have each to be
augmented from the university chest. The continual repairing of the old
laboratories and scientific apparatus, the salaries to lecturers, to
proctors, bedells, and other officers, cause a continual drain on the
exchequer, which, with the rapidly growing need for larger laboratories
and newer apparatus, has finally resulted in an appeal to the country
for the sum of half a million pounds.

[Illustration: DONALD MACALISTER, M. A., M. D., St. Johns. Linacre
Lecturer of Physics.]

It has been seen that the drains on a student's pocket are very
considerable at Cambridge, owing to the number of perquisites showered
by the colleges on their Fellows, and it may appear that this state
of things is unjust and wrong. At present Oxford and Cambridge are
practically within the reach of only the moneyed population. According,
however, to a plausible and frequently repeated theory, it is not the
function of these universities to meet the educational needs of the
mediocre poor. The writer's critical attitude toward the financial
system in vogue at Cambridge is a proper one, only on the assumption
that a maximum of education to all classes alike at a minimum of
expense is the final cause and desideratum of a university's existence.
But if one assumes that Oxford and Cambridge exist for a different
purpose, that the chief end they propose to themselves is individual
research, and the advancement, not the promulgation, of learning, it
must be admitted that their system has little that is reprehensible.
According to this standpoint the students only exist by courtesy of
the dons (a name for the Fellows), who have a perfect right to impose
upon the students, in return for the condescension which is shown them,
what terms they see fit. And they argue that this view is the historic
one. The colleges were originally endowed solely for the benefit of
a certain limited number of Fellows and scholars. The undergraduate
body, as it at present exists, is a later growth, whose eventual
existence and the importance of which to the university was probably
not anticipated by the college founders. Starting with this, the
defenders of the present _régime_ would point out, in addition, that
there are other English institutions where the poorer classes may be
educated, that Cambridge and Oxford are not only not bound to take upon
themselves this task, but that they actually subserve a higher purpose
and one just as necessary to the development of English science and
letters and to the education of the English intellect by specializing
in another direction. The good of a philosopher's lifelong reflections,
they would say, is not always manifest, but the teachers who instruct
the nation's youth are themselves dependent for rational standpoints
upon the labor of the greater teacher, and they act as the instruments
of communication between the most learned and the unlettered. So Oxford
and Cambridge are the sources from whose fountains of wisdom and
culture flow streams supplying all the academic mills of Britain, which
in their turn are enabled to feed the inhabitants. It would be absurd,
they maintain, to insist that the streams and the mills could equally
well fulfill the same functions. Cambridge and Oxford instruct just so
far as so doing is compatible with what for them is the main end--the
furthering of various kinds of research and the offering of all sorts
of inducements in order to keep and attract the interested attention of
classical butterflies and scientific worms. How well they succeed in
this noble ambition is known throughout the civilized world.

Mr. G. H. Darwin, a son of Charles Darwin, has recently had occasion
to mention the enormous scientific output of Cambridge University.
After saying that the Royal Society is the Academy of Sciences in
England, and that in its publications appear accounts of all the
most important scientific discoveries in England and most of those
in Scotland, Ireland, and other parts of Europe, he goes on to state
that he examined the Transactions of this society for three years and
discovered that out of the 5,480 pages published in that time 2,418
were contributed by Cambridge men and 1,324 by residents.

In view of these facts, and despite the shortcomings of this university
as a teaching institution, it is to be hoped that private generosity
will answer her appeal for financial assistance. Her laboratories are
a mine of research, and it is in them and in the men who conduct them
that Cambridge is perhaps most to be admired.

[Illustration: SIR G. G. STOKES, Bart., M. A., LL. D., Sc. D., F. R.
S., Pembroke. Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.]

The Cavendish Laboratory of Physics, where Clerk-Maxwell and afterward
Lord Rayleigh taught, and which is at present in the hand of their
able successor, J. J. Thomson, is a building of considerable size
and admirably fitted out, but the rapidly increasing number of young
physicists who are being allured by the working facilities of the
place, and by the fame of Professor Thomson, is rendering even this
splendidly equipped hall of science inadequate. The physiological
laboratories are many, they are completely furnished with appliances,
and a large number of students are there trained annually under the
supervision of one of England's most eminent living scientists,
Michael Foster, and his scarcely less able associates--Langley, Hardy,
and Gaskell. Chemistry, zoölogy, botany, anatomy, and geology have
each their well-appointed halls and masterly exponents. The names
MacAlister, Liveing, Dewar, Newton, Sedgwick, Marshall Ward, and Hughes
are not easily matched in any other one institution. Indeed, it is
when one stops to consider the intellects at Cambridge that it becomes
a dangerous matter to institute comparisons, and to say that this
discipline or that is most rich in eminent interpreters. In science,
at any rate, and in all branches of science, Cambridge stands alone.
Not even Oxford can be considered for a moment as in the same class
with her. And of all the sciences it is undoubtedly in mathematics
and astronomy that the supremacy of Cambridge is most pronounced. The
names of Profs. Sir G. G. Stokes and Sir R. S. Ball will be familiar to
every reader, while those of Profs. Forsythe and G. H. Darwin and Mr.
Baker will be familiar to all mathematicians. In classics Cambridge,
while not possessing a similar monopoly of almost all the talent,
still holds her own even with Oxford. Professors Jebb, Mayor, and
Ridgeway, and Drs. Verrall, Jackson, and Frazer constitute a group of
men second to none in the subjects of which they treat. Professor Jebb
is also one of the university's two representatives in Parliament.
In philosophy Cambridge has two men, Henry Sidgwick and James Ward,
the former of whom is perhaps by common consent the first living
authority on moral science, while the latter ranks among the first of
living psychologists. These men, while representing very different
philosophical standpoints, unite in opposition not only to the
Hegelian movement, which, led by Caird and Bradley of Oxford, Seth and
Stirling of Edinburgh, threatens the invasion of England, but also to
the Spencerian philosophy. The latter system has not many adherents at
either university, but the writer has been told by Professor Sully that
the ascendency of the neo-Hegelian and other systems is by no means
so pronounced elsewhere in England. The Spencerian biology, on the
contrary, has been largely defended at Cambridge, while Weismannism,
for the most part, is repudiated there and at Oxford.

The teaching at Cambridge, as at all universities, is of many grades.
In many subjects the lectures are not meant to give a student
sufficient material to get him through an examination, and a "coach"
becomes requisite, or at any rate is employed. This system of coaching
has attained large dimensions; its results are often good, but it
means an additional expense and seems an incentive to laziness, making
it unnecessary for a student to exert his own mental aggressiveness
or powers of application as he who fights his own battles must do.
The Socratic form of instruction, producing a more intimate and
unrestricted relation between instructor and student, and which is
largely in operation in the States, is little practiced in England.
In science the methods of instruction at Cambridge are ideal. That
practical acquaintance with the facts of Nature which Huxley and
Tyndall taught is the only true means of knowing Nature, is the key
according to which all biological and physical instruction at these
institutions is conducted.

[Illustration: JAMES WARD, Sc. D., Trinity. Professor of Mental
Philosophy and Logic.]

In the last half dozen years two radical steps have been taken by both
Oxford and Cambridge--steps leading, to many respectable minds, in
diametrically opposite directions. The step backward (in the writer's
view) occurred when the universities, after much excitement, defeated
with slaughter the proposition granting university degrees to women.
It was simply proposed that the students of Newnham and Girton, who
should successfully compete with male students in an honor course,
should have an equal right with the latter to receive the usual degrees
from their alma mater. After industrious inquiry among those who were
foremost in supporting and opposing this movement the writer has
unearthed no objection of weight against the change. "If the women
were granted degrees they would have votes in the senate," and "It
never has been done"--these are the two reasons most persistently
urged in defense of the conservative view; while justice and utility
alike appear to be for once, at any rate, unequivocally on the side
of the women. Prejudice defeated progress, and students celebrated
the auspicious occasion with bonfires. The step forward was taken
when the universities and their colleges decided to throw open their
gates to the graduates of other universities in England, America, and
elsewhere for the purpose of advanced study. But here, as in other
things, Cambridge leads the way, and Oxford follows falteringly. The
advanced students at Cambridge are treated like Cambridge men, they
have the status of Bachelors of Arts, and possess in most respects
the advantages, such as they are, of the latter; while at Oxford the
advanced students are a restricted class, with restricted advantages,
and their relation to the university is not that of the other
students. In Cambridge the movement which has resulted in the present
admirable condition of affairs was largely brought about by the zeal
and enterprise of Dr. Donald MacAlister, of St. John's College, the
University Lecturer in Therapeutics, a man of wide sympathies and
ability, and whose name is closely associated with this university's
metamorphosis into a more modern institution.




THE WONDERFUL CENTURY.[1]

A REVIEW BY W. K. BROOKS,

PROFESSOR OF ZOÖLOGY IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.


Every naturalist has in his heart a warm affection for the author of
the Malay Archipelago, and is glad to acknowledge with gratitude his
debt to this great explorer and thinker and teacher who gave us the law
of natural selection independently of Darwin. When the history of our
century is written, the foremost place among those who have guided the
thought of their generation and opened new fields for discovery will
assuredly be given to Wallace and Darwin.

[1] Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1899.

Few of the great men who have helped to make our century memorable
in the history of thought are witnesses of its end, and all who have
profited by the labors of Wallace will rejoice that he has been
permitted to stand on the threshold of a new century, and, reviewing
the past, to give us his impressions of the wonderful century.

We men of the nineteenth century, he says, have not been slow to praise
it. The wise and the foolish, the learned and the unlearned, the poet
and the pressman, the rich and the poor, alike swell the chorus of
admiration for the marvelous inventions and discoveries of our own age,
and especially for those innumerable applications of science which now
form part of our daily life, and which remind us every hour of our
immense superiority over our comparatively ignorant forefathers.

Our century, he tells us, has been characterized by a marvelous and
altogether unprecedented progress in the knowledge of the universe and
of its complex forces, and also in the application of that knowledge
to an infinite variety of purposes calculated, if properly utilized,
to supply all the wants of every human being and to add greatly to the
comforts, the enjoyments, and the refinements of life. The bounds of
human knowledge have been so far extended that new vistas have opened
to us in nearly all directions where it had been thought that we could
never penetrate, and the more we learn the more we seem capable of
learning in the ever-widening expanse of the universe. It may, he
says, be truly said of the men of science that they have become as
gods knowing good and evil, since they have been able not only to
utilize the most recondite powers of Nature in their service, but have
in many cases been able to discover the sources of much of the evil
that afflicts humanity, to abolish pain, to lengthen life, and to add
immensely to the intellectual as well as the physical enjoyments of our
race.

In order to get any adequate measure for comparison with the nineteenth
century we must take not any preceding century, but the whole preceding
epoch of human history. We must take into consideration not only the
changes effected in science, in the arts, in the possibilities of
human intercourse, and in the extension of our knowledge both of the
earth and of the whole visible universe, but the means our century has
furnished for future advancement.

Our author, who has borne such a distinguished part in the intellectual
progress of our century, shows clearly that in means for the discovery
of truth, for the extension of our control over Nature, and for the
alleviation of the ills that beset mankind, the inheritance of the
twentieth century from the nineteenth will be greater than our own
inheritance from all the centuries that have gone before.

Some may regret that, while only one third of Wallace's book is
devoted to the successes of the wonderful century, the author finds
the remaining two thirds none too much for the enumeration of some of
its most notable failures; but it is natural for one who has borne his
own distinguished part in all this marvelous progress to ask where the
century has fallen short of the enthusiastic hopes of its leaders, what
that it might have done it has failed to do, and what lies ready at
the hand of the workers who will begin the new century with this rich
inheritance of new thoughts, new methods, and new resources.

The more we realize the vast possibilities of human welfare which
science has given us the more, he says, must we recognize our total
failure to make any adequate use of them.

Along with this continuous progress in science, in the arts, and in
wealth-production, which has dazzled our imaginations to such an extent
that we can hardly admit the possibility of any serious evils having
accompanied or been caused by it, there has, he says, been many serious
failures--intellectual, social, and moral. Some of our great thinkers,
he says, have been so impressed by the terrible nature of these
failures that they have doubted whether the final result of the work
of the century has any balance of good over evil, of happiness over
misery, for mankind at large.

Wallace is no pessimist, but one who believes that the first step in
retrieving our failures is to perceive clearly where we have failed,
for he says there can be no doubt of the magnitude of the evils that
have grown up or persisted in the midst of all our triumphs over
natural forces and our unprecedented growth in wealth and luxury, and
he holds it not the least important part of his work to call attention
to some of these failures.

With ample knowledge of the sources of health, we allow and even
compel the bulk of our population to live and work under conditions
which greatly shorten life. In our mad race for wealth we have made
gold more sacred than human life; we have made life so hard for many
that suicide and insanity and crime are alike increasing. The struggle
for wealth has been accompanied by a reckless destruction of the
stored-up products of Nature, which is even more deplorable because
irretrievable. Not only have forest growths of many hundred years been
cleared away, often with disastrous consequences, but the whole of
the mineral treasures of the earth's surface, the slow productions of
long-past eras of time and geological change, have been and are still
being exhausted with reckless disregard of our duties to posterity and
solely in the interest of landlords and capitalists. With all our
labor-saving machinery and all our command over the forces of Nature,
the struggle for existence has become more fierce than ever before,
and year by year an ever-increasing proportion of our people sink into
paupers' graves.

When the brightness of future ages shall have dimmed the glamour of our
material progress he says that the judgment of history will surely be
that our ethical standard was low and that we were unworthy to possess
the great and beneficent powers that science had placed in our hands,
for, instead of devoting the highest powers of our greatest men to
remedy these evils, we see the governments of the most advanced nations
arming their people to the teeth and expending most of the wealth and
all the resources of their science in preparation for the destruction
of life, of property, and of happiness.

He reminds us that the first International Exhibition, in 1851,
fostered the hope that men would soon perceive that peace and
commercial intercourse are essential to national well-being. Poets and
statesmen joined in hailing the dawn of an era of peaceful industry,
and exposition following exposition taught the nations how much they
have to learn from each other and how much to give to each other for
the benefit and happiness of all.

Dueling, which had long prevailed, in spite of its absurdity and
harmfulness, as a means of settling disputes, was practically abolished
by the general diffusion of a spirit of intolerance of private war; and
as the same public opinion which condemns it should, if consistent,
also condemn war between nations, many thought they perceived the dawn
of a wiser policy between nations.

Yet so far are we from progress toward its abolition that the latter
half of the century has witnessed not the decay, but a revival of the
war spirit, and at its end we find all nations loaded with the burden
of increasing armies and navies.

The armies are continually being equipped with new and more deadly
weapons at a cost which strains the resources of even the most wealthy
nations and impoverishes the mass of the people by increasing burdens
of debt and taxation, and all this as a means of settling disputes
which have no sufficient cause and no relation whatever to the
well-being of the communities which engage in them.

The evils of war do not cease with the awful loss of life and
destruction of property which are their immediate results, since they
form the excuse for inordinate increase of armaments--an increase
which has been intensified by the application to war purposes of those
mechanical inventions and scientific discoveries which, properly used,
should bring peace and plenty to all, but which when seized upon by the
spirit of militarism directly lead to enmity among nations and to the
misery of the people.

The first steps in this military development were the adoption of a new
rifle by the Prussian army in 1846, the application of steam to ships
of war in 1840, and the use of armor for battle ships in 1859. The
remainder of the century has witnessed a mad race between the nations
to increase the death-dealing power of their weapons and to add to
the number and efficiency of their armies, while all the resources of
modern science have been utilized in order to add to the destructive
power of cannon and both the defensive and the offensive power of
ships. The inability of industrious laboring men to gain any due share
of the benefits of our progress in scientific knowledge is due, beyond
everything else, to the expense of withdrawing great armies of men
in the prime of life from productive labor, joined to the burden of
feeding and clothing them and of keeping weapons and ammunition, ships,
and fortifications in a state of readiness, of continually renewing
stores of all kinds, of pensions, and of all the laboring men who must,
besides making good the destruction caused by war, be withdrawn from
productive labor and be supported by others that they may support the
army.

And what a horrible mockery is this when viewed in the light of either
Christianity or advancing civilization! All the nations armed to the
teeth and watching stealthily for some occasion to use their vast
armaments for their own aggrandizement and for the injury of their
neighbors are Christian nations, but their Christian governments do not
exist for the good of the governed, still less for the good of humanity
or civilization, but for the aggrandizement and greed and lust of the
ruling classes.

The devastation caused by the tyrants and conquerors of the middle
ages and of antiquity has been reproduced in our times by the rush to
obtain wealth. Even the lust of conquest, in order to obtain slaves
and tribute and great estates, by means of which the ruling classes
could live in boundless luxury, so characteristic of the earlier
civilization, is reproduced in our time.

Witness the recent conduct of the nations of Europe toward Crete and
Greece, upholding the most terrible despotism in the world because each
hopes for a favorable opportunity to obtain some advantage, leading
ultimately to the largest share of the spoil.

Witness the struggles in Africa and Asia, where millions of foreign
people may be enslaved and bled for the benefit of their new rulers.

The whole world, says Wallace, is but a gambling table. Just as
gambling deteriorates and demoralizes the individual, so the greed
for dominion demoralizes governments. The welfare of the people is
little cared for, except so far as to make them submissive taxpayers,
enabling the ruling and moneyed classes to extend their sway over new
territories and to create well-paid places and exciting work for their
sons and relatives.

Hence, says Wallace, comes the force that ever urges on the increase
of armaments and the extension of empire. Great vested interests
are at stake, and ever-growing pressure is brought to bear upon the
too-willing governments in the name of the greatness of the country,
the extension of commerce, or the advance of civilization. This state
of things is not progress, but retrogression. It will be held by the
historian of the future to show that we of the nineteenth century were
morally and socially unfit to possess the enormous powers for good and
evil which the rapid advance of scientific discovery has given us,
that our boasted civilization was in many respects a mere superficial
veneer, and that our methods of government were not in accord with
either Christianity or civilization.

Comparing the conduct of these modern nations, who call themselves
Christian and civilized, with that of the Spanish conquerors of
the West Indies, Mexico, and Peru, and making some allowances for
differences of race and public opinion, Wallace says there is not much
to choose between them.

Wealth and territory and native labor were the real objects in both
cases, and if the Spaniards were more cruel by nature and more reckless
in their methods the results were much the same. In both cases the
country was conquered and thereafter occupied and governed by the
conquerors frankly for their own ends, and with little regard for
the feelings or the well-being of the conquered. If the Spaniards
exterminated the natives of the West Indies, we, he says, have done the
same thing in Tasmania and about the same in temperate Australia. Their
belief that they were really serving God in converting the heathen,
even at the point of the sword, was a genuine belief, shared by priests
and conquerors alike--not a mere sham as ours is when we defend our
conduct by the plea of "introducing the blessings of civilization."

It is quite possible, says Wallace, that both the conquest of Mexico
and Peru by the Spaniards and our conquest of South Africa may have
been real steps in advance, essential to human progress, and helping on
the future reign of true civilization and the well-being of the human
race. But if so, we have been and are unconscious agents in hastening
the "far-off divine event." We deserve no credit for it. Our aims have
been for the most part sordid and selfish, and our rule has often
been largely influenced and often entirely directed by the necessity
of finding well-paid places for young men with influence, and also by
the constant demands for fresh markets by the influential class of
merchants and manufacturers.

More general diffusion of the conviction that while all share the
burdens of war, such good as comes from it is appropriated by the few,
will no doubt do much to discourage wars; but we must ask whether there
may not be another incentive to war which Wallace does not give due
weight--whether love of fighting may not have something to do with wars.

As we look backward over history we are forced to ask whether the greed
and selfishness of the wealthy and influential and those who hope to
gain are the only causes of war. We went to war with Spain because our
people in general demanded war. If we have been carried further than
we intended and are now fighting for objects which we did not foresee
and may not approve, this is no more than history might have led us to
expect. War with Spain was popular with nearly all our people a year
ago, and, while wise counsels might have stemmed this popular tide,
there can be no doubt that it existed, for the evil passions of the
human race are the real cause of wars.

The great problem of the twentieth century, as of all that have gone
before, is the development of the wise and prudent self-restraint which
represses natural passions and appetites for the sake of higher and
better ends.




SPIDER BITES AND "KISSING BUGS."[2]

BY L. O. HOWARD,

CHIEF OF THE DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE.


On several occasions during the past ten years, and especially at
the Brooklyn meeting of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science in 1894, the writer has endeavored to show that most of
the newspaper stories of deaths from spider bite are either grossly
exaggerated or based upon misinformation. He has failed to thoroughly
substantiate a single case of death from a so-called spider bite,
and has concluded that there is only one spider in the United States
which is capable of inflicting a serious bite--viz., _Latrodectus
mactans_, a species belonging to a genus of world-wide distribution,
the other species of which have universally a bad reputation among the
peoples whose country they inhabit. In spite of these conclusions, the
accuracy of which has been tested with great care, there occur in the
newspapers every year stories of spider bites of great seriousness,
often resulting in death or the amputation of a limb. The details of
negative evidence and of lack of positive evidence need not be entered
upon here, except in so far as to state that in the great majority
of these cases the spider supposed to have inflicted the bite is not
even seen, while in almost no case is the spider seen to inflict the
bite; and it is a well-known fact that there are practically no spiders
in our more northern States which are able to pierce the human skin,
except upon a portion of the body where the skin is especially delicate
and which is seldom exposed. There arises, then, the probability that
there are other insects capable of piercing tough skin, the results of
whose bites may be more or less painful, the wounds being attributed
to spiders on account of the universally bad reputation which these
arthropods seem to have.

[2] A paper read before Section F of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science at the Columbus meeting in August, 1899.

[Illustration: DIFFERENT STAGES OF CONORHINUS SANGUISUGUS. Twice
natural size. (After Marlatt.)]

These sentences formed the introduction to a paper read by the writer
at a meeting of the Entomological Society of Washington, held June
1st last. I went on to state that some of these insects are rather
well known, as, for example, the blood-sucking cone-nose (_Conorhinus
sanguisugus_) and the two-spotted corsairs (_Rasatus thoracicus_ and
_R. biguttatus_), both of which occur, however, most numerously in the
South and West, and then spoke of _Melanotestis picipes_, a species
which had been especially called to my attention by Mr. Frank M.
Jones, of Wilmington, Del., who submitted the report of the attending
physician in a case of two punctures by this insect inflicted upon
the thumb and forefinger of a middle-aged man in Delaware. I further
reported upon occasional somewhat severe results from the bites[3] of
the old _Reduvius personatus_, now placed in the genus _Opsicostes_,
and stated that a smaller species, _Coriscus subcoleoptratus_, had
bitten me rather severely under circumstances similar to some of those
which have given rise in the past to spider-bite stories. In the
course of the discussion which followed the reading of this paper, Mr.
Schwarz stated that twice during the present spring he had been bitten
rather severely by _Melanotestis picipes_ which had entered his room,
probably attracted by light. He described it as the worst biter among
heteropterous insects with which he had had any experience, and said
he thought it was commoner than usual in Washington during the present
year.

[3] When the word "bite" is used in connection with these bugs, it must
be remembered that it is really a puncture made with the sharp beak or
proboscis (see illustration).

No account of this meeting was published, but within a few weeks
thereafter several persons suffering from swollen faces visited the
Emergency Hospital in Washington and complained that they had been
bitten by some insect while asleep; that they did not see the insect,
and could not describe it. This happened during one of the temporary
periods when newspaper men are most actively engaged in hunting for
items. There was a dearth of news. These swollen faces offered an
opportunity for a good story, and thus began the "kissing-bug" scare
which has grown to such extraordinary proportions. I have received
the following letter and clipping from Mr. J. F. McElhone, of the
Washington Post, in reply to a request for information regarding the
origin of this curious epidemic:

"WASHINGTON, D. C., _August 14, 1899_.

"_Dr. L. O. Howard, Cosmos Club, Washington, D. C._

"DEAR SIR: Attached please find clipping from the Washington Post of
June 20, 1899, being the first story that ever appeared in print, so
far as I can learn, of the depredations of the _Melanotestis picipes_,
better known now as the kissing bug. In my rounds as police reporter of
the Post, I noticed, for two or three days before writing this story,
that the register of the Emergency Hospital of this city contained
unusually frequent notes of 'bug-bite' cases. Investigating, on the
evening of June 19th I learned from the hospital physicians that a
noticeable number of patients were applying daily for treatment for
very red and extensive swellings, usually on the lips, and apparently
the result of an insect bite. This led to the writing of the story
attached.

"Very truly yours, "James F. McElhone."

[Illustration:

The Washington Post.

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1899.

BITE OF A STRANGE BUG.

Several Patients Have Appeared at the Hospitals Very Badly Poisoned.

Lookout for the new bug. It is an insidious insect that bites without
causing pain and escapes unnoticed. But afterward the place where it
has bitten swells to ten times its normal size. The Emergency Hospital
has had several victims of this insect as patients lately and the
number is increasing. Application for treatment by other victims are
being made at other hospitals, and the matter threatens to become
something like a plague. None of those who have been bitten saw the
insect whose sting proves so disastrous. One old negro went to sleep
and woke up to find both his eyes nearly closed by the swelling from
his nose and cheeks, where the insect had alighted. The lips seems to
be the favorite point of attack.

William Smith, a newspaper agent, of 327 Trumbull street, went to the
Emergency last night with his upper lip swollen to many times its
natural size. The symptoms are in every case the same, and there is
indication of poisoning from an insect's bite. The matter is beginning
to interest the physicians, and every patient who comes in with the now
well-known marks is closely questioned as to the description of the
insect. No one has yet been found who has seen it. ]

It would be an interesting computation for one to figure out the amount
of newspaper space which was filled in the succeeding two months by
items and articles about the "kissing bug." Other Washington newspapers
took the matter up. The New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore papers
soon followed suit. The epidemic spread east to Boston and west to
California. By "epidemic" is meant the _newspaper_ epidemic, for every
insect bite where the biter was not at once recognized was attributed
to the popular and somewhat mysterious creature which had been given
such an attractive name, and there can be no doubt that some mosquito,
flea, and bedbug bites which had by accident resulted in a greater than
the usual severity were attributed to the prevailing osculatory insect.
In Washington professional beggars seized the opportunity, and went
around from door to door with bandaged faces and hands, complaining
that they were poor men and had been thrown out of work by the results
of "kissing-bug" stings! One beggar came to the writer's door and
offered, in support of his plea, a card supposed to be signed by the
head surgeon of the Emergency Hospital. In a small town in central
New York a man arrested on the charge of swindling entered the plea
that he was temporarily insane owing to the bite of the "kissing
bug." Entomologists all through the East were also much overworked
answering questions asked them about the mysterious creature. Men of
local entomological reputations were applied to by newspaper reporters,
by their friends, by people who knew them, in church, on the street,
and under all conceivable circumstances. Editorials were written about
it. Even the Scientific American published a two-column article on
the subject; and, while no international complications have resulted
as yet, the kissing bug, in its own way and in the short space of two
months, produced almost as much of a scare as did the San José scale in
its five years of Eastern excitement. Now, however, the newspapers have
had their fun, the necessary amount of space has been filled, and the
subject has assumed a castaneous hue, to Latinize the slang of a few
years back.

The experience has been a most interesting one. To the reader familiar
with the old accounts of the hysterical craze of south Europe,
based upon supposed tarantula bites, there can not fail to come the
suggestion that we have had in miniature and in modernized form,
aided largely by the newspapers, a hysterical craze of much the same
character. From the medical and psychological point of view this aspect
is interesting, and deserves investigation by competent persons.

As an entomologist, however, the writer confines himself to the actual
authors of the bites so far as he has been able to determine them. It
seems undoubtedly true that while there has been a great cry there
has been very little wool. It is undoubtedly true, also, that there
have been a certain number of bites by heteropterous insects, some
of which have resulted in considerable swelling. It seems true that
_Melanotestis picipes_ and _Opsicostes personatus_ have been more
numerous than usual this year, at least around Washington. They have
been captured in a number of instances while biting people, and have
been brought to the writer's office for determination in such a way
that there can be no doubt about the accuracy of this statement. As
the story went West, bites by _Conorhinus sanguisuga_ and _Rasatus
thoracicus_ were without doubt termed "kissing-bug" bites. With regard
to other cases, the writer has known of an instance where the mosquito
bite upon the lip of a sleeping child produced a very considerable
swelling. Therefore he argues that many of these reported cases may
have been nothing more than mosquito bites. With nervous and excitable
individuals the symptoms of any skin puncture become exaggerated not
only in the mind of the individual but in their actual characteristics,
and not only does this refer to cases of skin puncture but to certain
skin eruptions, and to some of those early summer skin troubles which
are known as strawberry rash, etc. It is in this aspect of the subject
that the resemblance to tarantulism comes in, and this is the result of
the hysterical wave, if it may be so termed.

Six different heteropterous insects were mentioned in the early part
of this article, and it will be appropriate to give each of them
some little detailed consideration, taking the species of Eastern
distribution first, since the scare had its origin in the East, and has
there perhaps been more fully exploited.

[Illustration: MELANOTESTIS ABDOMINALIS. Female at right; male at left,
with enlarged beak at side. Twice natural size. (Original.)]

[Illustration: HEAD AND PROBOSCIS OF CONORHINUS SANGUISUGUS. (After
Marlatt.)]

_Opsicostes personatus_, also known as _Reduvius personatus_, and which
has been termed the "cannibal bug," is a European species introduced
into this country at some unknown date, but possibly following close in
the wake of the bedbug. In Europe this species haunts houses for the
purpose of preying upon bedbugs. Riley, in his well-known article on
Poisonous Insects, published in Wood's Reference Handbook of Medical
Science, states that if a fly or another insect is offered to the
cannibal bug it is first touched with the antennæ, a sudden spring
follows, and at the same time the beak is thrust into the prey. The
young specimens are covered with a glutinous substance, to which
bits of dirt and dust adhere. They move deliberately, with a long
pause between each step, the step being taken in a jerky manner. The
distribution of the species, as given by Reuter in his Monograph of the
Genus _Reduvius_, is Europe to the middle of Sweden, Caucasia, Asia
Minor, Algeria, Madeira; North America, Canada, New York, Philadelphia,
Indiana; Tasmania, Australia--from which it appears that the insect is
already practically cosmopolitan, and in fact may almost be termed
a household insect. The collections of the United States National
Museum and of Messrs. Heidemann and Chittenden, of Washington, D. C.,
indicate the following localities for this species: Locust Hill, Va.;
Washington, D. C.; Baltimore, Md.; Ithaca, N. Y.; Cleveland, Ohio;
Keokuk, Iowa.

[Illustration: CORISCUS SUBCOLEOPTRATUS: _a_, wingless form; _b_,
winged form; _c_, proboscis. All twice natural size. (Original.)]

The bite of this species is said to be very painful, more so than that
of a bee, and to be followed by numbness (Lintner). One of the cases
brought to the writer's attention this summer was that of a Swedish
servant girl, in which the insect was caught, where the sting was
upon the neck, and was followed by considerable swelling. Le Conte,
in describing it under the synonymical name _Reduvius pungens_, gives
Georgia as the locality, and makes the following statement: "This
species is remarkable for the intense pain caused by its bite. I do not
know whether it ever willingly plunges its rostrum into any person, but
when caught or unskillfully handled it always stings. In this case the
pain is almost equal to that of the bite of a snake, and the swelling
and irritation which result from it will sometimes last for a week. In
very weak and irritable constitutions it may even prove fatal."[4]

[4] Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,
vol. vii, p. 404, 1854-'55.

The second Eastern species is _Melanotestis picipes_. This and the
closely allied and possibly identical _M. abdominalis_ are not rare in
the United States, and have been found all along the Atlantic States,
in the West and South, and also in Mexico. They live underneath stones
and logs, and run swiftly. Both sexes of _M. picipes_ in the adult
are fully winged, but the female of _M. abdominalis_ is usually found
in the short-winged condition. Prof. P. R. Uhler writes (in litt.):
"_Melanotestis abdominalis_ is not rare in this section (Baltimore),
but the winged female is a great rarity. At the present time I have not
a specimen of the winged female in my collection. I have seen specimens
from the South, in North Carolina and Florida, but I do not remember
one from Maryland. I am satisfied that _M. picipes_ is distinct from
_M. abdominalis_. I have not known the two species to unite sexually,
but I have seen them both united to their proper consorts. Both species
are sometimes found under the same flat stone or log, and they both
hibernate in our valleys beneath stones and rubbish in loamy soils."
Specimens in Washington collections show the following localities
for _M. abdominalis_: Baltimore, Md.; Washington, D. C.; Wilmington,
Del.; New Jersey; Long Island; Fort Bliss, Texas; Louisiana; and
Keokuk, Iowa;, and for _M. picipes_, Washington, D. C.; Roslyn, Va.;
Baltimore, Md.; Derby, Conn.; Long Island; a series labeled New Jersey;
Wilmington, Del.; Keokuk, Iowa; Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio;
Louisiana; Jackson, Miss.; Barton County, Mo.; Fort Bliss, Texas; San
Antonio, Texas; Crescent City, Fla.; Holland, S. C.

This insect has been mentioned several times in entomological
literature. The first reference to its bite probably was made by
Townend Glover in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture
for 1875 (page 130). In Maryland, he states, _M. picipes_ is found
under stones, moss, logs of wood, etc., and is capable of inflicting a
severe wound with its rostrum or piercer. In 1888 Dr. Lintner, in his
Fourth Report as State Entomologist of New York (page 110), quotes from
a correspondent in Natchez, Miss., concerning this insect: "I send a
specimen of a fly not known to us here. A few days ago it punctured the
finger of my wife, inflicting a painful sting. The swelling was rapid,
and for several days the wound was quite annoying." Until recent years
this insect has not been known to the writer as occurring in houses
with any degree of frequency. In May, 1895, however, I received a
specimen from an esteemed correspondent--Dr. J. M. Shaffer, of Keokuk,
Iowa--together with a letter written on May 7th, in which the statement
was made that four specimens flew into his window the night before. The
insect, therefore, is attracted to light or is becoming attracted to
light, is a night-flier, and enters houses through open windows. Among
the several cases coming under the writer's observation of bites by
this insect, one has been reported by the well-known entomologist Mr.
Charles Dury, of Cincinnati, Ohio, in which this species (_M. picipes_)
bit a man on the back of the hand, making a bad sore. In another case,
where the insect was brought for our determination and proved to be
this species, the bite was upon the cheek, and the swelling was said to
be great, but with little pain. In a third case, occurring at Holland,
S. C., the symptoms were more serious. The patient was bitten upon
the end of the middle finger, and stated that the first paroxysm of
pain was about like that resulting from a hornet or a bee sting, but
almost immediately it grew ten times more painful, with a feeling of
weakness followed by vomiting. The pain was felt to shoot up the arm to
the under jaw, and the sickness lasted for a number of days. A fourth
case, at Fort Bliss, Texas, is interesting as having occurred in bed.
The patient was bitten on the hand, with very painful results and bad
swelling.

The third of the Eastern species, _Coriscus subcoleoptratus_, is said
by Uhler to have a general distribution in the Northern States, and is
like the species immediately preceding a native insect. There is no
record of any bite by this species, and it is introduced here for the
reason that it attracted the writer's attention crawling upon the walls
of an earth closet in Greene County, New York, where on one occasion it
bit him between the fingers. The pain was sharp, like the prick of a
pin, but only a faint swelling followed, and no further inconvenience.
The insect is mentioned, however, for the reason that, occurring in
such situations, it is one of the forms which are liable to carry
pathogenic bacteria.

[Illustration: RASATUS BIGUTTATUS. Twice natural size. (Original.)]

[Illustration: REDUVIUS (OPSICOSTES) PERSONATUS. Twice natural size.
(Original.)]

There remain for consideration the Southern and Western forms--_Rasatus
thoracicus_ and _R. biguttatus_, and _Conorhinus sanguisugus_.

The two-spotted corsair, as _Rasatus biguttatus_ is popularly termed,
is said by Riley to be found frequently in houses in the Southern
States, and to prey upon bedbugs. Lintner, referring to the fact that
it preys upon bedbugs, says: "It evidently delights in human blood, but
prefers taking it at second hand." Dr. A. Davidson, formerly of Los
Angeles, Cal., in an important paper entitled So-called Spider Bites
and their Treatment, published in the Therapeutic Gazette of February
15, 1897, arrives at the conclusion that almost all of the so-called
spider bites met with in southern California are produced by no spider
at all, but by _Rasatus biguttatus_. The symptoms which he describes
are as follows: "Next day the injured part shows a local cellulitis,
with a central dark spot; around this spot there frequently appears
a bullous vesicle about the size of a ten-cent piece, and filled with
a dark grumous fluid; a small ulcer forms underneath the vesicle, the
necrotic area being generally limited to the central part, while the
surrounding tissues are more or less swollen and somewhat painful. In
a few days, with rest and proper care, the swelling subsides, and in
a week all traces of the cellulitis are usually gone. In some of the
cases no vesicle forms at the point of injury, the formation probably
depending on the constitutional vitality of the individual or the
amount of poison introduced." The explanation of the severity of the
wound suggested by Dr. Davidson, and in which the writer fully concurs
with him, is not that the insect introduces any specific poison of
its own, but that the poison introduced is probably accidental and
contains the ordinary putrefactive germs which may adhere to its
proboscis. Dr. Davidson's treatment was corrosive sublimate--1 to 500
or 1 to 1,000--locally applied to the wound, keeping the necrotic part
bathed in the solution. The results have in all cases been favorable.
Uhler gives the distribution of _R. biguttatus_ as Arizona, Texas,
Panama, Pará, Cuba, Louisiana, West Virginia, and California. After a
careful study of the material in the United States National Museum,
Mr. Heidemann has decided that the specimens of _Rasatus_ from the
southeastern part of the country are in reality Say's _R. biguttatus_,
while those from the Southwestern States belong to a distinct species
answering more fully, with slight exceptions, to the description of
Stal's _Rasatus thoracicus_. The writer has recently received a large
series of _R. thoracicus_ from Mr. H. Brown, of Tucson, Arizona, and
had a disagreeable experience with the same species in April, 1898, at
San José de Guaymas, in the State of Sonora, Mexico. He had not seen
the insect alive before, and was sitting at the supper table with his
host--a ranchero of cosmopolitan language. One of the bugs, attracted
by the light, flew in with a buzz and flopped down on the table. The
writer's entomological instinct led him to reach out for it, and was
warned by his host in the remarkable sentence comprising words derived
from three distinct languages: "Guardez, guardez! Zat animalito sting
like ze dev!" But it was too late; the writer had been stung on the
forefinger, with painful results. Fortunately, however, the insect's
beak must have been clean, and no great swelling or long inconvenience
ensued.

Perhaps the best known of any of the species mentioned in our list is
the blood-sucking cone-nose (_Conorhinus sanguisugus_). This ferocious
insect belongs to a genus which has several representatives in the
United States, all, however, confined to the South or West. _C.
rubro-fasciatus_ and _C. variegatus_, as well as _C. sanguisugus_,
are given the general geographical distribution of "Southern States."
_C. dimidiatus_ and _C. maculipennis_ are Mexican forms, while _C.
gerstaeckeri_ occurs in the Western States. The more recently described
species, _C. protractus_ Uhl., has been taken at Los Angeles, Cal.;
Dragoon, Ariz.; and Salt Lake City, Utah. All of these insects are
blood-suckers, and do not hesitate to attack animals. Le Conte, in his
original description of _C. sanguisugus_,[5] adds a most significant
paragraph or two which, as it has not been quoted of late, will be
especially appropriate here: "This insect, equally with the former"
(see above), "inflicts a most painful wound. It is remarkable also
for sucking the blood of mammals, particularly of children. I have
known its bite followed by very serious consequences, the patient not
recovering from its effects for nearly a year. The many relations which
we have of spider bites frequently proving fatal have no doubt arisen
from the stings of these insects or others of the same genera. When
the disease called spider bite is not an anthrax or carbuncle it is
undoubtedly occasioned by the bite of an insect--by no means however,
of a spider. Among the many species of _Araneidæ_ which we have in the
United States I have never seen one capable of inflicting the slightest
wound. Ignorant persons may easily mistake a _Cimex_ for a spider. I
have known a physician who sent to me the fragments of a large ant,
which he supposed was a spider, that came out of his grandchild's
head." The fact that Le Conte was himself a physician, having graduated
from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1846, thus having been
nine years in practice at the time, renders this statement all the
more significant. The life history and habits of _C. sanguisugus_ have
been so well written up by my assistant, Mr. Marlatt, in Bulletin No.
4, New Series, of the Division of Entomology, United States Department
of Agriculture, that it is not necessary to enter upon them here.
The point made by Marlatt--that the constant and uniform character
of the symptoms in nearly all cases of bites by this insect indicate
that there is a specific poison connected with the bite--deserves
consideration, but there can be no doubt that the very serious results
which sometimes follow the bite are due to the introduction of
extraneous poison germs. The late Mr. J. B. Lembert, of Yosemite, Cal.,
noticed particularly that the species of _Conorhinus_ occurring upon
the Pacific coast is attracted by carrion. Professor Toumey, of Tucson,
Arizona, shows how a woman broke out all over the body and limbs with
red blotches and welts from a single sting on the shoulders. Specimens
of _C. sanguisugus_ received in July, 1899, from Mayersville, Miss.,
were accompanied by the statement--which is appropriate, in view of the
fact that the newspapers have insisted that the "kissing bug" prefers
the lip--that a friend of the writer was bitten on the lip, and that
the effect was a burning pain, intense itching, and much swelling,
lasting three or four days. The writer of the letter had been bitten
upon the leg and arm, and his brother was bitten upon both feet and
legs and on the arm, the symptoms being the same in all cases.

[5] Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia,
vol. vii, p. 404 1854-'55.

More need hardly be said specifically concerning these biting bugs.
The writer's conclusions are that a puncture by any one of them may
be and frequently has been mistaken for a spider bite, and that
nearly all reported spider-bite cases have had in reality this cause,
that the so-called "kissing-bug" scare has been based upon certain
undoubted cases of the bite of one or the other of them, but that other
bites, including mosquitoes, with hysterical and nervous symptoms
produced by the newspaper accounts, have aided in the general alarm.
The case of Miss Larson, who died in August, 1898, as the result of
a mosquito bite, at Mystic, Conn., is an instance which goes to show
that no mysterious new insect need be looked for to explain occasional
remarkable cases. One good result of the "kissing-bug" excitement will
prove in the end to be that it will have relieved spiders from much
unnecessary discredit.




THE MOSQUITO THEORY OF MALARIA.[6]

BY MAJOR RONALD ROSS.


I have the honor to address you, on completion of my term of special
duty for the investigation of malaria, on the subject of the practical
results as regard the prevention of the disease which may be expected
to arise from my researches; and I trust that this letter may be
submitted to the Government if the director general thinks fit.

[6] A report, published in Nature, from Major Ronald Ross to the
Secretary to the Director General, Indian Medical Service, Simla. Dated
Calcutta, February 16, 1899.

It has been shown in my reports to you that the parasites of malaria
pass a stage of their existence in certain species of mosquitoes, by
the bites of which they are inoculated into the blood of healthy men
and birds. These observations have solved the problem--previously
thought insolvable--of the mode of life of these parasites in external
Nature.

My results have been accepted by Dr. Laveran, the discoverer of the
parasites of malaria; by Dr. Manson, who elaborated the mosquito
theory of malaria; by Dr. Nuttall, of the Hygienic Institute of
Berlin, who has made a special study of the relations between insects
and disease; and, I understand, by M. Metchnikoff, Director of the
Laboratory of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Lately, moreover, Dr. C.
W. Daniels, of the Malaria Commission, who has been sent to study with
me in Calcutta, has confirmed my observations in a special report to
the Royal Society; while, lastly, Professor Grassi and Drs. Bignami
and Bastianelli, of Rome, have been able, after receiving specimens
and copies of my reports from me, to repeat my experiments in detail,
and to follow two of the parasites of human malaria through all their
stages in a species of mosquito called the _Anopheles claviger_.

It may therefore be finally accepted as a fact that malaria is
communicated by the bites of some species of mosquito; and, to judge
from the general laws governing the development of parasitic animals,
such as the parasites of malaria, this is very probably the only way in
which infection is acquired, in which opinion several distinguished men
of science concur with me.

In considering this statement it is necessary to remember that it does
not refer to the mere recurrences of fever to which people previously
infected are often subject as the result of chill, fatigue, and so on.
When I say that malaria is communicated by the bites of mosquitoes, I
allude only to the original infection.

It is also necessary to guard against assertions to the effect that
malaria is prevalent where mosquitoes and gnats do not exist. In my
experience, when the facts come to be inquired into, such assertions
are found to be untrue. Scientific research has now yielded so absolute
a proof of the mosquito theory of malaria that hearsay evidence opposed
to it can no longer carry any weight.

Hence it follows that, in order to eliminate malaria wholly or partly
from a given locality, it is necessary only to exterminate the various
species of insect which carry the infection. This will certainly
remove the malaria to a large extent, and will almost certainly remove
it altogether. It remains only to consider whether such a measure is
practicable.

Theoretically the extermination of mosquitoes is a very simple matter.
These insects are always hatched from aquatic larvæ or grubs which can
live only in small stagnant collections of water, such as pots and tubs
of water, garden cisterns, wells, ditches and drains, small ponds,
half-dried water courses, and temporary pools of rain-water. So far as
I have yet observed, the larvæ are seldom to be found in larger bodies
of water, such as tanks, rice fields, streams, and rivers and lakes,
because in such places they are devoured by minnows and other small
fish. Nor have I ever seen any evidence in favor of the popular view
that they breed in damp grass, dead leaves, and so on.

Hence, in order to get rid of these insects from a locality, it will
suffice to empty out or drain away, or treat with certain chemicals,
the small collections of water in which their larvæ must pass their
existence.

But the practicability of this will depend on
circumstances--especially, I think, on the species of mosquito with
which we wish to deal. In my experience, different species select
different habitations for their larvæ. Thus the common "brindled
mosquitoes" breed almost entirely in pots and tubs of water; the
common "gray mosquitoes" only in cisterns, ditches, and drains; while
the rarer "spotted-winged mosquitoes" seem to choose only shallow
rain-water puddles and ponds too large to dry up under a week or more,
and too small or too foul and stagnant for minnows.

Hence the larvæ of the first two varieties are found in large numbers
round almost all human dwellings in India; and, because their breeding
grounds--namely, vessels of water, drains, and wells--are so numerous
and are so frequently contained in private tenements, it will be almost
impossible to exterminate them on a large scale.

On the other hand, spotted-winged mosquitoes are generally much
more rare than the other two varieties. They do not appear to breed
in wells, cisterns, and vessels of water, and therefore have no
special connection with human habitations. In fact, it is usually
a matter of some difficulty to obtain their larvæ. Small pools of
any permanence--such as they require--are not common in most parts
of India, except during the rains, and then pools of this kind are
generally full of minnows which make short work of any mosquito
larvæ they may find. In other words, the breeding grounds of the
spotted-winged varieties seem to be so isolated and small that I
think it may be possible to exterminate this species under certain
circumstances.

The importance of these observations will be apparent when I add
that hitherto the parasites of human malaria have been found only in
spotted-winged mosquitoes--namely, in two species of them in India and
in one species in Italy. As a result of very numerous experiments I
think that the common brindled and gray mosquitoes are quite innocuous
as regards human malaria--a fortunate circumstance for the human race
in the tropics; and Professor Grassi seems to have come to the same
conclusion as the result of his inquiries in Italy.

But I wish to be understood as writing with all due caution on these
points. Up to the present our knowledge, both as regards the habits
of the various species of mosquito and as regards the capacity of each
for carrying malaria, is not complete. All I can now say is that if
my anticipations be realized--if it be found that the malaria-bearing
species of mosquito multiply only in small isolated collections of
water which can easily be dissipated--we shall possess a simple mode of
eliminating malaria from certain localities.

I limit this statement to certain localities only, because it is
obvious that where the breeding pools are very numerous, as in
water-logged country, or where the inhabitants are not sufficiently
advanced to take the necessary precautions, we can scarcely expect the
recent observations to be of much use--at least for some years to come.
And this limitation must, I fear, exclude most of the rural areas in
India.

Where, however, the breeding pools are not very numerous, and where
there is anything approaching a competent sanitary establishment, we
may, I think, hope to reap the benefit of these discoveries. And this
should apply to the most crowded areas, such as those of cities, towns
and cantonments, and also to tea, coffee, and indigo estates, and
perhaps to military camps.

For instance, malaria causes an enormous amount of sickness among the
poor in most Indian cities. Here the common species of mosquitoes breed
in the precincts of almost all the houses, and can therefore scarcely
be exterminated; but pools suitable for the spotted-winged varieties
are comparatively scarce, being found only on vacant areas, ill-kept
gardens, or beside roads in very exceptional positions where they can
neither dry up quickly nor contain fish. Thus a single small puddle
may supply the dangerous mosquitoes to several square miles containing
a crowded population: if this be detected and drained off--which will
generally cost only a very few rupees--we may expect malaria to vanish
from that particular area.

The same considerations will apply to military cantonments and estates
under cultivation. In many such malaria causes the bulk of the
sickness, and may often, I think, originate from two or three small
puddles of a few square yards in size. Thus in a malarious part of
the cantonment of Secunderabad I found the larvæ of spotted-winged
mosquitoes only after a long search in a single little pool which could
be filled up with a few cart-loads of town rubbish.

In making these suggestions I do not wish to excite hopes which may
ultimately prove to have been unfounded. We do not yet know all the
dangerous species of mosquito, nor do we even possess an exhaustive
knowledge of the haunts and habits of any one variety. I wish merely
to indicate what, so far as I can see at present, may become a very
simple means of eradicating malaria.

One thing may be said for certain. Where previously we have been unable
to point out the exact origin of the malaria in a locality, and have
thought that it rises from the soil generally, we now hope for much
more precise knowledge regarding its source; and it will be contrary to
experience if human ingenuity does not finally succeed in turning such
information to practical account.

More than this, if the distinguishing characteristics of the
malaria-bearing mosquitoes are sufficiently marked (if, for instance,
they all have spotted wings), people forced to live or travel in
malarious districts will ultimately come to recognize them and to take
precautions against being bitten by them.

Before practical results can be reasonably looked for, however, we must
find precisely--

(_a_) What species of Indian mosquitoes do and do not carry human
malaria.

(_b_) What are the habits of the dangerous varieties.

I hope, therefore, that I may be permitted to urge the desirability of
carrying out this research. It will no longer present any scientific
difficulties, as only the methods already successfully adopted will be
required. The results obtained will be quite unequivocal and definite.

But the inquiry should be exhaustive. It will not suffice to
distinguish merely one or two malaria-bearing species of mosquito in
one or two localities; we should learn to know all of them in all parts
of the country.

The investigation will be abbreviated if the dangerous species be found
to belong only to one class of mosquito, as I think is likely; and the
researches which are now being energetically entered upon in Germany,
Italy, America, and Africa will assist any which may be undertaken in
India, though there is reason for thinking that the malaria-bearing
species differ in various countries.

As each species is detected it will be possible to attempt measures at
once for its extermination in given localities as an experiment.

I regret that, owing to my work connected with _kala-azar_, I have not
been able to advance this branch of knowledge as much during my term
of special duty as I had hoped to do; but I think that the solution of
the malaria problem which has been obtained during this period will
ultimately yield results of practical importance.




FOOD POISONING.

BY VICTOR C. VAUGHAN,

PROFESSOR OF HYGIENE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.


Within the past fifteen or twenty years cases of poisoning with foods
of various kinds have apparently become quite numerous. This increase
in the number of instances of this kind has been both apparent and
real. In the first place, it is only within recent years that it has
been recognized that foods ordinarily harmless may become most powerful
poisons. In the second place, the more extensive use of preserved
foods of various kinds has led to an actual increase in the number of
outbreaks of food poisoning.

The harmful effects of foods may be due to any of the following causes:

1. Certain poisonous fungi may infect grains. This is the cause of
epidemics of poisoning with ergotized bread, which formerly prevailed
during certain seasons throughout the greater part of continental
Europe, but which are now practically limited to southern Russia and
Spain. In this country ergotism is practically unknown, except as a
result of the criminal use of the drug ergot. However, a few herds of
cattle in Kansas and Nebraska have been quite extensively affected with
this disease.

2. Plants and animals may feed upon substances that are not harmful
to them, but which may seriously affect man on account of his greater
susceptibility. It is a well-known fact that hogs may eat large
quantities of arsenic or antimony without harm to themselves, and thus
render their flesh unfit for food for man. It is believed that birds
that feed upon the mountain laurel furnish a food poisonous to man.

3. During periods of the physiological activity of certain glands
in some of the lower animals the flesh becomes harmful to man. Some
species of fish are poisonous during the spawning season.

4. Both animal and vegetable foods may become infected with the
specific germs of disease and serve as the carriers of the infection to
man. Instances of the distribution of typhoid fever by the milkman are
illustrations of this.

5. Animals may be infected with specific diseases, which may be
transmitted to man in the meat or milk. This is one of the means by
which tuberculosis is spread.

6. Certain nonspecific, poison-producing germs may find their way into
foods of various kinds, and may by their growth produce chemical
poisons either before or after the food has been eaten. This is the
most common form of food poisoning known in this country.

We will briefly discuss some foods most likely to prove harmful to man.

MUSSEL POISONING.--It has long been known that this bivalve is
occasionally poisonous. Three forms of mussel poisoning are recognized.
The first, known as _Mytilotoxismus gastricus_, is accompanied by
symptoms practically identical with those of cholera morbus. At first
there is nausea, followed by vomiting, which may continue for hours.
In severe cases the walls of the stomach are so seriously altered that
the vomited matter contains considerable quantities of blood. Vomiting
is usually accompanied by severe and painful purging. The heart may be
markedly affected, and death may result from failure of this organ.
Examination after death from this cause shows the stomach and small
intestines to be highly inflamed.

The second form of mussel poisoning is known as _Mytilotoxismus
exanthematicus_ on account of visible changes in the skin. At first
there is a sensation of heat, usually beginning in the eyelids, then
spreading to the face, and finally extending over the whole body.
This sensation is followed by an eruption, which is accompanied by
intolerable itching. In severe cases the breathing becomes labored, the
face grows livid, consciousness is lost, and death may result within
two or three days.

The most frequently observed form of mussel poisoning is that
designated as _Mytilotoxismus paralyticus_. As early as 1827 Combe
reported his observations upon thirty persons who had suffered from
this kind of mussel poisoning. The first symptoms, as a rule, appeared
within two hours after eating the poisonous food. Some suffered from
nausea and vomiting, but these were not constant or lasting symptoms.
All complained of a prickly feeling in the hands, heat and constriction
of the throat, difficulty of swallowing and speaking, numbness about
the mouth, gradually extending over the face and to the arms, with
great debility of the limbs. Most of the sufferers were unable to
stand; the action of the heart was feeble, and the face grew pale and
expressed much anxiety. Two of the thirty cases terminated fatally.
Post-mortem examination showed no abnormality.

Many opinions have been expressed concerning the nature of harmful
mussels. Until quite recently it was a common belief that certain
species are constantly toxic. Virchow has attempted to describe the
dangerous variety of mussels, stating that it has a brighter shell,
sweeter, more penetrating, bouillonlike odor than the edible kind, and
that the flesh of the poisonous mussel is yellow; the water in which
they are boiled becomes bluish.

However, this belief in a poisonous species is now admitted to be
erroneous. At one time it was suggested that mussels became hurtful
by absorbing the copper from the bottoms of vessels, but Christison
made an analysis of the mussels that poisoned the men mentioned by
Combe, with negative results, and also pointed out the fact that the
symptoms were not those of poisoning with copper. Some have held that
the ill effects were due wholly to idiosyncrasies in the consumers,
but cats and dogs are affected in the same way as men are. It has also
been believed that all mussels are poisonous during the period of
reproduction. This theory is the basis of the popular superstition that
shellfish should not be eaten during the months in the name of which
the letter "r" does not occur. At one time this popular idea took the
form of a legal enactment in France forbidding the sale of shellfish
from May 1st to September 1st. This widespread idea has a grain of
truth in it, inasmuch as decomposition is more likely to alter food
injuriously during the summer months. However, poisoning with mussels
may occur at any time of the year.

It has been pretty well demonstrated that the first two forms of mussel
poisoning mentioned above are due to putrefactive processes, while
the paralytic manifestations seen in other cases are due to a poison
isolated a few years ago by Brieger, and named by him mytilotoxin. Any
mussel may acquire this poison when it lives in filthy water. Indeed,
it has been shown experimentally that edible mussels may become harmful
when left for fourteen days or longer in filthy water; while, on the
other hand, poisonous mussels may become harmless if kept four weeks
or longer in clear water. This is true not only of mussels, but of
oysters as well. Some years ago, many cases of poisoning from oysters
were reported at Havre. The oysters had been taken from a bed near the
outlet of a drain from a public water closet. Both oysters and mussels
may harbor the typhoid bacillus, and may act as carriers of this germ
to man.

There should be most stringent police regulations against the sale of
all kinds of mollusks, and all fish as well, taken from filthy waters.
Certainly one should avoid shellfish from impure waters, and it is not
too much to insist that those offered for food should be washed in
clean water. All forms of clam and oyster broth should be avoided when
it has stood even for a few hours at summer heat. These preparations
very quickly become infected with bacteria, which develop most potent
poisons.

FISH POISONING.--Some fish are supplied with poisonous glands, by means
of which they secure their prey and protect themselves from their
enemies. The "dragon weaver," or "sea weaver" (_Trachinus draco_),
is one of the best known of these fish. There are numerous varieties
widely distributed in salt waters. The poisonous spine is attached
partly to the maxilla and partly to the gill cover at its base. This
spine is connected with a poisonous gland; the spine itself is grooved
and covered with a thin membrane, which converts the grooves into
canals. When the point enters another animal its membrane is stripped
back and the poison enters the wound. Men sometimes wound their feet
with the barbs of this fish while bathing. It also occasionally happens
that a fisherman pricks his fingers with one of these barbs. The most
poisonous variety of this fish known is found in the Mediterranean Sea.
Wounds produced by these animals sometimes cause death. In _Synanceia
brachio_ there are in the dorsal fin thirteen barbs, each connected
with two poison reservoirs. The secretion from these glands is clear,
bluish in color, and acid in reaction, and when introduced beneath the
skin causes local gangrene and, if in sufficient quantity, general
paralysis. In _Plotosus lineatus_ there is a powerful barb in front of
the ventral fin, and the poison is not discharged unless the end of
the barb is broken. The most poisonous variety of this fish is found
only in tropical waters. In _Scorpæna scrofa_ and other species of this
family there are poison glands connected with the barbs in the dorsal
and in some varieties in the caudal fin.

A disease known as _kakke_ was a few years ago quite prevalent in
Japan and other countries along the eastern coast of Asia. With
the opening up of Japan to the civilized world the study of this
disease by scientific methods was undertaken by the observant and
intelligent natives who acquired their medical training in Europe and
America. In Tokio the disease generally appears in May, reaches its
greatest prevalence in August, and gradually disappears in September
and October. The researches of Miura and others have fairly well
demonstrated that this disease is due to the eating of fish belonging
to the family of _Scombridæ_. There are other kinds of fish in
Japanese waters that undoubtedly are poisonous. This is true of the
_tetrodon_, of which, according to Remey, there are twelve species
whose ovaries are poisonous. Dogs fed upon these organs soon suffered
from salivation, vomiting, and convulsive muscular contractions. When
some of the fluid obtained by rubbing the ovaries in a mortar was
injected subcutaneously in dogs the symptoms were much more severe, and
death resulted. Tahara states that he has isolated from the roe of the
tetrodon two poisons, one of which is a crystalline base, while the
other is a white, waxy body. From 1885 to 1892 inclusive, 933 cases of
poisoning with this fish were reported in Tokio, with a mortality of
seventy-two per cent.

Fish poisoning is quite frequently observed in the West Indies, where
the complex of symptoms is designated by the Spanish term _siguatera_.
It is believed by the natives that the poisonous properties of the fish
are due to the fact that they feed upon decomposing medusæ and corals.
In certain localities it is stated that all fish caught off certain
coral reefs are unfit for food. However, all statements concerning the
origin and nature of the poison in these fish are mere assumptions,
since no scientific work has been done. Whatever the source of the
poison may be, it is quite powerful, and death not infrequently
results. The symptoms are those of gastro-intestinal irritation
followed by collapse.

In Russia fish poisoning sometimes causes severe and widespread
epidemics. The Government has offered a large reward for any one who
will positively determine the cause of the fish being poisonous and
suggest successful means of preventing these outbreaks. Schmidt, after
studying several of these epidemics, states the following conclusions:

(_a_) The harmful effects are not due to putrefactive processes. (_b_)
Fish poisoning in Russia is always due to the eating of some member of
the sturgeon tribe. (_c_) The ill effects are not due to the method of
catching the fish, the use of salt, or to imperfections in the methods
of preservation. (_d_) The deleterious substance is not uniformly
distributed through the fish, but is confined to certain parts. (_e_)
The poisonous portions are not distinguishable from the nonpoisonous,
either macroscopically or microscopically. (_f_) When the fish is
cooked it may be eaten without harm. (_g_) The poison is an animal
alkaloid produced most probably by bacteria that cause an infectious
disease in the fish during life.

The conclusion reached by Schmidt is confirmed by the researches of
Madame Sieber, who found a poisonous bacillus in fish which had caused
an epidemic.

In the United States fish poisoning is most frequently due to
decomposition in canned fish. The most prominent symptoms are nausea,
vomiting, and purging. Sometimes there is a scarlatinous rash, which
may cover the whole body. The writer has studied two outbreaks of
this kind of fish poisoning. In both instances canned salmon was the
cause of the trouble. Although a discussion of the treatment of food
poisoning is foreign to this paper, the writer must call attention to
the danger in the administration of opiates in cases of poisoning with
canned fish. Vomiting and purging are efforts on the part of Nature to
remove the poison, and should be assisted by the stomach tube and by
irrigation of the colon. In one of the cases seen by the writer large
doses of morphine had been administered in order to check the vomiting
and purging and to relieve the pain; in this case death resulted. The
danger of arresting the elimination of the poison in all cases of food
poisoning can not be too emphatically condemned.

MEAT POISONING.--The diseases most frequently transmitted from the
lower animals to man by the consumption of the flesh or milk of the
former by the latter are tuberculosis, anthrax, symptomatic anthrax,
pleuro-pneumonia, trichinosis, mucous diarrhoea, and actinomycosis.
It hardly comes within the scope of this article to discuss in detail
the transmission of these diseases from the lower animals to man.
However, the writer must be allowed to offer a few opinions concerning
some mooted questions pertaining to the consumption of the flesh
of tuberculous animals. Some hold that it is sufficient to condemn
the diseased part of the tuberculous cow, and that the remainder
may be eaten with perfect safety. Others teach that "total seizure"
and destruction of the entire carcass by the health authorities are
desirable. Experiments consisting of the inoculation of guinea pigs
with the meat and meat juices of tuberculous animals have given
different results to several investigators. To one who has seen
tuberculous animals slaughtered, these differences in opinion and in
experimental results are easily explainable. The tuberculous invasion
may be confined to a single gland, and this may occur in a portion
of the carcass not ordinarily eaten; while, on the other hand, the
invasion may be much more extensive and the muscles may be involved.
The tuberculous portion may consist of hard nodules that do not break
down and contaminate other tissues in the process of removal, but the
writer has seen a tuberculous abscess in the liver holding nearly a
pint of broken-down infected matter ruptured or cut in removing this
organ, and its contents spread over the greater part of the carcass.
This explains why one investigator succeeds in inducing tuberculosis
in guinea pigs by introducing small bits of meat from a tuberculous
cow into the abdominal cavity, while another equally skillful
bacteriologist follows the same details and fails to get positive
results. No one desires to eat any portion of a tuberculous animal, and
the only safety lies in "total seizure" and destruction. That the milk
from tuberculous cows, even when the udder is not involved, may contain
the specific bacillus has been demonstrated experimentally. The writer
has suggested that every one selling milk should be licensed, and the
granting of a license should be dependent upon the application of the
tuberculin test to every cow from which milk is sold. The frequency
with which tuberculosis is transmitted to children through milk should
justify this action.

That a profuse diarrhoea may render the flesh of an animal unfit
food for man was demonstrated by the cases studied by Gärtner. In this
instance the cow was observed to have a profuse diarrhoea for two
days before she was slaughtered. Both the raw and cooked meat from this
animal poisoned the persons who ate it. Medical literature contains the
records of many cases of meat poisoning due to the eating of the flesh
of cows slaughtered while suffering from puerperal fever. It has been
found that the flesh of animals dead of symptomatic anthrax may retain
its infection after having been preserved in a dry state for ten years.

One of the most frequently observed forms of meat poisoning is that
due to the eating of decomposed sausage. Sausage poisoning, known
as _botulismus_, is most common in parts of Germany. Germans who
have brought to the United States their methods of preparing sausage
occasionally suffer from this form of poisoning. The writer had
occasion two years ago to investigate six cases of this kind, two
of which proved fatal. The sausage meat had been placed in uncooked
sections of the intestines and alternately frozen and thawed and
then eaten raw. In this instance the meat was infected with a highly
virulent bacillus, which resembled very closely the _Bacterium coli_.

In England, Ballard has reported numerous epidemics of meat poisoning,
in most of which the meat had become infected with some nonspecific,
poison-producing germ. In 1894 the writer was called upon to
investigate cases of poisoning due to the eating of pressed chicken.
The chickens were killed Tuesday afternoon and left hanging in a market
room at ordinary temperature until Wednesday forenoon, when they were
drawn and carried to a restaurant and here left in a warm room until
Thursday, when they were cooked (not thoroughly), pressed, and served
at a banquet in which nearly two hundred men participated. All ate
of the chicken, and were more or less seriously poisoned. The meat
contained a slender bacillus, which was fatal to white rats, guinea
pigs, dogs, and rabbits.

Ermengem states that since 1867 there have been reported 112 epidemics
of meat poisoning, in which 6,000 persons have been affected. In 103 of
these outbreaks the meat came from diseased animals, while in only five
was there any evidence that putrefactive changes in the meat had taken
place. My experience convinces me that in this country meat poisoning
frequently results from putrefactive changes.

Instances of poisoning from the eating of canned meats have become
quite common. Although it may be possible that in some instances the
ill effects result from metallic poisoning, in a great majority of
cases the poisonous substances are formed by putrefactive changes. In
many cases it is probable that decomposition begins after the can has
been opened by the consumer; in others the canning is imperfectly done,
and putrefaction is far advanced before the food reaches the consumer.
In still other instances the meat may have been taken from diseased
animals, or it may have undergone putrefactive changes before the
canning. It should always be remembered that canned meat is especially
liable to putrefactive changes after the can has been opened, and when
the contents of the open can are not consumed at once the remainder
should be kept in a cold place or should be thrown away. People are
especially careless on this point. While every one knows that fresh
meat should be kept in a cold place during the summer, an open can of
meat is often allowed to stand at summer temperature and its contents
eaten hours after the can has been opened. This is not safe, and has
caused several outbreaks of meat poisoning that have come under the
observation of the writer.

MILK POISONING.--In discussing this form of food poisoning we will
exclude any consideration of the distribution of the specific
infectious diseases through milk as the carrier of the infection,
and will confine ourselves to that form of milk poisoning which is
due to infection with nonspecific, poison-producing germs. Infants
are highly susceptible to the action of the galactotoxicons (milk
poisons). There can no longer be any doubt that these poisons are
largely responsible for much of the infantile mortality which is
alarmingly high in all parts of the world. It has been positively shown
that the summer diarrhoea of infancy is due to milk poisoning. The
diarrhoeas prevalent among infants during the summer months are not
due to a specific germ, but there are many bacteria that grow rapidly
in milk and form poisons which induce vomiting and purging, and may
cause death. These diseases occur almost exclusively among children
artificially fed. It is true that there are differences in chemical
composition between the milk of woman and that of the cow, but these
variations in percentage of proteids, fats, and carbohydrates are of
less importance than the infection of milk with harmful bacteria. The
child that takes its food exclusively from the breast of a healthy
mother obtains a food that is free from poisonous bacteria, while the
bottle-fed child may take into its body with its food a great number
and variety of germs, some of which may be quite deadly in their
effects. The diarrhoeas of infancy are practically confined to the
hot months, because a high temperature is essential to the growth and
wide distribution of the poison-producing bacteria. Furthermore, during
the summer time these bacteria grow abundantly in all kinds of filth.
Within recent years the medical profession has so urgently called
attention to the danger of infected milk that there has been a great
improvement in the care of this article of diet, but that there is yet
room for more scientific and thorough work in this direction must be
granted. The sterilization and Pasteurization of milk have doubtlessly
saved the lives of many children, but every intelligent physician knows
that even the most careful mother or nurse often fails to secure a milk
that is altogether safe.

It is true that milk often contains germs the spores of which
are not destroyed by the ordinary methods of sterilization and
Pasteurization. However, these germs are not the most dangerous ones
found in milk. Moreover, every mother and nurse should remember
that in the preparation of sterilized milk for the child it is not
only necessary to heat the milk, but, after it has been heated to a
temperature sufficiently high and sufficiently prolonged, the milk must
subsequently be kept at a low temperature until the child is ready to
take it, when it may be warmed. It should be borne in mind that the
subsequent cooling of the milk and keeping it at a low temperature is a
necessary feature in the preparation of it as a food for the infant.

CHEESE POISONING.--Under this heading we shall include the ill effects
that may follow the eating of not only cheese but other milk products,
such as ice cream, cream custard, cream puffs, etc. Any poison formed
in milk may exist in the various milk products, and it is impossible
to draw any sharp line of distinction between milk poisoning and
cheese poisoning. However, the distinction is greater than is at first
apparent. Under the head of milk poisoning we have called especial
attention to those substances formed in milk to which children are
particularly susceptible, while in cheese and other milk products
there are formed poisonous substances against which age does not give
immunity. Since milk is practically the sole food during the first year
or eighteen months of life, the effect of its poisons upon infants is
of the greatest importance; on the other hand, milk products are seldom
taken by the infant, but are frequent articles of diet in after life.

In 1884 the writer succeeded in isolating from poisonous cheese a
highly active basic substance, to which he gave the name _tyrotoxicon_.
The symptoms produced by this poison are quite marked, but differ in
degree according to the amount of the poison taken. At first there is
dryness of the mouth, followed by constriction of the fauces, then
nausea, vomiting, and purging. The first vomited matter consists of
food, then it becomes watery and is frequently stained with blood. The
stools are at first semisolid, and then are watery and serous. The
heart is depressed, the pulse becomes weak and irregular, and in severe
cases the face appears cyanotic. There may be dilatation of the pupil,
but this is not seen in all. The most dangerous cases are those in
which the vomiting is slight and soon ceases altogether, and the bowels
are constipated from the beginning. Such cases as these require prompt
and energetic treatment. The stomach and bowels should be thoroughly
irrigated in order to remove the poison, and the action of the heart
must be sustained.

At one time the writer believed that tyrotoxicon was the active agent
in all samples of poisonous cheese, but more extended experimentation
has convinced him that this is not the case. Indeed, this poison is
rarely found, while the number of poisons in harmful cheese is no doubt
considerable. There are numerous poisonous albumins found in cheese
and other milk products. While all of these are gastro-intestinal
irritants, they differ considerably in other respects.

In 1895 the writer and Perkins made a prolonged study of a bacillus
found in cheese which had poisoned fifty people. Chemically the
poison produced by this germ is distinguished from tyrotoxicon by
the fact that it is not removed from alkaline solution with ether.
Physiologically the new poison has a more pronounced effect on the
heart, in which it resembles muscarin or neurin more closely than it
does tyrotoxicon. Pathologically, the two poisons are unlike, inasmuch
as the new poison induces marked congestion of the tissues about the
point of injection when used upon animals hypodermically. Furthermore,
the intestinal constrictions which are so uniformly observed in animals
poisoned by tyrotoxicon was not once seen in our work with this new
poison, although it was carefully looked for in all our experiments.

In 1898 the writer, with McClymonds, examined samples of cheese from
more than sixty manufacturers in this country and in Europe. In all
samples of ordinary American green cheese poisonous germs were found in
greater or less abundance. These germs resemble very closely the colon
bacillus, and most likely their presence in the milk is to be accounted
for by contamination with bits of fecal matter from the cow. It is more
than probable that the manufacture of cheese is yet in its infancy,
and we need some one to do for this industry what Pasteur did for the
manufacture of beer. At present the flavor of a given cheese depends
upon the bacteria and molds which accidentally get into it. The time
will probably come when all milk used for the manufacture of cheese
will be sterilized, and then selected molds and bacteria will be sown
in it. In this way the flavor and value of a cheese will be determined
with scientific accuracy, and will not be left to accident.

CANNED FOODS.--As has been stated, the increased consumption of
preserved foods is accountable for a great proportion of the cases
of food poisoning. The preparation of canned foods involves the
application of scientific principles, and since this work is done by
men wholly ignorant of science it is quite remarkable that harmful
effects do not manifest themselves more frequently than they do. Every
can of food which is not thoroughly sterilized may become a source of
danger to health and even to life. It may be of interest for us to
study briefly the methods ordinarily resorted to in the preparation
of canned foods. With most substances the food is cooked before being
put into the can. This is especially true of meats of various kinds.
Thorough cooking necessarily leads to the complete sterilization of
the food; but after this, it must be transferred to the can, and the
can must be properly closed. With the handling necessary in canning
the food, germs are likely to be introduced. Moreover, it is possible
that the preliminary cooking is not thoroughly done and complete
sterilization is not reached. The empty can should be sterilized. If
one wishes to understand the _modus operandi_ of canning foods, let him
take up a round can of any fruit, vegetable, or meat and examine the
bottom of the can, which is in reality the top during the process of
canning and until the label is put on. The food is introduced through
the circular opening in this end, now closed by a piece which can be
seen to be soldered on. After the food has been introduced through this
opening the can and contents are heated either in a water bath or by
means of steam. The opening through which the food was introduced is
now closed by a circular cap of suitable size, which is soldered in
position.

This cap has near its center a "prick-hole" through which the steam
continues to escape. This "prick-hole" is then closed with solder, and
the closed can again heated in the water bath or with steam. If the
can "blows" (if the ends of the can become convex) during this last
heating the "prick-hole" is again punctured and the heated air allowed
to escape, after which the "prick-hole" is again closed. Cans thus
prepared should be allowed to stand in a warm chamber for four or five
days. If the contents have not been thoroughly sterilized gases will
be evolved during this time, or the can will "blow" and the contents
should be discarded. Unscrupulous manufacturers take cans which have
"blown," prick them to allow the escape of the contained gases, and
then resterilize the cans with their contents, close them again, and
put them on the market. These "blowholes" may be made in either end of
the can, or they may be made in the sides of the can, where they are
subsequently covered with the label. Of course, it does not necessarily
follow that if a can has "blown" and been subsequently resterilized its
contents will prove poisonous, but it is not safe to eat the contents
of such cans. Reputable manufacturers discard all "blown" cans.

Nearly all canned jellies sold in this country are made from apples.
The apples are boiled with a preparation sold under the trade
name "tartarine." This consists of either dilute hydrochloric or
sulphuric acid. Samples examined by the writer have invariably been
found to consist of dilute hydrochloric acid. The jelly thus formed
by the action of the dilute acid upon the apple is converted into
quince, pear, pineapple, or any other fruit that the pleasure of the
manufacturer may choose by the addition of artificial flavoring agents.
There is no reason for believing that the jellies thus prepared are
harmful to health.

Canned fruits occasionally contain salicylic acid in some form. There
has been considerable discussion among sanitarians as to whether or
not the use of this preservative is admissible. Serious poisoning with
canned fruits is very rare. However, there can be but little doubt that
many minor digestive disturbances are caused by acids formed in these
foods. There has been much apprehension concerning the possibility of
poisoning resulting from the soluble salts of tin formed by the action
of fruit acids upon the can. The writer believes that anxiety on this
point is unnecessary, and he has failed to find any positive evidence
of poisoning resulting from this cause.

There are two kinds of condensed milk sold in cans. These are known as
condensed milk "with" and "without" sugar. In the preparation of the
first-mentioned kind a large amount of cane sugar is added to condensed
milk, and this acting as a preservative renders the preparation and
successful handling of this article of food comparatively easy. On
the other hand, condensed milk to which sugar has not been added is
very liable to decomposition, and great care must be used in its
preparation. The writer has seen several cases of severe poisoning that
have resulted from decomposed canned milk. Any of the galactotoxicons
(milk poisons) may be formed in this milk. In these instances the cans
were "blown," both ends being convex.

One of the most important sanitary questions in which we are concerned
to-day is that pertaining to the subject of canned meats. It is
undoubtedly true that unscrupulous manufacturers are putting upon the
market articles of this kind of food which no decent man knowingly
would eat, and which are undoubtedly harmful to all.

The knowledge gained by investigations in chemical and bacteriological
science have enabled the unscrupulous to take putrid liver and other
disgusting substances and present them in such a form that the most
fastidious palate would not recognize their origin. In this way the
flesh from diseased animals and that which has undergone putrefactive
changes may be doctored up and sold as reputable articles of diet.
The writer does not believe that this practice is largely resorted
to in this country, but that questionable preservatives have been
used to some extent has been amply demonstrated by the testimony of
the manufacturers of these articles themselves, given before the
Senate committee now investigating the question of food and food
adulterations. It is certainly true that most of the adulterations
used in our foods are not injurious to health, but are fraudulent in a
pecuniary sense; but when the flesh of diseased animals and substances
which have undergone putrefactive decomposition can be doctored up and
preserved by the addition of such agents as formaldehyde, it is time
that the public should demand some restrictive measures.




WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY.

BY PROF. JOHN TROWBRIDGE,

DIRECTOR OF JEFFERSON PHYSICAL LABORATORY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY.


I never visit the historical collection of physical apparatus in the
physical laboratory of Harvard University without a sense of wonderment
at the marvelous use that has been made of old and antiquated pieces
of apparatus which were once considered electrical toys. There can
be seen the first batteries, the model of dynamo machines, and the
electric motor. Such a collection is in a way a Westminster Abbey--dead
mechanisms born to new uses and a great future.

There is one simple piece of apparatus in the collection, without which
telephony and wireless telegraphy would be impossible. To my mind it
is the most interesting skeleton there, and if physicists marked the
resting places of their apparatus laid to apparent rest and desuetude,
this merits the highest sounding and most suggestive inscription. It
is called a transformer, and consists merely of two coils of wire
placed near each other. One coil is adapted to receive an electric
current; the other coil, entirely independent of the first, responds
by sympathy, or what is called induction, across the space which
separates the coils. Doubtless if man knew all the capabilities of this
simple apparatus he might talk to China, or receive messages from the
antipodes. He now, by means of it, analyzes the light of distant suns,
and produces the singular X rays which enable him to see through the
human body. By means of it he already communicates his thoughts between
stations thousands of miles apart, and by means of its manifestations I
hope to make this article on wireless telegraphy intelligible. My essay
can be considered a panegyric of this buried form--a history of its new
life and of its unbounded possibilities.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Disposition of batteries and coils at the
sending station, showing the arrangement of the vertical wire and the
spark gap.]

For convenience, one of the coils of the transformer is placed inside
the other, and the combination is called a Ruhmkorf coil. It is
represented in the accompanying photograph (Fig. 1), with batteries
attached to the inner coil, while the outer coil is connected to two
balls, between which an electric spark jumps whenever the battery
circuit is broken. In fact, any disturbance in the battery circuit--a
weakening, a strengthening, or a break--provided that the changes are
sudden, produces a corresponding change in the neighboring circuit. One
coil thus responds to the other, in some mysterious way, across the
interval of air which separates them. Usually the coils are placed very
near to each other--in fact, one embraces the other, as shown in the
photograph.

The coils, however, if placed several miles apart, will still respond
to each other if they are made sufficiently large, if they are properly
placed, and if a powerful current is used to excite one coil. Thus,
by simply varying the distance between the coils of wire we can send
messages through the air between stations which are not connected
with a wire. This method, however, does not constitute the system of
wireless telegraphy of Marconi, which it is the object of this paper
to describe. Marconi has succeeded in transmitting messages over forty
miles between points not connected by wires, and he has accomplished
this feat by merely slightly modifying the disposition of the coils,
thus revealing a new possibility of the wondrous transformer. If the
reader will compare the following diagram (Fig. 2) with the photograph
(Fig. 1), he will see how simple the sending apparatus of Marconi is.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Diagram of the arrangement of wires and
batteries at the receiving station.]

S is a gap between the ends of one coil, across which an electric spark
is produced whenever the current from the batteries B flowing through
the coil C is broken by an arrangement at D. This break produces an
electrical pulsation in the coil C', which travels up and down the
wire W, which is elevated to a considerable height above the ground.
This pulsation can not be seen by the eye. The wire does not move;
it appears perfectly quiescent and dead, and seems only a wire and
nothing more. At night, under favorable circumstances, one could see a
luminosity on the wire, especially at the end, when messages are being
transmitted, by a powerful battery B.

It is very easy to detect the electric lines which radiate from every
part of such a wire when a spark jumps between the terminals S of
the coil. All that is necessary to do is to pass the wire through a
sensitive film and to develop the film. The accompanying photograph
(Fig. 3) was taken at the top of such a wire, by means of a very
powerful apparatus at my command. When the photograph is examined
with a microscope the arborescent electric lines radiating from the
wire, like the rays of light from a star, exhibit a beautiful fernlike
structure. These lines, however, are not chiefly instrumental in
transmitting the electric pulse across space.

There are other lines, called magnetic lines of force, which emanate
from every portion of the vertical wire W just as ripples spread out
on the surface of placid water when it is disturbed by the fall of a
stone. These magnetic ripples travel in the ether of space, and when
they embrace a neighboring wire or coil they produce similar ripples,
which whirl about the distant wire and produce in some strange way an
electrical current in the wire. These magnetic pulsations can travel
great distances.

[Illustration:

FIG. 2_a_ represents a more complete electrical arrangement of the
receiver circuit. The vertical wire, W', is connected to one wire of
the coherer, L. The other wire of the coherer is led to the ground, G.
The wires in the coherer, L, are separated by fine metallic particles.
B represents a battery. E, an electro-magnet which attracts a piece of
iron, A (armature), and closes a local battery, B, causing a click of
the sounder (electro-magnet), S. The magnetic waves (Fig. 5) embracing
the wire, W', cause a pulsation in this wire which produces an
electrical disturbance in the coherer analogous to that shown in Fig.
3, by means of which an electrical current is enabled to pass through
the electro-magnet, E.]

In the photographs of these magnetic whirls, Fig. 4 is the whirl
produced in the circuit C' by the battery B (Fig. 2), while Fig. 5 is
that produced by electrical sympathy, or as it is called induction,
in a neighboring wire. These photographs were obtained by passing the
circuits through the sensitive films, perpendicularly to the latter,
and then sprinkling very fine iron filings on these surfaces and
exposing them to the light. In order to obtain these photographs a
very powerful electrical current excited the coil C (Fig. 2), and the
neighboring circuit W' (Fig. 5) was placed very near the circuit W.

When the receiving wire is at the distance of several miles from
the sending wire it is impossible to detect by the above method the
magnetic ripples or whirls. We can, however, detect the electrical
currents which these magnetic lines of force cause in the receiving
wire; and this leads me to speak of the discovery of a remarkable
phenomenon which has made Marconi's system of wireless telegraphy
possible. In order that an electrical current may flow through a mass
of particles of a metal, a mass, for instance, of iron filings, it
is necessary either to compress them or to cause a minute spark or
electrical discharge between the particles. Now, it is supposed that
the magnetic whirls, in embracing the distant receiving circuit, cause
these minute sparks, and thus enable the electric current from the
battery B to work a telegraphic sounder or bell M. The metallic filings
are inclosed in a glass tube between wires which lead to the battery,
and the arrangement is called a coherer. It can be made small and
light. Fig. 6 is a representation in full size of one that has been
found to be very sensitive. It consists of two silver wires with a few
iron filings contained in a glass tube between the ends of the wires.
It is necessary that this little tube should be constantly shaken up
in order that after the electrical circuit is made the iron filings
should return to their non-conducting condition, or should cease to
cohere together, and should thus be ready to respond to the following
signal. My colleague, Professor Sabine, has employed a very small
electric motor to cause the glass tube to revolve, and thus to keep the
filings in motion while signals are being received. Fig. 7 shows the
arrangement of the receiving apparatus.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Photograph of the electric lines which emanate
from the end of the wire at the sending station, and which are probably
reproduced among the metallic filings of the coherer at the receiving
station.]

The coherer and the motor are shown between two batteries, one of
which drives the motor while the other serves to work the bell or
sounder when the electric wire excites the iron filings. In Fig. 2
this receiving apparatus is shown diagrammatically. B is the battery
which sends a current through the sounder M and the coherer N when the
magnetic whirls coming from the sending wire W embrace the receiving
wire W'.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Magnetic whirls about the sending wire.]

The term wireless telegraphy is a misnomer, for without wires the
method would not be possible. The phenomenon is merely an enlargement
of one that we are fully conscious of in the case of telegraph and
telephone circuits, which is termed electro-magnetic induction.
Whenever an electric current suddenly flows or suddenly ceases to
flow along a wire, electrical currents are caused by induction in
neighboring wires. The receiver employed by Marconi is a delicate
spark caused by this induction, which forms a bridge so that an
electric current from the relay battery can pass and influence magnetic
instruments.

Many investigators had succeeded before Marconi in sending telegraphic
messages several miles through the air or ether between two points
not directly connected by wires. Marconi has extended the distance by
employing a much higher electro-motive force at the sending station
and using the feeble inductive effect at a distance to set in action a
local battery.

It is evident that wires are needed at the sending station from every
point of which magnetic and electric waves are sent out, and wires at
the receiving station which embrace, so to speak, these waves in the
manner shown by our photographs. These waves produce minute sparks in
the receiving instrument, which act like a suddenly drawn flood gate in
allowing the current from a local battery to flow through the circuit
in which the spark occurs, and thus produce a click on a telegraphic
instrument.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Magnetic whirls about the receiving wire.]

We have said that messages had been sent by what is called wireless
telegraphy before Marconi made his experiments. These messages had
also been sent by induction, signals on one wire being received by a
parallel and distant wire. To Marconi is due the credit of greatly
extending the method by using a vertical wire. The method of using the
coherer to detect electric pulses is not due, however, to Marconi.
It is usually attributed to Branly; it had been employed, however,
by previous observers, among whom is Hughes, the inventor of the
microphone, an instrument analogous in its action to that of the
coherer. In the case of the microphone, the waves from the human voice
shake up the particles of carbon in the microphone transmitter, and
thus cause an electrical current to flow more easily through the minute
contacts of the carbon particles.

The action of the telephone transmitter, which also consists of minute
conducting particles in which a battery terminals are immersed, and
the analogous coherer is microscopic, and there are many theories to
account for their changes of resistance to electrical currents. We can
not, I believe, be far wrong in thinking that the electric force breaks
down the insulating effect of the infinitely thin layers of air between
the particles, and thus allows an electric current to flow. This action
is doubtless of the nature of an electric spark. An electric spark,
in the case of wireless telegraphy, produces magnetic and electric
lines of force in space, these reach out and embrace the circuit
containing the coherer, and produce in turn minute sparks. _Similia
similibus_--one action perfectly corresponds to the other.

The Marconi system, therefore, of what is called wireless telegraphy
is not new in principle, but only new in practical application. It had
been used to show the phenomena of electric waves in lecture rooms.
Marconi extended it from distances of sixty to one hundred feet to
fifty or sixty miles. He did this by lifting the sending-wire spark on
a lofty pole and improving the sensitiveness of the metallic filings
in the glass tube at the receiving station. He adopted a mechanical
arrangement for continually tapping the coherer in order to break up
the minute bridges formed by the cohering action, and thus to prepare
the filings for the next magnetic pulse. The system of wireless
telegraphy is emphatically a spark system strangely analogous to
flash-light signaling, a system in which the human eye with its rods
and cones in the retina acts as the coherer, and the nerve system, the
local battery, making a signal or sensation in the brain.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--The coherer employed to receive the electric
waves. (One and a third actual size.)]

Let us examine the sending spark a little further. An electric spark
is perhaps the most interesting phenomenon in electricity. What causes
it--how does the air behave toward it--what is it that apparently flows
through the air, sending out light and heat waves as well as magnetic
and electric waves? If we could answer all these questions, we should
know what electricity is. A critical study of the electric spark has
not only its scientific but its practical side. We see the latter side
evidenced by its employment in wireless telegraphy and in the X rays;
for in the latter case we have an electric discharge in a tube from
which the air is removed--a special case of an electric spark. In
order to understand the capabilities of wireless telegraphy we must
turn to the scientific study of the electric spark; for its practical
employment resides largely in its strength, in its frequency in its
position, and in its power to make the air a conductor for electricity.
All these points are involved in wireless telegraphy. How, then, shall
we study the electric spark? The eye sees only an instantaneous flash
following a devious path. It can not tell in what direction a spark
flies (a flash of lightning, for instance), or indeed whether it has
a direction. There is probably no commoner fallacy mankind entertains
than the belief that the direction of lightning, or any electric spark,
can be ascertained by the eye--that is, the direction from the sky
to the earth or from the earth to the sky. I have repeatedly tested
numbers of students in regard to this question, employing sparks four
to six feet in length, taking precautions in regard to the concealment
of the directions in which I charged the poles of the charging
batteries, and I have never found a consensus of opinion in regard to
directions. The ordinary photograph, too, reveals no more than the eye
can see--a brilliant, devious line or a flaming discharge.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Arrangement of batteries of motor (to disturb
the coherer) and the sounder by which the messages are received.]

A large storage battery forms the best means of studying electric
sparks, for with it one can run the entire gamut of this
phenomenon--from the flaming discharge which we see in the arc light
on the street to the crackling spark we employ in wireless telegraphy,
and the more powerful discharges of six or more feet in length which
closely resemble lightning discharges. A critical study of this gamut
throws considerable light on the problem of the possibility of secret
wireless telegraphy--a problem which it is most important to solve if
the system is to be made practical; for at present the message spreads
out from the sending spark in great circular ripples in all directions,
and may be received by any one.

[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Photograph of electrical pulses. The interval
between the pulses is one millionth of a second.]

Several methods enable us to transform electrical energy so as to
obtain suitable quick and intense blows on the surrounding medium.
Is it possible that there is some mysterious vibration in the spark
which is instrumental in the effective transmission of electrical
energy across space? If the spark should vibrate or oscillate to and
fro faster than sixteen times a second the human eye could not detect
such oscillations; for an impression remains on the eye one sixteenth
of a second, and subsequent ones separated by intervals shorter than a
sixteenth would mingle together and could not be separated. The only
way to ascertain whether the spark is oscillatory, or whether it is
not one spark, as it appears to the eye, but a number of to-and-fro
impulses, is to photograph it by a rapidly revolving mirror. The
principle is similar to that of the biograph or the vitoscope, in
which the quick to-and-fro motions of the spark are received on a
sensitive film, which is in rapid motion. One terminal of the spark
gap, the positive terminal so called, is always brighter than the
other. Hence, if the sensitive film is moved at right angles to the
path of the discharge, we shall get a row of dots which are the images
of the brighter terminal, and these dots occur alternately first
on one terminal and then on the other, showing that the discharge
oscillates--that is, leaps in one discharge (which seems but one to the
eye) many times in a hundred thousandth of a second. In practice it is
found better to make an image of the spark move across the sensitive
film instead of moving the film. This is accomplished by the same
method that a boy uses in flashing sunlight by means of a mirror. The
faster the mirror moves the faster moves the image of the light. In
this way a speed of a millionth of a second can be attained. In this
case the distance between the dots on the film may be one tenth of
an inch, sufficient to separate them to the eye. The photograph of
electric sparks (Fig. 8) was taken in this manner. The distance between
any two bright spots in the trail of the photographic images represents
the time of the electric oscillation or the time of the magnetic pulse
or wave which is sent out from the spark, and which will cause a
distant circuit to respond by a similar oscillation.

[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Photograph of a pilot spark, which is the
principal factor in the method of wireless telegraphy.]

At present the shortest time that can, so to speak, be photographed
in this manner is about one two-millionth of a second. This is the
time of propagation of a magnetic wave over four hundred feet long.
The waves used in wireless telegraphy are not more than four feet in
length--about one hundredth the length of those we can photograph.
The photographic method thus reveals a mechanism of the spark which
is entirely hidden from the eye and will always be concealed from
human sight. It reveals, however, a greater mystery which it seems
incompetent to solve--the mystery of what is called the pilot spark,
the first discharge which we see on our photograph (Fig. 9) stretching
intact from terminal to terminal, having the prodigious velocity of one
hundred and eighty thousand miles a second. None of our experimental
devices suffice to penetrate the mystery of this discharge. It is this
pilot spark which is chiefly instrumental in sending out the magnetic
pulses or waves which are powerful enough to reach forty or fifty
miles. The preponderating influence of this pilot spark--so called
since it finds a way for the subsequent surgings or oscillations--is
a bar to the efforts to make wireless telegraphy secret. We can see
from the photograph how much greater its strength is than that of the
subsequent discharges shown by the mere brightening of the terminals.
A delicate coherer will immediately respond to the influence of this
pilot spark, and the subsequent oscillations of this discharge will
have little effect. How, then, can we effectively time a receiving
circuit so that it will respond to only one sending station? We can not
depend upon the oscillatory nature of the spark, or adopt, in other
words, its rate of vibration and form a coherer with the same rate.

It seems as if it would be necessary to invent some method of sending
pilot sparks at a high and definite rate of vibration, and of employing
coherers which will only respond to definite powerful rates of magnetic
pulsation. Various attempts have been made to produce by mechanical
means powerful electric surgings, but they have been unsuccessful. Both
high electro-motive force and strength of current are needed. These can
be obtained by the employment of a great number of storage cells. The
discharge from a large number of these cells, however, is not suitable
for the purpose of wireless telegraphy, although it may possess the
qualifications of both high electrical pressure and strength of current.

The only apparatus we have at command to produce quick blows on the
ether is the Ruhmkorf coil. This coil, I have said, has been in all our
physical cabinets for fifty years. It contained within itself the germ
of the telephone transmitter and the method of wireless telegraphy,
unrecognized until the present. In its elements it consists, as we have
seen, of two electrical circuits, placed near each other, entirely
unconnected. A battery is connected with one of these circuits, and
any change in the strength of the electrical current gives a blow to
the ether or medium between the two circuits. A quick stopping of the
electrical current gives the strongest impulse to the ether, which
is taken up by the neighboring circuit. For the past fifty years
very little advance has been made in the method of giving strong
electrical impulses to the medium of space. It is accomplished simply
by a mechanical breaking of the connection to the battery, either by
a revolving wheel with suitable projections, or by a vibrating point.
All the various forms of mechanical breaks are inefficient. They do not
give quick and uniform breaks. Latterly, hopes have been excited by the
discovery of a chemical break, called the Weynelt interrupter, shown in
Fig. 1. The electrical current in passing through a vessel of diluted
sulphuric acid from a point of platinum to a disk of lead causes
bubbles of gas which form a barrier to its passage which is suddenly
broken down, and this action goes on at a high rate of speed, causing
a torrent of sparks in the neighboring circuit. The medium between
the two circuits is thereby submitted to rapid and comparatively
powerful impulses. The discovery of this and similar chemical or
molecular interruptions marks an era in the history of the electrical
transformer, and the hopes of further progress by means of them is far
greater than in the direction of mechanical interruptions.

We are still, however, unable to generate sufficiently powerful and
sufficiently well-timed electrical impulses to make wireless telegraphy
of great and extended use. Can we not hope to strengthen the present
feeble impulses in wireless telegraphy by some method of relaying or
repeating? In the analogous subject of telephony many efforts have
also been made to render the service secret, and to extend it to great
distances by means of relays. These efforts have not been successful up
to the present. We still have our neighbors' call bells, and we could
listen to their messages if we were gossips. The telephone service
has been extended to great distances--for instance, from Boston to
Omaha--not by relays, but by strengthening the blows upon the medium
between the transmitting circuit and the receiving one, just as we
desire to do in what is called wireless telegraphy, the apparatus of
which is almost identical in principle to that employed in telephony.
The individual call in telephony is not a success for nearly the same
reasons that exist in the case of wireless telegraphy. Perfectly
definite and powerful rates of vibration can not be sent from point to
point over wires to which only certain definite apparatus will respond.
There are so many ways in which the energy of the electric current can
be dissipated in passing over wires and through calling bells that the
form of the waves and their strength becomes attenuated. The form of
the electrical waves is better preserved in free space, where there
are no wires or where there is no magnetic matter. The difficulty
in obtaining individual calls in wireless telegraphy resides in the
present impossibility of obtaining sufficiently rapid and powerful
electrical impulses, and a receiver which will properly respond to a
definite number of such impulses.

The question of a relay seems as impossible of solution as it does in
telephony. The character of speech depends upon numberless delicate
inflections and harmonies. The form, for instance, of the wave
transmitting the vowel _a_ must be preserved in order that the sound
may be recognized. A relay in telephony acts very much like one's
neighbor in the game called gossip, in which a sentence repeated more
or less indistinctly, after passing from one person to another, becomes
distorted and meaningless. No telephone relay has been invented which
preserves the form of the first utterance, the vowel _a_ loses its
delicate characteristics, and becomes simply a meaningless noise. It is
maintained by some authorities that such a relay can not be invented,
that it is impossible to preserve the delicate inflections of the
human voice in passing from one circuit to another, even through an
infinitesimal air gap or ether space. It is well, however, to reflect
upon Hosea Bigelow's sapient advice "not to prophesy unless you know."
It was maintained in the early days of the telephone that speech would
lose so many characteristics in the process of transmission over wires
and through magnetic apparatus that it would not be intelligible.
It is certain that at present long-distance transmission of speech
can only be accomplished by using more powerful transmitters, and by
making the line of copper better fitted for the transmission--just as
quick transportation from place to place has not been accomplished by
quitting the earth and by flying through space, but by obtaining more
powerful engines and by improving the roadbeds.

The hopes of obtaining a relay for wireless telegraphy seem as small
as they do in telephony. The present method is practically limited to
distances of fifty or sixty miles--distances not much exceeding those
which can be reached by a search-light in fair weather. Indeed, there
is a close parallelism between the search-light and the spark used in
Marconi's experiments: both send out waves which differ only in length.
The waves of the search-light are about one forty-thousandth of an
inch long, while the magnetic waves of the spark, invisible to the
eye, are three to four feet--more than a million times longer than the
light waves. These very long waves have this advantage over the short
light waves: they are able to penetrate fog, and even sand hills and
masonry. One can send messages into a building from a point outside. A
prisoner could communicate with the outer world, a beleaguered garrison
could send for help, a disabled light-ship could summon assistance, and
possibly one steamer could inform another in a fog of its course.

Wireless telegraphy is the nearest approach to telepathy that has
been vouchsafed to our intelligence, and it serves to stimulate our
imagination and to make us think that things greatly hoped for can be
always reached, although not exactly in the way expected. The nerves
of the whole world are, so to speak, being bound together, so that a
touch in one country is transmitted instantly to a far-distant one. Why
should we not in time speak through the earth to the antipodes? If the
magnetic waves can pass through brick and stone walls and sand hills,
why should we not direct, so to speak, our trumpet to the earth,
instead of letting its utterances skim over the horizon? In regard
to this suggestion, we know certainly one fact from our laboratory
experiences: that these magnetic waves, meeting layers of electrically
conducting matter, like layers of iron ore, would be reflected back,
and would not penetrate. Thus a means may be discovered through the
instrumentality of such waves of exploring the mysteries of the earth
before success is attained in completely penetrating its mass.




EMIGRANT DIAMONDS IN AMERICA.

BY PROF. WILLIAM HERBERT HOBBS.


To discover the origin of the diamond in Nature we must seek it in
its ancestral home, where the rocky matrix gave it birth in the form
characteristic of its species. In prosecuting our search we should very
soon discover that, in common with other gem minerals, the diamond has
been a great wanderer, for it is usually found far from its original
home. The disintegrating forces of the atmosphere, by acting upon the
rocky material in which the stones were imbedded, have loosed them from
their natural setting, to be caught up by the streams, sorted from
their disintegrated matrix, and transported far from the parent rock,
to be at last set down upon some gravelly bed over which the force of
the current is weakened. The mines of Brazil and the Urals, of India,
Borneo, and the "river diggings" of South Africa either have been or
are now in deposits of this character.

The "dry diggings" of the Kimberley district, in South Africa, afford
the unique locality in which the diamond has thus far been found in
its original home, and all our knowledge of the genesis of the mineral
has been derived from study of this locality. The mines are located
in "pans," in which is found the "blue ground" now recognized as the
disintegrated matrix of the diamond. These "pans" are known to be the
"pipes," or "necks," of former volcanoes, now deeply dissected by the
forces of the atmosphere--in fact, worn down if not to their roots, at
least to their stumps. These remnants of the "pipes," through which
the lava reached the surface, are surrounded in part by a black shale
containing a large percentage of carbon, and this is believed to be the
material out of which the diamonds have been formed. What appear to
be modified fragments of the black shale inclosed within the "pipes"
afford evidence that portions of the shale have been broken from the
parent beds by the force of the ascending current of lava--a common
enough accompaniment to volcanic action--and have been profoundly
altered by the high temperature and the extreme hydrostatic pressure
under which the mass must have been held. The most important feature
of this alteration has been the recrystallization of the carbon of the
shale into diamond.

[Illustration: GLACIAL MAP OF THE GREAT LAKES REGION

Driftless Areas. Older Drift. Newer Drift.

Moraines. Glacial Striae. Track of Diamonds.


Diamond Localities E. Eagle O. Oregon K. Kohlsville D. Dowagiac M.
Milford. P. Plum Crk. B. Burlington.

We are indebted to the University of Chicago Press for the above
illustration.]

[Illustration: Copyright, 1899, by George F. Kunz.

FIVE VIEWS OF THE EAGLE DIAMOND (sixteen carats); enlarged about three
diameters. (Owned by Tiffany and Company.)

We are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. G. F. Kunz, of Tiffany and
Company, for the illustrations of the Oregon and Eagle diamonds.]

This apparent explanation of the genesis of the diamond finds strong
support in the experiments of Moissan, who obtained artificial diamond
by dissolving carbon in molten iron and immersing the mass in cold
water until a firm surface crust had formed. The "chilled" mass was
then removed, to allow its still molten core to solidify slowly. This
it does with the development of enormous pressures, because the natural
expansion of the iron on passing into the solid condition is resisted
by the strong shell of "chilled" metal. The isolation of the diamond
was then accomplished by dissolving the iron in acid.

The prevailing form of the South African diamonds is that of a rounded
crystal, with eight large and a number of minute faces--a form called
by crystallographers a _modified octahedron_. Their shapes would be
roughly simulated by the Pyramids of Egypt if they could be seen,
combined with their reflected images, in a placid lake, or, better
to meet the conditions of the country, in a desert mirage. It is a
peculiar property of diamond crystals to have convexly rounded faces,
so that the edges which separate the faces are not straight, but gently
curving. Less frequently in the African mines, but commonly in some
other regions, diamonds are bounded by four, twelve, twenty-four, or
even forty-eight faces. These must not, of course, be confused with the
faces of cut stones, which are the product of the lapidary's art.

Geological conditions remarkably like those observed at the Kimberley
mines have recently been discovered in Kentucky, with the difference
that here the shales contain a much smaller percentage of carbon, which
may be the reason that diamonds have not rewarded the diligent search
that has been made for them.

Though now found in the greatest abundance in South Africa and in
Brazil, diamonds were formerly obtained from India, Borneo, and from
the Ural Mountains of Russia. The great stones of history have, with
hardly an exception, come from India, though in recent years a number
of diamond monsters have been found in South Africa. One of these,
the "Excelsior," weighed nine hundred and seventy carats, which is in
excess even of the supposed weight of the "Great Mogul."

[Illustration: Copyright, 1899, by George F. Kunz.

FOUR VIEWS OF THE OREGON DIAMOND; enlarged about three diameters.
(Owned by Tiffany and Company.)]

Occasionally diamonds have come to light in other regions than those
specified. The Piedmont plateau, at the southeastern base of the
Appalachians, has produced, in the region between southern Virginia and
Georgia, some ten or twelve diamonds, which have varied in weight from
those of two or three carats to the "Dewey" diamond, which when found
weighed over twenty-three carats.

It is, however, in the territory about the Great Lakes that the
greatest interest now centers, for in this region a very interesting
problem of origin is being worked out. No less than seven diamonds,
ranging in size from less than four to more than twenty-one carats, not
to mention a number of smaller stones, have been recently found in the
clays and gravels of this region, where their distribution was such
as to indicate with a degree of approximation the location of their
distant ancestral home.

In order clearly to set forth the nature of this problem and the method
of its solution it will be necessary, first, to plot upon a map of the
lake region the locality at which each of the stones has been found,
and, further, to enter upon the same map the data which geologists
have gleaned regarding the work of the great ice cap of the Glacial
period. During this period, not remote as geological time is reckoned,
an ice mantle covered the entire northeastern portion of our continent,
and on more than one occasion it invaded for considerable distances
the territory of the United States. Such a map as has been described
discloses an important fact which holds the clew for the detection of
the ancestral home of these diamonds. Each year is bringing with it new
evidence, and we may look forward hopefully to a full solution of the
problem.

In 1883 the "Eagle Stone" was brought to Milwaukee and sold for
the nominal sum of one dollar. When it was submitted to competent
examination the public learned that it was a diamond of sixteen carats'
weight, and that it had been discovered seven years earlier in earth
removed from a well-opening. Two events which were calculated to arouse
local interest followed directly upon the discovery of the real nature
of this gem, after which it passed out of the public notice. The woman
who had parted with the gem for so inadequate a compensation brought
suit against the jeweler to whom she had sold it, in order to recover
its value. This curious litigation, which naturally aroused a great
deal of interest, was finally carried to the Supreme Court of the State
of Wisconsin, from which a decision was handed down in favor of the
defendant, on the ground that he, no less than the plaintiff, had been
ignorant of the value of the gem at the time of purchasing it. The
other event was the "boom" of the town of Eagle as a diamond center,
which, after the finding of two other diamonds with unmistakable marks
of African origin upon them, ended as suddenly as it had begun, with
the effect of temporarily discrediting, in the minds of geologists, the
genuineness of the original "find."

Ten years later a white diamond of a little less than four carats'
weight came to light in a collection of pebbles found in Oregon,
Wisconsin, and brought to the writer for examination. The stones had
been found by a farmer's lad while playing in a clay bank near his
home. The investigation of the subject which was thereupon made brought
out the fact that a third diamond, and this the larges of all, had
been discovered at Kohlsville, in the same State, in 1883, and was
still in the possession of the family on whose property it had been
found.

As these stones were found in the deposits of "drift" which were left
by the ice of the Glacial period, it was clear that they had been
brought to their resting places by the ice itself. The map reveals
the additional fact, and one of the greatest significance, that all
these diamonds were found in the so-called "kettle moraine." This
moraine or ridge was the dumping ground of the ice for its burden of
bowlders, gravel, and clay at the time of its later invasion, and hence
indicates the boundaries of the territory over which the ice mass was
then extended. In view of the fact that two of the three stones found
had remained in the hands of the farming population, without coming
to the knowledge of the world, for periods of eleven and seven years
respectively, it seems most probable that others have been found,
though not identified as diamonds, and for this reason are doubtless
still to be found in many cases in association with other local
"curios" on the clock shelves of country farmhouses in the vicinity
of the "kettle moraine." The writer felt warranted in predicting, in
1894, that other diamonds would occasionally be brought to light in the
"kettle moraine," though the great extent of this moraine left little
room for hope that more than one or two would be found at any one point
of it.

[Illustration: THREE VIEWS OF THE SAUKVILLE DIAMOND (six carats);
enlarged about three diameters. (Owned by Bunde and Upmeyer, Milwaukee.)

We are indebted to the courtesy of Bunde and Upmeyer, of Milwaukee, for
the illustrations showing the Burlington and Saukville diamonds.]

In the time that has since elapsed diamonds have been found at the rate
of about one a year, though not, so far as I am aware, in any case
as the result of search. In Wisconsin have been found the Saukville
diamond, a beautiful white stone of six carats' weight, and also the
Burlington stone, having a weight of a little over two carats. The
former had been for more than sixteen years in the possession of the
finder before he learned of its value. In Michigan has been found the
Dowagiac stone, of about eleven carats' weight, and only very recently
a diamond weighing six carats and of exceptionally fine "water" has
come to light at Milford, near Cincinnati. This augmentation of the
number of localities, and the nearness of all to the "kettle moraines,"
leaves little room for doubt that the diamonds were conveyed by the ice
at the time of its later invasion of the country.

Having, then, arrived at a satisfactory conclusion regarding not only
the agent which conveyed the stones, but also respecting the period
during which they were transported, it is pertinent to inquire by what
paths they were brought to their adopted homes, and whether, if these
may be definitely charted, it may not be possible to follow them in a
direction the reverse of that taken by the diamonds themselves until we
arrive at the point from which each diamond started upon its journey.
If we succeed in this we shall learn whether they have a common home,
or whether they were formed in regions more or less widely separated.
From the great rarity of diamonds in Nature it would seem that the
hypothesis of a common home is the more probable, and this view finds
confirmation in the fact that certain marks of "consanguinity" have
been observed upon the stones already found.

[Illustration: FOUR VIEWS OF THE BURLINGTON DIAMOND (a little over two
carats); enlarged about three diameters. (Owned by Bunde and Upmeyer,
Milwaukee.)]

Not only did the ice mantle register its advance in the great ridge
of morainic material which we know as the "kettle moraine," but it
has engraved upon the ledges of rock over which it has ridden, in a
simple language of lines and grooves, the direction of its movement,
after first having planed away the disintegrated portions of the rock
to secure a smooth and lasting surface. As the same ledges have been
overridden more than once, and at intervals widely separated, they
are often found, palimpsestlike, with recent characters superimposed
upon earlier, partly effaced, and nearly illegible ones. Many of
the scattered leaves of this record have, however, been copied by
geologists, and the autobiography of the ice is now read from maps
which give the direction of its flow, and allow the motion of the ice
as a whole, as well as that of each of its parts, to be satisfactorily
studied. Recent studies by Canadian geologists have shown that one of
the highest summits of the ice cap must have been located some distance
west of Hudson Bay, and that another, the one which glaciated the lake
region, was in Labrador, to the east of the same body of water. From
these points the ice moved in spreading fans both northward toward the
Arctic Ocean and southward toward the States, and always approached the
margins at the moraines in a direction at right angles to their extent.
Thus the rock material transported by the ice was spread out in a great
fan, which constantly extended its boundaries as it advanced.

The evidence from the Oregon, Eagle, and Kohlsville stones, which
were located on the moraine of the Green Bay glacier, is that their
home, in case they had a common one, is between the northeastern
corner of the State of Wisconsin and the eastern summit of the ice
mantle--a narrow strip of country of great extent, but yet a first
approximation of the greatest value. If we assume, further, that the
Saukville, Burlington, and Dowagiac stones, which were found on the
moraine of the Lake Michigan glacier, have the same derivation, their
common home may confidently be placed as far to the northeast as
the wilderness beyond the Great Lakes, since the Green Bay and Lake
Michigan glaciers coalesced in that region. The small stones found at
Plum Creek, Wisconsin, and the Cincinnati stone, if the locations of
their discovery be taken into consideration, still further circumscribe
the diamond's home territory, since the lobes of the ice mass which
transported them made a complete junction with the Green Bay and Lake
Michigan lobes or glaciers considerably farther to the northward than
the point of union of the latter glaciers themselves.

[Illustration: THREE VIEWS OF A LEAD CAST OF THE MILFORD STONE (six
carats); enlarged about three diameters.

We are indebted to the courtesy of Prof. T. H. Norton, of the
University of Cincinnati, for the above illustrations.]

If, therefore, it is assumed that all the stones which have been found
have a common origin, the conclusion is inevitable that the ancestral
home must be in the wilderness of Canada between the points where the
several tracks marking their migrations converge upon one another, and
the former summit of the ice sheet. The broader the "fan" of their
distribution, the nearer to the latter must the point be located.

It is by no means improbable that when the barren territory about
Hudson Bay is thoroughly explored a region for profitable diamond
mining may be revealed, but in the meantime we may be sure that
individual stones will occasionally be found in the new American homes
into which they were imported long before the days of tariffs and ports
of entry. Mother Nature, not content with lavishing upon our favored
nation the boundless treasures locked up in her mountains, has robbed
the territory of our Canadian cousins of the rich soils which she has
unloaded upon our lake States, and of the diamonds with which she has
sowed them.

[Illustration: COMMON FORMS OF QUARTZ CRYSTALS.]

[Illustration: COMMON FORMS OF DIAMONDS. The African stones most
resemble the figure above at the left (octahedron). The Wisconsin
stones most resemble the figure above at the right (dodecahedron).]

The range of the present distribution of the diamonds, while perhaps
not limited exclusively to the "kettle moraine," will, as the events
have indicated, be in the main confined to it. This moraine, with
its numerous subordinate ranges marking halting places in the final
retreat of the ice, has now been located with sufficient accuracy by
the geologists of the United States Geological Survey and others,
approximately as entered upon the accompanying map. Within the
territory of the United States the large number of observations of the
rock scorings makes it clear that the ice of each lobe or glacier moved
from the central portion toward the marginal moraines, which are here
indicated by dotted bands. In the wilderness of Canada the observations
have been rare, but the few data which have been gleaned are there
represented by arrows pointed in the direction of ice movement.

There is every encouragement for persons who reside in or near the
marginal moraines to search in them for the scattered jewels, which
may be easily identified and which have a large commercial as well as
scientific value.

The Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey is now interesting
itself in the problem of the diamonds, and has undertaken the task of
disseminating information bearing on the subject to the people who
reside near the "kettle moraine." With the co-operation of a number of
mineralogists who reside near this "diamond belt," it offers to make
examination of the supposed gem stones which may be collected.

The success of this undertaking will depend upon securing the
co-operation of the people of the morainal belt. Wherever gravel
ridges have there been opened in cuts it would be advisable to look
for diamonds. Children in particular, because of their keen eyes and
abundant leisure, should be encouraged to search for the clear stones.

The serious defect in this plan is that it trusts to inexperienced
persons to discover the buried diamonds which in the "rough" are
probably unlike anything that they have ever seen. The first result of
the search has been the collection of large numbers of quartz pebbles,
which are everywhere present but which are entirely valueless. There
are, however, some simple ways of distinguishing diamonds from quartz.

Diamonds never appear in thoroughly rounded forms like ordinary
pebbles, for they are too hard to be in the least degree worn by
contact with their neighbors in the gravel bed. Diamonds always show,
moreover, distinct forms of crystals, and these generally bear some
resemblance to one of the forms figured. They are never in the least
degree like crystals of quartz, which are, however, the ones most
frequently confounded with them. Most of the Wisconsin diamonds have
either twelve or forty-eight faces. Crystals of most minerals are
bounded by plane surfaces--that is to say, their faces are flat--the
diamond, however, is inclosed by distinctly curving surfaces.

The one property of the diamond, however, which makes it easy of
determination is its extraordinary hardness--greater than that of any
other mineral. Put in simple language, the hardness of a substance
may be described as its power to scratch other substances when drawn
across them under pressure. To compare the hardness of two substances
we should draw a sharp point of one across a surface of the other
under a pressure of the fingers, and note whether a permanent scratch
is left. The harder substances will always scratch the softer, and if
both have the same hardness they may be made to mutually scratch each
other. Since diamond, sapphire, and ruby are the only minerals which
are harder than emery they are the only ones which, when drawn across a
rough emery surface, will not receive a scratch. Any stone which will
not take a scratch from emery is a gem stone and of sufficient interest
to be referred to a competent mineralogist.

The dissemination of information regarding the lake diamonds through
the region of the moraine should serve the twofold purpose of
encouraging search for the buried stones and of discovering diamonds
in the little collections of "lucky stones" and local curios which
accumulate on the clock shelves of country farmhouses. When it is
considered that three of the largest diamonds thus far found in
the region remained for periods of seven, eight, and sixteen years
respectively in the hands of the farming population, it can hardly be
doubted that many other diamonds have been found and preserved as local
curiosities without their real nature being discovered.

If diamonds should be discovered in the moraines of eastern Ohio, of
western Pennsylvania, or of western New York, considerable light would
thereby be thrown upon the problem of locating the ancestral home. More
important than this, however, is the mapping of the Canadian wilderness
to the southeastward and eastward of James Bay, in order to determine
the direction of ice movement within the region, so that the _tracking_
of the stones already found may be carried nearer their home. The
Director of the Geological Survey of Canada is giving attention to this
matter, and has also suggested that a study be made of the material
found in association with the diamonds in the moraine, so that if
possible its source may be discovered.

With the discovery of new localities of these emigrant stones and the
collection of data regarding the movement of the ice over Canadian
territory, it will perhaps be possible the more accurately and
definitely to circumscribe their home country, and as its boundaries
are drawn closer and closer to pay this popular jewel a visit in its
ancestral home, there to learn what we so much desire to know regarding
its genesis and its life history.

       *       *       *       *       *

William Pengelly related, in one of his letters to his wife from the
British Association, Oxford meeting, 1860, of Sedgwick's presidency
of the Geological Section, that his opening address was "most
characteristic, full of clever fun, most imperative that papers should
be as brief as possible--about ten minutes, he thought--he himself
amplifying marvelously." The next day Pengelly himself was about to
read his paper, when "dear old Sedgwick wished it compressed. I replied
that I would do what I could to please him, but did not know which to
follow, his precept or example. The roar of laughter was deafening. Old
Sedgwick took it capitally, and behaved much better in consequence."
On the third day Pengelly went to committee, where, he says, "I found
Sedgwick very cordial, took my address, and talks of paying me a
visit."




NEEDED IMPROVEMENTS IN THEATER SANITATION.

BY WILLIAM PAUL GERHARD, C. E.,

CONSULTING ENGINEER FOR SANITARY WORKS.


Buildings for the representation of theatrical plays must fulfill
three conditions: they must be (1) comfortable, (2) safe, and (3)
healthful. The last requirement, of _healthfulness_, embraces the
following conditions: plenty of pure air, freedom from draughts,
moderate warming in winter, suitable cooling in summer, freedom at
all times from dust, bad odors, and disease germs. In addition to the
requirements for the theater audience, due regard should be paid to the
comfort, healthfulness, and safety of the performers, stage hands, and
mechanics, who are required to spend more hours in the stage part of
the building than the playgoers.

It is no exaggeration to state that in the majority of theater
buildings disgracefully unsanitary conditions prevail. In the older
existing buildings especially sanitation and ventilation are sadly
neglected. The air of many theaters during a performance becomes
overheated and stuffy, pre-eminently so in the case of theaters where
illumination is effected by means of gaslights. At the end of a long
performance the air is often almost unbearably foul, causing headache,
nausea, and dizziness.

In ill-ventilated theaters a chilly air often blows into the auditorium
from the stage when the curtain is raised. This air movement is the
cause of colds to many persons in the audience, and it is otherwise
objectionable, for it carries with it noxious odors from the stage
or under stage, and in gas-lighted theaters this air is laden with
products of combustion from the footlights and other means of stage
illumination.

Attempts at ventilation are made by utilizing the heat due to the
numerous flames of the central chandelier over the auditorium, to
create an ascending draught, and thereby cause a removal of the
contaminated air, but seldom is provision made for the introduction
of fresh air from outdoors, hence the scheme of ventilation results
in failure. In other buildings, openings for the introduction of pure
air are provided under the seats or in the floor, but are often found
stuffed up with paper because the audience suffered from draughts. The
fear of draughts in a theater also leads to the closing of the few
possibly available outside windows and doors. The plan of a theater
building renders it almost impossible to provide outside windows,
therefore "air flushing" during the day can not be practiced. In the
case of the older theaters, which are located in the midst or rear of
other buildings, the nature of the site precludes a good arrangement of
the main fresh-air ducts for the auditorium.

Absence of fresh air is not the only sanitary defect of theater
buildings; there are many other defects and sources of air pollution.
In the parts devoted to the audience, the carpeted floors become
saturated with dirt and dust carried in by the playgoers, and with
expectorations from careless or untidy persons which in a mixed theater
audience are ever present. The dust likewise adheres to furniture,
plush seats, hangings, and decorations, and intermingled with it are
numerous minute floating organisms, and doubtless some germs of disease.

Behind the curtain a general lack of cleanliness exists--untidy actors'
toilet rooms, ill-drained cellars, defective sewerage, leaky drains,
foul water closets, and overcrowded and poorly located dressing rooms
into which no fresh air ever enters. The stage floor is covered with
dust; this is stirred up by the frequent scene shifting or by the
dancing of performers, and much of it is absorbed and retained by the
canvas scenery.

Under such conditions the state of health of both theater goers
and performers is bound to suffer. Many persons can testify from
personal experience to the ill effects incurred by spending a few
hours in a crowded and unventilated theater; yet the very fact that
the stay in such buildings is a brief one seems to render most people
indifferent, and complaints are seldom uttered. It really rests with
the theater-going public to enforce the much-needed improvements. As
long as they will flock to a theater on account of some attractive play
or "star actor," disregarding entirely the unsanitary condition of the
building, so long will the present notoriously bad conditions remain.
When the public does not call for reforms, theater managers and owners
of playhouses will not, as a rule, trouble themselves about the matter.
We have a right to demand theater buildings with less outward and
inside gorgeousness, but in which the paramount subjects of comfort,
safety, and health are diligently studied and generously provided
for. Let the general public but once show a determined preference for
sanitary conditions and surroundings in theaters and abandon visits to
ill-kept theaters, and I venture to predict that the necessary reforms
in sanitation will soon be introduced, at least in the better class
of playhouses. In the cheaper theaters, concert and amusement halls,
houses with "continuous" shows, variety theaters, etc., sanitation
is even more urgently required, and may be readily enforced by a few
visits and peremptory orders from the Health Board.

When, a year ago, the writer, in a paper on Theater Sanitation
presented at the annual meeting of the American Public Health
Association, stated that "chemical analyses show the air in the dress
circle and gallery of many a theater to be in the evening more foul
than the air of street sewers," the statement was received by some of
his critics with incredulity. Yet the fact is true of many theaters.
Taking the amount of carbonic acid in the air as an indication of its
contamination, and assuming that the organic vapors are in proportion
to the amount of carbonic acid (not including the CO_{2} due to the
products of illumination), we know that normal outdoor air contains
from 0.03 to 0.04 parts of CO_{2} per 100 parts of air, while a few
chemical analyses of the air in English theaters, quoted below, suffice
to prove how large the contamination sometimes is:


  Strand Theater, 10 P. M., gallery             0.101 parts CO_{2} per 100.
  Surrey Theater, 10 P. M., boxes               0.111  "      "        "
  Surrey Theater, 12 P. M., boxes               0.218  "      "        "
  Olympia Theater, 11.30 P. M., boxes           0.082  "      "        "
  Olympia Theater, 11.55 P. M.., boxes          0.101  "      "        "
  Victoria Theater, 10 P. M., boxes             0.126  "      "        "
  Haymarket Theater, 11.30 P. M., dress circle  0.076  "      "        "
  City of London Theater, 11.15 P. M., pit      0.252  "      "        "
  Standard Theater, 11 P. M., pit               0.320  "      "        "
  Theater Royal, Manchester, pit                0.2734 "      "        "
  Grand Theater, Leeds, pit                     0.150  "      "        "
  Grand Theater, Leeds, upper circle            0.143  "      "        "
  Grand Theater, balcony                        0.142  "      "        "
  Prince's Theater, Manchester                  0.11-0.17     "        "

  (Analyses made by Drs. Smith, Bernays, and De Chaumont.)


Compare with these figures some analyses of the air of sewers. Dr.
Russell, of Glasgow, found the air of a well-ventilated and flushed
sewer to contain 0.051 vols. of CO_{2}. The late Prof. W. Ripley
Nichols conducted many careful experiments on the amount of carbonic
acid in the Boston sewers, and found the following averages, viz.,
0.087, 0.082, 0.115, 0.107, 0.08, or much less than the above analyses
of theater air showed. He states: "It appears from these examinations
that the air even in a tide-locked sewer does not differ from the
standard as much as many no doubt suppose."

A comparison of the number of bacteria found in a cubic foot of air
inside of a theater and in the street air would form a more convincing
statement, but I have been unable to find published records of any
such bacteriological tests. Nevertheless, we know that while the
atmosphere contains some bacteria, the indoor air of crowded assembly
halls, laden with floating dust, is particularly rich in living
micro-organisms. This has been proved by Tyndall, Miquel, Frankland,
and other scientists; and in this connection should be mentioned one
point of much importance, ascertained quite recently, namely, that the
air of sewers, contrary to expectation, is remarkably free from germs.
An analysis of the air in the sewers under the Houses of Parliament,
London, showed that the number of micro-organisms was much less than
that in the atmosphere outside of the building.

In recent years marked improvements in theater planning and equipment
have been effected, and corresponding steps in advance have been
made in matters relating to theater hygiene. It should therefore
be understood that my remarks are intended to apply to the average
theater, and in particular to the older buildings of this class. There
are in large cities a few well-ventilated and hygienically improved
theaters and opera houses, in which the requirements of sanitation
are observed. Later on, when speaking more in detail of theater
ventilation, instances of well-ventilated theaters will be mentioned.
Nevertheless, the need of urgent and radical measures for comfort and
health in the majority of theaters is obvious. Much is being done
in our enlightened age to improve the sanitary condition of school
buildings, jails and prisons, hospitals and dwelling houses. Why, I
ask, should not our theaters receive some consideration?

The efficient ventilation of a theater building is conceded to be an
unusually difficult problem. In order to ventilate a theater properly,
the causes of noxious odors arising from bad plumbing or defective
drainage should be removed; outside fumes or vapors must not be
permitted to enter the building either through doors or windows, or
through the fresh-air duct of the heating apparatus. The substitution
of electric lights in place of gas is a great help toward securing
pure air. This being accomplished, a standard of purity of the air
should be maintained by proper ventilation. This includes both the
removal of the vitiated air and the introduction of pure air from
outdoors and the consequent entire change of the air of a hall three
or four times per hour. The fresh air brought into the building must
be ample in volume; it should be free from contamination, dust and
germs (particularly pathogenic microbes), and with this in view must in
cities be first purified by filtering, spraying, or washing. It should
be warmed in cold weather by passing over hot-water or steam-pipe
stacks, and cooled in warm weather by means of ice or the brine of
mechanical refrigerating machines. The air should be of a proper degree
of humidity, and, what is most important of all, it should be admitted
into the various parts of the theater imperceptibly, so as not to cause
the sensation of draught; in other words, its velocity at the inlets
must be very slight. The fresh air should enter the audience hall at
numerous points so well and evenly distributed that the air will be
equally diffused throughout the entire horizontal cross-section of the
hall. The air indoors should have as nearly as possible the composition
of air outdoors, an increase of the CO_{2} from 0.3 to 0.6 being the
permissible limit. The vitiated air should be continuously removed by
mechanical means, taking care, however, not to remove a larger volume
of air than is introduced from outdoors.

Regarding the amount of fresh outdoor air to be supplied to keep the
inside atmosphere at anything like standard purity, authorities differ
somewhat. The theoretical amount, 3,000 cubic feet per person per hour
(50 cubic feet per minute), is made a requirement in the Boston theater
law. In Austria, the law calls for 1,050 cubic feet. The regulations
of the Prussian Minister of Public Works call for 700 cubic feet,
Professor von Pettenkofer suggests an air supply per person of from
1,410 to 1,675 cubic feet per hour (23 to 28 cubic feet per minute),
General Morin calls for 1,200 to 1,500 cubic feet, and Dr. Billings, an
American authority, requires 30 cubic feet per minute, or 1,800 cubic
feet per hour. In the Vienna Opera House, which is described as one of
the best-ventilated theaters in the world, the air supply is 15 cubic
feet per person per minute. The Madison Square Theater, in New York, is
stated to have an air supply of 25 cubic feet per person.

In a moderately large theater, seating twelve hundred persons, the
total hourly quantity of air to be supplied would, accordingly, amount
to from 1,440,000 to 2,160,000 cubic feet. It is not an easy matter to
arrange the fresh-air conduits of a size sufficient to furnish this
volume of air; it is obviously costly to warm such a large quantity of
air, and it is a still more difficult problem to introduce it without
creating objectionable currents of air; and, finally, inasmuch as this
air can not enter the auditorium unless a like amount of vitiated air
is removed, the problem includes providing artificial means for the
removal of large air volumes.

Where gas illumination is used, each gas flame requires an additional
air supply--from 140 to 280 cubic feet, according to General Morin.

A slight consideration of the volumes of air which must be moved
and removed in a theater to secure a complete change of air three
or four times an hour, demonstrates the impossibility of securing
satisfactory results by the so-called natural method of ventilation--i.
e., the removal of air by means of flues with currents due either to
the aspirating force of the wind or due to artificially increased
temperature in the flues. It becomes necessary to adopt mechanical
means of ventilation by using either exhaust fans or pressure blowers
or both, these being driven either by steam engines or by electric
motors. In the older theaters, which were lighted by gas, the heat of
the flames could be utilized to a certain extent in creating ascending
currents in outlet shafts, and this accomplished some air renewal. But
nowadays the central chandelier is almost entirely dispensed with;
glowing carbon lamps, fed by electric currents, replace the gas flames;
hence mechanical ventilation seems all the more indicated.

Two principal methods of theater ventilation may be arranged: in one
the fresh air enters at or near the floor and rises upward to the
ceiling, to be removed by suitable outlet flues; in this method the
incoming air follows the naturally existing air currents; in the other
method pure air enters at the top through perforated cornices or holes
in the ceiling, and gradually descends, to be removed by outlets
located at or near the floor line. The two systems are known as the
"upward" and the "downward" systems; each of them has been successfully
tried, each offers some advantages, and each has its advocates. In both
systems separate means for supplying fresh air to the boxes, balconies,
and galleries are required. Owing to the different opinions held by
architects and engineers, the two systems have often been made the
subject of inquiry by scientific and government commissions in France,
England, Germany, and the United States.

A French scientist, Darcet, was the first to suggest a scientific
system of theater ventilation. He made use of the heat from the central
chandelier for removing the foul air, and admitted the air through
numerous openings in the floor and through inlets in the front of the
boxes.

Dr. Reid, an English specialist in ventilation, is generally regarded
as the originator of the upward method in ventilation. He applied the
same with some success to the ventilation of the Houses of Parliament
in London. Here fresh air is drawn in from high towers, and is
conducted to the basement, where it is sprayed and moistened. A part
of the air is warmed by hot-water coils in a sub-basement, while part
remains cold. The warm and the cold air are mixed in special mixing
chambers. From here the tempered air goes to a chamber located directly
under the floor of the auditorium, and passes into the hall at the
floor level through numerous small holes in the floor. The air enters
with low velocity, and to prevent unpleasant draughts the floor is
covered in one hall with hair carpet and in the other with coarse hemp
matting, both of which are cleaned every day. The removal of the foul
air takes place at the ceiling, and is assisted by the heat from the
gas flames.

The French engineer Péclet, an authority on heating and ventilation,
suggested a similar system of upward ventilation, but instead of
allowing the foul air to pass out through the roof, he conducted it
downward into an underground channel which had exhaust draught. Trélat,
another French engineer, followed practically the same method.

A large number of theaters are ventilated on the upward system. I will
mention first the large Vienna Opera House, the ventilation of which
was planned by Dr. Boehm. The auditorium holds about three thousand
persons, and a fresh-air supply of about fifteen cubic feet per minute,
or from nine hundred to one thousand cubic feet per hour, per person
is provided. The fresh air is taken in from the gardens surrounding
the theater and is conducted into the cellar, where it passes through
a water spray, which removes the dust and cools the air in summer.
A suction fan ten feet in diameter is provided, which blows the air
through a conduit forty-five square feet in area into a series of three
chambers located vertically over each other under the auditorium. The
lowest of these chambers is the cold-air chamber; the middle one is the
heating chamber and contains steam-heating stacks; the highest chamber
is the mixing chamber. The air goes partly to the heating and partly
to the mixing chamber; from this it enters the auditorium at the rate
of one foot per second velocity through openings in the risers of the
seats in the parquet, and also through vertical wall channels to the
boxes and upper galleries. The total area of the fresh-air openings
is 750 square feet. The foul air ascends, assisted by the heat of the
central chandelier, and is collected into a large exhaust tube. The
foul air from the gallery passes out through separate channels. In the
roof over the auditorium there is a fan which expels the entire foul
air. Telegraphic thermometers are placed in all parts of the house and
communicate with the inspection room, where the engineer in charge of
the ventilation controls and regulates the temperature.

The Vienna Hofburg Theater was ventilated on the same system.

The new Frankfort Opera House has a ventilation system modeled upon
that of the Vienna Opera House, but with improvements in some details.
The house has a capacity of two thousand people, and for each person
fourteen hundred cubic feet of fresh air per hour are supplied. A fan
about ten feet in diameter and making ninety to one hundred revolutions
per minute brings in the fresh air from outdoors and drives it into
chambers under the auditorium arranged very much like those at Vienna.
The total quantity of fresh air supplied per hour is 2,800,000 cubic
feet. The air enters the auditorium through gratings fixed above the
floor level in the risers. The foul air is removed by outlets in the
ceilings, which unite into a large vertical shaft below the cupola.
An exhaust fan of ten feet diameter is placed in the cupola shaft,
and is used for summer ventilation only. Every single box and stall
is ventilated separately. The cost of the entire system was about one
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars; it requires a staff of two
engineers, six assistant engineers, and a number of stokers.

Among well-ventilated American theaters is the Madison Square Theater
(now Hoyt's), in New York. Here the fresh air is taken down through a
large vertical shaft on the side of the stage. There is a seven-foot
suction fan in the basement which drives the air into a number of boxes
with steam-heating stacks, from which smaller pipes lead to openings
under each row of seats. The foul air escapes through openings in the
ceiling and under the galleries. A fresh-air supply of 1,500 cubic feet
per hour, or 25 cubic feet per minute, per person is provided.

The Metropolitan Opera House is ventilated on the plenum system, and
has an upward movement of air, the total air supply being 70,000 cubic
feet per hour.

In the Academy of Music, Baltimore, the fresh air is admitted mainly
from the stage and the exits of foul air are in the ceiling at the
auditorium.

Other theaters ventilated by the upward method are the Dresden Royal
Theater, the Lessing Theater in Berlin, the Opera House in Buda-Pesth,
the new theater in Prague, the new Municipal Theater at Halle, and the
Criterion Theatre in London.

The French engineer General Arthur Morin is known as the principal
advocate of the downward method of ventilation. This was at that
time a radical departure from existing methods because it apparently
conflicted with the well-known fact that heated air naturally rises.
Much the same system was advocated by Dr. Tripier in a pamphlet
published in 1864.[7] The earlier practical applications of this system
to several French theaters did not prove as much of a success as
anticipated, the failure being due probably to the gas illumination,
the central chandelier, and the absence of mechanical means for
inducing a downward movement of the air.

[7] Dr. A. Tripier. Assainissement des Théâtres, Ventilation, Éclairage
et Chauffage.

In 1861 a French commission, of which General Morin was a member,
proposed the reversing of the currents of air by admitting fresh air
at both sides of the stage opening high up in the auditorium, and also
through hollow floor channels for the balconies and boxes; in the
gallery the openings for fresh air were located in the risers of the
steppings. The air was exhausted by numerous openings under the seats
in the parquet. This ventilating system was carried out at the Théâtre
Lyrique, the Théâtre du Cirque, and the Théâtre de la Gaieté.

Dr. Tripier ventilated a theater in 1858 with good success on a similar
plan, but he introduced the air partly at the rear of the stage and
partly in the tympanum in the auditorium. He removed the foul air
at the floor level and separately in the rear of the boxes. He also
exhausted the foul air from the upper galleries by special flues heated
by the gas chandelier.

The Grand Amphitheater of the Conservatory of Arts and Industries, in
Paris, was ventilated by General Morin on the downward system. The
openings in the ceiling for the admission of fresh air aggregated 120
square feet, and the air entered with a velocity of only eighteen
inches per second; the total air supply per hour was 630,000 cubic
feet. The foul air was exhausted by openings in steps around the
vertical walls, and the velocity of the outgoing air was about two and
a half feet per second.

The introduction of the electric light in place of gas gave a fresh
impetus to the downward method of ventilation, and mechanical means
also helped to dispel the former difficulties in securing a positive
downward movement.

The Chicago Auditorium is ventilated on this system, a part of the air
entering from the rear of the stage, the other from the ceiling of the
auditorium downward. This plan coincides with the proposition made in
1846 by Morrill Wyman, though he admits that it can not be considered
the most desirable method.

A good example of the downward method is given by the New York Music
Hall, which has a seating capacity of three thousand persons and
standing room for one thousand more. Fresh air at any temperature
desired is made to enter through perforations in or near the ceilings,
the outlets being concealed by the decorations, and passes out through
exhaust registers near the floor line, under the seats, through
perforated risers in the terraced steps. About 10,000,000 cubic feet
of air are supplied per hour, and the velocity of influx and efflux is
one foot per second. The air supplied per person per hour is figured
at 2,700 cubic feet, and the entire volume is changed from four and a
half to five times per hour. The fresh air is taken in at roof level
through a shaft of seventy square feet area. The air is heated by steam
coils, and cooled in summer by ice. The mechanical plant comprises four
blowers and three exhaust fans of six and seven feet in diameter.

The downward method of ventilation was suggested in 1884 for the
improvement of the ventilation of the Senate chamber and the chamber
of the House of Representatives in the Capitol at Washington, but the
system was not adopted by the Board of Engineers appointed to inquire
into the methods.

The downward method is also used in the Hall of the Trocadéro, Paris;
in the old and also the new buildings for the German Parliament,
Berlin; in the Chamber of Deputies, Paris; and others.

Professor Fischer, a modern German authority on heating and
ventilation, in a discussion of the relative advantages of the two
methods, reaches the conclusion that both are practical and can be
made to work successfully. For audience halls lighted by gaslights he
considers the upward method as preferable.

In arranging for the removal of foul air it is necessary, particularly
in the downward system, to provide separate exhaust flues for the
galleries and balconies. Unless this is provided for, the exhaled air
of the occupants of the higher tiers would mingle with the descending
current of pure air supplied to the occupants of the main auditorium
floor.

Mention should also be made of a proposition originating in Berlin
to construct the roof of auditoriums domelike, by dividing it in
the middle so that it can be partly opened by means of electric or
hydraulic machinery; such a system would permit of keeping the ceiling
open in summer time, thereby rendering the theater not only airy,
but also free from the danger of smoke. A system based on similar
principles is in actual use at the Madison Square Garden, in New York,
where part of the roof consists of sliding skylights which in summer
time can be made to open or close during the performance.

From the point of view of safety in case of fire, which usually in
a theater breaks out on the stage, it is without doubt best to have
the air currents travel in a direction from the auditorium toward the
stage roof. This has been successfully arranged in some of the later
Vienna theaters, but from the point of view of good acoustics, it
is better to have the air currents travel from the stage toward the
auditorium. Obviously, it is a somewhat difficult matter to reconcile
the conflicting requirements of safety from smoke and fire gases, good
acoustics and perfect ventilation.

The stage of a theater requires to be well ventilated, for often it
becomes filled with smoke or gases due to firing of guns, colored
lights, torches, representations of battles, etc. There should be in
the roof over the stage large outlet flues, or sliding skylights,
controlled from the stage for the removal of the smoke. These, in
case of an outbreak of fire on the stage, become of vital importance
in preventing the smoke and fire gases from being drawn into the
auditorium and suffocating the persons in the gallery seats.

Where the stage is lit with gaslights it is important to provide a
separate downward ventilation for the footlights. This, I believe, was
first successfully tried at the large Scala Theater, of Milan, Italy.

The actors' and supers' dressing rooms, which are often overcrowded,
require efficient ventilation, and other parts of the building, like
the foyers and the toilet, retiring and smoking rooms, must not be
overlooked.

The entrance halls, vestibules, lobbies, staircases, and corridors
do not need so much ventilation, but should be kept warm to prevent
annoying draughts. They are usually heated by abundantly large direct
steam or hot-water radiators, whereas the auditorium and foyers,
and often the stage, are heated by indirect radiation. Owing to the
fact that during a performance the temperature in the auditorium is
quickly raised by contact of the warm fresh air with the bodies of
persons (and by the numerous lights, when gas is used), the temperature
of the incoming air should be only moderate. In the best modern
theater-heating plants it is usual to gradually reduce the temperature
of the air as it issues from the mixing chambers toward the end of the
performance. Both the temperature and the hygrometric conditions of the
air should be controlled by an efficient staff of intelligent heating
engineers.

But little need be said regarding theater lighting. Twice during the
present century have the system and methods been changed. In the early
part of the present century theaters were still lighted with tallow
candles or with oil lamps. Next came what was at the time considered
a wonderful improvement, namely, the introduction of gaslighting.
The generation who can remember witnessing a theater performance by
candle or lamp lights, and who experienced the excitement created
when the first theater was lit up by gas, will soon have passed
away. Scarcely twenty years ago the electric light was introduced,
and there are to-day very few theaters which do not make use of this
improved illuminant. It generates much less heat than gaslight, and
vastly simplifies the problem of ventilation. The noxious products
of combustion, incident to all other methods of illumination, are
eliminated: no carbonic-acid gas is generated to render the air
of audience halls irrespirable, and no oxygen is drawn to support
combustion from the air introduced for breathing.

It being now an established fact that the electric light increases the
safety of human life in theaters and other places of amusement, its use
is in many city or building ordinances made imperative--at least on
the stage and in the main body of the auditorium. Stairs, corridors,
entrances, etc., may, as a matter of precaution, be lighted by a
different system, by means of either gas or auxiliary vegetable oil or
candle lamps, protected by glass inclosures against smoke or draught,
and provided with special inlet and outlet flues for air.

Passing to other desirable internal improvements of theaters, I would
mention first the floors of the auditorium. The covering of the floor
by carpets is objectionable--in theaters more so even than in dwelling
houses. Night after night the carpet comes in contact with thousands
of feet, which necessarily bring in a good deal of street dirt and
dust. The latter falls on the carpets and attaches to them, and as
it is not feasible to take the carpets up except during the summer
closing, a vast accumulation of dirt and organic matter results, some
of the dirt falling through the crevices between the floor boards. Many
theater-goers are not tidy in their habits regarding expectoration, and
as there must be in every large audience some persons afflicted with
tuberculosis, the danger is ever present of the germs of the disease
drying on the carpet, and becoming again detached to float in the air
which we are obliged to breathe in a theater.

As a remedy I would propose abolishing carpets entirely, and using
instead a floor covering of linoleum, or thin polished parquetry oak
floors, varnished floors of hard wood, painted and stained floors,
interlocked rubber-tile floors, or, at least for the aisles, encaustic
or mosaic tiling. Between the rows of seats, as well as in the aisles,
long rugs or mattings may be laid down loose, for these can be taken
up without much trouble. They should be frequently shaken, beaten, and
cleaned.

Regarding the walls, ceilings, and cornices, the surfaces should be of
a material which can be readily cleaned and which is non-absorbent.
Stucco finish is unobjectionable, but should be kept flat, so as not to
offer dust-catching projections. Oil painting of walls is preferable
to a covering with rough wall papers, which hold large quantities
of dust. The so-called "sanitary" or varnished wall papers have a
smooth, non-absorbent, easily cleaned surface, and are therefore
unobjectionable. All heavy decorations, draperies, and hangings in the
boxes, and plush covers for railings, are to be avoided.

The theater furniture should be of a material which does not catch or
hold dust. Upholstered plush-covered chairs and seats retain a large
amount of it, and are not readily cleaned. Leather-covered or other
sanitary furniture, or rattan seats, would be a great improvement.

In the stage building we often find four or five actors placed in
one small, overheated, unventilated dressing room, located in the
basement of the building, without outside windows, and fitted with
three or four gas jets, for actors require a good light in "making
up." More attention should be paid to the comfort and health of the
players, more space and a better location should be given to their
rooms. Every dressing room should have a window to the outer air, also
a special ventilating flue. Properly trapped wash basins should be
fitted up in each room. In the dressing rooms and in the corridors and
stairs leading from them to the stage all draughts must be avoided,
as the performers often become overheated from the excitement of the
acting, and dancers in particular leave the heated stage bathed in
perspiration. Sanitation, ventilation, and cleanliness are quite as
necessary for this part of the stage building as for the auditorium and
foyers.

It will suffice to mention that defects in the drainage and sewerage
of a theater building must be avoided. The well-known requirements
of house drainage should be observed in theaters as much as in other
public buildings.[8]

[8] The reader will find the subject discussed and illustrated in the
author's work, Sanitary Engineering of Buildings, vol. i, 1899.

The removal of ashes, litter, sweepings, oily waste, and other refuse
should be attended to with promptness and regularity. It is only by
constant attention to properly carried out cleaning methods that such
a building for the public can be kept in a proper sanitary condition.
Floating air impurities, like dust and dirt, can not be removed or
rendered innocuous by the most perfect ventilating scheme. Mingled with
the dust floating in the auditorium or lodging in the stage scenery
are numbers of bacteria or germs. Among the pathogenic germs will be
those of tuberculosis, contained in the sputum discharged in coughing
or expectorating. When this dries on the carpeted floor, the germs
become readily detached, are inhaled by the playgoers, and thus become
a prolific source of danger. It is for this reason principally that the
processes of cleaning, sweeping, and dusting should in a theater be
under intelligent management.

To guard against the ever-present danger of infection by germs, the
sanitary floor coverings recommended should be wiped every day with a
moist rag or cloth. Carpeted floors should be covered with moist tea
leaves or sawdust before sweeping to prevent the usual dust-raising.
The common use of the feather duster is to be deprecated, for it only
raises and scatters the dust, but it does not remove it. Dusting of
the furniture should be done with a dampened dust cloth. The cleaning
should include the hot-air registers, where a large amount of dust
collects, which can only be removed by occasionally opening up the
register faces and wiping out the pipe surfaces; also the baseboards
and all cornice projections on which dust constantly settles. While
dusting and sweeping, the windows should be opened; an occasional
admission of sunlight, where practicable, would likewise be of the
greatest benefit.

The writer believes that a sanitary inspection of theater buildings
should be instituted once a year when they are closed up in summer. He
would also suggest that the granting of the annual license should be
made dependent not only, as at present, upon the condition of safety
of the building against fire and panic, but also upon its sanitary
condition. In connection with the sanitary inspection, a thorough
disinfection by sulphur, or better with formaldehyde gas, should be
carried out by the health authorities. If necessary, the disinfection
of the building should be repeated several times a year, particularly
during general epidemics of influenza or pneumonia.

Safety measures against outbreaks of fire, dangers from panic,
accidents, etc., are in a certain sense also sanitary improvements, but
can not be discussed here.[9]

[9] See the author's work, Theater Fires and Panics, 1895.

In order to anticipate captious criticisms, the writer would state
that in this paper he has not attempted to set forth new theories, nor
to advocate any special system of theater ventilation. His aim was
to describe existing defects and to point out well-known remedies.
The question of efficient theater sanitation belongs quite as much to
the province of the sanitary engineer as to that of the architect.
It is one of paramount importance--certainly more so than the purely
architectural features of exterior and interior decoration.

       *       *       *       *       *

In presenting to the British Association the final report on the
northwestern tribes of Canada, Professor Tylor observed that, while
the work of the committee has materially advanced our knowledge of
the tribes of British Columbia, the field of investigation is by no
means exhausted. The languages are still known only in outlines. More
detailed information on physical types may clear up several points
that have remained obscure, and a fuller knowledge of the ethnology of
the northern tribes seems desirable. Ethnological evidence has been
collected bearing upon the history of the development of the area under
consideration, but no archæological investigations, which would help
materially in solving these problems, have been carried on.




THE NEW FIELD BOTANY.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED, Sc. D.,

OF RUTGERS COLLEGE.


There is something novel every day; were it not so this earth would
grow monotonous to all, even as it does now to many, and chiefly
because such do not have the opportunity or the desire to learn some
new thing. Facts unknown before are constantly coming to the light, and
principles are being deduced that serve as a stepping stone to other
and broader fields of knowledge. So accustomed are we to this that
even a new branch of science may dawn upon the horizon without causing
a wonder in our minds. In this day of ologies the birth of a new one
comes without the formal two-line notice in the daily press, just as
old ones pass from view without tear or epitaph.

_Phytoecology_ as a word is not long as scientific terms go, and the
Greek that lies back of it barely suggests the meaning of the term, a
fact not at all peculiar to the present instance. Of course, it has to
do with plants, and is therefore a branch of botany.

In one sense that which it stands for is not new, and, as usual, the
word has come in the wake of the facts and principles it represents,
and therefore becomes a convenient term for a branch of knowledge--a
handle, so to say--by which that group of ideas may be held up for
study and further growth. The word _ecology_ was first employed by
Haeckel, a leading light in zoölogy in our day, to designate the
environmental side of animal life.

We will not concern ourselves with definitions, but discuss the field
that the term is coined to cover, and leave the reader to formulate a
short concise statement of its meaning.

Within the last year a new botanical guide book for teachers has
been published, of considerable originality and merit, in which
the subject-matter is thrown into four groups, and one of these is
Ecology. Another text-book for secondary schools is now before us in
which ecology is the heading of one of the three parts into which the
treatise is divided. The large output of the educational press at the
present time along the line in hand suggests that the magazine press
should sound the depths of the new branch of science that is pushing
its way to the front, or being so pushed by its adherents, and echo the
merits of it along the line.

Botany in its stages of growth is interesting historically. It
fascinated for a time one of the greatest minds in the modern school,
and as a result we have the rich and fruitful history of the science
as seen through eyes as great as Julius Sachs's, the master of botany
during the last half century. From this work it can be gathered that
early in the centuries since the Christian era botany was little more
than herborizing--the collecting of specimens, and learning their gross
parts, as size of stem and leaf and blossom.

This branch of botany has been cultivated to the present day, and the
result is the systematist, with all the refinements of species making
and readjustment of genera and orders with the nicety of detail in
specific descriptions that only a systematist can fully appreciate.

Later on the study of function was begun, and along with it that of
structure; for anatomy and physiology, by whatever terms they may be
known, advance hand in hand, because inseparable. One worker may look
more to the activities than another who toils with the structural
relations and finds these problems enough for a lifetime.

This botany of the dissecting table in contrast with that of the
collector and his dried specimens grew apace, taking new leases of
life at the uprising of new hypotheses, and long advances with the
improvement of implements for work. It was natural that the cell and
all that is made from it should invite the inspector to a field of
intense interest, somewhat at the expense of the functions of the
parts. In short, the field was open, the race was on, and it was a
matter of self-restraint that a man did not enter and strive long and
well for some anatomical prize. This branch of botany is still alive,
and never more so than to-day, when cytology offers many attractive
problems for the cytologist. What with his microtome that cuts his
imbedded tissue into slices so thin that twenty-five hundred or more
are needed to measure an inch in thickness, with his fixing solutions
that kill instantly and hold each particle as if frozen in a cake of
ice, and his stains and double stains that pick out the specks as the
magnet draws iron filing from a bin of bran--with all these and a
hundred more aids to the refinement of the art there is no wonder that
the cell becomes a center of attraction, beyond the periphery of which
the student can scarcely live. In our closing days of the century it
may be known whether the blephroblasts arise antipodally, and whether
they are a variation of the centrosomes or should be classed by
themselves!

One of the general views of phytoecology is that the forms of plants
are modified to adapt them to the conditions under which they exist.
Thus the size of a plant is greatly modified by the environment.
Two grains of corn indistinguishable in themselves and borne by the
same cob may be so situated that one grows into a stately stalk with
the ear higher than a horse's head, while the other is a dwarf and
unproductive. Below ground the conditions are many, and all subject
to infinite variation. Thus, the soil may be deep or shallow, the
particles small or large, the moisture abundant or scant, and the food
elements close at hand or far to seek--all of which will have a marked
influence upon the root system, its size, and form.

Coming to the aërial portion, there are all the factors of weather and
climate to work singly or in union to affect the above-ground structure
of the plant. Temperature varies through wide ranges of heat and
cold, scorching and freezing; while humidity or aridity, sunshine or
cloudiness, prevailing winds or sudden tornadoes all have an influence
in shaping the structure, developing the part, and fashioning the
details of form of the aërial portions. Phytoecology deals with all
these, and includes the consideration of that struggle for life that
plants are constantly waging, for environment determines that the forms
best suited to a given set of conditions will survive. This struggle
has been going on since the vegetable life of the earth began, and as
a result certain prevailing conditions have brought about groups of
plants found as a rule only where these conditions prevail. As water
is a leading factor in plant growth, a classification is made upon
this basis into the plants of the arid regions called xerophytes. The
opposite to desert vegetation is that of the fresh ponds and lakes,
called hydrophytes. A third group, the halophytes, includes the
vegetation of sea or land where there is an excess of various saline
substances, the common salt being the leading one. The last group is
the mesophytes, which include plants growing in conditions without the
extremes accorded to the other three groups.

This somewhat general classification of the conditions of the
environment lends much of interest to that form of field botany now
under consideration. As the grouping is made chiefly upon the aqueous
conditions, it is fair to assume that plants are especially modified
to accommodate themselves to this compound. Plants, for example,
unless they are aquatics, need to use large quantities of water to
carry on the vital functions. Thus the salts from the soil need to
rise dissolved in the crude sap to the leaves, and in order that a
sufficient current be kept up there is transpiration going on from
all thin or soft exposed parts. The leaves are the chief organs where
aqueous vapor is being given off, sometimes to the extent of tons of
water upon an acre of area in a single day. This evaporation being
largely surface action, it is possible for the plant to check this by
reducing the surface, and the leaf is coiled or folded. Other plants
have through the ages become adapted to the destructive actions of
drought and a dry, hot atmosphere, and have only needle-shaped leaves
or even no true ones at all, as many of the cacti in the desert lands
of the Western plains.

Again, the surface of the plant may become covered with a felt of fine
hairs to prevent rapid evaporation, while other plants with ordinary
foliage have the acquired power of moving the leaves so that they will
expose their surfaces broadside to the sun, or contrariwise the edges
only, as heat and light intensity determine.

Phytoecology deals with all those adaptations of structure, and from
which permit the plants to take advantage of the habits and wants of
animals. If we are studying the vegetation of a bog, and note the
adaptation of the hydrophytic plants, the chances are that attention
will soon be called to colorations and structures that indicate a more
complete and far-reaching adjustment than simply to the conditions of
the wet, spongy bog. A plant may be met with having the leaves in the
form of flasks or pitchers, and more or less filled with water. These
strange leaves are conspicuously purplish, and this adds to their
attractiveness. The upper portion may be variegated, resembling a
flower and for the same purpose--namely, to attract insects that find
within the pitchers a food which is sought at the risk of life. Many
of the entrapped creatures never escape, and yield up their life for
the support of that of the captor. Again, the mossy bog may glisten
in the sun, and thousands of sundew plants with their pink leaves are
growing upon the surface. Each leaf is covered with adhesive stalked
glands, and insects lured to and caught by them are devoured by this
insectivorous vegetation.

In the pools in the same lowland there may be an abundance of the
bladderwort, a floating plant with flowers upon long stalks that raise
them into the air and sunshine. With the leaves reduced to a mere
framework that bears innumerable bladders, water animals of small
size are captured in vast numbers and provide a large part of the
nourishment required by the highly specialized hydrophyte.

These are but everyday instances of adaptation between plants and
animals for the purpose of nutrition, the adjustment of form being
more particularly upon the vegetative side. Zoölogists may be able to
show, however, that certain species of animals are adapted to and quite
dependent upon the carnivorous plants.

An ecological problem has been worked out along the above line to a
larger extent than generally supposed. If we should take the case of
ants only in their relation to structural adaptations for them in
plants, it would be seen that fully three thousand species of the
latter make use of ants for purposes of protection. The large fighting
ants of the tropics, when provided with nectar, food, and shelter,
will inhabit plants to the partial exclusion of destructive insects
and larger foraging animals. Interesting as all this is, it is not the
time and place to go into the details of how the ant-fostering plants
have their nectar glands upon stems or leaf, rich soft hairs in tufts
for food, and homes provided in hollows and chambers. There is still a
more intimate association of termites with some of the toadstool-like
plants, where the ants foster the fungi and seem to understand some of
the essentials of veritable gardening in miniature form.

The most familiar branch of phytoecology, as it concerns adaptations
for insect visitations, is that which relates to the production of
seed. Floral structures, so wonderfully varied in form and color and
withal attractive to every lover of the beautiful, are familiar to all,
and it only needs to be said in passing that these infinite forms are
for the same end--namely, the union of the seed germs, if they may be
so styled, of different and often widely separated blossoms.

Sweetness and beauty are not the invariable rule with insect-visited
blossoms, for in the long ages that have elapsed during which these
adaptations have come about some plants have established an unwritten
agreement between beetles and bugs with unsavory tastes. Thus there are
the "carrion flowers," so called because of their fetid odor, designed
for the sense organs of carrion insects. The "stink-horn" fungi have
their offensive spores distributed by a similar set of carrion carriers.

Water and wind claim a share of the species, but here adaptation to
the method of fertilization is as fully realized as when insects
participate, and the uselessness of showy petals and fantastic forms is
emphasized by their absence.

Coming now to the fruits of plants, it is again seen that plants have
adapted their offspring, the seed, to the surrounding conditions,
not forgetting the wind, the waves, and the tastes and the exterior
of passing animals. The breezes carry up and hurl along the light
wing-possessed seeds, and the river and ocean bear these and many
others onward to a distant land, while by grappling hooks many kinds
cling to the hair of animals, or, provided with a pleasing pulp, are
carried willingly by birds and other creatures. In short, the devices
for seed dispersion are multitudinous, and they provide a large chapter
in that branch of botany now styled phytoecology.

How different is the old field botany from the new! Then there was the
collector of plants and classifier of his finds, and an arranger of all
he could get by exchange or otherwise. His success was measured by the
size of his herbarium and his stock in trade as so many duplicates
all taken in bloom, but the time of year, locality, and the various
conditions of growth were all unknown.

His implements for work were, first, a can or basket, a plant press,
and a manual; and, secondly, a lot of paper, a paste pot, and some way
of holding the mounts in packets or pigeonholes.

The eyes grew keen as the hunter scoured the forest and field for some
kind of plant he had not already possessed. There was a keen relish in
discoveries, and it heightened into ecstasy when the specimen needed
to be sent away for a name and was returned with his own Latinized and
appended to that of the genus.

This was all well and good so far as it went, but looked at from the
present vantage ground there was not so much in it. However, his was an
essential step to other things, as much so as that of the census taker.

We need to know the species of plants our fair land possesses, and have
them described and named. But when the nine hundred and ninety-nine
are known, it is a waste of time to be continually hunting for the
thousandth. Look for it, but let it be secondary to that of an actual
study of the great majority already known. The older botany was a study
of the dried plants in all those details that are laid down in the
manuals. It lacked something of the true vitality that is inherent in a
biological science, for often the life had gone out before the subject
came up for study. To the phytoecologist it was somewhat as the shell
without the meat, or the bird's nest of a previous year.

Since those days of our forefathers there has come the minute anatomy
of plants, followed closely by physiology; and now with the working
knowledge of these two modern branches of botany the student has
again taken to the field. He is making the wood-lot his laboratory,
and the garden, so to say, his lecture room. He has a fair knowledge
of systematic botany, but finds himself rearranging the families
and genera to fit the facts determined by his ecological study. If
two species of the same genus are widely separated in habitat, he
is determining the factors that led to the separation. Why did one
smart weed become a climber, another an upright herb, and a third a
prostrate creeper, are questions that may not have entered the mind of
the plant collector; but now the phytoecologist finds much interest in
considering questions of this type. What are the differences between
a species inhabiting the water and another of the same genus upon dry
land, or what has led one group of the morning-glory family to become
parasites and exist as the dodders upon other living plants?

The older botanist held his subject under the best mental illumination
of his time, but his physical light, that of a pine knot or a tallow
dip, also contrasts strongly with that of the present gas jet and
electric arc.

The wonder should be that he saw so well, and all who follow him can
not but feel grateful for the path he blazed through the dense forests
of ignorance and the bridges he made over the streams of doubt in
specific distinctions. It was a noble work, but it is nearly past in
the older parts of our country; and while some of that school should
linger to readjust their genera, make new combinations of species,
and attempt to satisfy the claims of priority, the rank and file will
largely leave systematic botany and the herborizing it embraces, and
betake themselves to the open fields of phytoecology. It may be along
the line of structural adaptations when we will have morphological
phytoecology, or the adjustment of function to the environment when
there will be physiological phytoecology. These two branches when
combined to elucidate problems of relationship between the plant and
its surroundings as involved in accommodation in its comprehensive
sense there will be phytoecology with climate, geology, geography, or
fossils as the leading feature, as the case may be.

In the older botany the plant alone in itself was the subject of study.
The newer botany takes the plant in its surroundings and all that its
relationships to other plants may suggest as the subject for analysis.
In the one case the plant was all and its place of growth accidental,
a dried specimen from any unknown habitat was enough; but now the
environment and the numerous lines of relationship that reach out from
the living plant _in situ_ are the major subjects for study. The former
was field botany because the field contained the plant, the latter is
field botany in that the plant embraces in its study all else in the
field in which it lives. The one had as its leading question, What is
your name and where do you belong in my herbarium? while the other
raises an endless list of queries, of which How came you here and when?
Why these curious glands and this strange movement or mimicry? are but
average samples. Every spot of color, bend of leaf, and shape of fruit
raises a question.

The collector of fifty years ago pulled up or cut off a portion of
his plant for a specimen, and rarely measured, weighed, and counted
anything about it. The phytoecologist to-day watches his subject as
it grows, and if removed it is for the purpose of testing its vital
functions under varying circumstances of moisture, heat, or sunlight,
and exact recording instruments are a part of the equipment for the
investigation.

The underlying thought in the seashore school and the tropical
laboratory in botany is this of getting nearer to the haunts of the
living plant. Forestry schools that have for their class room the
wooded mountains and the botanical gardens with their living herbaria
are welcome steps toward the same end of phytoecology.

In view of the above facts, and many more that might be mentioned did
space permit, the writer has felt that the present incomplete and
faulty presentation of the subject of the newer botany should be placed
before the great reading public through the medium of a journal that
has as its watchword Progress in Education.




DO ANIMALS REASON?

BY THE REV. EGERTON R. YOUNG.


This interesting subject has been ably handled from the negative side
by Edward Thorndike, Ph. D., in the August number of the Popular
Science Monthly. Dr. Thorndike, with all his skill in treating this
very interesting subject, seems to have forgotten one very important
point. His expectation has not only been higher than any fair claim of
an animal's reasoning power, but he has overlooked the fact that there
are different ways of reasoning. Men of different races and those of
little intelligence can be placed in new environments and be asked to
perform things which, while utterly impossible to them, are simple and
crude to those of higher intelligence and who have all their days been
accustomed to high mental exercise. If such difference exists between
the highest and most intelligent of the human race and the degraded
and uncultured, vastly greater is the gulf that separates the lowest
stratum of humanity from the most intelligent of the brute creation.
The fair way to test the intelligence of the so-called lower orders
of men is to go to their native lands and study them in their own
environments and in possession of the equipments of life to which they
have been accustomed. The same is true of the brute creation. Only
the highest results can be expected from congenial environments. To
pass final judgment upon the animal kingdom, having for data only the
results of the doctor's experiments, seems to us manifestly unfair.
He takes a few cats and dogs and submits them to environments which
are altogether foreign to them, and then expects feats of mind from
them which would be far greater than the mastering of the reason why
two and two make four is to the stupidest child of man. As the doctor
has been permitted to tell the results of his experiments, may I claim
a similar privilege? While I did not use dogs merely to test their
intelligence--my business demanding of myself and them the fullest use
of all our energies and all the intelligence, be it more or less, that
was possessed by man or beast--I had the privilege of seeing in my dogs
actions that were, at least to me, convincing that they possessed the
rudiments of reasoning powers, and, in the more intelligent, that which
will be utterly inexplicable if it is not the product of reasoning
faculties.

For a number of years I was a resident missionary in the Hudson Bay
Territories, where, in the prosecution of my work, I kept a large
number of dogs of various breeds. With these dogs I traveled several
thousands of miles every winter over an area larger than the State of
New York. In summer I used them to plow my garden and fields. They
dragged home our fish from the distant fisheries, and the wood from the
forests for our numerous fires. They cuddled around me on the edges of
my heavy fur robes in wintry camps, where we often slept out in a hole
dug in the snow, the temperature ranging from 30° to 60° below zero.
When blizzard storms raged so terribly that even the most experienced
Indian guides were bewildered, and knew not north from south or east
from west, our sole reliance was on our dogs, and with an intelligence
and an endurance that ever won our admiration they succeeded in
bringing us to our desired destination.

It is conceded at the outset that these dogs of whom I write were the
result of careful selection. There are dogs and dogs, as there are
men and men. They were not picked up in the street at random. I would
no more keep in my personal service a mere average mongrel dog than I
would the second time hire for one of my long trips a sulky Indian. As
there are some people, good in many ways, who can not master a foreign
tongue, so there are many dogs that never rise above the one gift of
animal instinct. With such I too have struggled, and long and patiently
labored, and if of them only I were writing I would unhesitatingly say
that of them I never saw any act which ever seemed to show reasoning
powers. But there are other dogs than these, and of them I here would
write and give my reason why I firmly believe that in a marked degree
some of them possessed the powers of reasoning.

Two of my favorite dogs I called Jack and Cuffy. Jack was a great black
St. Bernard, weighing nearly two hundred pounds. Cuffy was a pure
Newfoundland, with very black curly hair. These two dogs were the gift
of the late Senator Sanford. With other fine dogs of the same breeds,
they soon supplanted the Eskimo and mongrels that had been previously
used for years about the place.

[Illustration: JACK AND HIS MASTER.]

I had so much work to do in my very extensive field that I required to
have at least four trains always fit for service. This meant that,
counting puppies and all, there would be about the premises from twenty
to thirty dogs. However, as the lakes and rivers there swarmed with
fish, which was their only food, we kept the pack up to a state of
efficiency at but little expense. Jack and Cuffy were the only two dogs
that were allowed the full liberty of the house. They were welcome in
every room. Our doors were furnished with the ordinary thumb latches.
These latches at first bothered both dogs. All that was needed on our
part was to show them how they worked, and from that day on for years
they both entered the rooms as they desired without any trouble, if
the doors opened from them. There was a decided difference, however,
in opening a door if it opened toward them. Cuffy was never able to
do it. With Jack it was about as easily done as it was by the Indian
servant girl. Quickly and deftly would he shove up the exposed latch
and the curved part of the thumb piece and draw it toward him. If the
door did not easily open, the claws in the other fore paw speedily
and cleverly did the work. The favorite resting place of these two
magnificent dogs was on some fur rugs on my study floor. Several times
have we witnessed the following action in Cuffy, who was of a much more
restless temperament than Jack: When she wanted to leave the study she
would invariably first go to the door and try it. If it were in the
slightest degree ajar she could easily draw it toward her and thus
open it. If, on the contrary, it were latched, she would at once march
over to Jack, and, taking him by an ear with her teeth, would lead him
over to the door, which he at once opened for her. If reason is that
power by which we "are enabled to combine means for the attainment of
particular ends," I fail to understand the meaning of words if it were
not displayed in these instances.

Both Jack and Cuffy were, as is characteristic of such dogs, very fond
of the water, and in our short, brilliant summers would frequently
disport themselves in the beautiful little lake, the shores of which
were close to our home. Cuffy, as a Newfoundland dog, generally
preferred to continue her sports in the waves some time after Jack had
finished his bath. As they were inseparable companions, Jack was too
loyal to retire to the house until Cuffy was ready to accompany him.
As she was sometimes whimsical and dilatory, she seemed frequently to
try his patience. It was, however, always interesting to observe his
deference to her. To understand thoroughly what we are going to relate
in proof of our argument it is necessary to state that the rocky shore
in front of our home was at this particular place like a wedge, the
thickest part in front, rising up about a dozen feet or so abruptly
from the water. Then to the east the shore gradually sloped down into
a little sandy cove. When Jack had finished his bath he always swam
to this sandy beach, and at once, as he shook his great body, came
gamboling along the rocks, joyously barking to his companion still in
the waters. When Cuffy had finished her watery sports, if Jack were
still on the rocks, instead of swimming to the sandy cove and there
landing she would start directly for the place where Jack was awaiting
her. If it were at a spot where she could not alone struggle up, Jack,
firmly bracing himself, would reach down to her and then, catching hold
of the back of her neck, would help her up the slippery rocks. If it
were at a spot where he could not possibly reach her, he would, after
several attempts, all the time furiously barking as though expressing
his anxiety and solicitude, rush off to a spot where some old oars,
paddles, and sticks of various kinds were piled. There he searched
until he secured one that suited his purpose. With this in his mouth,
he hurried back to the spot where Cuffy was still in the water at the
base of the steep rocks. Here he would work the stick around until he
was able to let one end down within reach of his exacting companion in
the water. Seizing it in her teeth and with the powerful Jack pulling
at the other end she was soon able to work her way up the rough but
almost perpendicular rocks. This prompt action, often repeated on
the part of Jack, looked very much like "the specious appearance of
reasoning." It was a remarkable coincidence that if Jack were called
away, Cuffy at once swam to the sandy beach and there came ashore.

Jack never had any special love for the Indians, although we were then
living among them. He was, however, too well instructed ever to injure
or even growl at any of them. The changing of Indian servant girls in
the kitchen was always a matter of perplexity to him. He was suspicious
of these strange Indians coming in and so familiarly handling the
various utensils of their work. Not daring to injure them, it was
amusing to watch him in his various schemes to tease them. If one of
them seemed especially anxious to keep the doors shut, Jack took the
greatest delight in frequently opening them. This he took care only
to do when no member of the family was around. These tricks he would
continue to do until formal complaints were lodged against him. One
good scolding was sufficient to deter him from thus teasing that girl,
but he would soon begin to try it with others.

One summer we had a fat, good-natured servant girl whom we called
Mary. Soon after she was installed in her place Jack began, as usual,
to try to annoy her, but found it to be a more difficult job than it
had been with some of her predecessors. She treated him with complete
indifference, and was not in the least afraid of him, big as he was.
This seemed to very much humiliate him, as most of the other girls had
so stood in awe of the gigantic fellow that they had about given way to
him in everything. Mary, however, did nothing of the kind. She would
shout, "Get out of my way!" as quickly to "his mightiness" as she would
to the smallest dog on the place. This very much offended Jack, but he
had been so well trained, even regarding the servants, that he dare not
retaliate even with a growl. Mary, however, had one weakness, and after
a time Jack found it out. Her mistress observing that this girl, who
had been transferred from a floorless wigwam into a civilized kitchen,
was at first careless about keeping the floor as clean as it should be,
had, by the promise of some desired gift in addition to her wages, so
fired her zeal that it seemed as though every hour that could be saved
from her other necessary duties was spent in scrubbing that kitchen
floor. Mary was never difficult to find, as was often the case with
other Indian girls; if missed from other duties, she was always found
scrubbing her kitchen.

In some way or other--how we do not profess to know--Jack discovered
this, which had become to us a source of amusement, and here he
succeeded in annoying her, where in many other ways which he had tried
he had only been humiliated and disgraced. He would, when the floor
had just been scrubbed, march in and walk over it with his feet made
as dirty as tramping in the worst places outside could make them. At
other times he would plunge into the lake, and instead of, as usual,
thoroughly shaking himself dry on the rocks, would wait until he had
marched in upon Mary's spotless floor. At other times, when Jack
noticed that Mary was about to begin scrubbing her floor he would
deliberately stretch himself out in a prominent place on it, and
doggedly resist, yet without any growling or biting, any attempt on her
part to get him to move. In vain would she coax or scold or threaten.
Once or twice, by some clever stratagem, such as pretending to feed
the other dogs outside or getting them excited and furiously barking,
as though a bear or some other animal were being attacked, did she
succeed in getting him out. But soon he found her out, and then he paid
not the slightest attention to any of these things. Once when she had
him outside she securely fastened the door to keep him out until her
scrubbing would be done. Furiously did Jack rattle at the latch, but
the door was otherwise so secured that he could not open it. Getting
discouraged in his efforts to open the door in the usual way, he went
to the woodpile and seizing a large billet in his mouth he came and so
pounded the door with it that Mary, seeing that there was great danger
of the panel being broken in, was obliged to open the door and let in
the dog. Jack proudly marched in to the kitchen with the stick of wood
in his mouth. This he carried to the wood box, and, when he had placed
it there, he coolly stretched himself out on the floor where he would
be the biggest nuisance.

Seeing Jack under such circumstances on her kitchen floor, poor Mary
could stand it no longer, and so she came marching in to my study, and
in vigorous picturesque language in her native Cree described Jack's
various tricks and schemes to annoy her and thus hinder her in her
work. She ended up by the declaration that she was sure the _meechee
munedoo_ (the devil) was in that dog. While not fully accepting the
last statement, we felt that the time had come to interfere, and
that Jack must be reproved and stopped. In doing this we utilized
Jack's love for our little ones, especially for Eddie, the little
four-year-old boy. His obedience as well as loyalty to that child was
marvelous and beautiful. The slightest wish of the lad was law to Jack.

As soon as Mary had finished her emphatic complaints, I turned to
Eddie, who with his little sister had been busily playing with some
blocks on the floor, and said:

"Eddie, go and tell that naughty Jack that he must stop teasing Mary.
Tell him his place is not in the kitchen, and that he must keep out of
it."

Eddie had listened to Mary's story, and, although he generally sturdily
defended Jack's various actions, yet here he saw that the dog was in
the wrong, and so he gallantly came to her rescue. Away with Mary he
went, while the rest of us, now much interested, followed in the rear
to see how the thing would turn out. As Eddie and Mary passed through
the dining room we remained in that room, while they went on into the
adjoining kitchen, leaving the door open, so that it was possible for
us to distinctly hear every word that was uttered. Eddie at once strode
up to the spot where Jack was stretched upon the floor. Seizing him by
one of his ears, and addressing him as with the authority of a despot,
the little lad said:

"I am ashamed of you, Jack. You naughty dog, teasing Mary like this!
So you won't let her wash her kitchen. Get up and come with me, you
naughty dog!" saying which the child tugged away at the ear of the dog.
Jack promptly obeyed, and as they came marching through the dining room
on their way to the study it was indeed wonderful to see that little
child, whose beautiful curly head was not much higher than that of the
great, powerful dog, yet so completely the master. Jack was led into
the study and over to the great wolf-robe mat where he generally slept.
As he promptly obeyed the child's command to lie down upon it, he
received from him his final orders:

"Now, Jack, you keep out of the kitchen"; and to a remarkable degree
from that time on that order was obeyed.

We have referred to the fact that Jack placed the billet of wood in the
wood box when it had served his purpose in compelling Mary to open the
door. Carrying in wood was one of his accomplishments. Living in that
cold land, where we depended entirely on wood for our fuel, we required
a large quantity of it. It was cut in the forests, sometimes several
miles from the house. During the winters it was dragged home by the
dogs. Here it was cut into the proper lengths for the stoves and piled
up in the yard. When required, it was carried into the kitchen and
piled up in a large wood box. This work was generally done by Indian
men. When none were at hand the Indian girls had to do the work, but
it was far from being enjoyed by them, especially in the bitter cold
weather. It was suggested one day that Jack could be utilized for this
work. With but little instruction and trouble he was induced to accept
of the situation, and so after that the cry, "Jack, the wood box is
empty!" would set him industriously to work at refilling it.

To us, among many other instances of dog reasoning that came under
our notice as the years rolled on, was one on the part of a large,
powerful dog we called Cæsar. It occurred in the spring of the year,
when the snow had melted on the land, and so, with the first rains, was
swelling the rivers and creeks very considerably. On the lake before us
the ice was still a great solid mass, several feet in thickness. Near
our home was a now rapid stream that, rushing down into the lake, had
cut a delta of open water in the ice at its mouth. In this open place
Papanekis, one of my Indians, had placed a gill net for the purpose of
catching fish. Living, as he did, all winter principally upon the fish
caught the previous October or November and kept frozen for several
months hung up in the open air, we were naturally pleased to get the
fresh ones out of the water in the spring. Papanekis had so arranged
his net, by fastening a couple of ropes about sixty feet long, one at
each end, that when it was securely fastened at each side of the stream
it was carried out into this open deltalike space by the force of the
current, and there hung like the capital letter U. Its upper side was
kept in position by light-wooded floats, while medium-sized stones, as
sinkers, steadied it below.

Every morning Papanekis would take a basket and, being followed by
all the dogs of the kennels, would visit his net. Placed as we have
described, he required no canoe or boat in order to overhaul it and
take from it the fish there caught. All he had to do was to seize hold
of the rope at the end fastened on the shore and draw it toward him. As
he kept pulling it in, the deep bend in it gradually straightened out
until the net was reached. His work was now to secure the fish as he
gradually drew in the net and coiled it at his feet. The width of the
opening in the water being about sixty feet, the result was that when
he had in this way overhauled his net he had about reached the end of
the rope attached to the other side. When all the fish in the net were
secured, all Papanekis had to do to reset the net was to throw some
of it out in the right position in the stream. Here the force of the
running waters acting upon it soon carried the whole net down into the
open place as far as the two ropes fastened on the shores would admit.
Papanekis, after placing the best fish in his basket for consumption
in the mission house and for his own family, divided what was left
among the eager dogs that had accompanied him. This work went on for
several days, and the supply of fish continued to increase, much to our
satisfaction.

One day Papanekis came into my study in a state of great perturbation.
He was generally such a quiet, stoical sort of an Indian that I was at
once attracted by his mental disquietude. On asking the reason why he
was so troubled, he at once blurted out, "Master, there is some strange
animal visiting our net!"

In answer to my request for particulars, he replied that for some
mornings past when he went to visit it he found, entangled in the
meshes, several heads of whitefish. Yet the net was always in its right
position in the water. On my suggesting that perhaps otters, fishers,
minks, or other fish-eating animals might have done the work, he most
emphatically declared that he knew the habits of all these and all
other animals living on fish, and it was utterly impossible for any of
them to have thus done this work. The mystery continuing for several
following mornings, Papanekis became frightened and asked me to get
some other fisherman in his place, as he was afraid longer to visit the
net. He had talked the matter over with some other Indians, and they
had come to the conclusion that either a _windegoo_ was at the bottom
of it or the _meechee munedoo_ (the devil). I laughed at his fears,
and told him I would help him to try and find out who or what it was
that was giving us this trouble. I went with him to the place, where we
carefully examined both sides of the stream for evidences of the clever
thief. There was nothing suspicious, and the only tracks visible were
those of his own and of the many dogs that followed him to be fed each
morning. About two or three hundred yards north of the spot where he
overhauled the net there rose a small abrupt hill, densely covered with
spruce and balsam trees. On visiting it we found that a person there
securely hid from observation could with care easily overlook the whole
locality.

At my suggestion, Papanekis with his axe there arranged a sort of a
nest or lookout spot. Orders were then given that he and another Indian
man should, before daybreak on the next morning, make a long detour
and cautiously reach that spot from the rear, and there carefully
conceal themselves. This they succeeded in doing, and there, in perfect
stillness, they waited for the morning. As soon as it was possible to
see anything they were on the alert. For some time they watched in
vain. They eagerly scanned every point of vision, and for a time could
observe nothing unusual.

"Hush!" said one; "see that dog!"

It was Cæsar, cautiously skulking along the trail. He would frequently
stop and sniff the air. Fortunately for the Indian watchers, the wind
was blowing toward them, and so the dog did not catch their scent. On
he came, in a quiet yet swift gait, until he reached the spot where
Papanekis stood when he pulled in the net. He gave one searching glance
in every direction, and then he set to work. Seizing the rope in his
teeth, Cæsar strongly pulled upon it, while he rapidly backed up some
distance on the trail. Then, walking on the rope to the water's edge as
it lay on the ground, to keep the pressure of the current from dragging
it in, he again took a fresh grip upon it and repeated the process.
This he did until the sixty feet of rope were hauled in, and the end
of the net was reached to which it was attached. The net he now hauled
in little by little, keeping his feet firmly on it to securely hold
it down. As he drew it up, several varieties of inferior fish, such
as suckers or mullets, pike or jackfish, were at first observed. To
them Cæsar paid no attention. He was after the delicious whitefish,
which dogs as well as human beings prefer to those of other kinds.
When he had perhaps hauled twenty feet of the net, his cleverness was
rewarded by the sight of a fine whitefish. Still holding the net with
its struggling captives securely down with his feet, he began to devour
this whitefish, which was so much more dainty than the coarser fish
generally thrown to him. Papanekis and his comrade had seen enough. The
mysterious culprit was detected in the act, and so with a "Whoop!" they
rushed down upon him. Caught in the very act, Cæsar had to submit to a
thrashing that ever after deterred him from again trying that cunning
trick.

Who can read this story, which I give exactly as it occurred, without
having to admit that here Cæsar "combined means for the attainment of
particular ends"? On the previous visits which he made to the net the
rapid current of the stream, working against the greater part of it
in the water, soon carried it back again into its place ere Papanekis
arrived later in the morning. The result was that Cæsar's cleverness
was undetected for some time, even by these most observant Indians.

Many other equally clever instances convince me, and those who with
me witnessed them, of the possession, in of course a limited degree,
of reasoning powers. Scores of my dogs never seemed to reveal them,
perhaps because no special opportunities were presented for their
exhibition. They were just ordinary dogs, trained to the work of
hauling their loads. When night came, if their feet were sore they
had dog sense enough to come to their master and, throwing themselves
on their backs, would stick up their feet and whine and howl until
the warm duffle shoes were put on. Some of the skulking ones had wit
enough, when they did not want to be caught, in the gloom of the early
morning, while the stars were still shining, if they were white, to
cuddle down, still and quiet, in the beautiful snow; while the darker
ones would slink away into the gloom of the dense balsams, where they
seemed to know that it would be difficult for them to be seen. Some of
them had wit enough when traveling up steep places with heavy loads,
where their progress was slow, to seize hold of small firm bushes in
their teeth to help them up or to keep them from slipping back. Some
of them knew how to shirk their work. Cæsar, of whom we have already
spoken, at times was one of this class. They could pretend, by their
panting and tugging at their collars, that they were dragging more
than any other dogs in the train, while at the same time they were not
pulling a pound!

Of cats I do not write. I am no lover of them, and therefore am
incompetent to write about them. This lack of love for them is, I
presume, from the fact that when a boy I was the proud owner of some
very beautiful rabbits, upon which the cats of the neighborhood used to
make disastrous raids. So great was my boyish indignation then that the
dislike to them created has in a measure continued to this day, and I
have not as yet begun to cultivate their intimate acquaintance.

But of dogs I have ever been a lover and a friend. I never saw one, not
mad, of which I was afraid, and I never saw one with which I could not
speedily make friends. Love was the constraining motive principally
used in breaking my dogs in to their work in the trains. No whip was
ever used upon Jack or Cuffy while they were learning their tasks.
Some dogs had to be punished more or less. Some stubborn dogs at once
surrendered and gave no more trouble when a favorite female dog was
harnessed up in a train and sent on ahead. This affection in the dog
for his mate was a powerful lever in the hands of his master, and,
using it as an incentive, we have seen things performed as remarkable
as any we have here recorded.

From what I have written it will be seen that I have had unusual
facilities for studying the habits and possibilities of dogs. I was
not under the necessity of gathering up a lot of mongrels at random
in the streets, and then, in order to see instances of their sagacity
and the exercise of their highest reasoning powers, to keep them until
they were "practically utterly hungry," and then imprison them in a
box a good deal less than four feet square, and then say to them, "Now,
you poor, frightened, half-starved creatures, show us what reasoning
powers you possess." About as well throw some benighted Africans into
a slave ship and order them to make a telephone or a phonograph! My
comparison is not too strong, considering the immense distance there is
between the human race and the brute creation. And so it must be, in
the bringing to light of the powers of memory and the clear exhibition
of the reasoning powers, few though they be, that the tests are not
conclusive unless made under the most favorable environment, upon dogs
of the highest intelligence, and in the most congenial and sympathetic
manner.

Testing this most interesting question in this manner, my decided
convictions are that animals do reason.




SKETCH OF GEORGE M. STERNBERG.


No man among Americans has studied the micro-organisms with more profit
or has contributed more to our knowledge of the nature of infection,
particularly of that of yellow fever, than Dr. GEORGE M. STERNBERG, of
the United States Army. His merits are freely recognized abroad, and
he ranks there, as well as at home, among the leading bacteriologists
of the age. He was born at Hartwick Seminary, an institution of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (General Synod), Otsego, N. Y.,
June 8, 1838. His father, the Rev. Levi Sternberg, D. D., a graduate of
Union College, a Lutheran minister, and for many years principal of the
seminary and a director of it, was descended from German ancestors who
came to this country in 1703 and settled in Schoharie County, New York.
The younger Sternberg received his academical training at the seminary,
after which, intending to study medicine, he undertook a school at New
Germantown, N. J., as a means of earning a part of the money required
to defray the cost of his instruction in that science. The record of
his school was one of quiet sessions, thoroughness, and popularity of
the teacher, and his departure was an occasion of regret among his
patrons.

When nineteen years old, young Sternberg began his medical studies
with Dr. Horace Lathrop, in Cooperstown, N. Y. Afterward he attended
the courses of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York,
and was graduated thence in the class of 1860. Before he had fairly
settled in practice the civil war began, and the attention of all
young Americans was directed toward the military service. Among these
was young Dr. Sternberg, who, having passed the examination, was
appointed assistant surgeon May 28, 1861, and was attached to the
command of General Sykes, Army of the Potomac. He was engaged in the
battle of Bull Run, where, voluntarily remaining on the field with
the wounded, he was taken prisoner, but was paroled to continue his
humane work. On the expiration of his parole he made his way through
the lines and reported at Washington for duty July 30, 1861--"weary,
footsore, and worn." Of his conduct in later campaigns of the Army of
the Potomac, General Sykes, in his official reports of the battles of
Gaines Mill, Turkey Ridge, and Malvern Hill, said that "Dr. Sternberg
added largely to the reputation already acquired on the disastrous
field of Bull Run." He remained with General Sykes's command till
August, 1862; was then assigned to hospital duty at Portsmouth Grove,
R. I., till November, 1862; was afterward attached to General Banks's
expedition as assistant to the medical director in the Department
of the Gulf till January, 1864; was in the office of the medical
director, Columbus, Ohio, and in charge of the United States General
Hospital at Cleveland, Ohio, till July, 1865. Since the civil war he
has been assigned successively to Jefferson Barracks, Mo.; Fort Harker
and Fort Riley, Kansas; in the field in the Indian campaign, 1868
to 1870; Forts Columbus and Hamilton, New York Harbor; Fort Warren,
Boston Harbor; Department of the Gulf and New Orleans; Fort Barrancas,
Fla.; Department of the Columbia; Department Headquarters; Fort Walla
Walla, Washington Territory; California; and Eastern stations. He was
promoted to be captain and assistant surgeon in 1866, major and surgeon
in 1875, lieutenant colonel and deputy surgeon general in 1891, and
brigadier general and surgeon general in 1893. He has also received the
brevets of captain and major in the United States Army "for faithful
and meritorious services during the war," and of lieutenant colonel
"for gallant service in performance of his professional duty under fire
in action against Indians at Clearwater, Idaho, July 12, 1877." In
the discharge of his duties at his various posts Dr. Sternberg had to
deal with a cholera epidemic in Kansas in 1867, with a "yellow-fever
epidemic" in New York Harbor in 1871, and with epidemics of yellow
fever at Fort Barrancas, Fla., in 1873 and 1875. He served under
special detail as member and secretary of the Havana Yellow-Fever
Commission of the National Board of Health, 1879 to 1881; as a delegate
from the United States under special instructions of the Secretary of
State to the International Sanitary Conference at Rome in 1885; as a
commissioner, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1887, to make
investigations in Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba relating to the etiology and
prevention of yellow fever; by special request of the health officer of
the port of New York and the advisory committee of the New York Chamber
of Commerce as consulting bacteriologist to the health officer of the
port of New York in 1892; and he was a delegate to the International
Medical Congress in Moscow in 1897.

Dr. Sternberg has contributed largely to the literature of scientific
medicine from the results of his observations and experiments which he
has made in these various spheres of duty.

His most fruitful researches have been made in the field of
bacteriology and infectious diseases. He has enjoyed the rare advantage
in pursuing these studies of having the material for his experiments
close at hand in the course of his regular work, and of watching, we
might say habitually, the progress of such diseases as yellow fever
as it normally went on in the course of Nature. Of the quality of his
bacteriological work, the writer of a biography in Red Cross Notes,
reprinted in the North American Medical Review, goes so far as to say
that "when the overzeal of enthusiasts shall have passed away, and the
story of bacteriology in the nineteenth century is written up, it will
probably be found that the chief who brought light out of darkness
was George M. Sternberg. He was noted not so much for his brilliant
discoveries, but rather for his exact methods of investigation, for
his clear statements of the results of experimental data, for his
enormous labors toward the perfection and simplification of technique,
and finally for his services in the practical application of the
truths taught by the science. His early labors in bacteriology were
made with apparatus and under conditions that were crude enough." His
work in this department is certainly among the most important that
has been done. Its value has been freely acknowledged everywhere, it
has given him a world-wide fame, and it has added to the credit of
American science. The reviewer in Nature (June 22, 1893) of his Manual
of Bacteriology, which was published in 1892, while a little disposed
to criticise the fullness and large size of the book, describes it as
"the latest, the largest, and, let us add, the most complete manual
of bacteriology which has yet appeared in the English language. The
volume combines in itself not only an account of such facts as are
already established in the science from a morphological, chemical,
and pathological point of view, discussions on such abstruse subjects
as susceptibility and immunity, and also full details of the means by
which these results have been obtained, and practical directions for
the carrying on of laboratory work." This was not the first of Dr.
Sternberg's works in bacteriological research. It was preceded by a
work on Bacteria, of 498 pages, including 152 pages translated from
the work of Dr. Antoine Magnin (1884); Malaria and Malarial Diseases,
and Photomicrographs and How to make Them. The manual is at once a
book for reference, a text-book for students, and a handbook for the
laboratory. Its four parts include brief notices of the history of
the subject, classification, morphology, and an account of methods
and practical laboratory work--"all clear and concise"; the biology
and chemistry of bacteria, disinfection, and antiseptics; a detailed
account of pathogenic bacteria, their modes of action, the way they
may gain access to the system, susceptibility and immunity, to which
Dr. Sternberg's own contributions have been not the least important;
and saprophytic bacteria in water, in the soil, in or on the human
body, and in food, the whole number of saprophytes described being
three hundred and thirty-one. "The merit of a work of this kind,"
Nature says, "depends not less on the number of species described than
on the clearness and accuracy of the descriptions, and Dr. Sternberg
has spared no pains to make these as complete as possible." The
bibliography in this work fills more than a hundred pages, and contains
2,582 references. A later book on a kindred subject is Immunity,
Protective Inoculations, and Serum Therapy (1895). Dr. Sternberg has
also published a Text-Book of Bacteriology.

Bearing upon yellow fever are the Report upon the Prevention of Yellow
Fever by Inoculation, submitted in March, 1888; Report upon the
Prevention of Yellow Fever, illustrated by photomicrographs and cuts,
1890; and Examination of the Blood in Yellow Fever (experiments upon
animals, etc.), in the Preliminary Report of the Havana Yellow-Fever
Commission, 1879. Other publications in the list of one hundred and
thirty-one titles of Dr. Sternberg's works, and mostly consisting
of shorter articles, relate to Disinfectants and their Value, the
Etiology of Malarial Fevers, Septicæmia, the Germicide Value of
Therapeutic Agents, the Etiology of Croupous Pneumonia, the Bacillus
of Typhoid Fever, the Thermal Death Point of Pathogenic Organisms,
the Practical Results of Bacteriological Researches, the Cholera
Spirillum, Disinfection at Quarantine Stations, the Infectious Agent
of Smallpox, official reports as Surgeon General of the United States
Army, addresses and reports at the meetings of the American Public
Health Association, and an address to the members of the Pan-American
Congress. One paper is recorded quite outside of the domain of microbes
and fevers, to show what the author might have done if he had allowed
his attention to be diverted from his special absorbing field of work.
It is upon the Indian Burial Mounds and Shell Heaps near Pensacola, Fla.

The medical and scientific societies of which Dr. Sternberg is a
member include the American Public Health Association, of which he is
also an ex-president (1886); the American Association of Physicians;
the American Physiological Society; the American Microscopical
Society, of which he is a vice-president; the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, of which he is a Fellow; the New
York Academy of Medicine (a Fellow); and the Association of Military
Surgeons of the United States (president in 1896). He is a Fellow
of the Royal Microscopical Society of London; an honorary member
of the Epidemiological Society of London, of the Royal Academy of
Medicine of Rome, of the Academy of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro, of
the American Academy of Medicine, of the French Society of Hygiene,
etc.; was President of the Section on Military Medicine and Surgery of
the Pan-American Congress; was a Fellow by courtesy in Johns Hopkins
University, 1885 to 1890; was President of the Biological Society
of Washington in 1896, and of the American Medical Association in
1897; and has been designated Honorary President of the Thirteenth
International Medical Congress, which is to meet in Paris in 1900. He
received the degree of LL. D. from the University of Michigan in 1894,
and from Brown University in 1897.

Dr. Sternberg's view of the right professional standard of the
physician is well expressed in the sentiment, "To maintain our
standing in the estimation of the educated classes we must not rely
upon our diplomas or upon our membership in medical societies. Work
and worth are what count." He does not appear to be attached to any
particular school, but, as his Red Cross Notes biographer says, "has
placed himself in the crowd 'who have been moving forward upon the
substantial basis of scientific research, and who, if characterized by
any distinctive name, should be called _the New School of Scientific
Medicine_.' He holds that if our practice was in accordance with our
knowledge many diseases would disappear; he sees no room for creeds
or patents in medicine. He is willing to acknowledge the right to
prescribe either a bread pill or a leaden bullet. But if a patient
dies from diphtheria because of a failure to administer a proper
remedy, or if infection follows from dirty fingers or instruments,
if a practitioner carelessly or ignorantly transfers infection, he
believes he is not fit to practice medicine.... He rejects every theory
or dictum that has not been clearly demonstrated to him as an absolute
truth."

While he is described as without assumption, Dr. Sternberg is
represented as being evidently in his headquarters as surgeon general
in every sense the head of the service, the chief whose will governs
all. Modest and unassuming, he is described as being most exacting, a
man of command, of thorough execution, a general whose eyes comprehend
every detail, and who has studied the personality of every member
of his corps. He is always busy, but seemingly never in a hurry;
systematic, accepting no man's dictum, and taking nothing as an
established fact till he has personal experimental evidence of its
truth. He looks into every detail, and takes equal care of the health
of the general in chief and of the private.

His addresses are carefully prepared, based on facts he has
himself determined, made in language so plain that they will not
be misunderstood, free from sentiment, and delivered in an easy
conversational style, and his writings are "pen pictures of his results
in the laboratory and clinic room."

       *       *       *       *       *

The thirty-first year of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology
and Ethnology was signalized by the transfer of its property to
the corporation of Harvard College, whereby simplicity and greater
permanence have been given to its management. The four courses of
instruction in the museum were attended by sixteen students, and
these, with others, make twenty-one persons, besides the curator, who
are engaged in study or special research in subjects included under
the term anthropology. Special attention is given by explorers in
the service of the museum to the investigation of the antiquities of
Yucatan and Central America, of which its publications on Copan, the
caves of Loltun, and Labná, have been noticed in the Monthly. These
explorations have been continued when and where circumstances made it
feasible. Among the gifts acknowledged in the report of the museum are
two hundred facsimile copies of the Aztec Codex Vaticanus, from the
Duke of Loubat, an original Mexican manuscript of 1531, on agave paper,
from the Mary Hemenway estate; the extensive private archæological
collection of Mr. George W. Hammond; articles from Georgia mounds,
from Clarence B. Moore, and other gifts of perhaps less magnitude but
equal interest. Mr. Andrew Gibb, of Edinburgh, has given five pieces
of rudely made pottery from the Hebrides, which were made several
years ago by a woman who is thought to have been the last one to make
pottery according to the ancient method of shaping the clay with the
hands, and without the use of any form of potter's wheel. Miss Maria
Whitney, sister of the late Prof. J. D. Whitney, has presented the
"Calaveras skull" and the articles found with it, and all the original
documents relating to its discovery and history. Miss Phebe Ferris,
of Madisonville, Ohio, has bequeathed to the museum about twenty-five
acres of land, on which is situated the ancient mound where Dr. Metz
and Curator Putnam have investigated for several years, and whence a
considerable collection has been obtained. Miss Ferris expressed the
desire that the museum continue the explorations, and after completing
convert the tract into a public park. Mr. W. B. Nicker has explored
some virgin mounds near Galena, Ill., and a rock shelter and stone
grave near Portage, Ill. The library of the museum now contains 1,838
volumes and 2,479 pamphlets on anthropology.




Correspondence.


DO ANIMALS REASON?

_Editor Popular Science Monthly:_

DEAR SIR: In connection with the discussion of the interesting subject
Do Animals Reason? permit me to relate the following incident in
support of the affirmative side of the question:

Some years ago, before the establishment of the National Zoölogical
Park in this city, Dr. Frank Baker, the curator, kept a small nucleus
of animals in the rear of the National Museum; among this collection
were several monkeys. On a hot summer day, as I was passing the monkey
cage I handed to one of the monkeys a large piece of fresh molasses
taffy. The animal at once carried it to his mouth and commenced to bite
it. The candy was somewhat soft, and stuck to the monkey's paws. He
looked at his paws, licked them with his tongue, and then turned his
head from side to side looking about the cage. Then, taking the candy
in his mouth, he sprang to the farther end of the cage and picked up
a wad of brown paper. This ball of paper he carefully unfolded, and,
laying it down on the floor of the cage, carefully smoothed out the
folds of the paper with both paws. After he had smoothed it out to his
satisfaction, he took the piece of taffy from his mouth and laid it in
the center of the piece of paper and folded the paper over the candy,
leaving a part of it exposed. He then sat back on his haunches and ate
the candy, first wiping one paw and then the other on his hip, just as
any boy or man might do.

If that monkey did not show reason, what would you call it?

Yours etc., H. O. HALL, _Library Surgeon General's Office, United
States Army._ WASHINGTON, D. C., _October 2, 1899_.




Editor's Table.

_HOME BURDENS._


The doctrine has gone abroad, suggested by the most popular poet of
the day, that "white men" have the duty laid upon them of scouring the
dark places of the earth for burdens to take up. Through a large part
of this nation the idea has run like wildfire, infecting not a few
who themselves are in no small degree burdens to the community that
shelters them. The rowdier element of the population everywhere is
strongly in favor of the new doctrine, which to their minds is chiefly
illustrated by the shooting of Filipinos. We do not say that thousands
of very respectable citizens are not in favor of it also; we only note
that they are strongly supported by a class whose adhesion adds no
strength to their cause.

It is almost needless to remark that a very few years ago we were
not in the way of thinking that the civilized nations of the earth,
which had sliced up Asia and Africa in the interest of their trade,
had done so in the performance of a solemn duty. The formula "the
white man's burden" had not been invented then, and some of us used to
think that there was more of the filibustering spirit than of a high
humanitarianism in these raids upon barbarous races. Possibly we did
less than justice to some of the countries concerned, notably Great
Britain, which, having a teeming population in very narrow confines,
and being of old accustomed to adventures by sea, had naturally been
led to extend her influence and create outlets for her trade in distant
parts of the earth. Be this as it may, we seemed to have our own work
cut out for us at home. We had the breadth of a continent under our
feet, rich in the products of every latitude; we had unlimited room for
expansion and development; we had unlimited confidence in the destinies
that awaited us as a nation, if only we applied ourselves earnestly
to the improvement of the heritage which, in the order of Providence,
had become ours. We thanked Heaven that we were not as other nations,
which, insufficiently provided with home blessings, were tempted to put
forth their hands and--steal, or something like it, in heathen lands.

Well, we have changed all that: we give our sympathy to the nations
of the Old World in their forays on the heathen, and are vigorously
tackling "the white man's burden" according to the revised version.
It is unfortunate and quite unpleasant that this should involve
shooting down people who are only asking what our ancestors asked and
obtained--the right of self-government in the land they occupy. Still,
we must do it if we want to keep up with the procession we have joined.
Smoking tobacco is not pleasant to the youth of fifteen or sixteen who
has determined to line up with his elders in that manly accomplishment.
He has many a sick stomach, many a flutter of the heart, before he
breaks himself into it; but, of course, he perseveres--has he not taken
up the white boy's burden? So we. Who, outside of that rowdy element to
which we have referred, has not been, whether he has confessed it or
not, sick at heart at the thought of the innocent blood we have shed
and of the blood of our kindred that we have shed in order to shed that
blood? Still, spite of all misgivings and qualms, we hold our course,
Kipling leading on, and the colonel of the Rough Riders assuring us
that it is all right.

Revised versions are not always the best versions; and for our own
part we prefer to think that the true "white man's burden" is that
which lies at his own door, and not that which he has to compass land
and sea to come in sight of. We have in this land the burden of a not
inconsiderable tramp and hoodlum population. This is a burden of which
we can never very long lose sight; it is more or less before us every
day. It is a burden in a material sense, and it is a burden in what
we may call a spiritual sense. It impairs the satisfaction we derive
from our own citizenship, and it lies like a weight on the social
conscience. It is the opprobrium alike of our educational system and
of our administration of the law. How far would the national treasure
and individual energy which we have expended in failing to subdue
the Filipino "rebels" have gone--if wisely applied--in subduing the
rebel elements in our own population, and rescuing from degradation
those whom our public schools have failed to civilize? Shall the reply
be that we can not interfere with individual liberty? It would be
a strange reply to come from people who send soldiers ten thousand
miles away for the express purpose of interfering with liberty as the
American nation has always hitherto understood that term; but, in
point of fact, there is no question of interfering with any liberty
that ought to be respected. It is a question of the protection of
public morals, of public decency, and of the rights of property. It is
a question of the rescue of human beings--our fellow-citizens--from
ignorance, vice, and wretchedness. It is a question of making us as
a nation right with ourselves, and making citizenship under our flag
something to be prized by every one entitled to claim it.

It is not in the cities only that undesirable elements cluster. The
editor of a lively little periodical, in which many true things are
said with great force--The Philistine--has lately declared that his own
village, despite the refining influences radiated from the "Roycroft
Shop," could furnish a band of hoodlum youths that could give points in
every form of vile behavior to any equal number gathered from a great
city. He hints that New England villages may be a trifle better, but
that the farther Western States are decidedly worse. It is precisely
in New England, however, that a bitter cry on this very subject of
hoodlumism has lately been raised. What are we to do about it?

Manifestly the hoodlum or incipient tramp is one of two things: either
he is a person whom a suitable education might have turned into some
decent and honest way of earning a living, or he is a person upon whom,
owing to congenital defect, all educational effort would have been
thrown away. In either case social duty seems plain. If education would
have done the work, society--seeing that it has taken the business of
public education in hand--should have supplied the education required
for the purpose, even though the amount of money available for waging
war in the Philippines had been slightly reduced. If the case is one
in which no educational effort is of avail, then, as the old Roman
formula ran, "Let the magistrates see that the republic takes no harm."
Before, therefore, our minds can be easy on this hoodlum question,
we must satisfy ourselves thoroughly that our modes of education are
not, positively or negatively, adapted to making the hoodlum variety
of character. The hoodlum, it is safe to say, is an individual in whom
no intellectual interest has ever been awakened, in whom no special
capacity has ever been created. His moral nature has never been taught
to respond to any high or even respectable principle of conduct. If
there is any glory in earth or heaven, any beauty or harmony in the
operations of natural law, any poetry or pathos or dignity in human
life, anything to stir the soul in the records of human achievement,
to all such things he is wholly insensible. Ought this to be so in
the case of any human being, not absolutely abnormal, whom the state
has undertaken to educate? If, as a community, we put our hands to
the educational plow, and so far not only relieve parents of a large
portion of their sense of responsibility, but actually suppress the
voluntary agencies that would otherwise undertake educational work,
surely we should see to it that our education educates. Direct moral
instruction in the schools is not likely to be of any great avail
unless, by other and indirect means, the mind is prepared to receive
it. What is needed is to awaken a sense of capacity and power, to give
to each individual some trained faculty and some direct and, as far as
it goes, scientific cognizance of things. Does any one suppose that
a youth who had gone through a judicious course of manual training,
or one who had become interested in any such subject as botany,
chemistry, or agriculture, or who even had an intelligent insight
into the elementary laws of mechanics, could develop into a hoodlum?
On the other hand, there is no difficulty in imagining that such a
development might take place in a youth who had simply been plied
with spelling-book, grammar, and arithmetic. Even what seem the most
interesting reading lessons fall dead upon minds that have no hold upon
the reality of things, and no sense of the distinctions which the most
elementary study of Nature forces on the attention.

But, as we have admitted, there may be cases where the nature of the
individual is such as to repel all effort for its improvement. Here
the law must step in, and secure the community against the dangers to
which the existence of such individuals exposes it. There is a certain
element in the population which wishes to live, and is determined
to live, on a level altogether below anything that can be called
civilization. Those who compose it are nomadic and predatory in their
habits, and occasionally give way to acts of fearful criminality. It is
foolish not to recognize the fact, and take the measures that may be
necessary for the isolation of this element. To devise and execute such
measures is a burden a thousand times better worth taking up than the
burden of imposing our yoke upon the Philippine Islands and crushing
out a movement toward liberty quite as respectable, to all outward
appearance, as that to which we have reared monuments at Bunker Hill
and elsewhere. The fact is, the work before us at home is immense;
and it is work which we might attack, not only without qualms of
conscience, but with the conviction that every unit of labor devoted to
it was being directed toward the highest interests not of the present
generation only, but of generations yet unborn. The "white man," we
trust, will some day see it; but meanwhile valuable time is being
lost, and the national conscience is being lowered by the assumption
of burdens that are _not_ ours, whatever Mr. Kipling may have said
or sung, or whatever Governor Roosevelt may assert on his word as a
soldier.


_SPECIALIZATION._

That division of labor is as necessary in the pursuit of science as
in the world of industry no one would think of disputing; but that,
like division of labor elsewhere, it has its drawbacks and dangers is
equally obvious. When the latter truth is insisted on by those who
are not recognized as experts, the experts are apt to be somewhat
contemptuous in resenting such interference, as they consider it.
An expert himself has, however, taken up the parable, and his words
merit attention. We refer to an address delivered by Prof. J. Arthur
Thompson, at the University of Aberdeen, upon entering on his duties
as Regius Professor of Natural History, a post to which he was lately
appointed. "We need to be reminded," he said, "amid the undoubted and
surely legitimate fascinations of dissection and osteology, of section
cutting and histology, of physiological chemistry and physiological
physics, of embryology and fossil hunting, and the like, that the chief
end of our study is a better understanding of living creatures in their
natural surroundings." He could see no reason, he went on to say, for
adding aimlessly to the overwhelming mass of detail already accumulated
in these and other fields of research. The aim of our efforts should
rather be to grasp the chief laws of growth and structure, and to rise
to a true conception of the meaning of organization.

The tendency to over-specialization is manifest everywhere; it may be
traced in physics and chemistry, in mathematics, in archæology, and in
philology, as well as in biology. We can not help thinking that there
is a certain narcotic influence arising from the steady accumulation
of minute facts, so that what was in the first place, and in its early
stages, an invigorating pursuit becomes not only an absorbing, but
more or less a benumbing passion. We are accustomed to profess great
admiration for Browning's Grammarian, who--

"Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _De_ Dead from the waist down,"

but really we don't feel quite sure that the cause for which the old
gentleman struggled was quite worthy of such desperate heroism. The
world could have got along fairly well for a while with an imperfect
knowledge of the subtle ways of the "enclitic _De_," and indeed a large
portion of the world has neither concerned itself with the subject nor
felt the worse for not having done so.

What we fear is that some people are "dead from the waist down," or
even from higher up, without being aware of it, and all on account of
a furious passion for "enclitic de's" or their equivalent in other
lines of study. Gentlemen, it is not worth while! You can not all hope
to be buried on mountain tops like the grammarian, for there are not
peaks enough for all of you, and any way what good would it do you?
There is need of specialization, of course; we began by saying that the
drift of our remarks is simply this, that he who would go into minute
specializing should be careful to lay in at the outset a good stock of
common sense, a liberal dose (if he can get it) of humor, and _quantum
suff_. of humanity. Thus provided he can go ahead.




Scientific Literature.

SPECIAL BOOKS.


The comparison between the United States in 1790 and Australia in 1891,
with which Mr. _A. F. Weber_ opens his essay on _The Growth of Cities
in the Nineteenth Century_[10] well illustrates how the tendency of
population toward agglomeration in cities is one of the most striking
social phenomena of the present age. Both countries were in nearly
a corresponding state of development at the time of bringing them
into the comparison. The population of the United States in 1790 was
3,929,214; that of Australia in 1891 was 3,809,895; while 3.14 per cent
of the people of the United States were then living in cities of ten
thousand or more inhabitants, 33.20 per cent of the Australians are
now living in such cities. Similar conditions or the tendency toward
them are evident in nearly every country of the world. What are the
forces that have produced the shifting of population thus indicated;
what the economic, moral, political, and social consequences of it; and
what is to be the attitude of the publicist, the statesman, and the
teacher toward the movement, are questions which Mr. Weber undertakes
to discuss. The subject is a very complicated and intricate one, with
no end of puzzles in it for the careless student, and requiring to be
viewed in innumerable shifting lights, showing the case in changing
aspects; for in the discussion lessons are drawn by the author from
every country in the family of nations. Natural causes--variations in
climate, soil, earth formation, political institutions, etc.--partly
explain the distribution of population, but only partly. It sometimes
contradicts what would be deduced from them. Increase and improvement
in facilities for communication help the expansion of commercial
and industrial centers, but also contribute to the scattering of
population over wider areas. The most potent factors in attracting
people to the cities were, in former times, the commercial facilities
they afforded, with opportunities to obtain employment in trade, and
are now the opportunities for employment in trade and in manufacturing
industries. The cities, however, do not grow merely by accretions
from the outside, but they also enjoy a new element of natural growth
within themselves in the greater certainty of living and longer
duration of life brought about by improved management and ease of
living in them, especially by improved sanitation, and it is only
in the nineteenth century that any considerable number of cities
have had a regular surplus of births over deaths. Migration cityward
is not an economic phenomenon peculiar to the nineteenth century,
but is shown by the study of the social statistics and the bills of
mortality of the past to have been always a factor important enough
to be a subject of special remark. It is, however, a very lively one
now, and "in the immediate future we may expect to see a continuation
of the centralizing movement; while many manufacturers are locating
their factories in the small cities and towns, there are other
industries that prosper most in the great cities. Commerce, moreover,
emphatically favors the great centers rather than the small or
intermediate centers." In examining the structure of city populations,
a preponderance of the female sex appears, and is explained by the
accentuated liability of men over women in cities to death from
dangers of occupation, vice, crime, and excesses of all kinds. There
are also present in the urban population a relatively larger number
of persons in the active period of life, whence an easier and more
animated career, more energy and enterprise, more radicalism and less
conservatism, and more vice, crime, and impulsiveness generally may be
expected. Of foreign immigrants, the least desirable class are most
prone to remain in the great cities; and with the decline of railway
building and the complete occupation of the public lands the author
expects that immigrants in the future will disperse less readily than
in the past, but in the never-tiring energy of American enterprise
this may not prove to be the case. As to occupation, the growth of
cities is found to favor the development of a body of artisans and
factory workmen, as against the undertaker and employer, and "that
the class of day laborers is relatively small in the cities is reason
for rejoicing." It is found "emphatically true that the growth of
cities not only increases a nation's economic power and energy, but
quickens the national pulse.... A progressive and dynamic civilization
implies the good and bad alike. The cities, as the foci of progress,
inevitably contain both." The development of suburban life, stimulated
by the railroad and the trolley, and the transference of manufacturing
industries to the suburbs, are regarded as factors of great promise
for the amelioration of the recognized evils of city life and for the
solution of some of the difficulties it offers and the promotion of its
best results.

[10] The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century. A Study in
Statistics. By Adna Ferrln Weber. (Columbia University Studies In
History, Economics, and Public Law.) New York: Published for Columbia
University by the Macmillan Company. Pp. 495. Price, $3.50.


       *       *       *       *       *

DR. _James K. Crook_, author of _The Mineral Waters of the United
States and their Therapeutic Uses_,[11] accepts it as proved by
centuries of experience that in certain disorders the intelligent
use of mineral waters is a more potent curative agency than drugs.
He believes that Americans have within their own borders the close
counterparts of the best foreign springs, and that in charms of scenery
and surroundings, salubrity of climate and facilities for comfort, many
of our spas will compare as resorts with the most highly developed
ones of Europe. The purpose of the present volume is to set forth
the qualities and attractions of American springs, of which we have
a large number and variety, and the author has aimed to present the
most complete and advanced work on the subject yet prepared. To make
it so, he has carefully examined all the available literature on the
subject, has addressed letters of inquiry to proprietors and other
persons cognizant of spring resorts and commercial springs, and has
made personal visits. While a considerable number of the 2,822 springs
enumerated by Dr. A. C. Peale in his report to the United States
Geological Survey have dropped out through non-use or non-development,
more than two hundred mineral-spring localities are here described for
the first time in a book of this kind. Every known variety of mineral
water is represented. The subject is introduced by chapters on what
might be called the science of mineral waters and their therapeutic
uses, including the definition, the origin of mineral waters, and the
sources whence they are mineralized; the classification, the discussion
of their value, and mode of action; their solid and gaseous components;
their therapeutics or applications to different disorders; and baths
and douches and their medicinal uses. The springs are then described
severally by States. The treatise on potable waters in the appendix is
brief, but contains much.

[11] Mineral Waters of the United States and their Therapeutic Uses,
with an Account of the Various Mineral Spring Localities, their
Advantages as Health Resorts, Means of Access, etc.; to which is
added an Appendix on Potable Waters. By James K. Crook. New York and
Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co. Pp. 588. Price, $3.50.




GENERAL NOTICES.


In _Every-Day Butterflies_[12] Mr. _Scudder_ relates the story of the
very commonest butterflies--"those which every rambler at all observant
sees about him at one time or another, inciting his curiosity or
pleasing his eye." The sequence of the stories is mainly the order of
appearance of the different subjects treated--which the author compares
to the flowers in that each kind has its own season for appearing in
perfect bloom, both together variegating the landscape in the open
season of the year. This order of description is modified occasionally
by the substitution of a later appearance for the first, when the
butterfly is double or triple brooded. As illustrations are furnished
of each butterfly discussed, it is not necessary that the descriptions
should be long and minute, hence they are given in brief and general
terms. But it must be remembered that the describer is a thorough
master of his subject, and also a master in writing the English
language, so that nothing will be found lacking in his descriptions.
They are literature as well as butterfly history. Of the illustrations,
all of which are good, a considerable number are in colors.

[12] Every-Day Butterflies. A Group of Biographies. By Samuel Hubbard
Scudder. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 386. Price.
$2.


Dr. _M. E. Gellé's_ _L'Audition et ses Organes_[13] (The Hearing and its
Organs) is a full, not over-elaborate treatise on the subject, in which
prominence is given to the physiological side. The first part treats of
the excitant of the sense of hearing--sonorous vibrations--including
the vibrations themselves, the length of the vibratory phenomena, the
intensity of sound, range of audition, tone, and timbre of sounds. The
second chapter relates to the organs of hearing, both the peripheric
organs and the acoustic centers, the anatomy of which is described in
detail, with excellent and ample illustrations. The third chapter is
devoted to the sensation of hearing under its various aspects--the
time required for perception, "hearing in school," the influence of
habit and attention, orientation of the sound, bilateral sensations,
effects on the nervous centers, etc., hearing of musical sounds,
oscillations and aberrations of hearing, auditive memory, obsessions,
hallucinations of the ear, and colored audition.

[13] L'Audition et ses Organes. By Dr. M. E. Gellé. Paris: Félix Alcan
(Bibliothèque Scientifique). Pp. 326. Price, six francs.

Prof. _Andrew C. McLaughlin's History of the American Nation_[14] has
many features to recommend it. It aims to trace the main outlines of
national development, and to show how the American people came to be
what they are. These outlines involve the struggle of European powers
for supremacy in the New World, the victory of England, the growth
of the English colonies and their steady progress in strength and
self-reliance till they achieved their independence, the development
of the American idea of government, its extension across the continent
and its influence abroad--all achieved in the midst of stirring
events, social, political, and moral, at the cost sometimes of wars,
and accompanied by marvelous growth in material prosperity and
political power. All this the author sets forth, trying to preserve
the balance of the factors, in a pleasing, easy style. Especial
attention is paid to political facts, to the rise of parties, to the
development of governmental machinery, and to questions of government
and administration. In industrial history those events have been
selected for mention which seem to have had the most marked effect
on the progress and make-up of the nation. It is to be desired that
more attention had been given to social aspects and changes in which
the development has not been less marked and stirring than in the
other departments of our history. Indeed, the field for research and
exposition here is extremely wide and almost infinitely varied, and
it has hardly yet begun to be worked, and with any fullness only for
special regions. When he comes to recent events, Professor McLaughlin
naturally speaks with caution and in rather general terms. It seems
to us, however, that in the matter of the war with Spain, without
violating any of the proprieties, he might have given more emphasis
to the anxious efforts of that country to comply with the demands of
the administration for the institution of reforms in Cuba; and, in the
interest of historical truth, he ought not to have left unmentioned the
very important fact that the Spanish Government offered to refer the
questions growing out of the blowing up of the Maine to arbitration
and abide by the result, and our Government made no answer to the
proposition.

[14] A History of the American Nation. By Andrew C. McLaughlin. New
York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 587. Price, $1.40.


Mr. _W. W. Campbell's Elements of Practical Astronomy_[15] is an
evolution. It grew out of the lessons of his experience in teaching
rather large classes in astronomy in the University of Michigan, by
which he was led to the conclusion that the extensive treatises on the
subject could not be used satisfactorily except in special cases. Brief
lecture notes were employed in preference. These were written out and
printed for use in the author's classes. The first edition of the book
made from them was used in several colleges and universities having
astronomical departments of high character. The work now appears,
slightly enlarged, in a second edition. In the present greatly extended
field of practical astronomy numerous special problems arise, which
require prolonged efforts on the part of professional astronomers.
While for the discussion of the methods employed in solving such
problems the reader is referred to special treatises and journals,
these methods are all developed from the _elements_ of astronomy and
the related sciences, of which it is intended that this book shall
contain the elements of practical astronomy, with numerous references
to the problems first requiring solution. The author believes that the
methods of observing employed are illustrations of the best modern
practice.

[15] The Elements of Practical Astronomy. By W. W. Campbell. Second
edition, revised and enlarged. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp.
264. Price, $2.


In _The Characters of Crystals_[16] Prof. _Alfred J. Moses_ has
attempted to describe, simply and concisely, the methods and apparatus
used in studying the physical characters of crystals, and to record
and explain the observed phenomena without complex mathematical
discussions. The first part of the book relates to the geometrical
characteristics of crystals, or the relations and determination of
their forms, including the spherical projection, the thirty-two classes
of forms, the measurement of crystal angles, and crystal projection
or drawing. The optical characters and their determination are the
subject of the second part. In the third part the thermal, magnetic,
and electrical characters and the characters dependent upon electricity
(elastic and permanent deformations) are treated of. A suggested
outline of a course in physical crystallography is added, which
includes preliminary experiments with the systematic examination of the
crystals of any substance, and corresponds with the graduate course
in physical crystallography given in Columbia University. The book is
intended to be useful to organic chemists, geologists, mineralogists,
and others interested in the study of crystals. The treatment is
necessarily technical.

[16] The Characters of Crystals. An Introduction to Physical
Crystallography. By Alfred J. Moses. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company.
Pp. 211. Price, $2.


A book describing the _Practical Methods of identifying Minerals in
Rock Sections with the Microscope_[17] has been prepared by Mr. _L.
McI. Luquer_ to ease the path of the student inexperienced in optical
mineralogy by putting before him only those facts which are absolutely
necessary for the proper recognition and identification of the minerals
in thin sections. The microscopic and optical characters of the
minerals are recorded in the order in which they would be observed with
a petrographical microscope; when the sections are opaque, attention
is called to the fact, and the characters are recorded as seen with
incident light. The order of Rosenbusch, which is based on the symmetry
of the crystalline form, is followed, with a few exceptions made
for convenience. In an introductory chapter a practical elementary
knowledge of optics as applied to optical mineralogy is attempted to
be given, without going into an elaborate discussion of the subject.
The petrographical microscope is described in detail. The application
of it to the investigation of mineral characteristics is set forth in
general and as to particular minerals. The preparation of sections and
practical operations are described, and an optical scheme is appended,
with the minerals grouped according to their common optical characters.

[17] Minerals in Rock Sections; the Practical Method of identifying
Minerals in Rock Sections with the Microscope. Especially arranged for
Students in Scientific Schools. By Lea McIlvaine Luquer. New York: D.
Van Nostrand Company. Pp. 117.


Mr. _Herbert C. Whitaker's_ _Elements of Trigonometry_[18] is concise
and of very convenient size for use. The introduction and the first
five of the seven chapters have been prepared for the use of beginners.
The other two chapters concern the properties of triangles and
spherical triangles; an appendix presents the theory of logarithms;
and a second appendix, treating of goniometry, complex quantities,
and complex functions, has been added for students intending to take
up work in higher departments of mathematics. For assisting a clearer
understanding of the several processes, the author has sought to
associate closely with every equation a definite meaning with reference
to a diagram. Other characteristics of the book are the practical
applications to mechanics, surveying, and other everyday problems;
its many references to astronomical problems, and the constant use of
geometry as a starting point and standard.

[18] Elements of Trigonometry, with Tables. By Herbert C. Whitaker.
Philadelphia: Eldredge & Brother. Pp. 200.


A model in suggestions for elementary teaching is offered in
_California Plants in their Homes_,[19] by _Alice Merritt Davidson_,
formerly of the State Normal School, California. The book consists
of two parts, a botanical reader for children and a supplement for
the use of teachers, both divisions being also published in separate
volumes. It is well illustrated, provided with an index and an outline
of lessons adapted to different grades. The treatment of each theme is
fresh, and the grouping novel, as is indicated by the chapter headings:
Some Plants that lead Easy Lives, Plants that know how to meet Hard
Times, Plants that do not make their own Living, Plants with Mechanical
Genius. Although specially designed for the study of the flora of
southern California, embodying the results of ten years' observation by
the author, it may be recommended to science teachers in any locality
as an excellent guide. The pupil in this vicinity will have to forego
personal inspection of the shooting-star and mariposa lily, while he
finds the century plant, yuccas, and cacti domiciled in the greenhouse.
In addition to these, however, attention is directed to a sufficient
number of familiar flowers, trees, ferns, and fungi for profitable
study, and the young novice in botany can scarcely make a better
beginning than in company with this skillful instructor.

[19] California Plants in their Homes. By Alice Merritt Davidson. Los
Angeles, Cal.: B .R. Baumgardt & Co. Pp. 215-133.

       *       *       *       *       *

Prof. _John M. Coulter's Plant Relations_[20] is one of two parts of a
system of teaching botany proposed by the author. Each of the two books
is to represent the work of half a year, but each is to be independent
of the other, and they may be used in either order. The two books
relate respectively, as a whole, to ecology, or the life relations of
surroundings of plants, and to their morphology. The present volume
concerns the ecology. While it may be to the disadvantage of presenting
ecology first, that it conveys no knowledge of plant structures and
plant groups, this disadvantage is compensated for, in the author's
view, by the facts that the study of the most evident life relations
gives a proper conception of the place of plants in Nature; that it
offers a view of the plant kingdom of the most permanent value to those
who can give but a half year to botany; and that it demands little or
no use of the compound microscope, an instrument ill adapted to first
contacts with Nature. The book is intended to present a connected,
readable account of some of the fundamental facts of botany, and also
to serve as a supplement to the three far more important factors
of the teacher, who must amplify and suggest at every point; the
laboratory, which must bring the pupil face to face with plants and
their structure; and field work, which must relate the facts observed
in the laboratory to their actual place in Nature, and must bring new
facts to notice which can be observed nowhere else. Taking the results
obtained from these three factors, the book seeks to organize them, and
to suggest explanations, through a clear, untechnical, compact text and
appropriate and excellent illustrations.

[20] Plant Relations. A First Book of Botany. By John M. Coulter. New
York: D. Appleton and Company. (Twentieth Century Text Books.) Pp. 264.
Price, $1.10.


The title of _The Wilderness of Worlds_[21] was suggested to the author
by the contemplation of a wilderness of trees, in which those near him
are very large, while in the distance they seem successively smaller,
and gradually fade away till the limit of vision is reached. So of the
wilderness of worlds in space, with its innumerable stars of gradually
diminishing degrees of visibility--worlds "of all ages like the trees,
and the great deep of space is covered with their dust, and pulsating
with the potency of new births." The body of the book is a review of
the history of the universe and all that is of it, in the light of
the theory of evolution, beginning with the entities of space, time,
matter, force, and motion, and the processes of development from the
nebulæ as they are indicated by the most recent and best verified
researches, and terminating with the ultimate extinction of life and
the end of the planet. In the chapter entitled A Vision of Peace the
author confronts religion and science. He regards the whole subject
from the freethinker's point of view, with a denial of all agency of
the supernatural.

[21] The Wilderness of Worlds. A Popular Sketch of the Evolution of
Matter from Nebula to Man and Return. The Life-Orbit of a Star. By
George W. Morehouse. New York: Peter Eckler. Pp. 246. Price, $1.


In a volume entitled _The Living Organism_[22] Mr. _Alfred Earl_ has
endeavored to make a philosophical introduction to the study of
biology. The closing paragraph of his preface is of interest as showing
his views regarding vitalism: "The object of the book will be attained
if it succeeds, although it may be chiefly by negative criticism, in
directing attention to the important truth that, though chemical and
physical changes enter largely into the composition of vital activity,
there is much in the living organism that is outside the range of these
operations." The first three chapters discuss general conceptions,
and are chiefly psychology. A discussion of the structures accessory
to alimentation in man and the higher animals occupies Chapters IV
and V. The Object of Classification, Certain General Statements
concerning Organisms, A Description of the Organism as related to
its Surroundings, The Material Basis of Life, The Organism as a
Chemical Aggregate and as a Center for the Transformation of Energy,
Certain Aspects of Form and Development, The Meaning of Sensation,
and, finally, Some of the Problems presented by the Organism, are
the remaining chapter headings. The volume contains many interesting
suggestions, and might perhaps most appropriately be described as a
Theoretical Biology.

[22] The Living Organism. By Alfred Earl, M. A. New York: The Macmillan
Company. Pp. 271. Price, $1.75.


"_Stars and Telescopes_,"[23] Professor _Todd_ says, "is intended
to meet an American demand for a plain, unrhetorical statement of
the astronomy of to-day." We might state the purpose to be to bring
astronomy and all that pertains to it up to date. It is hard to do
this, for the author has been obliged to put what was then the latest
discovery, made while the book was going through the press, in a
footnote at the end of the preface. The information embodied in the
volume is comprehensive, and is conveyed in a very intelligible style.
The treatise begins with a running commentary or historical outline
of astronomical discovery, with a rigid exclusion of all detail. The
account of the earth and moon is followed by chapters on the Calendar
and the Astronomical Relations of Light. The other members of the
solar system are described and their relations reviewed, and then the
comets and the stars. Closely associated with these subjects are the
men who have contributed to knowledge respecting them, and consequently
the names of the great discoverers and others who have helped in the
advancement of astronomy are introduced in immediate connection with
their work, in brief sketches and often with their portraits. Much
importance is attributed by Professor Todd to the instruments with
which astronomical discovery is carried on, and the book may be said to
culminate in an account of the famous instruments, their construction,
mounting, and use. The devisers of these instruments are entitled to
more credit than the unthinking are always inclined to give them, for
the value of an observation depends on the accuracy of the instrument
as well as on the skill of the observer, and the skill which makes
the instrument accurate is not to be underrated. So the makers of
the instruments are given their place. Then the recent and improved
processes have to be considered, and, altogether, Professor Todd has
found material for a full and somewhat novel book, and has used it to
good advantage.

[23] Stars and Telescopes A Handbook of Popular Astronomy. Boston:
Little, Brown & Co. Pp. 419. Price, $2.


_Some Observations on the Fundamental Principles of Nature_ is the
title of an essay by _Henry Witt_, which, though very brief, takes
the world of matter, mind, and society within its scope. One of the
features of the treatment is that instead of the present theory of
an order of things resulting from the condensation of more rarefied
matter, one of the organization of converging waves of infinitesimal
atoms filling all space is substituted. With this point prominently
in view, the various factors and properties of the material
universe--biology, psychology, sociology, ethics, and the future--are
treated of.


Among the later monographs published by the Field Columbian Museum,
Chicago, is a paper in the Geological Series (No. 3) on _The Ores of
Colombia, from Mines in Operation in 1892_, by _H. W. Nichols_. It
describes the collection prepared for the Columbian Exposition by F.
Pereira Gamba and afterward given to the museum--a collection which
merits attention for the light it throws upon the nature and mode of
occurrence of the ores of one of the most important gold-producing
countries of the world, and also because it approaches more nearly
than is usual the ideal of what a collection in economic geology
should be. Other publications in the museum's Geological Series are
_The Mylagauldæ, an Extinct Family of Sciuromorph Rodents_ (No. 4),
by _E. S. Riggs_, describing some squirrel-like animals from the
Deep River beds, near White Sulphur Springs, Montana; _A Fossil Egg
from South Dakota_ (No. 5), by _O. C. Farrington_, relative to the
egg of an anatine bird from the early Miocene; and _Contributions to
the Paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous Series_ (No. 6), by _W. N.
Logan_, in which seven species of _Scaphites_, _Ostrea_, _Gasteropoda_,
and corals are described. In the Zoölogical Series, _Preliminary
Descriptions of New Rodents from the Olympic Mountains_ (of Washington)
(No. 11), by _D. G. Elliot_, relates to six species; _Notes on a
Collection of Cold-blooded Vertebrates from the Olympic Mountains_ (No.
12), by _S. E. Meek_, to six trout and three other fish, four amphibia,
and three reptiles; and a _Catalogue of Mammals from the Olympic
Mountains, Washington_, with descriptions of new species (No. 13), by
_D. G. Elliot_, includes a number of species of rodents, lynx, bear,
and deer.


_Some Notes on Chemical Jurisprudence_ is the title given by _Harwood
Huntington_ (260 West Broadway, New York; 25 cents) to a brief digest
of patent-law cases involving chemistry. The notes are designed to be
of use to chemists intending to take out patents by presenting some
of the difficulties attendant upon drawing up a patent strong enough
to stand a lawsuit, and by explaining some points of law bearing on
the subject. In most, if not all, cases where the chemist has devised
a new method or application it is best, the author holds, to take out
a patent for self-protection, else the inventor may find his device
stolen from him and patented against him.


A cave or fissure in the Cambrian limestone of Port Kennedy, Montgomery
County, Pa., exposed by quarrymen the year before, was brought to the
knowledge of geologists by Mr. Charles M. Wheatley in 1871, when the
fossils obtained from it were determined by Prof. E. D. Cope as of
thirty-four species. Attention was again called to the paleontological
interest of the locality by President Dixon, of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia, in 1894. The fissure was examined again by
Dr. Dixon and others, and was more thoroughly explored by Mr. Henry C.
Mercer. Mr. Mercer published a preliminary account of the work, which
was followed by the successive studies of the material by Professor
Cope preliminary to a complete and illustrated report to be made after
a full investigation of all accessible material. Professor Cope did not
live to publish this full report, which was his last work, prepared
during the suffering of his final illness. It is now published, just
as the author left it, as _Vertebrate Remains from the Port Kennedy
Deposit_, from the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia. Four plates of illustrations, photographed from the
remains, accompany the text.


The machinery of Mr. _Fred A. Lucas's_ story of _The Hermit
Naturalist_ reminds us of that of the old classical French romances,
like Télémaque, and the somewhat artificial, formal diction is not
dissimilar. An accident brings the author into acquaintance and
eventual intimacy with an old Sicilian naturalist, who, migrating to
this country, has established a home, away from the world's life, on
an island in the Delaware River. The two find a congenial subject of
conversation in themes of natural history, and the bulk of the book is
in effect a running discourse by the old Sicilian on snakes and their
habits--a valuable and interesting lesson. The hermit has a romance,
involving the loss of his motherless daughter, stolen by brigands and
brought to America, his long search for her and resignation of hope,
and her ultimate discovery and restoration to him. The book is of easy
reading, both as to its natural history and the romance.


We have two papers before us on the question of expansion. One is an
address delivered by John Barrett, late United States Minister to
Siam, before the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, and previous
to the beginning of the attempt to subjugate the islands, on _The
Philippine Islands and American Interests in the Far East_. This
address has, we believe, been since followed by others, and in all
Mr. Barrett favors the acquisition of the Philippine Islands on the
grounds, among others, of commercial interests and the capacity of the
Filipinos for development in further civilization and self-government;
but his arguments, in the present aspect of the Philippine question,
seem to us to bear quite as decidedly in the opposite direction. He
gives the following picture of Aguinaldo and the Filipino government:
"He (Aguinaldo) captured all Spanish garrisons on the island of
Luzon outside of Manila, so that when the Americans were ready to
proceed against the city they were not delayed and troubled with a
country campaign. Moreover, he has organized a government which has
practically been administering the affairs of the great island since
the American occupation of Manila, and which is certainly better
than the former administration; he has a properly formed Cabinet and
Congress, the members of which, in appearance and manners, would
compare favorably with Japanese statesmen. He has among his advisers
men of ability as international lawyers, while his supporters include
most of the prominent educated and wealthy natives, all of which prove
possibilities of self-government that we must consider." This pamphlet
is published at Hong Kong. The other paper is an address delivered
before the New York State Bar Association, by _Charles A. Gardiner_, on
_Our Right to acquire and hold Foreign Territory_, and is published by
G. P. Putnam's Sons in the Questions of the Day Series. Mr. Gardiner
holds and expresses the broadest views of the constitutional power
of our Government to commit the acts named, and to exercise all the
attributes incidental to the possession of acquired territory, but he
thinks that we need a great deal of legal advice in the matter.


A pamphlet, _Anti-Imperialism_, by _Morrison L. Swift_, published by
the Public Ownership Review, Los Angeles, Cal., covers the subject of
English and American aggression in three chapters--Imperialism to bless
the Conquered, Imperialism for the Sake of Mankind, and Our Crime in
the Philippines. Mr. Swift is very earnest in respect to some of the
subjects touched upon in his essays, and some persons may object that
he is more forcible--even to excess--than polite in his denunciations.
To such he may perhaps reply that there are things which language does
not afford words too strong to characterize fitly.


Among the papers read at the Fourth International Catholic Scientific
Congress, held at Fribourg, Switzerland, in August, 1897, was one by
_William J. D. Croke_ on _Architecture, Painting, and Printing at
Subiaco_ as represented in the Abbey at Subiaco. The author regards the
features of the three arts represented in this place as evidence that
the record of the activity of the foundation constitutes a real chapter
in the history of progress in general and of culture in particular.




PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.


Benson, E. F. Mammon & Co. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 360.
$1.50.

Buckley, James A. Extemporaneous Oratory. For Professional and Amateur
Speakers. New York: Eaton & Mains. Pp. 480. $1.50.

Canada, Dominion of, Experimental Farms: Reports for 1897. Pp. 449;
Reports for 1898. Pp. 429.

Conn, H. W. The Story of Germ Life. (Library of Useful Stories.) New
York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 199. 40 cents.

Dana, Edward S. First Appendix to the Sixth Edition of Dana's
Mineralogy. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 75. $1.

Franklin Institute, The Drawing School, also School of Elementary
Mathematics: Announcements. Pp. 4 each.

Ganong, William F. The Teaching Botanist. New York: The Macmillan
Company. Pp. 270. $1.10.

Getman, F. H. The Elements of Blowpipe Analysis. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 77. 60 cents.

Halliday, H. M. An Essay on the Common Origin of Light, Heat, and
Electricity. Washington, D. C. Pp. 46.

Hardin, Willett L. The Rise and Development of the Liquefaction of
Gases. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 250. $1.10.

Hillegas, Howard C. Oom Paul's People. A Narrative of the British-Boer
Troubles in South Africa, with a History of the Boers, the Country, and
its Institutions. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 308. $1.50.

Ireland, Alleyne. Tropical Colonization. An Introduction to the Study
of the Subject. New York: The Macmillan Company. $2.

Kingsley, J. S. Text-Book of Elementary Zoölogy. New York: Henry Holt &
Co. Pp. 439.

Knerr, E. B. Relativity in Science. Silico-Barite Nodules from near
Salina. Concretions. (Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science.)
Pp. 24.

Krõmskõp, Color Photography. Philadelphia: Ives Krõmskõp. Pp. 24.

Liquid-Air Power and Automobile Company. Prospectus. Pp. 16.

MacBride, Thomas A. The North American Slime Molds. Being a List of
Species of Myxomycetes hitherto described from North America, Including
Central America. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 231, with 18
plates. $2.25.

Meyer, A. B. The Distribution of the Negritos in the Philippine Islands
and Elsewhere. Dresden (Saxony): Stengel & Co. Pp. 92.

Nicholson, H. H., and Avery, Samuel. Laboratory Exercises with Outlines
for the Study of Chemistry, to accompany any Elementary Text. New York:
Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 134. 60 cents.

Scharff, R. P. The History of the European Fauna. New York: Imported by
Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 354. $1.50.

Schleicher, Charles, and Schull, Duren. Rhenish Prussia. Samples of
Special Filtering Papers. New York: Eimer & Amend, agents.

Sharpe, Benjamin F. An Advance in Measuring and Photographing Sounds.
United States Weather Bureau. Pp. 18, with plates.

Shinn, Milicent W. Notes on the Development of a Child. Parts III and
IV. (University of California Studies.) Pp. 224.

Shoemaker, M. M. Quaint Corners of Ancient Empires, Southern India,
Burmah, and Manila. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 212.

Smith, Orlando J. A Short View of Great Questions. New York: The
Brandur Company, 220 Broadway. Pp. 75.

Smith, Walter. Methods of Knowledge. An Essay in Epistemology. New
York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 340. $1.25.

Southern, The, Magazine. Monthly. Vol. I, No. 1. August, 1899. Pp. 203.
10 cents. $1 a year.

Suter, William N. Handbook of Optics. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Pp. 209. $1.

Tarde, G. Social Laws. An Outline of Sociology. With a Preface by James
Mark Baldwin. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 213. $1.25.

Uline, Edwin B. Higinbothamia. A New Genus, and other New Dioscoreaceæ,
New Amaranthaceæ. (Field Columbian Museum, Chicago Botanical Series.)
Pp. 12.

Underwood, Lucien M. Molds, Mildews, and Mushrooms. New York: Henry
Holt & Co. Pp. 227, with 9 plates. $1.50.

United States Civil-Service Commission. Fifteenth Report, July 1, 1897,
to June 30, 1898. Pp. 736. Washington.




Fragments of Science.


The Dover Meeting of the British Association.--While the attendance
on the meeting of the British Association at Dover was not large--the
whole number of members being 1,403, of whom 127 were ladies--the
occasion was in other respects eventful and one of marked interest. The
papers read were, as a rule, of excellent quality, and the interchange
of visits with the French Association was a novel feature that might
bear many repetitions. The president, Sir Michael Foster, presented, in
his inaugural address, a picture of the state of science one hundred
years ago, illustrating it by portraying the conditions to which a
body like the association meeting then at Dover would have found
itself subject, and suggesting the topics it would have discussed.
The period referred to was, however, that of the beginning of the
present progress, and, after remarking on what had been accomplished
in the interval, the speaker drew a very hopeful foreview for the
future. Besides the intellectual triumphs of science, its strengthening
discipline, its relation to politics, and the "international
brotherhood of science" were brought under notice in the address. In
his address as president of the Physical Section, Prof. J. H. Poynting
showed how physicists are tending toward a general agreement as to
the nature of the laws in which they embody their discoveries, of the
explanations they give, and of the hypotheses they make, and, having
considered what the form and terms of this agreement should be, passed
to a discussion of the limitations of physical science. The subject of
Dr. Horace T. Brown's Chemical Section address was The Assimilation
of Carbon by the Higher Plants. Sir William H. White, president of
the Section of Mechanical Science, spoke on Steam Navigation at High
Speeds. President Adam Sedgwick addressed the Zoölogical Section on
Variation and some Phenomena connected with Reproduction and Sex; Sir
John Murray, the Geographical Section on The Ocean Floor; and Mr. J.
N. Langley, the Physiological Section on the general relations of
the motor nerves to the several tissues of the body, especially of
those which run to tissues over which we have little or no control.
The president of the Anthropological Section, Mr. C. H. Read, of the
British Museum, spoke of the preservation and proper exploration of
the prehistoric antiquities of the country, and offered a plan for
increasing the amount of work done in anthropological investigation
by the use of Government aid. A peculiar distinction attaches to
this meeting through its reception and entertainment of the French
Association, and the subsequent return of the courtesy by the latter
body at Boulogne. About three hundred of the French Associationists,
among whom were many ladies, came over, on the Saturday of the meeting,
under the lead of their president, M. Brouardel, and accompanied by a
number of men of science from Belgium. They were met at the pier by the
officers of the British Association, and were escorted to the place
of meeting and to the sectional meetings toward which their several
tastes directed them. The geological address of Sir Archibald Geikie
on Geological Time had been appointed for this day out of courtesy to
the French geologists, and in order that they might have an opportunity
of hearing one of the great lights of British science. Among the
listeners who sat upon the platform were M. Gosselet, president of
the French Geological Society; M. Kemna, president of the Belgian
Geological Society; and M. Rénard, of Ghent. Public evening lectures
were delivered on the Centenary of the Electric Current, by Prof. J.
A. Fleming, and (in French) on Nervous Vibration, by Prof. Charles
Richet. Sir William Turner was appointed president for the Bradford
meeting of the association (1900). The visit of the French Association
was returned on September 22d, when the president, officers, and about
three hundred members went to Boulogne. They were welcomed by the mayor
of the city, the prefect of the department, and a representative of
the French Government; were feasted by the municipality of Boulogne;
were entertained by the members of the French Association; and special
commemorative medals were presented by the French Association to the
two presidents. The British visitors also witnessed the inauguration of
a tablet in memory of Dr. Duchesne, and of a plaque commemorative of
Thomas Campbell, the poet, who died in Boulogne.


Artificial India Rubber.--A recent issue of the Kew Gardens Bulletin
contains an interesting article on Dr. Tilden's artificial production
of India rubber. India rubber, or caoutchouc, is chemically a
hydrocarbon, but its molecular constitution is unknown. When decomposed
by heat it is broken up into simpler hydrocarbons, among which is a
substance called isoprene, a volatile liquid boiling at about 36° C.
Its molecular formula is C_{5}H_{8}. Dr. Tilden obtained this same
substance (isoprene) from oil of turpentine and other terpenes by the
action of moderate heat, and then by treating the isoprene with strong
acids succeeded, by means of a very slow reaction, in converting a
small portion of it into a tough elastic solid, which seems to be
identical in properties with true India rubber. This artificial rubber,
like the natural, seems to consist of two substances, one of which is
more soluble in benzene and carbon bisulphide than the other. It unites
with sulphur in the same way as ordinary rubber, forming a tough,
elastic compound. In a recent letter Professor Tilden says: "As you may
imagine, I have tried everything I can think of as likely to promote
this change, but without success. The polymerization proceeds _very_
slowly, occupying, according to my experience, several years, and all
attempts to hurry it result in the production not of rubber, but of
'colophene,' a thick, sticky oil quite useless for all purposes to
which rubber is applied."


Dangers of High Altitudes for Elderly People.--"The public, and
sometimes the inexperienced physician--inexperienced not in general
therapeutics but in the physiological effects of altitude on a weak
heart," says Dr. Findlater Zangger in the Lancet, "make light of
a danger they can not understand. But if an altitude of from four
thousand to five thousand feet above the sea level puts a certain
amount of strain on a normal heart and by a rise of the blood-pressure
indirectly also on the small peripheral arteries, must not this
action be multiplied in the case of a heart suffering from even an
early stage of myocarditis or in the case of arteries with thickened
or even calcified walls? It is especially the rapidity of the change
from one altitude to another, with differences of from three thousand
to four thousand feet, which must be considered. There is a call
made on the contractibility of the small arteries on the one hand,
and on the amount of muscular force of the heart on the other hand,
and if the structures in question can not respond to this call,
rupture of an artery or dilatation of the heart may ensue. In the
case of a normal condition of the circulatory organs little harm is
done beyond some transient discomfort, such as dizziness, buzzing in
the ears, palpitation, general _malaise_, and this often only in the
case of people totally unaccustomed to high altitudes. For such it is
desirable to take the high altitude by degrees in two or three stages,
say first stage 1,500 feet, second stage from 2,500 to 3,000 feet,
and third stage from 4,000 to 6,000 feet, with a stay of one or two
days at the intermediate places. The stay at the health resort will
be shortened, it is true, but the patient will derive more benefit.
On the return journey one short stay at one intermediate place will
suffice. Even a fairly strong heart will not stand an overstrain in
the first days spent at a high altitude. A Dutch lady, about forty
years of age, who had spent a lifetime in the lowlands, came directly
up to Adelboden (altitude, 4,600 feet). After two days she went on an
excursion with a party up to an Alp 7,000 feet high, making the ascent
quite slowly in four hours. Sudden heart syncope ensued, which lasted
the best part of an hour, though I chanced to be near and could give
assistance, which was urgently needed. The patient recovered, but
derived no benefit from a fortnight's stay, and had to return to the
low ground the worse for her trip and her inconsiderate enterprise.
Rapid ascents to a high altitude are very injurious to patients with
arterio-sclerosis, and the mountain railways up to seven thousand and
ten thousand feet are positively dangerous to an unsuspecting public,
for many persons between the ages of fifty-five and seventy years
consider themselves to be hale and healthy, and are quite unconscious
of having advanced arterio-sclerosis and perchance contracted kidney.
An American gentleman, aged fifty-eight years, was under my care for
slight symptoms of angina pectoris, pointing to sclerosis of the
coronary arteries. A two-months' course of treatment at Zurich with
massage, baths, and proper exercise and diet did away with all the
symptoms. I saw him by chance some months later. 'My son is going to
St. Moritz (six thousand feet) for the summer,' said he; 'may I go with
him?' 'Most certainly not,' was my answer. The patient then consulted
a professor, who allowed him to go. Circumstances, however, took him
for the summer to Sachseln, which is situated at an altitude of only
two thousand feet, and he spent a good summer. But he must needs go up
the Pilatus by rail (seven thousand feet), relying on the professor's
permission, and the result was disastrous, for he almost died from a
violent attack of angina pectoris on the night of his return from the
Pilatus, and vowed on his return to Zurich to keep under three thousand
feet in future. I may here mention that bad results in the shape of
heart collapse, angina pectoris, cardiac asthma, and last, not least,
apoplexy, often occur only on the return to the lowlands."


The Parliamentary Amenities Committee.--Under the above rather
misleading title there was formed last year, in the English Parliament,
a committee for the purpose of promoting concerted action in the
preservation and protection of landmarks of general public interest,
historic buildings, famous battlefields, and portions of landscape of
unusual scenic beauty or geological conformation, and also for the
protection from entire extinction of the various animals and even
plants which the spread of civilization is gradually pushing to the
wall. In reality, it is an official society for the preservation of
those things among the works of past man and Nature which, owing to
their lack of direct money value, are in danger of destruction in
this intensely commercial age. Despite the comparative newness of the
American civilization, there are already many relics belonging to the
history of our republic whose preservation is very desirable, as well
as very doubtful, if some such public-spirited committee does not
take the matter in hand; and, as regards the remains of the original
Americans, in which the country abounds, the necessity is still more
immediate. The official care of Nature's own curiosities is equally
needed, as witness the way in which the Hudson River palisades are
being mutilated, and the constant raids upon our city parks for
speedways, parade grounds, etc. The great value of a parliamentary or
congressional committee of this sort lies in the fact that its opinions
are not only based upon expert knowledge, but that they can be to an
extent enforced; whereas such a body of men with no official position
may go on making suggestions and protesting, as have numerous such
bodies for years, without producing any practical results. The matter
is, with us perhaps, one of more importance to future generations; but
as all Nature seems ordered primarily with reference to the future
welfare of the race, rather than for the comfort of its present
members, the necessity for such an official body, whose specific
business should be to look after the preservation of objects of
historical interest to the succeeding centuries, ought to be inculcated
in us as a part of the general evolutionary scheme.


Physical Measurements of Asylum Children.--Dr. Ales Hrdlicka has
published an account of anthropological investigations and measurements
which he has made upon one thousand white and colored children in
the New York Juvenile Asylum and one hundred colored children in
the Colored Orphan Asylum, for information about the physical state
of the children who are admitted and kept in juvenile asylums, and
particularly to learn whether there is anything physically abnormal
about them. Some abnormality in the social or moral condition of such
children being assumed, if they are also physically inferior to other
children, they would have to be considered generally handicapped in the
struggle for life; but if they do not differ greatly in strength and
constitution from the average ordinary children, then their state would
be much more hopeful. Among general facts concerning the condition of
the children in the Juvenile Asylum, Dr. Hrdlicka learned that when
admitted to the institution they are almost always in some way morally
and physically inferior to healthy children from good social classes
at large--the result, usually, of neglect or improper nutrition or
both. Within a month, or even a week, decided changes for the better
are observed, and after their admission the individuals of the same sex
and age seem gradually, while preserving the fundamental differences
of their nature, to show less of their former diversity and grow more
alike. In learning, the newcomers are more or less retarded when put
into the school, but in a great majority of cases they begin to acquire
rapidly, and the child usually reaches the average standing of the
class. Inveterate backwardness in learning is rare. Physically, about
one seventh of all the inmates of the asylum were without a blemish
on their bodies--a proportion which will not seem small to persons
well versed in analyses of the kind. The differences in the physical
standing of the boys and the girls were not so great or so general as
to permit building a hypothesis upon them, though the girls came out a
little the better. The colored boys seemed to be physically somewhat
inferior to the white ones, but the number of them was not large enough
to justify a conclusion. Of the children not found perfect, two hundred
presented only a single abnormality, and this usually so small as
hardly to justify excluding them from the class of perfect. Regarding
as decidedly abnormal only those in whom one half the parts of the body
showed defects, the number was eighty-seven. "Should we, for the sake
of illustration, express the physical condition of the children by such
terms as fine, medium, and bad, the fine and bad would embrace in all
192 individuals, while 808 would remain as medium." All the classes
of abnormalities--congenital, pathological, and acquired--seemed more
numerous in the boys than in the girls. The colored children showed
fewer inborn abnormalities than the white, but more pathological and
acquired. No child was found who could be termed a thorough physical
degenerate, and the author concludes that the majority of the class of
children dealt with are physically fairly average individuals.


Busy Birds.--A close observation of a day's work of busy activity, of
a day's work of the chipping sparrow hunting and catching insects to
feed its young, is recorded by Clarence M. Weed in a Bulletin of the
New Hampshire College Agricultural Experiment Station. Mr. Weed began
his watch before full daylight in the morning, ten minutes before the
bird got off from its nest, and continued it till after dark. During
the busy day Mr. Weed says, in his summary, the parent birds made
almost two hundred visits to the nest, bringing food nearly every time,
though some of the trips seem to have been made to furnish grit for the
grinding of the food. There was no long interval when they were not at
work, the longest period between visits being twenty-seven minutes.
Soft-bodied caterpillars were the most abundant elements of the food,
but crickets and crane flies were also seen, and doubtless a great
variety of insects were taken, but precise determination of the quality
of most of the food brought was of course impossible. The observations
were undertaken especially to learn the regularity of the feeding
habits of the adult birds. The chipping sparrow is one of the most
abundant and familiar of our birds. It seeks its nesting site in the
vicinity of houses, and spends most of its time searching for insects
in grass lands or cultivated fields and gardens. In New England two
broods are usually reared each season. That the young keep the parents
busy catching insects and related creatures for their food is shown by
the minute record which the author publishes in his paper. The bird
deserves all the protection and encouragement that can be given it.


Park-making among the Sand Dunes.--For the creation of Golden Gate Park
the park-makers of San Francisco had a series of sand hills, "hills on
hills, all of sand-dune formation." The city obtained a strip of land
lying between the bay and the ocean, yet close enough to the center of
population to be cheaply and easily reached from all parts of the town.
Work was begun in 1869, and has been prosecuted steadily since, with
increasing appropriations, and the results are a credit to the city,
Golden Gate Park, Mr. Frank H. Lamb says in his account of it in The
Forester, having a charm that distinguishes it from other city parks.
It has a present area of 1,040 acres, of which 300 acres have been
sufficiently reclaimed to be planted with coniferous trees." It is this
portion of the park which the visitor sees as one of the sights of the
Golden Gate." As he rides through the park out toward the Cliff House
and Sutro Heights by the Sea," he sees still great stretches of sand,
some loose, some still held in place by the long stems and rhizomes of
the sand grass (_Arundo arenaria_). This is the preparatory stage in
park-making. The method in brief is as follows: The shifting sand is
seeded with _Arundo arenaria_, and this is allowed to grow two years,
when the ground is sufficiently held in place to begin the second
stage of reclamation, which consists in planting arboreal species,
generally the Monterey pine (_Pinus insignis_) and the Monterey cypress
(_Cupressus macrocarpus_); with these are also planted the smaller
_Leptospermum lævigatum_ and _Acacia latifolia_. These species in
two or more years complete the reclamation, and then attention is
directed to making up all losses of plants and encouraging growth as
much as possible." The entire cost of reclamation by these methods is
represented not to average more than fifty dollars per acre.


A Fossiliferous Formation below the Cambrian.--Mr. George F. Matthew
said, in a communication to the New York Academy of Sciences, that he
had been aware for several years of the existence of fauna in the rocks
below those containing _Paradoxides_ and Protolenus in New Brunswick,
eastern Canada, but that the remains of the higher types of organisms
found in those rocks were so poorly preserved and fragmentary that
they gave a very imperfect knowledge of their nature. Only the casts
of _Hyolithidæ_, the mold of an obolus, a ribbed shell, and parts of
what appeared to be the arms and bodies of crinoids were known, to
assure us that there had been living forms in the seas of that early
time other than Protozoa and burrowing worms. These objects were found
in the upper division of a series of rocks immediately subjacent
to the Cambrian strata containing _Protolenus_, etc. As a decided
physical break was discovered between the strata containing them and
those having _Protolenus_, the underlying series was thought worthy
of a distinctive name, and was called Etchemenian, after a tribe of
aborigines that once inhabited the region. In most countries the
basement of the Paleozoic sediments seems almost devoid of organic
remains. Only unsatisfactory results have followed the search for them
in Europe, and America did not seem to promise a much better return.
Nevertheless, the indications of a fauna obtained in the maritime
provinces of Canada seemed to afford a hope that somewhere "these
basement beds of the Paleozoic might yield remains in a better state
of preservation." The author, therefore, in the summer of 1898, made
a visit to a part of Newfoundland where a clear section of sediments
had been found below the horizons of _Paradoxides_ and _Agraulos
strenuus_. These formations were examined at Manuel's Brook and Smith's
Sound. In the beds defined as Etchemenian no trilobites were found,
though other classes of animals, such as gastropods, brachiopods, and
lamellibranchs, occur, with which trilobites elsewhere are usually
associated in the Cambrian and later geological systems. The absence,
or possibly the rarity of the trilobites appears to have special
significance in view of their prominence among Cambrian fossils. The
uniformity of conditions attending the depositions of the Etchemenian
terrane throughout the Atlantic coast province of the Cambrian is
spoken of as surprising and as pointing to a quiescent period of long
continuance, during which the _Hyolithidæ_ and _Capulidæ_ developed
so as to become the dominant types of the animal world, while the
brachiopods, the lamellibranchs, and the other gastropods still were
puny and insignificant. Mr. Matthew last year examined the red shales
at Braintree, Mass., and was informed by Prof. W. O. Crosby that
they included many of the types specified as characteristic of the
Etchemenian fauna, and that no trilobites had with certainty been
obtained from them. The conditions of their deposition closely resemble
those of the Etchemenian of Newfoundland.


The Paris Exposition, 1900, and Congresses.--The grounds of the Paris
Exposition of 1900 extend from the southwest angle of the Place de la
Concorde along both banks of the Seine, nearly a mile and a half, to
the Avenue de Suffren, which forms the western boundary of the Champ de
Mars. The principal exhibition spaces are the Park of the Art palaces
and the Esplanade des Invalides at the east, and the Champ de Mars and
the Trocadéro at the west. Many entrances and exits will be provided,
but the principal and most imposing one will be erected at the Place
de la Concorde, in the form of a triumphal arch. Railways will be
provided to bring visitors from the city to the grounds, and another
railway will make their entire circuit. The total surface occupied by
the exposition grounds is three hundred and thirty-six acres, while
that of the exposition of 1889 was two hundred and forty acres. Another
area has been secured in the Park of Vincennes for the exhibition of
athletic games, sports, etc. The displays will be installed for the
most part by groups instead of nations. The International Congress of
Prehistoric Anthropology and Archæology will be held in connection
with the exposition, August 20th to August 25th. The arrangements for
it are under the charge of a committee that includes the masters and
leading representatives of the science in France, of which M. le Dr.
Verneau, 148 Rue Broca, Paris, is secretary general. A congress of
persons interested in aërial navigation will be held in the Observatory
of Meudon, the director of which, M. Janssen, is president of the
Organizing Committee. Correspondence respecting this congress should be
addressed to the secretary general, M. Triboulet, Director de Journal
l'Aeronaute, 10 Rue de la Pepinière, Paris.


English Plant Names.--Common English and American names of plants
are treated by Britton and Brown, in their Illustrated Flora of the
Northern United States, Canada, and the British possessions, as full of
interest from their origin, history, and significance. As observed in
Britton and Holland's Dictionary, "they are derived from a variety of
languages, often carrying us back to the early days of our country's
history and to the various peoples who, as conquerors or colonists,
have landed on our shores and left an impress on our language. Many of
these Old-World words are full of poetical association, speaking to
us of the thoughts and feelings of the Old-World people who invented
them; others tell of the ancient mythology of our ancestors, of strange
old mediæval usages, and of superstitions now almost forgotten."
Most of these names, Britton and Brown continue in the preface to
the third volume of their work, suggest their own explanation. "The
greater number are either derived from the supposed uses, qualities,
or properties of the plants; many refer to their habitat, appearance,
or resemblance, real or fancied, to other things; others come from
poetical suggestion, affection, or association with saints or persons.
Many are very graphic, as the Western name prairie fire (_Castillea
coccinea_); many are quaint or humorous, as cling rascal (_Galium
sparine_) or wait-a-bit (_Smilax rotundifolia_); and in some the
corruptions are amusing, as Aunt Jerichos (New England) for _Angelica_.
The words horse, ox, dog, bull, snake, toad, are often used to denote
size, coarseness, worthlessness, or aversion. Devil or devil's is used
as a prefix for upward of forty of our plants, mostly expressive of
dislike or of some traditional resemblance or association. A number
of names have been contributed by the Indians, such as chinquapin,
wicopy, pipsissewa, wankapin, etc., while the term Indian, evidently
a favorite, is applied as a descriptive prefix to upward of eighty
different plants." There should be no antagonism in the use of
scientific and popular names, since their purposes are quite different.
The scientific names are necessary to students for accuracy, "but the
vernacular names are a part of the development of the language of
each people. Though these names are sometimes indicative of specific
characters and hence scientifically valuable, they are for the most
part not at all scientific, but utilitarian, emotional, or picturesque.
As such they are invaluable not for science, but for the common
intelligence and the appreciation and enjoyment of the plant world."


Educated Colored Labor.--In a paper published in connection with the
Proceedings of the Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund, Mr. Booker
T. Washington describes his efforts, made at the suggestion of the
trustees, to bring the work done at the Tuskegee school to the
knowledge of the white people of the South, and their success. Mr.
Carver, instructor in agriculture, went before the Alabama Legislature
and gave an exhibition of his methods and results before the Committee
on Agriculture. The displays of butter and other farm products proved
so interesting that many members of the Legislature and other citizens
inspected the exhibit, and all expressed their gratification. A full
description of the work in agriculture was published in the Southern
papers: "The result is that the white people are constantly applying
to us for persons to take charge of farms, dairies, etc., and in many
ways showing that their interest in our work is growing in proportion
as they see the value of it." A visit made by the President of the
United States gave an opportunity of assembling within the institution
five members of the Cabinet with their families, the Governor of
Alabama, both branches of the Alabama Legislature, and thousands of
white and colored people from all parts of the South. "The occasion
was most helpful in bringing together the two sections of our country
and the two races. No people in any part of the world could have acted
more generously and shown a deeper interest in this school than did
the white people of Tuskegee and Macon County during the visit of the
President."


Geology of Columbus, Ohio.--In his paper, read at the meeting of the
American Association, on the geology of Ohio, Dr. Orton spoke of the
construction of glacial drifts as found in central Ohio and the source
of the material of the drift, showing that the bowlder clay is largely
derived from the comminution of black slake, the remnants of which
appear in North Columbus. He spoke also of the bowlders scattered over
the surface of the region about Columbus, the parent rocks of which
may be traced to the shores of the northern lakes, and of Jasper's
conglomerate, picturesque fragments of which may be found throughout
central Ohio. Some of these bowlders are known to have come from
Lake Ontario. Bowlders of native copper also occur, one of which was
found eight feet below the surface in excavations carried on for the
foundations of the asylum west of the Scioto.


Civilized and Savage.--Professor Semon, in his book In the Australian
Bush, characterizes the treatment of the natives by the settlers
as constituting, on the whole, one of the darkest chapters in the
colonization of Australia. "Everywhere and always we find the same
process: the whites arrive and settle in the hunting grounds of
the blacks, who have frequented them since the remotest time. They
raise paddocks, which the blacks are forbidden to enter. They breed
cattle, which the blacks are not allowed to approach. Then it happens
that these stupid savages do not know how to distinguish between a
marsupial and a placental animal, and spear a calf or a cow instead
of a kangaroo, and the white man takes revenge for this misdeed by
systematically killing all the blacks that come before his gun. This,
again, the natives take amiss, and throw a spear into his back when he
rides through the bush, or invade his house when he is absent, killing
his family and servants. Then arrive the 'native police,' a troop of
blacks from another district, headed by a white officer. They know the
tricks of their race, and take a special pleasure in hunting down their
own countrymen, and they avenge the farmer's dead by killing all the
blacks in the neighborhood, sometimes also their women and children.
This is the almost typical progress of colonization, and even though
such things are abolished in the southeastern colonies and in southeast
and central Queensland, they are by no means unheard of in the north
and west."




MINOR PARAGRAPHS.


In a brood of five nestling sparrow-hawks, which he had the opportunity
of studying alive and dead, Dr. R. W. Shufeldt remarked that the
largest and therefore oldest bird was nearly double the size of the
youngest or smallest one, while the three others were graduated down
from the largest to the smallest in almost exact proportions." It was
evident, then, that the female had laid the eggs at regular intervals,
and very likely three or four days apart, and that incubation commenced
immediately after the first egg was deposited. What is more worthy
of note, however, is the fact that the sexes of these nestlings
alternated, the oldest bird being a male, the next a female, followed
by another male, and so on, the last or youngest one of all five being
a male. This last had a plumage of pure white down, with the pin
feathers of the primaries and secondaries of the wings, as well as the
rectrices of the tail, just beginning to open at their extremities.
From this stage gradual development of the plumage is exhibited
throughout the series, the entire plumage of the males and females
being very different and distinctive." If it be true, as is possibly
indicated, that the sexes alternate in broods of young sparrow-hawks as
a regular thing, the author has no explanation for the fact, and has
never heard of any being offered.


Architecture and Building gives the following interesting facts
regarding the building trades in Chicago: "Reports from Chicago are
that labor in building lines is scarce. The scarcity of men is giving
the building trades council trouble to meet the requirements of
contractors. It is said that half a dozen jobs that are ready to go
ahead are at a standstill because men can not be had, particularly
iron workers and laborers--the employees first to be employed in
the construction of the modern building. It is also said that wages
have never been better in the building line. The following is the
schedule of wages, based on an eight-hour day: Carpenters, $3.40;
electricians, $3.75; bridge and structural iron workers, $3.60; tin and
sheet-iron workers, $3.20; plumbers, $4; steam fitters, $3.75; elevator
constructors, $3; hoisting engineers, $4; derrick men, $2; gas-fitters,
$3.75; plasterers, $4; marble cutters, $3.50; gravel roofers, $2.80;
boiler-makers, $2.40; stone sawyers and rubbers, $3; marble enamel
glassworkers' helpers, $2.25; slate and tile roofers, $3.80; marble
setters' helpers, $2; steam-fitters' helpers, $2; stone cutters, $4;
stone carvers, $5; bricklayers, $4; painters, $3; hod carriers and
building laborers, $2; plasterers' hod carriers, $2.40; mosaic and
encaustic tile layers, $4; helpers, $2.40."


In presenting the fourth part of his memoir on The Tertiary Fauna
of Florida (Transactions of the Wagner Free Institute of Science,
Philadelphia), Mr. William Healey Dall observes that the interest
aroused in the explorations of Florida by the Wagner Institute and its
friends and by the United States Geological Survey has resulted in
bringing in a constantly increasing mass of material. The existence of
Upper Oligocene beds in western Florida containing hundreds of species,
many of which were new, added two populous faunas to the Tertiary
series. It having been found that a number of the species belonging to
these beds had been described from the Antillean tertiaries, it became
necessary, in order to put the work on a sound foundation, besides the
review of the species known to occur in the United States, to extend
the revision to the tertiaries of the West Indies. It is believed that
the results will be beneficial in clearing the way for subsequent
students and putting the nomenclature on a more permanent and reliable
basis.


The numerical system of the natives of Murray Island, Torres Strait, is
described by the Rev. A. E. Hunt, in the Journal of the Anthropological
Society, as based on two numbers--_netat_, one, and _neis_, two. The
numbers above two are expressed by composition--_neis-netat_, three;
_neis i neis_, or two and two, four. Numbers above four are associated
with parts of the body, beginning with the little and other fingers
of the left hand, and going on to the wrist, elbow, armpit, shoulder,
etc., on the left side and going down on the right side, to 21; and the
toes give ten numbers more, to 31. Larger numbers are simply "many."


President William Orton, of the American Association, in his address at
the welcoming meeting, showed, in the light of the facts recorded in
Alfred R. Wallace's book on The Wonderful Century, that the scientific
achievements of the present century exceed all those of the past
combined. He then turned to the purpose of the American Association to
labor for the discovery of new truth, and said: "It is possible that
we could make ourselves more interesting to the general public if we
occasionally foreswore our loyalty to our name and spent a portion of
our time in restating established truths. Our contributions to the
advancement of science are often fragmentary and devoid of special
interest to the outside world. But every one of them has a place in
the great temple of knowledge, and the wise master builders, some of
whom appear in every generation, will find them all and use them all at
last, and then only will their true value come to light."


NOTES.

The number of broods of seventeen-year and thirteen-year locusts has
become embarrassing to those who seek to distinguish them, and the
trouble is complicated by the various designations different authors
have given them. The usual method is to give the brood a number in a
series, written with a Roman numeral. Mr. C. L. Marlatt proposes a
regular and uniform nomenclature, giving the first seventeen numbers to
the seventeen-year broods, beginning with that of 1893 as number I, and
the next thirteen numbers (XVIII to XXX) to the thirteen-year broods,
beginning with the brood of 1842 and 1855 as number XVIII.


Experimenting on the adaptability of carbonic acid to the inflation of
pneumatic tires, M. d'Arsonval, of Paris, has found that the gas acts
upon India rubber, and, swelling its volume out enormously, reduces it
to a condition like that following maceration in petroleum. On exposure
to the air the carbonic acid passes away and the India rubber returns
to its normal condition. Carbonic acid, therefore, does not seem well
adapted to use in inflation. Oxygen is likewise not adapted, because it
permeates the India rubber and oxidizes it, but nitrogen is quite inert
and answers the purpose admirably.


Mr. Gifford Pinchot, Forester of the Department of Agriculture, has
announced that a few well-qualified persons will be received in the
Division of Forestry as student-assistants. They will be assigned to
practical field work, and will be allowed their expenses and three
hundred dollars a year. They are expected to possess, when they come,
a certain degree of knowledge, which is defined in Mr. Pinchot's
announcement, of botany, geology, and other sciences, with good general
attainments.


In a communication made to the general meeting of the French Automobile
Club, in May, the Baron de Zeylen enumerates 600 manufacturers in
France who have produced 5,250 motor-carriages and about 10,000
motor-cycles; 110 makers in England, 80 in Germany, 60 in the United
States, 55 in Belgium, 25 in Switzerland, and about 30 in the other
states of Europe. The manufacture outside of France does not appear
to be on a large scale, for only three hundred carriages are credited
to other countries, and half of these to Belgium. The United States,
however, promises to give a good account of itself next time.


Mine No. 8 of the Sunday Creek Coal Company, to which the American
Association made its Saturday excursion from Columbus, Ohio, has
recently been equipped with electric power, which is obtained by
utilizing the waste gas from the oil wells in the vicinity. This, the
Ohio State Journal says, is the first mine in the State to make use of
this natural power.


In a bulletin relating to a "dilution cream separator" which is now
marketed among farmers, the Purdue University Agricultural Experiment
Station refers to the results of experiments made several years ago as
showing that an increased loss of fat occurs in skim milk when dilution
is practiced, that the loss is greater with cold than with warm water,
and that the value of the skim milk for feeding is impaired when it
is diluted. Similar results have been obtained at other experiment
stations. The results claimed to be realized with the separators can be
obtained by diluting the milk in a comparatively inexpensive round can.


To our death list of men known in science we have to add the names
of John Cordreaux, an English ornithologist, who was eminent as a
student, for thirty-six years, of bird migrations, and was secretary
of the British Association's committee on that subject, at Great
Cotes House, Lincolnshire, England, August 1st, in his sixty-ninth
year; he was author of a book on the Birds of the Humber District,
and of numerous contributions to The Zoölogist and The Ibis; Gaston
Tissandier, founder, and editor for more than twenty years, of the
French scientific journal _La Nature_, at Paris, August 30th, in
his fifty-seventh year; besides his devotion to his journal, he was
greatly interested in aërial navigation, to which he devoted much
time and means in experiments, and was a versatile author of popular
books touching various departments of science; Judge Charles P. Daly,
of New York, who, as president for thirty-six years of the American
Geographical Society, contributed very largely to the encouragement
and progress of geographical study in the United States, September
19th, in his eighty-fourth year; he was an honorary member of the Royal
Geographical Society of London, of the Berlin Geographical Society,
and of the Imperial Geographical Society of Russia; he was a judge of
the Court of Common Pleas of New York from 1844 to 1858, and after
that chief justice of the same court continuously for twenty-seven
years, and was besides, a publicist of high reputation, whose opinion
and advice were sought by men charged with responsibility concerning
them on many important State and national questions; Henri Lévègne de
Vilmorin, first vice-president of the Paris School of Horticulture;
O. G. Jones, Physics Master of the City of London School, from an
accident on the Dent Blanche, Alps, August 30th; Ambrose A. P. Stewart,
formerly instructor in chemistry in the Lawrence Scientific School, and
afterward Professor of Chemistry in the Pennsylvania State College and
in the University of Illinois, at Lincoln, Neb., September 13th; Dr.
Charles Fayette Taylor, founder of the New York Orthopedic Dispensary,
and author of articles in the Popular Science Monthly on Bodily
Conditions as related to Mental States (vol. xv), Gofio, Food, and
Physique (vol. xxxi), and Climate and Health (vol. xlvii), and of books
relating to his special vocation, died in Los Angeles, Cal., January
25th, in his seventy-second year.


Efforts are making for the formation of a Soppitt Memorial Library of
Mycological Literature, to be presented to the Yorkshire (England)
Naturalists' Union as a memorial of the services rendered to
mycological science and to Yorkshire natural history generally, by the
late Mr. H. T. Soppitt.


The United States Department of Agriculture has published, for general
information and in order to develop a wider interest in the subject,
the History and Present Status of Instruction in Cooking in the
Public Schools of New York City, by Mrs. Louise E. Hogan, to which an
introduction is furnished by A. C. True, Ph. D.


The United States Weather Bureau publishes a paper On Lightning and
Electricity in the Air, by Alexander G. McAdie, representing the
present knowledge on the subject, and, as supplementary to it or
forming a second part, Loss of Life and Property by Electricity, by
Alfred J. Henry.


A gift of one thousand dollars has been made to the research fund of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science by Mr. Emerson
McMillin, of New York.