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Title: Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899

Author: Various

Editor: William Jay Youmans

Release date: April 11, 2014 [eBook #45361]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Judith Wirawan, Greg Bergquist and the Online
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Produced by Judith Wirawan, Greg Bergquist and the Online
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file was produced from images generously made available
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  Established by Edward L. Youmans

              APPLETONS'
           POPULAR SCIENCE
               MONTHLY

              EDITED BY
         WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS

               VOL. LV

        MAY TO OCTOBER, 1899

              NEW YORK
       D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
                1899




          COPYRIGHT, 1899,
     BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.





[Illustration: WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS.]




APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

JULY, 1899.




SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND ITS APPLICATION TO THE BIBLE.

BY THE REV. DAVID SPRAGUE, B. D.


"Trained and organized common sense" is Professor Huxley's definition
of science. There is probably no better.

The popular mind persists in thinking that there is a wide difference
between science and knowledge in general. Yes, there is a wide
difference, but it is just the difference that there is between a
trained and organized _body_ of men for the accomplishing of some
great work, and a _crowd_ of men unorganized and undisciplined. What
unscientific knowledge has accomplished may be roughly seen in the
condition of savage races to-day; while the changes wrought by
knowledge trained and organized, in enlarging the sum of knowledge, in
extending men's power of perception, and in increasing the facilities
not merely for living, but for living well, are changes in comparison
with which all others recorded in history are trifling.

It will be profitable for us, in order to get a clearer idea of
scientific method, to trace as briefly as possible the history of
science and the development of the scientific idea.

The very beginning of science is beyond our ken. We can form no idea
of just what stage in the intellectual development of the race
witnessed the rise of training and order in men's knowledge. Long
before the dawn of history there must have been some degree of
orderliness in men's knowledge--some grouping of facts, and reasoning
from one thing to another. Rude classification would be made, e. g.,
among animals, as some were found to be good for food and others not;
so among herbs, as to size, form, color, use for food and medicine,
poisonous qualities, etc.; so among woods, as some were better
adapted than others to use as instruments of war and of the chase. Men
must also, very early in their development, have noticed the changes
that took place in the heavens: the sun by day, the moon and the stars
by night; have grouped the stars into little clusters here and there
as they seemed rudely to resemble forms of things which they knew, and
as some were brighter than the rest; have begun to reckon periods of
time according as position of sun and moon varied. In their
observation of the heavens no other phenomenon would have attracted as
much attention as an eclipse, and for a long time men would have
ascribed this occasional phenomenon to the intervention of some
supernatural power. In process of time, however, as their observations
were made with more care and recorded, some regularity would be
noticed in these, as in other phenomena of the skies; and the period
of their recurrence being at last approximately known by those more
learned than the rest, predictions of eclipses would be made and
verified by what would seem to the multitude direct supernatural aid.
Hence the earliest scientific records that have come down to us are of
eclipses observed, and in time regularly predicted, by the Chaldeans;
hence also the reputation that was always given to the Chaldeans of
having magical power. Coming down now to the time when men first
seemed to have a genuine spirit of scientific inquiry, we find it
among the Greeks some five hundred years B. C. Whatever of rudely
scientific work had been done before, seems to have been for practical
or religious purposes. About that time, however, men began to
investigate and speculate in order to find out the truth, and soon we
see a class of men, known as philosophers, whose one aim was to find
out, because they loved, the truth. "What they saw excited them to
meditate, to conjecture, and to reason; they endeavored to account for
natural events, to trace their causes, to reduce them to principles"
(Whewell). They set about this, too, in no small, narrow way. They
wanted to go right to the bottom of things, of everything at once, and
to know the great principles, as they called them, of Nature and of
life. That was the reason why the actual scientific results of Greek
thought, with all its splendid powers, were so meager. Two things are
the necessary conditions of science--facts, and the human power of
reasoning. Two processes must be carried out in order to yield any
scientific result: facts must be patiently accumulated, and the mind
must set its reasoning powers to work on them. It was in the first of
these that the Greeks were wanting. They did not realize the need of
endless patience in learning the details of Nature's way of working.
They wished to take in all of Nature with one tremendous sweep of
thought. They did a little investigating and a great deal of
reasoning. Occasionally, however, we find an instance of inquiry into
the cause of more definite and limited phenomena, which seems much
more to suggest the true spirit of physical inquiry. We have one
recorded by Herodotus, which is the more remarkable from being so
nearly alone. It is in reference to the fact which he had observed
about the flooding of the Nile--that it was flooded for one hundred
days, beginning with the summer solstice; and that from that time it
diminished, and was during the winter months very low. He tells us
that he made pressing inquiries about the cause of it from many of the
Egyptians, but that he found no satisfaction, and apparently little
interest in the matter. Three different theories on the subject that
had been propounded by the Greeks he examines in detail and confutes;
and finally he states a theory of his own. And yet even in this
instance of scientific inquiry he commits the usual fault of the
Greeks--he does not pursue far enough the investigation of the facts
of the case, and the absence of the facts he tries to make up for by
exhaustive arguments on words used in describing the phenomena.

Strange as it may seem at a first glance, it is a very similar trouble
that we find with the reasoning of Aristotle. It seems strange, I say,
because we are accustomed to associate with Aristotle just those
things which would seem to indicate a scientific temper, and to give
promise of great results: 1. Extensive accumulation of facts. Many of
those works of Aristotle which remain to us are vast treasuries of
facts collected from almost every field of Nature, and we have reason
for thinking that he made other wonderful collections of facts which
have not come down to us. His work has been a standing marvel to all
time. 2. Extraordinary powers of reasoning. 3. The fact that he
asserted in the strongest terms the need of building up the whole
superstructure of knowledge on _experience_. And yet throughout his
works, side by side with the evidences of profound knowledge and
profound speculation, there are repeated instances of reasonings which
are not only unsound, but altogether puerile--e. g., in the beginning
of his treatise on the heavens he proves the world to be perfect by
reasoning of the following kind: "The bodies of which the world is
composed are solids, and therefore have three dimensions. Now, three
is the most perfect number; it is the first of numbers, for of one we
do not speak as a number; of two we say both; but three is the first
number of which we say all; moreover, it has a beginning, a middle,
and an end." That is a fair instance of his scientific incompetency.
He has the facts, he is able to reason, but he does not reason
_according to_ the facts; he loses sight of them and builds up great
arguments on words and names. To give one more example: "He is
endeavoring to explain the fact that when the sun's light passes
through a hole, whatever be the form of the hole, the bright image,
if formed at any considerable distance from the hole, is circular.
This, of course, is easily seen to be a necessary consequence of the
circular figure of the sun, if we conceive light to be diffused from
the luminary by means of straight rays proceeding from every point.
But Aristotle attempts to explain the fact by saying that the sun's
light has a circular nature which it always tends to manifest. He
employs the vague and loose conception of a circular _quality_ instead
of the distinct conception of rays" (Whewell).

It is a kind of reasoning which may be applied with great show of
success to everything, but which really proves nothing.

And so, as a matter of fact, Aristotle did not leave one single
scientific generalization of value to succeeding ages.

Did not the Greeks then do anything in the way of physical science
that was to stand? Yes, there was a little work that was exact, and
therefore lasting. Archimedes established the fundamental principle on
the one hand of the lever, on the other of pressure in fluids--that is
to say, laid the stable foundation of the sciences of statics and
hydrostatics. Euclid developed, if he did not discover, the law of the
reflection of light. Pythagoras discovered, and his followers
developed, some of the fundamental principles of harmonics. Greater
than any of the others in genuine scientific work was Hipparchus, who,
with many erroneous theories, yet really laid the permanent foundation
of the science of astronomy. Only one more name need be mentioned
among the ancients--that of Ptolemy, who seemed possessed of a
genuinely scientific spirit. He accomplished little original work,
made no broad generalization (what is known as the Ptolemaic system
was in reality the system of Hipparchus), but more than any other of
the ancients he is the type of the true scientist in these
respects--the accuracy of his observations, the thoroughness of his
work at every point, and the really great additions that he made to
science in the way of verifying, correcting, and extending the theory
he received. He lived in the early part of the second century A. D.

And the next name to attract our notice is that of Copernicus, more
than twelve hundred years later. What is the meaning of that lapse of
time? After such noble foundations had been laid, was there no great
scientific work built thereon in all those centuries? Absolutely none.
It will be well for us to think for a moment of what were the reasons
for that barrenness, for the same causes are more or less at work at
all times to hinder the growth of science and the extension of
scientific method.

1. And what strikes us most forcibly at the outset is a lack of the
sense of the importance of physical science. Through most of that
period Christianity dominated the best thought of Europe, and the
tremendous practical problems that confronted the Church for a long
time threw everything else into the shade; for a long time, I said,
during the early part of this period in especial, when the Church in
general seemed to realize its responsibility to win the whole world to
its Master, and every individual coming into the Church was made to
feel that the Church's work was above everything else in the world.
The importance of an exhaustive knowledge of the facts of Nature
seemed trifling when compared with questions of character and future
life, and making the world feel the power of Christ. Eusebius only
expressed the thought of much of his age when he said, speaking of
those who pursued the study of physical science, "It is not through
ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their
useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our
souls to the exercise of better things." And with that deliberate
turning away from such subjects there would come of necessity that
indistinctness of ideas about natural things which is fatal to all
scientific investigation. Witness these words of Lactantius: "To
search for the causes of natural things; to inquire whether the sun be
as large as he seems; whether the moon is convex or concave; whether
the stars are fixed in the sky or float freely in the air; of what
size and of what material are the heavens, whether they be at rest or
in motion; what is the magnitude of the earth, on what foundations it
is suspended and balanced--to dispute and conjecture on such matters
is just as if we chose to discuss what we think of a city in a remote
country, of which we never heard but the name." As Whewell, from whom
these last two quotations are taken, says, "It is impossible to
express more forcibly that absence of any definite notions on physical
subjects which led to this tone of thought."

2. Contributing, without doubt, largely to that indistinctness of
ideas, and to the low value put upon physical science, was the
mysticism common to the early and the mediæval Church, and to the
world at large for many hundred years--the mysticism, that is to say,
the habit of assigning supernatural agencies to the various phenomena
of Nature, and of regarding them as subject to the vicissitudes of
arbitrary will rather than as following out the workings of a
consistent orderly plan. There is no need of any attempt to show how
fatal such a spirit is to science, nor how that spirit seemed for a
long while to dominate the world. "It changed physical science to
magic; astronomy to astrology; the study of the composition of bodies
to alchemy; and even mathematics was changed till it became the
contemplation of the spiritual relations of number and figure." That
the Church was not, as has been often charged, responsible for this
spiritualizing temper of the age is apparent to any one familiar with
the development of Greek philosophy and with the history of the
superstitions of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, it is also true that
that temper has been increased in the past and is fostered to-day by
the undue emphasis which the Church has placed upon the miraculous
character of early Christianity.

3. We notice in the history of the thought of this period, both in the
Church and in the world at large, a disposition rather to examine,
criticise, and comment upon the work of others, than to do
investigating and thinking of one's own. That such a spirit should be
found in the Church is not to be wondered at, for the authority of
Christ and his apostles would seem to leave no room for originality of
thinking on religious subjects, and the sacred Scriptures would give
abundant scope for the exercise of the highest learning and of
intellectual penetration in interpreting. But the same tendency is
noticed outside of the Church, as the great schools of interpreters of
Aristotle and of Plato, and the large volumes of abstracts and
compilations from preceding writers, bear witness. But when vast
learning and ability are expended, rather on such labors than on
investigation into the secrets of Nature, science does not thrive.

4. And once again we observe the gradually increasing dogmatic
tendency of the Church, the claim to be the repository of all
knowledge, the stifling of thought, and of investigation into what
might lead men away from the truth and the "faith once delivered to
the saints."

It seemed best to give in detail these four evident reasons for the
barrenness of science during those centuries, because, as I said, the
same things to-day, though with decreasing force, interfere with the
progress of science and the extension of scientific method. I shall
refer to them again a little further on.

The great revival of four centuries ago in art, in learning, in
religion, reached also to science. At last the spell of ignorance, of
unreasoning prejudice, of offensive dogmatism, and of vague mysticism,
that had held the world for so long, was broken. The new life of
science was feeble at first, and remained long in its swaddling
clothes. It was about the middle of the sixteenth century that
Copernicus gave his great work to the world; then no great work again
for nearly one hundred years, when Kepler, Galileo, and Stevinus
arise. But the century has not been an idle one. Everywhere men have
been awakening to the new light, have begun to think freely and
fearlessly; are no longer deterred by the cry of magic or the
prohibition of church dignitaries from investigating into Nature for
themselves. And so, when in the seventeenth century those mighty ones
appeared, thoughtful people in great numbers were found to welcome
the new truths; and at almost the same time Descartes by his essay on
Scientific Method, and Bacon by the Novum Organum, were able to give
an impetus to scientific investigation such as the world had never
felt before.

The history of the progress of science from that time to this is too
complex to receive any treatment in a paper of this character. How it
has been throughout a record of successive triumphs; how gradually one
department after another of Nature's workings has been mastered and
reduced to orderly system; how all systems have been themselves
reduced to one, harmonious and complete, in the magnificent
generalization of evolution; how all the time not only has the sum of
knowledge been steadily augmented, but the power of acquiring
knowledge marvelously enlarged--all of that we know. That which has
accomplished such results is science, and the process employed has
been scientific method. We are in a position now to have a fairly
intelligent idea of it. Look at it and see.

"Scientific method" is not, of course, a technical expression, as are
induction, deduction, etc. Yet it means something very definite. It is
that method of dealing with phenomena which reason declares and
experience has shown to insure the greatest accuracy in results. There
are in the complete process four necessary steps: 1. Observation of
facts. 2. Comparison and classification, or generalization. 3.
Deduction. 4. Verification.

We can see these steps alike in the simplest scientific attempt of our
remote ancestors, and in the work of a Newton or a Darwin.

To use an illustration of the former suggested by the book of
Leviticus. In very early times it was noticed that animals that had
both the characteristics of being cloven-hoofed and of chewing the cud
were good for food. A new animal is discovered having those
characteristics. It is argued from the general principle laid down
that this new animal is good for food, and the matter is verified by
experiment. There are the four distinct steps: observation of the
facts, drawing a principle from the comparison of the facts, deducing
as to the particular case, verifying. The result is, of course, not
only a classifying of the particular case, but also the extension of
the principle. So with the generalization of the law of gravitation.
Numberless facts were observed with the greatest care; from them the
principle was generalized; from that again deductions were made as to
particular cases; and the results were verified. But though the steps
of the process are the same in both instances, yet what a vast
difference between them! Take the first step, the observation of
facts. All that the thought of the earlier age could do was to note a
few striking resemblances and differences among the animals that
roamed the neighboring forests. What could be done in the later age,
ay, what the scientific temper of the age demanded, was the most
rigidly careful examination of multitudes of facts; examination by a
trained mind and with all the improved appliances which science and
art had given to the world, and then submitted to the searching
scrutiny of other trained minds, with like appliances. Or take the
last step, verification. In one case it meant finding the effect upon
the taste and upon the health. In the other, what it meant may be
judged from the account we have of one of Newton's investigations. In
applying his hypothesis of gravitation (it was only a hypothesis then)
to the motion of the moon, there was a very slight divergence, about
two feet a minute, between the time of the revolution of the moon in
its orbit, as he calculated it and as he observed it. He was not
satisfied until, _eighteen years after_, on account of an improvement
made in the method of taking observations, he was able to obtain what
he regarded as a verification.

And so what we learn from the history of science is the gradual
_development_ of scientific method. Scientific method in the work of
Hipparchus meant a very different thing from the scientific method of
the Chaldeans. Very different still is the scientific method of
studying the heavens to-day. So to an even greater degree is there a
difference between the scientific method of studying the earth to-day
and as our fathers studied it. It is not merely the multitude of facts
that we have learned, nor the marvelous instruments that we have made
to aid us in our observations; it is also, and by no means least,
this--that men all these centuries have been _learning_ to observe, to
reason, and to verify.

We may say that science and scientific method have grown and developed
together: the development of one has invariably advanced the
development of the other, and, on the other hand, where one has
remained stationary, or has retrograded, so has the other.

History has enabled us to see this other fact also: that the
conditions which interfered with the growth of science in the past not
only interfere with it always, wherever they exist, but to very much
the same degree interfere with the free application of scientific
method. What those conditions were during one long period of history
we saw--a failure to realize its importance as compared with questions
of conduct; a tendency to comment rather than investigate; a tendency
to ascribe everything to spiritual agency rather than to natural
causes; and lastly, dogmatism. We very well know how, as a matter of
fact, those very conditions do interfere with the application of
scientific method to-day.

How far is scientific method applicable to the investigation of the
Bible? Is there any department of human knowledge to which scientific
method of investigation is not applicable? If scientific method is
what we defined it to be, that method of dealing with phenomena which
reason declares and experience has shown to insure the greatest
accuracy in results, then there is obviously no department of
knowledge to which that method is not applicable, for it means simply
the method which will bring us nearest to the truth. When we are
dealing with the highest spiritual verities we use that method which
will bring us nearest to the truth; we are bound to use it in the
interest of truth! That does not mean that we are to look for material
causes for spiritual phenomena; nor does it mean that those things
which in their nature appeal to the sensibilities, or have to do with
conduct, or require an exercise of faith, must, in order for us to
find out the truth, be removed from the domain of sensibility,
conduct, faith. That would be a most unscientific method of
investigation. The very first canon of scientific method is that it be
appropriate to the matter in hand. And so in investigating the truths
which are distinctly taught in the Bible--truths which are of the
nature of a revelation of God's will and which are designed to reach
and affect the whole nature of man--to take no account of other
faculties in a man besides his power of apprehending intellectually,
and of reasoning logically, would be unscientific beyond hope of
pardon.

But what I wish especially to consider is a different kind of
investigation of the Bible--one not concerned with the truths taught
in the Bible, but with the Bible itself, as a collection of writings
that has come down to us from the past. What is the nature of these
writings? Who are their authors? Are there any of them which have more
than one author? Are there any which are compilations from several
different sources? What is the age in which these works were written
or compiled? All of those, and similar questions, are not only the
appropriate but the necessary inquiries of a truth-loving mind. They
will continue to be asked until they are satisfactorily answered. With
reference to other writings, the persistence of such inquiries will
depend, except in cases of pure curiosity, upon the importance of such
writings to the world. On that principle there will be no cessation of
inquiries concerning the Bible until they are, as I said,
satisfactorily answered, for no other writings are to be compared, in
their importance to the world, with the writings of the Bible. How can
such answers be given? Where does competency to give answer lie? Does
it lie in the authority of the Church? Not to lay any stress upon the
fact, one way or the other, that the Church, except in certain
localities, has never declared on the canon of the Bible, much less
on the questions proposed above, there is no such authority residing
in the Church, unless we grant the claim sometimes made for her, to
infallibility. With those making such a claim we must, within the
limits of this paper, decline to argue.

But if not the Church, what other authority can give us the answers we
seek? The authority of primitive tradition, or of the opinions of
great commentators, or of the great mass of Christian people of modern
times? Authority which is so shadowy in other things that might be
mentioned would surely count for nothing in a matter as grave as this.
Or can particular expressions of the Bible itself be taken to settle
the matter once for all? But as to most of those very questions the
Bible itself is silent; and if it had spoken, yet the question of
competent authority would only be put one step further back. Or, once
again, can the answer come from "the spirit which is in man," guided
by God's Spirit? But in this, as in the instance mentioned above, that
which has been shown to be incompetent in so many other things can not
be called competent in this.

There is, there can be, according to the requirement of our minds,
only one answer which will satisfy; it is that which is determined by
purely scientific method--that is to say, according to the nature of
the subject, that method of investigating literary works which reason
declares and experience has shown to insure the greatest accuracy in
results. That method is known by the name of the "Higher Criticism."

What is the history of the higher criticism? One would imagine, from
the language often used by the opponents of its application to the
Bible, that it was an arbitrary method of criticism, invented in these
rationalizing times expressly for the purpose of doing away with the
divine character of the Bible. But higher criticism has been in use in
examining the classics and other (nonscriptural) writings of former
ages for fully two hundred years. The first one to state its
fundamental principles was Du Pin, in his New History of
Ecclesiastical Writers, published in 1694. In 1699 Bentley published
his famous examination of the epistles of Phalaris, according to the
methods and principles of the higher criticism. There is no better
instance of scientific investigation as to authenticity. These
epistles had been commonly accepted by scholars as the work of
Phalaris, and accounted of great value. Bentley, by his searching
examination of them, proved them to be the forgery of a sophist, so
conclusively that no scholar worthy of the name has ventured to
question the result since. That, I say, was in 1699.

The first work in the way of higher criticism of the Bible, Eichhorn's
Introduction to the Old Testament, was not published till nearly one
hundred years later.

But that very modernness of the work brings it with some into
disfavor. "If that is the true way of investigating the biblical
writings," they say, "why are we so long in finding it out? Why did
not the fathers of the Church--mighty, indeed, as many of them were,
with keenness of insight into the Bible, with profound knowledge of
its characteristics, with substantially the same evidence before them
as we have now--why did not they give us the principles of the higher
criticism, if those principles are true?"

For the very same reason as science in general has not until very
lately begun to do its true work. How meager is all the scientific
work done in the ages of the past in comparison with that done during
the last three hundred years! Men were not up to it; they were only
learning the scientific method. So, the scientific method of examining
literature, men have not learned till within the past two hundred
years. Having all the facts before them which we have now would avail
nothing without the knowledge of _how_ to observe, to classify, to
deduce, to verify, any more in the field of letters than in the field
of Nature; any more in the Bible than in other literary works. Among
the immense benefits which science has conferred upon the world,
surely this should not be accounted the least, that it has taught us a
method by which we may find out with ever-growing certainty the truth
concerning the Bible itself.

What, then, should be the attitude of lovers of truth toward the
higher criticism of the Bible? It can be only one--openness of mind to
the ready acceptance of its work. Not that all its present results are
to be accepted as final, for its work is still confessedly incomplete.
Moreover, we can not fail to see that all investigations into the
sacred Scriptures have not been prompted by a genuine love of truth,
nor carried on with that judicial mind that should characterize every
one working in the name of science. So that not all that has been done
in the name of the higher criticism has been according to scientific
method. Nevertheless, there are results already obtained, bearing the
stamp of truth--such as the composite character of the Hexateuch; the
double authorship of Isaiah; the post-exilic date of many of the
Psalms--results which to a scientific mind have the practical
certainty of a demonstration, but which the great majority of
Christian ministers, who are supposed to look at such things
intelligently, are not ready to accept.

Are not the ministry in general more zealous to do as St. Paul says,
"Hold fast that which is good," than either to do, as he also says,
"Prove all things," or to make sure that what they hold fast is the
best? Well, undoubtedly that is the better way to do, if they are to
do only one--to "hold fast that which is good." And yet it is a
blessed thought that every brave, fearless effort which men make
toward finding out the truth, with every help that they can get from
reason and a knowledge of the past, is an effort after God.




GEOLOGY OF THE KLONDIKE GOLD FIELDS.[1]

    [Footnote 1: From Alaska and the Klondike. With thirty-five
    full-page illustrations and three maps. By Prof. Angelo Heilprin.
    New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 326. Price, $1.75.]

BY ANGELO HEILPRIN,

LATE PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF
PHILADELPHIA, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.


The gold fields of the Klondike or Troandik district, as officially
designated, lie along or immediately about the waters, whether direct
or tributary, of the Klondike, an eastern affluent of the Yukon, which
discharges into the "father of northern waters" at the site of Dawson.
The Klondike itself, whose upper waters are as yet only imperfectly
known, seemingly carries but little gold, the main quantity of the
precious metal and that which has made the region famous being
contributed by one of its southern arms, the Bonanza, and by a
tributary of this, the Eldorado. Hunker Creek, draining a mountainous
district several miles to the eastward of the Bonanza, and like it a
southern affluent of the Klondike, finds promise of a wealth but
little if at all inferior to that of the Bonanza. In a broader or more
popular sense, the Klondike region not only embraces the special
district so designated in the books of the Gold Commissioner, but also
the entire tract which heads up to the sources of the streams that
have before been mentioned, and thereby, with Quartz, Sulphur, and
Dominion Creeks as tributaries of Indian River, takes in the greater
portion of the Indian River mining district, and with Baker, Reindeer,
and other creeks on the west, the official districts indicated by
these names as well. With this limitation the region roughly defines
an area about forty miles square, whose northern boundary lies
somewhat to the north of the sixty-fourth parallel of latitude, and on
the west reaches to within about thirty-five miles of the
international boundary, the one hundred and forty-first meridian of
west longitude.

This area of approximately fifteen hundred square miles, which but
little exceeds that of Rhode Island or of the county of Cornwall in
England, may be broadly characterized as being gently mountainous,
with elevations of five hundred to fifteen hundred feet, and in the
highest parts of about twenty-two hundred feet. Its lowest depression
is the valley of the Yukon, which, in itself occupying a position
about fourteen hundred feet above the sea, gives to these points
absolute elevations of three and nearly four thousand feet. Dome
Mountain, or, as it is frequently designated, simply "The Dome," and
less often "Solomon's Dome," "King Dome," and "Mount Ophir," appears
to be the culminating point of the entire region; and its prominent
position at the water parting of Bonanza, Hunker, Sulphur, and
Dominion Creeks makes it a noble figure in the landscape, and the most
interesting single feature to the prospector and miner. No absolute
determinations for altitude have as yet been made for it, but when
crossing the summit it seemed to me that it could not be much under
four thousand feet, and I believe that Mr. Ogilvie gives to it about
thirty-five hundred feet. The landscape which this mountain dominates
is surpassingly beautiful, and I know of no finer view from similarly
low mountains than that which this one commands. The sharply incised
wooded valleys of the different streams that head up to it tear the
mountain into projecting buttresses, and in the ridge that leads off
from it southwestward contracts it to the extent of forming for half a
mile or more a narrow backbone or saddle. In this respect it reminded
me much of Mount Katahdin, in Maine. On a clear day the distant main
mass of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains is sharply outlined against
the northeastern sky, a most impressive setting to the verdant slopes
that trend off toward it, only to disappear in the belt of plain that
separates the two mountain systems. I was unfortunate in not getting
the full benefit of this view, as at the time of my first crossing the
atmosphere was very cloudy, and on the second it was so surcharged
with smoke from forest fires in the valleys of Gold Bottom, Quartz,
and Sulphur Creeks that hardly more than the foreground was visible.

[Illustration: A BIT OF NORWAY IN ALASKA.--CASCADE NEAR SKAGUAY.]

A succession of five or six knobs runs out from the ridge to which
reference has been made and which trends off in the direction of the
head waters of Eldorado, and these, together with the main Dome, are
sometimes spoken of as the "Seven Domes," but they have no particular
significance in the orographic detail and can not even be said to be
clearly defined to the eye. Dome Mountain is held in a respect
bordering almost on veneration by the Klondikers, inasmuch as it is
generally thought to be the mainspring of the gold supply which is
contained in the streams that fall off from it, and this means nearly
all the good and the promising streams of the entire region. And, in
truth, there is for the moment no way of absolutely disposing of the
miner's suppositions, nor can the circumstance that little or no gold
has yet been found in place either on or in the mountain be given much
value in the discussion of the probable origin of the gold, inasmuch
as the same negative condition confronts us in a study of the rocks of
all other parts of the same and adjoining regions. Assuming that
alluvial gold is in the main a derivative from reef gold, it is
certainly strange that streams flowing in well-nigh opposite
directions, and yet rising within very short distances of one
another, should be so largely charged with gold, unless they have
obtained it from a common source; nor can the fact, as received and
reported by most miners, but of the full import of which I have not
yet fully made up my mind, that the different streams carry different
classes of gold, be argued away as having no significance in this
connection. Claim holders profess at most times to be able to
distinguish between Eldorado gold and that of Bonanza, between the
gold of Bonanza and that of Hunker or Dominion, and so on; and there
is no question that marked differences in color and in the contours of
the coarse flakes and nuggets do present themselves, and even in
narrower limits than has here been outlined. Thus, the gold from
French Hill, abreast of Claim 17 on Eldorado, has a distinctiveness
that is largely its own, and hardly follows the gold of the rest of
the Eldorado tract; and the same is true of the gold of Skookum Hill
in its relations to that of Bonanza, and also of that of Victoria
Gulch. Moreover, the recent assays that have been made by the Bank of
British North America and the Canadian Bank of Commerce, in Dawson, of
the gold of the different creeks and gulches show plainly that marked
differences as to fineness are distinctive qualities--at least they
appear to be such at the present time. Thus, while Eldorado and
Bonanza gold generally assays but about $15.50 or $15.80 to the ounce,
Dominion gold shows as high as $17.80, and Hunker close to $18.50; the
gold of Bear Creek, a minor tributary of the Klondike, is reported to
actually give $19.20 to the ounce, falling only behind the almost pure
specimens that have been reported from American Creek and Mynook, and
to which a valuation of nearly $20 has been given. If these assumed
facts continue to be proved true, then they must argue in favor of a
distribution of gold from largely localized spots or areas, a
conclusion that is also pointed to by a number of other circumstances.
On the other hand, there are some facts which point in quite the
opposite direction, and some of these will be referred to later on.

[Illustration: THE VALE OF ELDORADO.]

None of the mountains of the region even approximates the snow line,
which would here probably occupy a position not much below six
thousand feet, and on the northern face perhaps even rise to seven
thousand feet. Not a vestige of snow was seen by me when crossing the
Dome, not even in the most sheltered hollows, a condition that at
first strikes one as strange, considering that in so many parts of our
own mountains of equal or less elevation snow may be found lingering
through a long period of the summer months. But here the greatly
protracted hours of summer daylight and heat, together with the
correspondingly diminished period of night, when a regelation might
take place or melting at least could be arrested, have a marked
influence in dissipating the winter's snows and ice when these are not
particularly heavy. I did not find the August heat quite so intense on
the mountain tops as I had been led to suppose that it would be, but
there was quite enough of it to satisfy an ample vegetation and to
make heavy garments in walking more than a luxury. Unfortunately, my
thermometer was away from me at this time, and as sensation in this
dry northern climate is so difficult to gauge by the standard of the
mercurial index, I shall not hazard a guess as to the actual reading.

Taking the mountains in their entirety, it is difficult from single
points of view to determine for them any definite relation. There are
so many valleys in close proximity to one another, some very ancient
and others relatively modern, and with trends so opposed in all
directions, that in the absence of a dominant ridge or mass this
relation becomes very confused; and I was not in a position, with the
limited time at my command and the deficiency of rock outcrops, to
positively define any main line or axis of uplifts. Yet I suspect that
there is one such, with a generally east and west bearing, whose trend
might correspond with that of the ridge already referred to, which,
with a southwesterly deflection, unites Dome Mountain with the mass
that separates the upper Eldorado from Chief Gulch. What strikes one
as particularly interesting in the conformation of some of these
mountains when seen from an elevation is their hummocky appearance.
This is particularly noticeable in the mountains which close in the
Eldorado and Bonanza Valleys. With considerable actual elevations,
they convey the impression of being merely swells or undulations of an
open surface, very much like magnified morainic knolls in a glaciated
country. This depressed type of mountain structure, with the evidence
of its expanded valleys and gently flowing contours, carries with it
the proof of long-continued degradation, and of a history whose pages
read far back into geological chronology.

With the evidences of antiquity before us, there are yet indications,
amounting, it seems to me, almost to proof, that many of the more
pronounced features of the region date their origin from only a
comparatively recent period. Such is the case with a number of valleys
that are tributary to the main ones, and even the latter appear to
have been modified by late stream displacements. Taking the Eldorado
or Bonanza, with their open U-shaped troughs and in most parts gently
sloping banks, as types of the older valleys, it is surprising to note
how many of their tributaries have the deeply incised and narrow
contours; and I am led almost to conclude that some of these are
really of very late construction. The stream displacements, which, by
reason of the indices they give to the finding of new placers, are now
beginning to be so attentively studied by the miner and prospector,
are emphatic in their testimony in this direction.[2] One has but to
note the triangular area that is included between French Gulch
(tributary to Eldorado abreast of Claims 17 and 18) and Adams Creek
(tributary to Bonanza at Claim 6 below Discovery) to be convinced of
the actuality of recent transformations. Most of the miners regard the
high-level gravels of this tract--of French Hill, Gold Hill (opposite
to Grand Forks Village), Skookum Hill, and Adams Hill--so rich in gold
as to make the claims fairly the rivals of the creek claims, as
representing the ancient high-level flow of the Eldorado and Bonanza,
but I am convinced that this is not the case (although it is certain
that both streams mentioned did at one time flow at as high, and even
considerably higher, levels). The materials that so largely
distinguish these bench or hillside gravels (placers) are in greater
part rounded bowlders or cobbles of white quartz, with a marked
deficiency of the fragmented schists and slates which make pay dirt
and bed rock in the course of the streams below.

    [Footnote 2: Prof. Israel Russell has made the interesting
    observation that orographic movement may now be taking place in
    the region of the middle Yukon, about the Lower Ramparts, with the
    uplifting of a mountain range athwart the river; on this
    supposition he seeks an explanation for the detail of the Yukon
    lowlands.]

_Per contra_, the creek claims of Eldorado and Bonanza contain, as a
rule, only an insignificant quantity of the rounded quartz bowlders,
while almost everywhere where excavations have been made the body and
substance of the output are the flattened and discoid parts of the
mother-rock of most of the region--quartzitic, micaceous, hornblendic,
and chloritic schists, and with them a less quantity of gneissic and
dioritic rock. The high quartz-capped knob to which reference has
already been made as marking the water parting of French, Nine Mile,
and Adams Creeks, has large quartz masses entering into its
composition, whether as bosses, dikes, or veins, and to them, or
rather their wasted parts, must we look for the source which has so
generously supplied the materials of the French-Adams Hills benches.
There has been a bad break-up in this quarter, and the materials
resulting from it have been swept into the confluence (delta) of the
two streams which define the main valleys. Furthermore, the descending
arcuate contour lines which are so well marked by terrace slopes on
that face of French Hill which is turned to the corner of Eldorado and
French Gulch, show plainly the receding course, in the direction of
south, of French Creek (Gulch). On the hill slopes south of the
position which it now occupies there is none of that deposit which
lies to the north of it; the riches of French Hill are delimited by
French Gulch, and even in the gulch itself there is nothing that can
be compared with what is found on the heights. Again, on the side of
Eldorado opposite to French and Gold Hills there is the same
deficiency as regards the characteristic bench deposits, and this also
holds true with the Bonanza opposite Skookum and Adams Hills. If these
high-level deposits were in fact the ancient waste of the Eldorado and
Bonanza, we should naturally expect to find at least "outliers" on
the less favored bank of the streams, and surely in the case of the
Eldorado former evidence of this deposition ought to be had on the
hillsides, similarly contoured to those of the north, which lie south
of and immediately adjoining French Gulch.

[Illustration: GRAND FORKS VILLAGE.--VALLEY OF THE BONANZA.]

Through virtually the entire Klondike tract and far beyond it on all
sides there are evidences of high water flows. No more perfect
presentation of high-level terraces can be had than that which defines
the first line of heights, of perhaps one hundred and fifty to two
hundred feet, which so beautifully impress the landscape of the Yukon
about Dawson. The observer, from a still loftier elevation, notes
these flat-topped banks, having the regularity of railroad
constructions, following the course of the river as far as the eye can
reach, here perhaps interrupted by a too steeply washed buttress,
elsewhere washed to low level by some stream which has taken a
transverse direction. A somewhat higher line of benches curves around
the still higher points of eminence, and defines the course of water
across country--such, at least, it is to-day. And all the way to the
top, scattered evidences of the recent presence of water can still be
found. I met with rolled or water-worn pebbles so near to the top (the
actual summit and not the position of the signal flag) of the high
peak overlooking Dawson that it may safely be assumed that they also
occur on the very apex (about eleven hundred feet above the present
level of the Yukon), a conclusion which is more than strengthened by
the finding of pebbles at even a greater elevation on the French-Adams
Creek knob. While thus presenting the evidence of high water levels, I
am far from convinced that this evidence points exclusively to river
flows. Much more does it appear that, in one part of its history at
least, we are dealing with the evidences of the past existence of
large lakelike bodies of water, perhaps even of a vast inland sea. The
contours of the country in a sort of ill-defined way suggest this
interpretation--an interpretation that is not, however, without
evidence to support it, and which seems also to have been entertained
before me by McConnell and by Israel Russell. The latter investigator
has, indeed, given the name of Lake Yukon to a former extensive body
of water, of which the existing Lakes Lebarge, Marsh, Tagish, and
Bennett, with the connecting Yukon, are only dissociated parts. This
lake is assumed to have been about one hundred and fifty miles in
length, with a surface elevated between twenty-five hundred and
twenty-seven hundred feet above the sea.

First in the line of evidence may perhaps be taken the universality of
wash gravel and of terrace _débris_ and the great heights which they
occupy. While I have not myself observed such evidences of water
action on the very summit of the Dome, there is reason to believe that
they do or at least did exist. Most of this summit, in its narrowed
form and rapidly descending slopes, has been, if one may use the
expression, more than washed off, and could hardly be expected to
retain for any great length of time accumulations of loose fragmental
material. But at least its far-off continuation near the source (right
fork) of Eldorado Creek bears some of it on its shoulder, and I have
also seen it in an excavation on the loftily located Claim 71 of that
stream. Nearly abreast of the international boundary, the one hundred
and forty-first meridian of west longitude (Greenwich), McConnell and
Russell noted the terrace line of the Yukon River as high up as seven
hundred and thirty feet, which is still about four hundred feet below
the point where I obtained wash gravel on the peak back of Dawson; but
Dr. George Dawson found the terraces on Dease Lake to rise to
thirty-six hundred and sixty feet, and elsewhere he calls attention to
having come across water-rolled gravel at an elevation of forty-three
hundred feet, which would probably exceed by about six hundred feet
the culminating point of Dome Mountain. Such high water could, with
the existing configuration of the land surface, hardly define any
other feature than that of a large interior sea or of a series of lake
basins; and while it may be argued that there has been sufficient
degradation of the land surface since the period of the height of
water to permit us to reconstruct a contour that would be in harmony
with altered and reduced river courses, and relieve us from the
necessity of invoking the assistance of lacustrine bodies in a
solution of the problem, it does not seem to me likely that this has
been the case. The physiognomy of the upper Yukon Valley supports this
contention, and even to-day the river has not yet fully escaped from a
lacustrine condition which is merely fragmental of a previous state.

On one point bearing upon the succession of events in the upper Yukon
Valley, and which has its connection with the history of the Klondike
region, my conclusions differ somewhat from those that have been
expressed by Dawson. This pertains to the deposit of volcanic ash
which is so marked a feature of the accumulations of the river's
banks. For nearly three hundred miles by the course of the river a
stratum of pumiceous ash, ordinarily not more than four or six inches
in thickness, constitutes almost without break the top layer but one
of the banks on either side, and that which is above it is generally
only the insignificant soil or subsoil which immediately supports the
vegetation. So persistent is this ash layer, and so uniformly does it
hold to an even thickness and to its exact position beneath the
surface, that without further examination one would be tempted to
believe from a little distance that it was merely the ordinary subsoil
layer from which the color had been leached out by vegetable growths.
Here and there, where there have been local disturbances or water
washings have produced concentration, it may have acquired a
development of a few feet, and occasionally it has accommodated itself
to flexures or saggings of the deposits which it normally caps as a
horizontal zone. Dr. Dawson, in commenting upon its occurrence,
correctly assumes that it represents one continuous volcanic eruption,
the date of which might fall well within a period of a few hundred
years, and he speculates as to its being possibly associated with an
outbreak from Mount Wrangel or some active cone which is represented
by the Indians to exist in the region of the upper White River. Beyond
this, from the normality of its position, and the assumed fact that no
fluviatile or aqueous deposits have been found overlying it, the same
observer argues that the outbreak must have taken place subsequent to
the formation of the present river courses and their valleys, a
conclusion in which I do not see my way to concur. The only
satisfactory interpretation of this vast uniformly placed and
uniformly layered deposit of ash is to me that which assumes a
deposition in a widely extended lake basin, or in shallow lagoon
waters which already in part occupied the present valley surfaces. In
such waters precipitation from long-continued suspension would proceed
gradually and evenly, to the end of shaping a deposit of nearly
uniform development and of vast extent. Such depositions we find in
the valleys lying north of the City of Mexico (Zumpango, Tequixquiac)
and in the lacustrine area of Anahuac, also in the famous
fossiliferous basin of Florissant, in Colorado. With the subsequent
formation or reformation of the river's course we should have this
deposit cut through, with the result of presenting the even layer
which is so persistent in its following. This method would also
account for the anomalous position in which we find the ash deposits;
while still holding the same relation to the top surface, it
occasionally rises far above what might be assumed to be its normal
height or level above the water's surface--from four to ten feet--a
condition that would hardly be in consonance with the assumption that
the ash was deposited after the actual river channels had been cut.
But other and more direct proof of aqueous occupation after the laying
of the ash is had in the fact that in one place at least, and
doubtless many more such will be found on closer investigation,
lacustrine or fluviatile shells (subfossils) occur in the layer
overlying the ash. A locality of this kind is found on the right bank
not many miles above the Five Finger Rapids. Here, at a height of not
more than four feet above the river, I had the pleasure of determining
species of _Limnea_ and _Physa_, associated singularly enough with
_Helix_, in the layers immediately above and below the ash bed, and in
both horizons the species were identical. This isolated fact speaks
volumes for itself. Had this been the region of Helena, Ark., I should
have been prompted to class the bed with a portion of the Mississippi
loess. What interested me further in this connection was the fact that
up to this time I had failed to bring to light one solitary mollusk
from the upper Yukon, and to all inquiries regarding the existence of
shellfish in this northern water invariably a negative reply was
received. Only on that day did I again obtain success in my
malacological effort, the almost icy waters rewarding my search with a
single specimen--unfortunately subsequently lost--of a _Bythinella_,
or some closely related type, so that even to-day my knowledge does
not permit me to state if the subfossil species of the banks have
their living representatives, either specific or generic, in the
almost wholly noncalcareous waters of the existing river. The question
from more points than one is interesting, and deserves more than
passing attention. It may be remarked in this place that the only
other fluviatile invertebrate which I found in these waters was a
white siliceous coating sponge, whose statoblasts were well visible to
the naked eye. Unfortunately, the loss of my specimens has prevented
determination, a circumstance the more to be deplored as these
fresh-water sponges are the most northern in habit known to the
zoölogist.[3]

    [Footnote 3: Professor Russell, in discussing the flood-plain
    deposits of the Yukon about the mouth of the Porcupine River, says
    that "fresh-water shells were frequently observed in the finer
    deposits." Unfortunately, no statement is made of the types which
    they represent.]

There is evidence of another kind pointing to a comparative newness of
much of the present course of the Yukon. The feature has been noticed
alike by nongeographers and geographers, and by geologists as well,
that the arm which carries the greatest volume of water does not
everywhere occupy the main orographic valley. Thus, as Dawson has well
pointed out, in coming up the stream the valley of the Big Salmon
appears to be more nearly the continuation of the main valley below
than that which still (and properly) continues to be designated the
Lewes (Yukon) above; and this is still more markedly the case with the
Hootalinqua (Teslin-too or Newberry River) at the confluence with the
Thirty Mile. Even the valley of the Pelly at its junction with the
Yukon, near Fort Selkirk, would perhaps to most persons suggest itself
as the main channel of erosion. There is no hardship to geological
facts in invoking the aid of great displacements to account for a
condition which to my mind is well impressed upon the landscape; for,
even without the proper or fully satisfactory evidence in hand to
support the view, I fully believe that the greater part of the upper
Yukon tract only recently emerged from a lacustrine condition. Nor is
it to me by any means certain that this emergence or final
reconstruction of the land surface into valley tracts need be more
than a few hundred years old, or necessarily older than the deposition
of the volcanic ash, which is hypothetically carried back to Dawson to
a possible five hundred years or so. If it should be objected that we
know of no such rapid change in the configuration of a land surface
brought about by aqueous agencies, it might be answered that the
mechanics of erosion in a pre-eminently drift-covered region, under
subarctic conditions and with the influence of a most powerful and
energetic stream near by, have neither been studied nor observed.

[Illustration: SLUICING ON THE BONANZA.]

Let us examine the possibilities of the case. As an initiatory premise
it might be assumed, without much chance of either affirmation or
denial, that the degradation of the land surface in the immediate
valleys of the main streams is or has been in the past taking place at
the rate of half a line per day; so far as the eye and ordinary
instruments of measurement are concerned this is a quite inappreciable
amount, and I see no reason why it may not be assumed as the working
power of the Yukon. With this rate of erosion a valley trough or
contour of about a foot and a third might be formed in the period of a
single year, or of nearly seven hundred feet in five hundred years;
and if we lessen the daily erosion to one quarter of the amount
stated--i. e., to an eighth of a line--we should still have in this
same period of five hundred years, speaking broadly, a trough of about
one hundred and seventy-five feet depth, quite sufficient to have
brought about most marked changes in the aspect of a drift-covered
lagoon region, and perhaps ample to account for those physiognomic
peculiarities which have been discovered. I am fully impressed with
the magnitude of the distance which separates the amount of erosion
which I have assumed--an eighth of a line daily--from the "one foot in
six thousand years," which has been preached categorically from
lecturn and text-book for the better part of a quarter of a century
and threatens to make dogma for still another period of equal length;
but the conditions here are entirely different from those of average
continental denudation--in fact, have as nearly nothing in common as
they can have. My observations in the tropics and subtropics have most
impressively taught me the lesson of rapid changes, and with the
conditions that are and have been associated with the Yukon, I am
prepared for the lesson of equal change in the north. But, as a matter
of fact, are we not taught of a removal in the west central United
States of some twelve thousand feet of rock strata in a period not
impossibly considerably less than two hundred thousand years? The one
foot in sixteen years has here likewise nothing in common with the
"prevailing" rate of continental destruction.

While stalled on a bar on the Yukon River, about two miles above Fort
Selkirk, I was much impressed with the mechanical work of the stream.
The gravel and pebbles were being hurried along rapidly under the lash
of a five to six mile current, and their groans were audible
frequently when they themselves were invisible. Every few minutes our
steamer would swerve from her seemingly fixed position by the
undercutting of the bar, and perhaps it would be not far from the
truth in saying that we should be to-day in very nearly the same
position that we were in then had it not been for this undermining
action of the stream. Let it be remembered that the Yukon has a
current ranging up to seven miles, or to eight, as some of the
navigators say, and that in certain months it is swiftly ice-bound
both on top and at the bottom, and heavily charged with bowlders, and
one may well realize the work of which it is capable. That with which
I have debited it is purely hypothetical or conjectural, but it may
serve a purpose in the elucidation of the main problem.

In its more distinctively geological relations the Klondike region may
be broadly defined as one composed in the main of schists and
schistose rocks, defining an area of considerable disturbance. Owing
to the limited number of outcrops, by far the greater part of the
surface being still buried beneath vegetation of one kind or another,
the variety of rocks included within the region can best be told from
an examination of creek bowlders or the different dumps that mark
hundreds of diggings and prospect holes along the various valleys and
gulches. Some of this output, in which may be found fragments of
quartz and quartzitic schist, of mica, hornblende, and chloritic
schists and slates, of granitic gneiss and gneissose granite,
porphyry, diabase, diorite, and quartz (quartzite), is probably
extra-territorial, having been washed in at a time when a more
extensive foreign water had access to the region; but there is enough
of outcrop to show that most, and perhaps all, of the types here
indicated are really a part of the tract. The schists and schistose
rocks, whose age from direct evidence in the field I was unable to
determine, but which are almost certainly the equivalents in greater
part of the Birch Creek series, as described by Spurr from the
American side (Birch Creek and Forty Mile districts), constitute the
kernel of the region. Observation is as yet too limited to permit of a
positive classification of these schists according to their natural
relations, and the reasons that have prompted some to consider them as
being in part of pre-Paleozoic age are not quite clear to me, although
they may easily be such. Of granite and true gneiss in position I saw
practically nothing, and the limestones and marble were not sufficient
in quantity to permit me to identify the heavy beds which are
considered to be the distinguishing element of the Forty Mile series.
The beds where exposed show in most parts steep dips--in places
standing almost vertically--but in how far these dips are uniform or
the reverse, or in any way define a line of strike with anticlinals
and synclinals, must be left for future close examination to
ascertain.

[Illustration: APPROXIMATE MAP OF THE KLONDIKE REGION]

Great lumps of white or pinkish quartz, some of them _in situ_, others
washed or rolled down the open slopes, occur at many points of some of
the mountain elevations, indicating the presence of dikes and gash
veins, and in part of interstratified beds containing this material. I
found much of it at several "horizons" of the slope back of French
Hill, and also as a cap overlying the badly cleaved and fragmented
schists of the summit (three thousand feet?) of the prominent knob
which dominates this region. The same type of "kidney" quartz appears
at repeated intervals on the slope leading up to the Dome, almost
immediately after leaving the junction of Carmack's Fork with the
Bonanza, and also on the saddle ridge which might properly be
considered to be a part of the summit of Dome Mountain. Prospectors
have in nearly all cases staked these assumed outcrops of quartz,
recognizing them as ledges, and in a number of them have claimed the
discovery of the "mother lode." So far as visible gold is concerned, I
have in nearly all cases found them to be absolutely barren, and I do
not think at this time that there is much chance of finding anything
materially valuable in them, although events might prove the reverse.
Most of the quartz that has so far been discovered in direct
association with the gold--that is to say, wrapped up with or within
itself, as in the case of the quartz-gold nuggets of French Hill--is
of a gray-blue or pinkish tint and of a granular and nonspathic type,
therefore differing materially in aspect and structure from the quartz
of the hillsides and from the greater number of the quartz bowlders
that are contained in the dumps or have been removed from bed rock.
Some of the bowlders or rolled pebbles containing coarse gold are of
the same character of quartz as the quartz of the hillsides. Notably
one such was shown to me as coming from a high-bench claim (Millett's)
on Adams Hill (left "limit" [bank] of Bonanza, between Little Skookum
and Adams Creek), and other similar fragments taken from the rock _in
situ_ were observed on Gay Gulch and the ridge which separates the
head waters of this stream from those of Eldorado. In a dump at the
mouth of Gay Gulch (a right-hand tributary of Eldorado abreast of
Claim 37) I found fragments of rotted quartz which were well sprinkled
with fine gold.

It does not by any means appear so conclusive to me as seemingly it
does to Professor Spurr that because in some gulches the gold heads up
in increasing quantities the nearer we approach the beginnings (heads)
of these gulches, and that with this approach the coarseness of the
grains and nuggets likewise increases, we are necessarily forced to
assume that the travel of the gold at large has been confined within
the boundaries of the gulches in which it is at present contained, or
that its source is to be sought near by. A number of the most "solid"
streams of the Klondike region, such as the Bonanza and Eldorado, if
we are permitted to judge from the evidence of outputs and of
prospects up to the present time, hardly sustain the conditions of
the American creeks. The richest claims on the Eldorado are, starting
from its mouth--the junction of the Bonanza--4, 5, 12, 13, 29, 30, 31,
36, with other claims abundantly rich between these. Number 30 is, I
believe, generally considered to be the banner claim, and it is
situated about three miles up--far enough, perhaps, to sustain in a
superficial way Professor Spurr's generalization as to location--and
above it 36 is not unlikely to show up as well as any of the other
creek claims below. But the valley of Eldorado, whether constricted or
open, continues for miles beyond either of its two head forks--that
which is known as Eldorado proper, and the one, Chief, or Chief Isaac
Gulch, which is geographically the continuation. So little has been
found above 36 or 37 that the stream in that part is ordinarily spoken
of as being barren. Again, so far as the tributaries on either side of
Eldorado are concerned, and the possibility that they are responsible
for the gold that is contained in the main stream between 37 and 1
rather than the Eldorado itself--a condition in no way impossible or
improbable--it can only be said for them that up to this time they
have, with the possible exception of Oro Grande (tributary to Eldorado
abreast of Claim 31), yielded very little gold themselves, and have
hardly given indication of containing much of a supply. I have used
the words "up to this time" advisedly, because I am aware upon how
little the evil reputation of a gulch rests, and how prospectors
deceive themselves by the character of their defective prospect holes.
Hence, while my argument is drawn from existing evidence, it can not
be assumed that this evidence is by any means sufficient to warrant a
conclusion. It is by no means unlikely that some of the lateral
gulches will really be found to be largely gold-bearing, and of such
Gay Gulch and the left-fork ascending of Eldorado (Eldorado proper
above 47) appear to me the most promising.[4]

    [Footnote 4: Since writing the above intelligence has been
    received of the location of a rich pay streak on Gay Gulch.]

The condition of the Bonanza is very similar to that of the Eldorado.
Its greatest wealth, as so far determined, is concentrated in its
middle course, beginning about five miles above its mouth and
terminating some six miles below its source. But very little gold, if
the information given to me is correct, has been taken out from or
determined to exist in the tract lying above Claim 42 above Discovery,
or the mouth of Victoria Gulch (left-hand tributary, whose source is
found on a ridge from the opposite side of which Gay Gulch descends to
the Eldorado), and yet the valley continues open and without material
change for at least two miles, and with a certain contraction for four
miles more. Barring the Eldorado and the streams coming in from the
same side nearest to it--Big Skookum, Little Skookum, and Adams--few
if any of the side gulches of the Bonanza are known to be really rich
in gold, and for the moment, at least, they can hardly be looked upon
as having furnished the main supply to the main stream.




THE RACE PROBLEM IN THE UNITED STATES.

BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON,

PRINCIPAL OF THE TUSKEGEE NORMAL INSTITUTE.


I have been asked a number of times during the last few months the
cause of and the cure for the riots that have taken place recently in
North Carolina and South Carolina. I am not at all sure that what I
shall say will answer these questions in a satisfactory way, nor shall
I attempt to narrow my expressions to a mere recital of what has taken
place in these two States. I prefer to discuss the problem in a
broader manner.

In the first place, in politics I am a Republican, but have always
refrained from activity in party measures, and expect to pursue this
policy in the future; so in this article I shall refrain, as I always
have done, from entering upon any discussion of mere party politics,
in the narrow and usual sense. What I shall say of politics will bear
upon the race problem and the civilization of the South in the larger
sense. In no case would I permit my political relations to stand in
the way of my speaking and acting in the manner that I believe is
going to be for the permanent interest of my race and the whole South,
regardless of mere party name and organization.

In 1873 the negro in the South had reached the point of greatest
activity and influence in public life, so far as the mere holding of
elective office was concerned. From this date those who have kept up
with the history of the South have noticed that the negro has steadily
lost in the number of elective offices held. In saying this I do not
mean that the negro has gone backward in the real and more fundamental
things of life. On the contrary, he has gone forward faster than has
been true of any other race in history, under anything like similar
circumstances.

If we can answer the question as to why the negro has lost ground in
the matter of holding elective office in the South, perhaps we shall
find that our reply will prove to be our answer also as to the cause
of the recent riots in North Carolina and South Carolina. Before
beginning a discussion of the question I have asked, I wish to say
that this change in the political influence of the negro has continued
from year to year, notwithstanding the fact that for a long time he
was protected politically, by force of Federal arms and the most rigid
Federal laws, and still more effectively, perhaps, by the voice and
influence in the halls of legislation of such advocates of the rights
of the negro race as Charles Sumner, Benjamin F. Butler, James A.
Garfield, Oliver P. Morton, Carl Schurz, and Roscoe Conkling; and on
the stump and through the public press by those great and powerful
negroes, Frederick Douglass, John M. Langston, Blanche K. Bruce, John
R. Lynch, P. B. S. Pinchback, Robert Browne Elliot, and many others;
but the negro has continued for twenty years to have fewer
representatives in the State and national legislatures. The reduction
has continued until now it is to the point where, with few exceptions,
he is without representatives in the lawmaking bodies of the State and
of the nation.

Now, let us find, if we can, a cause for this. The negro is fond of
saying that his present condition is due to the fact that the State
and Federal courts have not sustained the laws passed for the
protection of the rights of his people, but I think we shall have to
go deeper than this, because I believe that all agree that court
decisions, as a rule, represent the public opinion of the community or
nation creating and sustaining the court.

At the beginning of his freedom, it was unfortunate that those of the
white race who won the political confidence of the negro were not,
with few exceptions, men of such high character as would lead them to
assist him in laying a firm foundation for his development. Their main
purpose appears to have been, for selfish ends in too many instances,
merely to control his vote. The history of the reconstruction era will
show that this was unfortunate for all the parties in interest.

It would have been better, from any point of view, if the native
Southern white man had taken the negro, at the beginning of his
freedom, into his political confidence, and exercised an influence and
control over him before his political affections were alienated. In
the light of present experience, I think all will now agree that the
ballot would have meant more to the negro and would have been more
lasting in its results, would have caused less opposition, if it had
been given to him gradually, as he came into possession of education.

The average Southern white man has the idea to-day that if the negro
were permitted to get any political power all the mistakes of the
reconstruction period would be repeated. He forgets or ignores the
fact that thirty years of acquiring education and property and
character have produced a higher type of black man than existed thirty
years ago.

But to be more specific for all practical purposes, there are two
political parties in the South--a black man's party and a white man's
party. In saying this, I do not mean that all white men are Democrats,
for there are some white men in the South of the highest character who
are Republicans, and there are a few negroes in the South of the
highest character who are Democrats. It is the general understanding
that all white men are Democrats, or the equivalent, and that all
black men are Republicans. So long as the color line is the dividing
line in politics, so long will there be trouble.

The white man feels that he owns most of the property, furnishes the
negro most of his employment, that he pays most of the taxes, and,
besides, has had years of experience in government. There is no
mistaking the fact that the feeling which, in some way, has heretofore
taken possession of the negro--that to be manly and stand by his race
he must oppose the Southern white man with his vote--has had much to
do with intensifying the opposition to him.

The Southern white man says that it is unreasonable for the negro to
come to him, in a large measure, for his clothes, board, shelter, and
education, and for his politics to go to men a thousand miles away.
The Southern white man argues that when the negro votes he should in a
larger measure try to consult the interests of his employer, just as
the Pennsylvania employee tries to vote for the interests of his
employer.

The Southern white man argues, further, that much of the education
which has been given the negro has been defective in not preparing him
to love labor and to earn his living at some special industry, and
has, in too many cases, resulted in tempting him to live by his wits
as a political creature, or by trusting to his "influence" as a
political timeserver.

Then there is no mistaking the fact that much opposition to the negro
in politics is due to the circumstance that the Southern white man has
not got accustomed to seeing the negro exercise political power,
either as a voter or as an officeholder. Again, we want to bear it in
mind that the South has not yet reached the point where there is that
strict regard for the enforcement of the law against either black or
white men that there is in many of our Northern and Western States.
This laxity in the enforcement of the laws in general, and especially
of criminal laws, makes such outbreaks as those in North Carolina and
South Carolina of easy occurrence.

Then there is one other consideration which must not be overlooked: it
is the common opinion of almost every black man and almost every white
man that nearly everybody who has had anything to do with the making
of laws bearing upon the protection of the negro's vote has proceeded
on the theory that all the black men for all time are going to vote
the Republican ticket, and that all the white men in the South are
going to vote the Democratic ticket; in a word, all seemed to have
taken it for granted that the two races are always going to oppose
each other in their voting.

In all the foregoing statements I have not attempted to define my own
views or position, but simply to describe conditions as I have
observed them, that might throw light upon the cause of our political
troubles.

As to my own position in all these matters I do not favor the negro's
giving up anything which is fundamental and which has been guaranteed
to him by the Constitution of the United States. It is not best for
him to relinquish any of his rights; nor would his doing so be best
for the Southern white man. Every law placed in the Constitution of
the United States was placed there to encourage and stimulate the
highest citizenship. If the negro is not stimulated and encouraged by
just State and national laws to become the highest type of citizen,
the result will be worse for the Southern white man than for the
negro. Take the State of South Carolina, for example, where nearly two
thirds of the population are negroes. Unless these negroes are
encouraged by just election laws to become taxpayers and intelligent
producers, the white people of South Carolina will have an eternal
millstone about their necks.

In addressing the Southern white people at the opening of the Atlanta
Exposition, in 1895, I said:

"There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:

      "'The laws of changeless justice bind
        Oppressor with oppressed;
      And close as sin and suffering joined
        We march to fate abreast.'

"Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load
upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall
constitute one third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South,
or one third of its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one
third to the business and industrial property of the South, or we
shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing,
retarding every effort to advance the body politic."

Subsequently, in an open letter to the State Constitutional Convention
of Louisiana, I wrote:

"I am no politician; on the other hand, I have always advised my race
to give attention to acquiring property, intelligence, and character,
as the necessary basis of good citizenship, rather than to mere
political agitation. But the question upon which I write is out of
the region of ordinary politics: it affects the civilization of two
races, not for to-day alone, but for a very long time to come; it is
up in the region of duty of man to man, of Christian to Christian.

"Since the war no State has had such an opportunity to settle for all
time the race question, so far as it concerns politics, as is now
given to Louisiana. Will your convention set an example to the world
in this respect? Will Louisiana take such high and just grounds in
respect to the negro that no one can doubt that the South is as good a
friend to the negro as he possesses elsewhere? In all this, gentlemen
of the convention, I am not pleading for the negro alone, but for the
morals, the higher life of the white man as well; for the more I study
this question, the more I am convinced that it is not so much a
question as to what the white man will do with the negro as to what
the negro will do with the white man's civilization.

"The negro agrees with you that it is necessary to the salvation of
the South that restriction be put upon the ballot. I know that you
have two serious problems before you: ignorant and corrupt government
on the one hand, and on the other a way to restrict the ballot, so
that control will be in the hands of the intelligent, without regard
to race. With the sincerest sympathy with you in your efforts to find
a good way out of the difficulty, I want to suggest that no State in
the South can make a law that will provide an opportunity or
temptation for an ignorant white man to vote and withhold the
opportunity or temptation for an ignorant colored man without injuring
both men. No State can make a law that can thus be executed without
dwarfing for all time the morals of the white man in the South. Any
law controlling the ballot that is not absolutely just and fair to
both races will work more permanent injury to the whites than to the
blacks.

"The negro does not object to an educational and property test, but
let the law be so clear that no one clothed with State authority will
be tempted to perjure and degrade himself by putting one
interpretation upon it for the white man and another for the black
man. Study the history of the South, and you will find that where
there has been the most dishonesty in the matter of voting, there you
will find to-day the lowest moral condition of both races. First,
there was the temptation to act wrongly with the negro's ballot. From
this it was an easy step to act dishonestly with the white man's
ballot, to the carrying of concealed weapons, to the murder of a
negro, and then to the murder of a white man, and then to lynching. I
entreat you not to pass a law that will prove an eternal millstone
about the necks of your children.

"No man can have respect for the Government and officers of the law
when he knows, deep down in his heart, that the exercise of the
franchise is tainted with fraud.

"The road that the South has been compelled to travel during the last
thirty years has been strewn with thorns and thistles. It has been as
one groping through the long darkness into the light. The time is not
far distant when the world will begin to appreciate the real character
of the burden that was imposed upon the South when four million
ex-slaves, ignorant and impoverished, were given the franchise. No
people has ever been given such a problem to solve. History has blazed
no path through the wilderness that could be followed. For thirty
years we have wandered in the wilderness. We are now beginning to get
out. But there is only one road out, and all makeshifts, expedients,
profit-and-loss calculations, but lead into swamps, quicksands,
quagmires, and jungles. There is a highway that will lead both races
out into the pure, beautiful sunshine, where there will be nothing to
hide and nothing to explain, where both races can grow strong and true
and useful in every fiber of their being. I believe that your
convention will find this highway; that it will enact a fundamental
law that will be absolutely just and fair to white and black alike.

"I beg of you, further, that in the degree that you close the ballot
box against the ignorant you open the schoolhouse. More than one half
of the population of your State are negroes. No State can long prosper
when a large part of its citizenship is in ignorance and poverty, and
has no interest in government. I beg of you that you do not treat us
as an alien people. We are not aliens. You know us; you know that we
have cleared your forests, tilled your fields, nursed your children,
and protected your families. There is an attachment between us that
few understand. While I do not presume to be able to advise you, yet
it is in my heart to say that if your convention would do something
that would prevent for all time strained relations between the two
races, and would permanently settle the matter of political relations
in one Southern State, at least, let the very best educational
opportunities be provided for both races; and add to this an election
law that shall be incapable of unjust discrimination, at the same time
providing that in proportion as the ignorant secure education,
property, and character, they will be given the right of citizenship.
Any other course will take from one half your citizens interest in the
State, and hope and ambition to become intelligent producers and
taxpayers, to become useful and virtuous citizens. Any other course
will tie the white citizens of Louisiana to a body of death.

"The negroes are not unmindful of the fact that the white people of
your State pay the greater portion of the school taxes, and that the
poverty of the State prevents it from doing all that it desires for
public education; yet I believe that you will agree with me that
ignorance is more costly to the State than education; that it will
cost Louisiana more not to educate the negroes than it will to educate
them. In connection with a generous provision for public schools, I
believe that nothing will so help my own people in your State as
provision at some institution for the highest academic and normal
training in connection with thorough training in agriculture,
mechanics, and domestic economy. The fact is that ninety per cent of
our people depend upon the common occupations for their living, and
outside of the cities eighty-five per cent rely upon agriculture for
support. Notwithstanding this, our people have been educated for the
most part since the war in everything else but the very thing most of
them live by. First-class training in agriculture, horticulture,
dairying, stock raising, the mechanical arts, and domestic economy
would make us intelligent producers, and not only help us to
contribute our proportion as taxpayers, but would result in retaining
much money in the State that now goes outside for that which can be as
well produced at home. An institution which will give this training of
the hand, along with the highest mental culture, would soon convince
our people that their salvation is largely in the ownership of
property and in industrial and business development, rather than in
mere political agitation.

"The highest test of the civilization of any race is in its
willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate. A race,
like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up. Surely no
people ever had a greater chance to exhibit the highest Christian
fortitude and magnanimity than is now presented to the people of
Louisiana. It requires little wisdom or statesmanship to repress, to
crush out, to retard the hopes and aspirations of a people, but the
highest and most profound statesmanship is shown in guiding and
stimulating a people, so that every fiber in the body and soul shall
be made to contribute in the highest degree to the usefulness and
ability of the State. It is along this line that I pray God the
thoughts and activities of your convention be guided."

As to the cure for such outbreaks as have recently hurt North Carolina
and South Carolina, I would say that the remedy will not come by the
Southern white man's being merely cursed by the Northern white man or
by the negro. Again, it will not come by the Southern white man merely
depriving the negro of his rights and privileges. Both of these
methods are but superficial, irritating, and must in the nature of
things be short-lived. The statesman, to cure an evil, resorts to
enlightenment, to stimulation; the politician to repression. I have
just remarked that I favor the giving up of nothing that is guaranteed
to us by the Constitution of the United States, or that is fundamental
to our citizenship. While I hold to these views as strongly as any
one, I differ with some as to the method of securing the permanent and
peaceful enjoyment of all the privileges guaranteed to us by our
fundamental law.

In finding a remedy, we must recognize the world-wide fact that the
negro must be led to see and feel that he must make every effort
possible in every way possible to secure the friendship, the
confidence, the co-operation of his white neighbor in the South. To do
this, it is not necessary for the negro to become a truckler or a
trimmer. The Southern white man has no respect for a negro who does
not act from principle. In some way the Southern white man must be led
to see that it is to his interest to turn his attention more and more
to the making of laws that will in the truest sense elevate the negro.
At the present moment, in many cases, when one attempts to get the
negro to co-operate with the Southern white man, he asks the question,
"Can the people who force me to ride in a Jim Crow car, and pay
first-class fare, be my best friends?" In answering such questions,
the Southern white man as well as the negro has a duty to perform.

In the exercise of his political rights I should advise the negro to
be temperate and modest, and more and more to do his own thinking,
rather than to be led or driven by a political "boss" or by political
demagogues.

I believe the permanent cure for our present evils will come though a
property and educational test for voting that shall apply honestly and
fairly to both races. This will cut off the large mass of ignorant
voters of both races that is now proving so demoralizing a factor in
the politics of the Southern States.

But most of all it will come through industrial development of the
negro! It is for this reason that I have believed in General
Armstrong's theory of industrial education. In the first place,
industrial education makes an intelligent producer of the negro, who
becomes of immediate value to the community rather than one who yields
to the temptation to live merely by politics or other parasitical
employments. In the next place, industrial development will make the
negro soon become a property-holder, and when a citizen becomes a
holder of property he becomes a conservative and thoughtful voter. He
is going to think about the measures and individuals to be voted for.
In proportion as the negro increases his property interests he becomes
important as a taxpayer. When the negro becomes a large taxpayer, he
will see that it is to his interest to consult with his white neighbor
about the measures to be voted for. There is little trouble between
the negro and the white man as to matters of education, and when it
comes to the negro's business development the black man has implicit
faith in the advice of the Southern white man. When the negro gets
into trouble in the courts, which require a bond to be given, in nine
cases out of ten he goes to a Southern white man for advice and
assistance. Every one who has lived in the South knows that in many of
the church troubles among the colored people the ministers and other
church officers apply to the nearest white minister for assistance and
instruction. As soon as we have grown to the point where we shall
consult the Southern white man about our politics as we now consult
him about our business, legal, and religious matters, there will be a
change for the better in the situation.

The object lesson of a thousand negroes in every county in the South
owning neat and comfortable homes, possessing skill, industry, and
thrift, with money in the bank, who are large taxpayers and co-operate
with the white men in the South in every manly way for the development
of their own communities and counties, will go a long way in a few
years toward changing the present status of the negro as a citizen as
well as the attitude of the whites toward the blacks.

In proportion as the negro grows along industrial and business lines
he will divide in his politics on economic issues, just as the white
man in other parts of the country now divides his vote.

In proportion as the South grows in business prosperity the whole
South will divide its vote on economic issues, just as other portions
of the country divide their vote. When we can enact laws that result
in honestly cutting off the large ignorant and nontaxpaying vote, and
when we can bring both races to the point where they will co-operate
with each other in politics in matters of business, religion, and
education, the problem will be in a large measure solved, and
political outbreaks will cease.

       *       *       *       *       *

     COLONEL GEORGE EARL CHURCH, speaking of the Indians of the
     country of the Amazons, relates of the chief of a horde of Yocaré
     savages whom he met among the falls of the Madeira, a young
     fellow twenty-five years old, that "he appeared to know
     everything that was going on around him. He seemed to have eyes
     in the back of his head, so acute were his senses. His hearing
     appeared to indicate, and his mind to define, the thousand things
     which were occurring in the tropical forest around us.
     Instinctively, he classified and estimated them at their true
     value as if they were under close and accurate analysis. As he
     sat dining with me at my camp table, in the simplicity of his
     nature and modesty of his nakedness, I could not help thinking
     that, in the evolution of man, many magnificent qualities have
     been sacrificed upon the altar of civilization."




THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN NORTH AMERICA.

BY DR. CHARLES C. ABBOTT.


The claim of satisfactory evidence of the extreme antiquity of man in
the valley of the Delaware River has been soberly discussed and
intemperately ridiculed until the public, both scientific and general,
have become tired of hearing the subject mentioned; but this is no
valid reason why the truth should not be ascertained. If man in a
paleolithic stage of culture did exist on the Atlantic seaboard of
North America, then we have a basis upon which to build--a tangible
starting point from which to date a history of human activities on
this continent. As it is, we have but an immense array of facts,
largely unrelated, and the greater portion sadly distorted and
misleading because of the reckless theories set forth with them by
their discoverers, and undoubtedly there never has been, in the whole
range of scientific agitation of a simple question, as great a volume
of reckless assertion, illogical deduction, and disregard of exact
statement. The main question was often wholly lost sight of, and the
author's sole purpose that of demonstrating some one else in error.
Predetermination on the part of many has been fatal to the value of
their field work. Convinced on theoretical grounds, such are
necessarily blinded when on the spot where positive evidence occurs.
He who does not desire the object searched for seldom finds it; and,
later in the day, pride declines to accede to the just demands of
candor--the admission of having reached a wrong conclusion.

There probably would not have been as much attention paid to the
subject of man's growth in culture on this continent had not the
proposition of a sequence from paleolithic to Indian, with an
intervening period, seemed to necessitate a dating back to the Glacial
epoch, which naturally brought geological erudition to bear upon the
question, and since then, most surprisingly, there has been confusion
worse confounded, rather than a flood of light. Much has been written,
but we can not yet be confident which author is most nearly correct;
and the latest report, showing sad evidences of haste, is vitiated by
evident determination to modernize every trace of man, whether the
facts warranted such procedure or not.

What is held, primarily, to be an evidence of paleolithic man is a
wrought stone implement, that in Europe was characteristic of his
handiwork. Here, in the valley of the Delaware, this same form of
implement has been confidently asserted to be a rejected piece of
stone--usually argillite--that failed to lend itself to reduction to a
finished blade or spear point. If this could be established as of
invariable application, however the supposed "reject" occurred, then
the whole matter would be brought to a quick conclusion. But the
"reject" theory has utterly failed of establishment. The typical
paleolithic implement is not characteristic of the refuse of an
arrow-maker's workshop site, and the familiar arrow points of small
size, nor even the long, thin blades of several times their length,
were reduced from masses greatly larger than the desired form. The
refuse of many a chipping site shows this conclusively; and, as
hundreds of failures demonstrate, many an arrowhead was made from a
pebble but a trifle larger than the finished object.

But admit, for argument's sake, the identity in shape of a "reject"
and a "paleolithic" implement; this does not prove their identity in
age and origin, and it is not an unwarranted or illogical suggestion
to draw a distinction between the two, where the conditions under
which they occur suggest a possibility of diverse history. Rather than
demonstrating that all rudely chipped stones are "failures," it should
be shown that paleolithic man, as we know of him in Europe, could not
possibly have existed here. This has not only never been attempted,
but the conditions during and immediately subsequent to the glaciation
of the river valley have been asserted, time and again, to have been
favorable for man's existence. Furthermore, it has not been shown that
a typical paleolithic implement could not have been available on this
continent, as it undoubtedly was in Europe, as an effective weapon,
and it must be remembered that the fauna of the Delaware Valley was,
in glacial times, very like that of parts of Europe in what we may
call the reindeer period. Like conditions may not have produced like
results in the case of early man, but what was practicable in Europe
was certainly so in America, and the question resolves itself into
that of determining if any trace of man that has been discovered in
the valley of the Delaware can be dated back to a time preceding the
Indian as he was when first he came in contact with the European. Did,
in other words, the Indian bring his art with him from Europe or Asia,
or did he experience a growth in culture from paleolithic simplicity
to neolithic complexity?

The whole subject hinges on the distribution of these traces of man.
If from the first day of his occupancy until the European replaced the
Indian the immediate valley of the river had undergone no change, then
the imperishable relics of the first and last savage would remain
associated, and position alone would tell nothing concerning any
particular object's age or origin, but, at the present day, except the
contents of graves, not a stone implement of the Delaware Indians
rests where chance or the intention of its one-time owner placed it.
Indeed, save a few bowlders of the largest size, few natural objects
on the immediate shores of the river are as first seen by William Penn
and his associates. This fact has not been duly considered, and
unwarranted conclusions have been published as established
truths--all, of course, eliminating antiquity from the Indian history
of the region. The fact that a so-called paleolithic implement was
found lying on the surface of the river's shore has resulted in a pen
picture of a modern Indian attempting to fashion a blade and tossing
the pebble aside in disgust. Why, indeed, could not an Indian walk on
exposed gravel and pick up a pebble as well as we can to-day?

There are two considerations to which we must give heed when this
question is asked. We are, in the first place, tacitly informed that
the Indian was given to chipping stone in this haphazard way to supply
a sudden need upon the spot, all of which is not only not a reasonable
assumption, but absolutely incorrect, as argillite bowlders and
pebbles, which are not abundant in the gravels, were not habitually
used, but, instead, the mineral was systematically mined and selected
with skill, so that failures were reduced to a minimum. Then, again,
if the object as found has been lying undisturbed on the river shore
for centuries--two centuries at least--why is it that the chips are
not there also? These are never found under such circumstances. In
fact, they are very rarely found at all in the gravel where the
implement itself occurs, and in numbers they exceed the "reject" or
finished object at least as ten to one. Furthermore, we are asked to
believe that the river shore where we find rude implements is the same
to-day as when the Indian wandered along it centuries ago. Fig. 1
shows clearly how the never-resting tidal flow wears away the shore,
carrying sand and fine gravels from one point and spreading it
elsewhere to form a sand bar, it may be, and turning the channel from
one side of the stream to the other, and so exposing long reaches of
the shore to wasting, that for many a year had been fixed and
apparently secure. Often the mud is entirely removed from the
underlying gravel, and abundant traces of Indian occupation are
brought to light, and, less frequently, so strong a current attacks a
given point that even the gravel is moved and deep holes are formed,
to be filled in time with the wasting shore from a point perhaps a
mile away. This is the story of the river of to-day, and so it has
been for centuries; and yet we are asked to believe that we can fill
the moccasin prints of the Indian by walking now along the water's
edge. I submit that it is asking a great deal too much.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--WASTING RIVER SHORE DUE TO TIDAL FLOW.]

It has been suggested that rudely chipped implements, when found on
the gravelly shore of the river, have fallen out from the bank and
rolled down from where they had long been lying. This is not at all
improbable; but how does this modernize the object, when the gravel
extends quite to the surface? The pebbles and bowlders at the top of
the bank are clearly as much a part of the deposit as are those at its
base, and while the surface may be--is, in fact--less ancient than the
deeper gravels, still they can not be dissociated; and it is a
significant fact that we find, on the gravel at the foot of the bluff
or other exposure, only the rude argillite objects at the water's edge
or on the flat laid bare at low tide, and not a general assortment of
the Indian's handiwork, including pottery; and we must not overlook
the fact that the "gravel-bed" implements bear evidence of all the
conditions to which the gravel itself has been subjected--this one
stained by manganese, that incrusted with limonite; this fresh as the
day it was chipped, because lost in sand and water and not
subsequently exposed to the atmosphere; that buried and unearthed,
rolled, scratched, and water-worn until much of its artificiality has
disappeared. The history of almost every specimen is written upon it,
and not one tells such a story as has been told about it by the
advocates of the "Indian-reject" theory.

Much has been written on the natural history of the gravel that is so
marked a feature of the river valley, particularly at the head of
tide water, and almost every essay differs in more or less degree from
its fellows in the matter of the gravel's age as a well-defined
deposit. Its origin no one can question, nor the agencies by which it
was brought to where we now find it. Ice and water did the work, nor
have they ceased entirely to add to the bulk transported in strictly
glacial times--perhaps it were better to say in superlatively glacial
time, as the river even now can be positively glacial upon occasion,
as Fig. 2 demonstrates. The main channel has often been completely
blocked with ice and the water forced into new directions and spread
over the lowlands or flats, which it denudes of its surface soil, and
once within recent years the stream found an old channel, deepened it,
and for a time threatened to leave a flourishing riverside town an
inland one. Ice accumulated in this way year after year must
necessarily affect the river's banks, and yet the extent of "damage"
is trifling usually, in comparison with that of the water,
particularly when agitated by passing steamboats or violent winds; and
now, too, the ice of our present winters does not transport coarse
pebbles to any significant extent. I am convinced of this since the
examination I gave acres of ice, when the river was gorged with it,
some years ago. It was possible to walk for miles over the ice, as
shown in Fig. 2, and to see it under exceedingly favorable
circumstances, and a most careful search failed to reveal a stone
larger than a pigeon's egg incased in this ice, which was all gently
floated from far up the stream and stranded here; and where piled up
upon the shores it usually remains until melted, and really acts as
armor plate, protecting the ground from abrasion when the floods
incident to the "break-up" prevail. Such are the present-day
considerations, and they have a direct bearing upon the question of
man's antiquity here because, first, the river valley has not varied
for hundreds of years, except in becoming wider, the low shores
receding, and the stream becoming broader and more shallow. In
earliest Indian times the river was subject to freshets and ice gorges
as now, but never did the water become so dammed up as to overflow the
broad plateaus, areas of glacial gravel, that at the close of the
Glacial period were within the boundary of the river. The Delaware was
a very different stream then--_crescendo_ for thousands of years, and
_diminuendo_ for thousands since--until now it barely hints at what
once was. But not even in the height of its glacial activity was the
climate so severe that the waters contained no fish, nor the forests
of the high surrounding hills harbored no game. Never was it as bleak
as the arctic region of to-day, and as man maintains a footing there,
why should he not have done so here, where life was ever more easily
sustained? True; but did he live here in glacial time?

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--ICE-GORGED RIVER.

Reproducing on a small scale the conditions of the Glacial epoch.]

It has been stated in the most positive manner, which only positive
evidence could warrant, that so-called paleolithic implements have not
been found _in situ_ in gravel deposits at a distance from the river,
and such, _if there were such_, as appeared to be in the gravel, were
recent intrusions. This statement, in its several parts and its
entirety, is absolutely incorrect, and no excuse can be offered for
its publication. It is to be explained, however, because avowedly
predetermined. Wherever the glacial gravel of the Delaware tide-water
region is found, there paleolithic implements occur, as they also do
on and in the surface of areas beyond the gravel boundary. We accept,
notwithstanding the unscientific source of the suggestion, the
statement that post-glacial floods inhumed all traces of man found
beneath the superficial soils, and find that, if these traces are
considered in that light, some mysterious power was behind the
senseless flood, and always buried argillite paleolithic implements
far down in the gravel, and then selected argillite artifacts of more
specialized forms for the overlying sands and reserved the pottery and
jasper arrow points for the vegetation-sustaining soil. This, as
stated, is absurd, but such is the order of occurrence of the traces
of early man in the upland fields, and these are to be considered
carefully before a final conclusion can be reached. The broad,
elevated plateau extending eastward from the present bank of the river
offers facilities for studying the evidences of man's occupancy in
this region such as are to be found in few localities. The principal
reason for this is that almost no local disturbance has occurred since
the original deposition of the sand that overlies the gravel and
underlies the soil. The natural history of these underlying sands has
recently received a good deal of attention, because, unlike the deeper
gravels, there is perfect accord as to the occurrences therein of
artificially chipped objects; and the suggestion that they are of
intrusive origin being set aside as untenable, the geologists are now
divided on the question whether the sand is wind-blown, a modified
dune, and so not necessarily old even in years, or the result of
intermitting overflow of water, usually carrying a considerable amount
of sand and often heavy with washings from some distant clay bank. The
objections to the "eolian" theory are that pebbles and bowlders, even
of considerable weight, are scattered at all elevations through the
sand, and these pebbles, as a rule, do not present any evidence of
exposure to eroding sands, but are smooth and glassy, or the typical
water-worn pebbles of a brook or the river bed, and more significant
is the fact that the sands themselves are of different degrees of
fineness, layer upon layer, and are nowhere clean or free from clay;
and finally the thin layers of clay are clearly continuous over such
extensive areas that in no sense can they be called segregations of
that material. On the other hand, a carefully instituted comparison of
the sand from the surface of the field to its junction with the gravel
proper shows its identity with a deposit made by water in
comparatively recent times. No difference whatever could be detected.
The sand dune, modified by rains and finally leveled to a plain,
presents, in section, no such appearance as the sands that overlie the
gravels of glacial origin. Without a scintilla of reason, however,
many geologists declare that no deposit of sand can be of any
geological significance _if it contains traces of man not clearly
intrusive_. The latter fact necessitates the former claim, all of
which, I submit, is nonsense.

Fig. 3 illustrates how artificially chipped pebbles occur in this
underlying sand. The upper portion shows the superficial soil removed
to its point of contact with the sand. This is determined by the
change of color from dark brown to light yellowish brown, and it is
generally so very abrupt a change that no doubt arises as to where the
soil ends and the sand begins. The sand proper is shown by the
position of the object--the measuring rule and trowel. It will be
noticed that the implement is lying flat, as such an object would
almost necessarily be if transported by water, and not perpendicular,
as would be the case if it had fallen down some root-hole, animal's or
insect's burrow, or opening in the earth from any cause, and now
obliterated.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--OCCURRENCE OF AN ARGILLITE IMPLEMENT IN
GLACIAL STRATIFIED SAND.]

The presence of these artificial flakes, blades, and other forms of
simple implements can only be explained by considering them as a
constituent part of the containing bed, having been brought hither by
the same agency that brought the sand, pebbles, and clay. When
standing before a newly made section of this implement-bearing deposit
it is easy to picture the slow progress of its accumulation. The broad
plain has been subjected to overflow, now of water bearing only sand,
and then of muddy water; now with current strong enough to roll small
pebbles from some distant point, and then periods when the sun shone
on the new deposit, dried it, and the loose sand was rippled by the
wind. Floods of greater volume occasionally swept across the plain,
and ice-incased pebbles were dropped upon its surface, and with this
building up of the plateau to a higher level there were also brought
to it traces of man's handiwork. Of this, I think, there can be no
doubt now. Years ago I endeavored to show from the distribution of
rude argillite implements of specialized forms, as arrow points and
small blades, trimmed flakes and scrapers, that these objects were
older, as a class, than jasper and quartz implements and weapons, and
that pottery was made only in the rudest way before "flint"
chipping--jasper and quartz--was established. The more exhaustively
this subject was followed up, the proposition became more evidently
true, and to-day it is unqualifiedly confirmed by the results obtained
from systematically digging deeply over wide areas of country. The
fact that argillite continued in use until the very last does not
affect this conclusion.

As the high land, now forty or more feet above the river and beyond
the reach of its floods of greatest magnitude, was once continually
overflowed and gradually built up by the materials the water spread
upon it, it is evident that the conditions were materially different
when such things happened from what now obtains, and the whole
configuration of the country to-day points to but the one conclusion:
that these plateau-building floods occurred so long ago as when the
river flowed at a higher level and possessed a greater transporting
power than at present. This, it is true, was long after the coarse
gravel and huge bowlders were transported from the hillsides of the
upper valley, but it was before the river was confined to its present
channel, and more significantly before what may be called the
soil-making period, itself of long duration and the time of the Indian
as such. Not an argillite chip from the sands beneath the soil but
speaks of the distant day when this plateau was an almost barren
plain, and man saw it, roamed over it, and perhaps dwelt upon it, when
but the scantiest vegetation dotted its surface, and only upon the
hills beyond its boundary were there trees and herbage.

Even if we consider the agency of the streams that now are but
insignificant inflowing brooks in spreading, during their freshet
stages, sand over level areas, we must still go back to a time when
they were streams of infinitely greater magnitude than they have been
for many centuries, and before, too, the Indian was a skilled chipper
of jasper and a potter of taste, else why the absence of these
products of his skill in the deeper sands? It matters not how we look
at it, whether as geologists or archæologists, or whether it is all
post-glacial, or the starting point is still so distant as ice-age
activities, the sequence of events is unaffected. We still have
paleolithicity in the gravel, argillite and the discovery of pottery
synchronous with the deposition of the gravel-capping sand, and,
lastly, the Indian.

The record is not a difficult one to read, and never has been, and the
manifold attempts to modernize all traces of man on the eastern coast
of North America can safely be relegated to the limbo of misdirected
energy. Studied in the proper spirit and after the needful preliminary
study of archæology as a whole, the student will find himself, when in
the field--ever a more desirable place than the museum--face to face
with evidences of an antiquity that is to be measured by centuries
rather than by years.




THE USE OF ACETYLENE.

BY EDWARD RENOUF,

COLLEGIATE PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.


It is now five years since the use of acetylene as an illuminant was
suggested to the public, and it may be of interest to give a sketch of
what has been done during this time, especially as it seems that with
the year 1899 the tentative period which must characterize every new
industry is in some respects passed, and a period of solid and
well-directed industrial effort, backed by ample capital, has begun.
The knowledge gained during this tentative period by the laboratory
experiments of scientific men, and by the practical work of inventors
and promoters, has made it possible for the industry to enter on its
new phase. To understand its present and to foresee its future
importance it is necessary briefly to review the work of the last
years.

In May, 1892, Mr. Thomas Willson, a Canadian electrician, tried to
make the metal calcium in an electric furnace in his works at Spray,
North Carolina, by heating a mixture of lime and coal dust. He thought
that the lime (calcium oxide) would act on the coal (carbon) to form
calcium and carbon monoxide. He did not succeed in getting calcium,
but found in the furnace a brown, crystalline mass, which was
decomposed by pouring water on it, yielding an inflammable gas.
Willson is not a chemist, and he therefore sent specimens of the
material to several men of science to determine its nature. It was
shown to be calcium carbide, a compound of calcium and carbon, formed
by the action of the carbon on the calcium oxide. The reaction
expressed in chemical symbols is CaO + 3C = CaC_{2} + CO. The gas
formed by the action of water was acetylene, a compound of carbon and
hydrogen. The reaction is CaC_{2} + H_{2}O = C_{2}H_{2} + CaO; calcium
carbide and water form acetylene and lime. If water enough is added,
the lime is slaked, and slaked lime, or calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH_{2}),
is formed. Neither calcium carbide nor acetylene was a new discovery;
acetylene was discovered by Edmund Davy in 1836, and its properties
were studied by Berthelot in 1862. Impure calcium carbide was first
made in 1862 by Wöhler, who described its decomposition by water into
acetylene and lime. What was there new, then, in Willson's discovery?
Two important facts: (1) He was the first to make carbide by a method
applicable commercially; (2) he was the first to make crystalline
carbide. Wöhler's carbide was impure and amorphous; Willson's, nearly
pure and crystalline, so that he succeeded in obtaining United States
patents for crystalline carbide, and, as all carbide made by
commercial processes is crystalline, its manufacture is covered by
Willson's patents.

In the same year, 1892, Prof. Henri Moissan, of Paris, announced the
discovery of crystalline calcium carbide. Moissan's discovery, too,
was an accidental one. He was reducing refractory metallic oxides in
an electric furnace made of lime. At the close of the article in which
he reports his work to the French Academy of Sciences (_Comptes Rendus
de l'Académie Française_, vol. cxii, page 6, December 12, 1892) he
refers in two lines to the formation of an ill-defined carbide of
calcium by the action of the carbon electrodes on the lime of which
his furnace was made.

As is common with most important inventions, there is a dispute as to
the priority of making carbide by an electric furnace; and the wonder
is, not that there is a dispute, but that there are so few claimants.
A few words of explanation of the electric furnace will show why. The
enormous heat of the electric furnace (2000° to 3000° C.) is caused by
an electric arc, formed by currents playing between carbon electrodes;
carbon is often used in the furnace processes; here we have one
constituent of calcium carbide. Lime, the material for the other
constituent, withstands heat better than any other common substance
excepting magnesia; naturally, inventors would use it, as Moissan did,
as a refractory lining to the furnace. Electric furnaces were not new.
The conditions then were such that the discovery of the carbide was
fairly forced on experimenters, and, as we have seen, the discoveries
of Willson and Moissan were both accidental.

American priority was claimed by Willson, French priority by the
friends of Moissan, German priority by Professor Borchers, of
Aix-la-Chapelle. Fortunately for Willson, among those to whom he had
sent specimens of carbide was Lord Kelvin, the famous English
physicist, whose reply to Willson, stating that the substance received
was calcium carbide, was dated October 3, 1892, two months before
Moissan's first publication. Borchers's claims are too vague to waste
space on. Willson's priority is now generally recognized excepting in
France. The German Government has acknowledged it, and has annulled
the German patent granted to Bullier.

Commercial carbide is essentially an American discovery, and it was
developed industrially by Willson's associates before industrial
action began abroad. Messrs. Dickerson and Suckert, of New York, were
the first to undertake the industrial liquefaction of acetylene. Dr.
G. de Chalmot, chemist, and Mr. J. M. Morehead, electrician, worked up
the details of the furnace process in the early days at Spray, North
Carolina, and the purity and the yield from a given weight of material
of their carbide have never been excelled, though cheaper working
furnaces are now in use.

Carbides of other metals can be made in the electric furnace, but,
owing to the cheapness of the new material, calcium carbide is the
only one of these which has industrial value as a source of acetylene.
One pound of pure carbide yields 5.89 cubic feet of acetylene.

Thus far carbide has been found industrially valuable for two other
purposes. The one is for carbonizing steel; experiments in Germany
show that iron or soft steel takes up carbon more readily when it is
heated with carbide than when it is heated with coal dust or charcoal.
Some steel works are now using carbide for this purpose. The other use
of carbide is more important. It is found to be a valuable germicide.
It is said to be the most effectual preventive of black rot, and to
destroy the _Phylloxera_, the two worst enemies of the grape. The
action of the carbide as a germicide depends on its decomposition by
the moisture of the soil, forming acetylene, which kills the
_Phylloxera_. If the use of carbide on a large scale substantiates the
claims made for it, this is a discovery of vast importance. The
ravages caused by the _Phylloxera_ in the vineyards of southern
Europe, of Africa, and Australia must be ranked as great national
calamities.

A temperature ranging from 2000° to 2500° C. (3600° to 4500°
Fahrenheit) is required to make carbide. It is probable that this
temperature can be economically attained only by the electric furnace
using water power as the source of the electric current, and this is
the only method used for making carbide, with the exception of the
Walther process, which does not use electricity but depends on the
intense heat generated by burning acetylene under pressure. In
electric furnaces the formation of carbide depends simply on the heat
of the arc, which fuses the mixture of lime and coke. The latest
improvements on the first very simple forms of furnace have secured
continuity of work and economy of electric energy. In the United
States carbide is made exclusively in the Horry furnace. This furnace
consists of a huge short cylinder or hollow wheel, mounted to revolve
slowly on a horizontal shaft. The periphery of the cylinder is closed
by removable cast-iron slats. As the cylinder is partly revolved on
its axis from time to time, the slats are taken off from one side and
replaced on the other, thus leaving the top always open. The cylinder
is filled on one side with the powdered mixture of coke and lime. Into
the mixture two vertical carbon electrodes project downward through
the open top of the cylinder. As the carbide is formed, the cylinder
is revolved, lowering the mass from the electrodes. The fused carbide
cools, hardens, and is broken off and removed as it rises on the other
side of the slowly revolving cylinder; new material is constantly fed
in to maintain the level around the electrodes. The process in the
Horry furnace is continuous; the furnace can be run without arresting
the current until repairs are necessary. It is said to combine the
different theoretical improvements referred to, and to reduce the cost
of production. The Horry furnace is in use at Niagara Falls and at
Sault Ste. Marie. At St. Catherine's, Canada, Willson is using his own
furnace. Abroad, the older types of furnace, the Willson, Bullier, and
Héroult, are those chiefly in use.

The actual ingot of good commercial carbide is nearly pure--ninety-six
to ninety-nine per cent--but the ingot is surrounded by a crust of
carbide mixed with unchanged material, containing forty to seventy
per cent of carbide. Foreign makers break and blend ingot and crust to
standard size, the best makers guaranteeing their carbide ninety per
cent pure, giving five cubic feet of acetylene per pound (pure carbide
gives 5.89 cubic feet). Eight to nine pounds of carbide per horse
power in twenty-four hours, averaging five cubic feet of acetylene, is
considered satisfactory work. The Union Carbide Company, which
controls the sale of carbide in the United States, is selling graded
carbides under guarantee, the first grade being the nearly pure ingot,
the lower grade the crust.

[Illustration: HORRY FURNACE, SHOWING ELECTRODES.[5]]

[Illustration: HORRY FURNACE, SHOWING GEARING.[5]]

[Illustration: HORRY FURNACE, SHOWING CARBIDE JUST REMOVED.[5]]

    [Footnote 5: NOTE.--We are indebted to the courtesy of the
    Electrical World and Engineer for cuts showing the Horry furnace.]

As the moisture of the air decomposes the carbide, it must be broken
up as soon as made, and packed in air-tight tin cans, varying in size
from one to four hundred pounds.

The present price of carbide abroad averages $96.80 in large lots, and
$7.26 per hundredweight in small lots, packing included; in the United
States, $70 per ton in large lots, and $4.50 per hundredweight in
small lots, packing included. In 1898, 4,650 tons are said to have
been made in the United States and Canada, and a much larger amount
abroad. The output for 1899 is estimated at 12,000 tons for the United
States, with a capacity in the new works in erection at Sault Ste.
Marie and at Niagara Falls of 41,000 tons. The new works building in
Europe, to be finished in 1899-1900, have a capacity for making
80,000 metric tons. These figures will justify the statement made at
the beginning of this article, that the new industry has found ample
capital.

The statement is still current that acetylene attacks copper and
brass, forming an explosive compound. This is not true. Exhaustive
experiments by Moissan and by Gerdes, keeping these and other metals
in contact with acetylene for months at a time, have shown that the
metals were not affected. The conditions under which the explosive
copper acetylide is made in laboratories can not well occur in
generators or gas holders. It has been said that acetylene is very
poisonous; the experiments of many observers, and especially those of
Gréhant, do not confirm this statement. Gréhant experimented on dogs,
causing them to breathe mixtures of acetylene, air, and oxygen, which
always contained 20.8 per cent of oxygen, this being the percentage of
oxygen in pure air. By this device he was able to discriminate between
the poisoning caused by acetylene and suffocation caused by
insufficient oxygen. A mixture containing twenty per cent acetylene
inhaled for thirty-five minutes did not seem to trouble the animal. A
sample of the dog's arterial blood contained ten per cent of
acetylene. A dog which inhaled a mixture containing forty per cent of
acetylene died suddenly after fifty-one minutes, having inhaled one
hundred and twelve litres of the mixture; the arterial blood contained
twenty per cent acetylene. Gréhant proved that acetylene simply
dissolves in the blood plasma, while carbon monoxide forms a compound
with the hæmoglobin of the blood. A dog breathing a similar mixture of
air, oxygen, and illuminating gas containing only one per cent of
carbon monoxide quickly showed convulsive movements, and died after
ten minutes; its blood contained twenty-four per cent of carbon
monoxide. Thus acetylene, while slightly poisonous, is less poisonous
than coal gas, and vastly less than water gas, which contains a high
percentage of carbon monoxide.

A pressure of thirty-nine atmospheres and three quarters at 20° C.
converts acetylene into a liquid weighing one third as much as the
same volume of water, while one cubic foot of the liquid when released
from pressure gives five hundred cubic feet of gas.

Hitherto acetylene is used only as a source of heat or as a source of
light; yet with very cheap carbide it would prove useful in many ways
in chemical industry, and its use would have the most wide-spread
effect on industry and agriculture. For instance, a method of making
alcohol from acetylene is patented abroad, and by another patented
process it is proposed to make sugar from acetylene. With the present
prices of alcohol, sugar, and carbide, these processes have no
commercial value.

Acetylene may be made from the carbide in gas works and delivered to
the consumer through mains like ordinary illuminating gas; or it may
be liquefied at a gas works and delivered to the consumer in the
liquid form under pressure; or the consumer may purchase carbide and
generate acetylene for his own consumption. All three of these methods
are in use.

To understand the attitude of insurance companies and of consumers
toward liquid acetylene it will be well to examine its record for the
last few years. Those interested in methods for liquefying acetylene,
and for reducing the pressure of the liquid at the place of
consumption so that the consumer actually uses it as a gas under a
water pressure of six inches or less, may find processes described in
detail in the Progressive Age, and in other technical journals.
Suffice it to say that the methods in use in this country and abroad
are simple and effective. The purified acetylene is delivered in
strong steel cylinders, which may be placed in a special building or
case and need not be handled by the consumer. It has been proved by
the exhaustive experiments of the eminent French chemist Berthelot
that liquefied acetylene in cylinders can not be exploded by blows or
shocks to the closed cylinder. If it is exploded, however, by causing
a spark within the cylinder, the explosive force is very great, being
about equal to that of gun cotton.

The use of the liquefied acetylene is so simple and clean that the
attention of inventors was first turned to this mode of supply. It may
in future come again into prominence despite the present strong
feeling against it, its use in many cities being prohibited. This
feeling was caused by a number of explosions, accompanied by loss of
life. Three of these explosions occurred in factories for liquefying
acetylene; one in a factory where liquid acetylene regulators were
made; several in buildings of consumers. In October, 1896, Pictet's
works in Paris were wrecked by the explosion of a cylinder filled with
liquid acetylene; evidence proved that the cylinder was held in a
vise, and that the two workmen killed were at the ends of a wrench,
closing or opening the valve, supposing the cylinder to be empty. The
explosion was caused either by a spark from friction in turning the
screw, or by the too sudden opening of the valve and releasing the
pressure, causing a shock sufficient to decompose the liquid. In
December, 1896, the works of G. Isaac, in Berlin, were destroyed by an
explosion in the condenser where the cooled acetylene was liquefied by
pressure; Isaac and three workmen were killed. Evidence showed that
through carelessness warm water instead of cold water was in contact
with the condenser, thus warming the liquid and increasing the
pressure to a point which burst the condenser. In December, 1897, the
works of the Dickerson & Suckert Acetylene Gas Liquefying and
Distributing Company in Jersey City were destroyed by fire caused by
the explosion of a cylinder filled through carelessness of workmen
with a mixture of air and liquid acetylene--i. e., with an explosive
mixture--killing the superintendent and a workman. In the explosion at
the regulator factory at New Haven, January, 1895, the valve of the
cylinder, on which one of two workmen killed was working, broke; a
large volume of acetylene escaped and ignited from a lighted candle.
In all four cases the explosions were caused by ignorance or
carelessness incident to the beginnings of a new industry, and could
be avoided by experience and skill.

It should be stated that in the explosion at Paris all of the full
acetylene cylinders were dug out of the ruins unhurt. The same was
true at Berlin, where five full cylinders were blown against the wall
of the building by the explosion of the condenser, but did not
explode. At Jersey City sixty filled cylinders were exposed to the
heat of the fire following the explosion; they were fitted with safety
diaphragms of fusible metal; forty-eight remained intact, the
acetylene burning off quietly as it escaped through the fused
diaphragm, and twelve exploded, either on account of imperfection of
the diaphragms or stoppage of the air passage leading from the
diaphragm. The explosions of liquid acetylene in buildings of
consumers have been due in every case to gross carelessness and
ignorance on the part of the consumer.

Although one of the chief points in favor of the liquid acetylene is
its portability, yet it can be shown that it is still easier to carry
carbide to the consumer. One cubic metre of acetylene is compressed to
two litres in liquid form; two litres of carbide weigh 4.44
kilogrammes, which will produce a cubic metre and a third of
acetylene, reckoning three hundred litres to the kilogramme, which is
the average guaranteed yield of carbide. The light tin carbide cans
occupy less space and weigh less than the heavy steel cylinders, while
the generation of the gas is simple and, with proper generators,
perfectly safe. On the other hand, the generators must be cared for,
must often be filled with fresh carbide, and from time to time must be
cleaned. With the generator system acetylene is as safe as or safer
than illuminating gas. Berthelot has shown that at pressures below two
atmospheres a vessel filled with acetylene can not be exploded by the
explosion of a cap of fulminating mercury within the vessel, nor by
heating a wire which extends into the vessel to a white heat by an
electric current. The reason is that the acetylene can not explode
unless it is decomposed into its elements, carbon and hydrogen; to
decompose it requires a certain amount of energy. While the energy of
the glowing wire or of the exploding cap causes a local decomposition
at the point of contact, it is not sufficient to spread the
decomposition further. Acetylene forms an explosive mixture with air;
so does illuminating gas. The odor of acetylene is unpleasant; so is
the odor of the water gas used generally in the United States, and the
acetylene can be cheaply deodorized.

As the generator system, then, is the general one, the most important
question to the consumer is what generator to buy, and it is a
perplexing question. The carbide manufacture is so organized that it
is everywhere under the control of powerful and responsible companies
which sell a guaranteed product. The burners now in use are nearly all
good. With generators it is different; the market is flooded with them
at all prices, ranging in value from worse than useless to very good,
as regards safety, economy, and quality of light. As the generator
question is by far the most important and the least understood in the
whole acetylene industry, it will be well to give a full account of
the results of the experiments which have been made within the last
two years on this question. The most exhaustive experiments are those
of the English expert, Professor Lewes, and his results agree with
those of other observers.

Lewes first determined the amount of heat developed by the
decomposition of carbide by water, and the conditions which tend to
lessen or increase the intensity of the reaction. The average result
of the experiments as to the amount of heat was 446.6 calories for
pure carbide, and a little less for commercial carbide (to state this
differently, one pound of carbide, when decomposed by water, gives off
heat enough to raise the temperature of 446.6 pounds of water 1° C.,
or to raise the temperature of one pound of water 446.6° C.). As the
intensity of the heat developed determines the highest temperature
attained during the decomposition, and is a function of the time
needed to complete the action, and as the decomposition of carbide in
contact with water is extremely rapid, it is evident that the
temperature developed may be so high as to cause disaster. All the
generators at present before the public may be classified under three
heads: 1. Those in which water is allowed to drip or flow slowly on a
mass of carbide, the evolution of the gas being regulated by the
stopping of the water. 2. Those in which water in considerable volume
is allowed to rise in contact with carbide, the evolution of the gas
being regulated by the driving back of the water by the increase of
pressure in the generating chamber. 3. Those in which the carbide is
dropped or plunged into an excess of water.

The conclusions deduced from a large number of experiments were that
when, as in type 1, water is allowed to drip or flow in a fine stream
upon a mass of carbide, the temperature rapidly rises until after
eighteen to twenty-five minutes the maximum is reached, which varies
from 400° to 700° C. (720° to 1120° Fahrenheit), and it is probable
that in some of the mass the higher limit is always reached, as
traces of tar are usually found in the residual lime, in some cases in
sufficient quantity to make the lime yellow and pasty, while vapors of
benzene and other polymerization products pass off with the gas.
Leaving the question of temperature in this type of generator, another
important question is the length of time during which the generation
of gas continues after the water supply is automatically cut off. It
is found that gas is evolved with increasing slowness sometimes for an
hour and three quarters after the water supply has ceased, the total
volume of gas so evolved being large.

The experiments showed that in any automatic generator of this type
the cut-off should be so arranged that one quarter of the total
capacity of the gas holder is still available to store the slowly
generating gas.

The second class of generators bring about contact either by water
rising from below to the carbide suspended in the cage (II, _A_), or
by a cage of carbide suspended in a movable bell which, as it falls,
dips the carbide into water, withdrawing the carbide from the water as
the excessive generation of gas lifts the bell (II, _B_). Lewes found
that under certain conditions generators of the type II, _B_ were far
worse than those of type I.

The trials were made with a movable glass bell, with counterweights,
containing a half-pound of carbide. The maximum temperatures reached
in four trials were 703°, 734°, 754°, and 807° C. Excessive heating
took place in every case; in the last mentioned the temperature was
far above the point at which acetylene is decomposed into carbon and
hydrogen, a thin black smoke being formed immediately around the
carbide while tar vapor poured out. On removing the residue after
cooling it was found to be coated with soot and loaded with tar. On
several occasions the charge was removed from the generator just after
the maximum temperature was reached, and was found to be at a bright
red heat.

These experiments are of the greatest practical importance. At 600°
acetylene begins to polymerize--i. e., to form more complex
hydrocarbons, which are liquid, or solid, at ordinary temperatures.
Probably in the generator acetylene is first given off so rapidly that
the heat does not act on it, but as decomposition advances into the
center of the mass of carbide, the acetylene generated has to pass
through the external layers, which, as shown, may be at high
temperatures, above that at which acetylene decomposes; thus a
considerable amount of gas is lost, and the tar formed may distill
into the generator and tubes, clogging the tubes. A more serious evil
is the deterioration in the illuminating quality of the gas. Samples
of the gas were taken as the maximum temperature was approached, and
analyzed with this average result: Acetylene, seventy per cent; other
hydrocarbons, eleven per cent; hydrogen, nineteen per cent. This
reduces the illuminating value from two hundred and forty to one
hundred and twenty-six candles. The hydrocarbons consist largely of
benzene, which requires three times as much air for complete
combustion as acetylene does. The best possible acetylene burner
smokes when the acetylene contains benzene.

[Illustration: Type I.

TYPE OF GENERATOR.[6]]

[Illustration: Type II, _A_. Type II, _B_. Type III.

TYPES OF GENERATORS.[6]]

    [Footnote 6: NOTE.--We are indebted to the courtesy of the
    Progressive Age for cuts showing types of generators.]

At first sight these experiments would seem absolutely to condemn
generators of class II, yet the fact remains that some excellent
generators are of this type. Under certain conditions excessive
overheating may be avoided. The rising bell shown in II, _B_ should be
discarded. Generators in which the water rises from below, and slowly
attacks the carbide, can be made safe if the water is never driven
back from the carbide, and the carbide is in separated layers as in
II, _A_. Under these conditions the water is always in excess at the
point where it attacks the carbide, so that the evaporation, by
rendering heat latent, keeps the temperature down, the temperature of
the melting point of tin, 228° C., being rarely reached in good
generators where these conditions are met.

Undoubtedly the best generators, and the only ones which from a
scientific point of view should be employed, are those of class III,
in which carbide falls into an excess of water. In such generators it
is impossible to get a temperature higher than the boiling point of
water, 100° C., while with a properly arranged tank the temperature
never exceeds that of the air by more than a few degrees. Under these
conditions the absence of polymerization and the washing of the
nascent and finely divided bubbles of gas by the limewater in the
generator yield acetylene of a degree of purity unapproached by any
other form of generator.

When acetylene is burned in air under such conditions that the flame
does not smoke, it has been proved by Gréhant that there is no carbon
monoxide among the combustion products; the acetylene combines with
the oxygen of the air to form carbon dioxide and water (C_{2}H_{2} +
5O = 2CO_{2} + H_{2}O). One cubic foot of acetylene requires two and a
half cubic feet of oxygen. Supposing a room to have an illumination
equal to sixty-four standard candles; this amount of light from
candles would use up 38.5 cubic feet of oxygen from the air, and would
give off forty-three cubic feet of carbon dioxide; petroleum requires,
in cubic feet, twenty-five of oxygen, and gives off forty of carbon
dioxide; gas burned with a flat flame requires about twenty-five
oxygen and gives nineteen carbon dioxide--with an Argand flame a
little less, while with the Welsbach burner gas requires only three
oxygen, and gives off 1.8 carbon dioxide; acetylene requires five
oxygen and yields four carbon dioxide. So that, light for light,
acetylene fouls the air less than any ordinary illuminant excepting
the Welsbach gas burner. (With incandescent electric light there is no
combustion and no fouling of the air.)

Under the best conditions five cubic feet of acetylene give a light of
two hundred and forty candles for one hour, or we may speak of
acetylene as a two-hundred-and-forty-candle gas. Yet this statement,
though strictly true, may be misleading. When ordinary illuminating
gas is tested with the photometer, it is burned from a standard
flat-flame burner, burning five cubic feet per hour. Now the amount of
light given by such a gas flame is no greater than is pleasant to the
eye; it is true that if we burn five cubic feet of acetylene from a
suitable flat-flame burner, a light of two hundred and forty candles
is given, but it is unfair to take this ratio as representing the
actual relative illuminating value of the two lights, because we
neither need a light of two hundred and forty candles, nor is such an
amount of light issuing from one burner endurable to the eye. One-foot
or one-half foot acetylene burners are used for domestic lighting;
light from the best one-foot burners averages thirty-two to
thirty-five candles per cubic foot. With acetylene, as with every
other illuminating gas, the smaller the burner and consumption, the
less light per cubic foot of gas is obtained. Another important point
is that while these figures represent the best practical illumination
obtained from acetylene by the burners hitherto in use, the standard
flat-flame burner does not give the best gaslight; with a good
Welsbach burner a cubic foot of illuminating gas will give a
seventeen-candle light as an average. The comparison, to be fair,
should be between acetylene and the Welsbach light.

The reader will ask whether it is not possible to burn acetylene with
other forms of burner, or to use it with Welsbach mantles. Successful
acetylene burners of the Argand or of the regenerative type have not
yet been introduced; but in Germany a new acetylene burner with
Welsbach mantle promises good results. Experiments in England with an
acetylene Bunsen burner and Welsbach mantle gave a light of ninety
candles per cubic foot of acetylene used. It remains to be seen
whether it is necessary to modify the composition of the mantles
because of the intense heat of the acetylene Bunsen flame, which gives
a temperature of 2100° to 2400° C. (3812° to 4397° Fahrenheit).

It would extend this article to undue length to speak of the various
uses of acetylene as an enricher of other gases, but a mixture of
acetylene and Pintsch oil gas now in use on all the Prussian state
railways deserves mention, as it is a success, and ten thousand tons
of carbide will be used this year for lighting cars by this system.
Lewes's new invention of a very cheap methane water gas which is
enriched by acetylene, carried to the consumer through mains, and
burned in ordinary burners, is also promising.

Insurance and police regulations vary for every country. As a rule,
restrictions are put on the use of liquid acetylene, and on the amount
of carbide to be kept in storage. Generators must stand in separate
buildings, which, in towns, must be fireproof.

The Willson patents cover the manufacture of crystalline carbide in
the United States, Canada, and the South American states; and, as all
carbide made by the electric furnace is crystalline, no carbide can be
made independently of these patents in these countries.

In conclusion, it may be predicted that within the next few years
acetylene will prove a factor in giving us an improved and cheaper
light. Whether this will be an acetylene-Welsbach light or whether the
acetylene will be chiefly used as an enricher of cheaper gases the
future will show.




THOUGHTS ABOUT UNIVERSITIES.

BY WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS,

PROFESSOR OF ZOÖLOGY IN THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.


You are aware that the pedagogue is no longer treated with that
deference and respect which he feels to be due to his love of
learning. Past is all his fame. Past is the day when the village all
declared how much he knew. Nowadays he is accustomed to be told by the
rustics, who once gazed and wondered, that he is old-fashioned and out
of place in our modern world; that he does not represent the nation;
that the love he bears to learning is at fault; and that the
university the people want must be universal like an omnibus, with a
place for all, either for a single square or to the end.

He is also used to hearing from those successful people of whom all
must speak with reverence--those who have demonstrated their
superiority by laying their hands on everything they think worth the
getting--that he is a mere "bookish theorist," and that they are much
more able to show him the path to success than he to tell them
anything to their advantage.

Unless he can minister to their comfort or entertainment, or make
smooth the royal road to learning, or at the very least help to
maintain the patent office, he is told to be content with such
treatment as they think good enough for him, and to keep himself to
his work of teaching the lower classes to be lowly and reverent to all
their betters.

I have been much interested of late by two books on certain aspects of
modern society. One treats of the dangers which threaten liberal
culture and constitutional government, and all the best products of
civilization, through the increasing prevalence of the belief that our
institutions have been _devised_ by a few for their own selfish ends.
So long as men differ in natural endowments the ignorant and the
incapable and the unsuccessful must outnumber those whose industry and
energy and foresight insure success. As those who have little have
always outnumbered those who have much of the desired fruits of
civilization, this writer says that one of the great questions of the
day is whether, in last resort, the world shall be governed by its
ignorance or by its intelligence. He is alarmed by the diffusion of
belief that our established institutions do not represent the people,
and that they are hostile to the best interest of mankind, and by the
prevalence of the opinion that the true way to reform the world and to
secure rational progress is to intrust the organization and
administration of government and of education and of all matters of
public interest and importance to the majority.

The danger so clearly pointed out is real, beyond question; but I can
not agree with the author that it is exclusively or distinctively
modern. If some in our day interpret the belief that the voice of the
people is the voice of God, as conviction that the loudest voice is
most divine; if they assert that the man with pure and lofty ideals of
education and duty and loyalty is a public enemy; we must remember
that so wise a man as Aristotle taught, in the day of Athenian
democracy, that the man who is virtuous in undue measure is a moral
monster, as justly repugnant to his neighbors as one pre-eminent in
vice.

If the first book calls Aristotle to mind, one must often think of
Jeremiah while reading the second, for its author is a dismal prophet,
who holds that, formidable as unbridled democracy seems, it is
helpless in the struggle with organized plutocracy, and that its
efforts to shake off the restraints and limitations of social
existence can end in nothing but a more crushing despotism, while
submission may bring such rewards of merit for good behavior in the
past and such prizes for good conduct in the future as seem to the
givers to be good investments.

Both writers draw many of their illustrations from the history of our
own country, and they hold that our great political contests are
struggles between those who wish to maintain our institutions for the
sake of what they can themselves make out of them, and those who seek
to wreck the ship of state for very similar reasons.

Some hold that, these things being true, they can show the learned
professor how he may win back, through the struggle between these two
great classes of mankind, some of that confidence in his wisdom which
his predecessors enjoyed. They tell him he may make his learning
represent the people if he will extend his university until it becomes
as universal as the kindergarten, and that he may at the same time
increase his popularity with the select if he will devote more of his
time and more of his energy to that branch of learning which was in
olden times pursued in that secluded cloister called the campus,
although it is better known to the polite society of our day through
the banjo club, the football team, and the mask and wig club.

If he will cultivate these two fields, and, refraining from the
theoretical pursuit of empty generalities, will enter upon a three
months' campaign of education at some time when men's minds are
stimulated by the heat of faction to welcome calm discussion of the
principles of common honesty and good citizenship, he can not fail to
win the respect and confidence of all.

When I wrote this last sentence I thought that it was all out of my
own head, and I was proud of it; but as I laid down my pen in my
satisfaction for a moment's rest, my eye fell upon this passage in the
prospectus of a new university--one which is said, in the prospectus,
to be not only universal, but cosmopolitan: "When a question arises
which divides scholars, like the tariff, the causes and course of the
Reformation, money, etc., the student will be referred to the ablest
exponents of the opposing sides."

No professor can plead ignorance of the way to enter this new career
of usefulness. One can scarcely pick up a college catalogue or a
magazine or a newspaper without learning how to make the university
universal. One of the simplest plans, with which all are familiar, is
to send to men with a reputation for learning a ruled form and a
request that each will write, in the proper columns, the price,
publisher, and title of the best book on his own subject--mathematics,
astronomy, moral science, or whatever it may be--or, if he knows of no
such book, that he will write one. An accompanying circular tells how
these lists are to be scattered through the innumerable homes of our
land, and how diplomas are to be distributed as prizes to those who,
after purchasing the books, prepare and submit the most exhaustive
permutations of their tables of contents.

Learned men who do not approve this plan are offered a choice from
many others: six-week courses in law, medicine, and theology; summer
schools for the promotion of science and the liberal arts; questions
and answers in the educational column of some journal for the home; or
a national university so universal that it shall supply lunches and
learning for all out of the public chest, with no doorkeeper to
examine passports.

The way to extend the university in this direction is so well
understood that I will turn now to another part of our subject, for
some may be less familiar with our opportunity to construct a royal
road to learning for those who are entitled to use it.

A recent writer on education, who says American universities impose
"upon young men in the nineteenth century a curriculum devised by
dead-and-gone priests for the young men of the twelfth," calls upon
the teachers of America to reconstruct their curriculum on
psychological principles. I myself am no psychologist, and while I
fail to see how this fact concerns the public, it has recently been
pointed out in print, although no one has ever charged me with lack of
reverence for the psychologist. In truth, he is to me what the good
old family doctor is to many, for I am convinced that it would be hard
to name one among all the educational ills that flesh is heir
to that he would not be able to throw on the spot, with a good
collar-and-elbow hold. I have a prodigious respect for those fine big
words _curriculum_ and _psychological principles_, and I welcome the
plan for reconstructing the curriculum on psychological principles the
more eagerly because it is extremely simple and not hard to
understand, like some psychological utterances. In fact, it is so very
simple and easy that it is sure of enthusiastic indorsement by
innumerable children, for this reformer's plan is neither more nor
less than the abolition of the pedagogue.

"If," he says, "I was director general of education for all America"
(which at the present moment he is not), "I would abolish colleges,
but send American youths to travel for two years in Europe. In my
opinion," he says, "a father who has sons and daughters of a proper
age to go to college will do better by his children if he sends them
for two years to travel in Europe than if he sends them for three
years to an American or English university."

Admirable and simple as is this plan for ascending Parnassus in
vestibuled trains of drawing-room cars, personally conducted by Grant
Allen, this psychologist seems to me to err in thinking it new, for it
was in high favor in England during the reign of that merry monarch
who was always so furious at the sight of books that his queen, who
loved reading, had to practice it in secret in her closet.

Euphranor having asked, in the reign of George II, "Who are these
learned men that of late years have demolished the whole fabric which
lawgivers, philosophers, and divines have been erecting for so many
ages? Lysicles, hearing these words, smiled and said he believed
Euphranor had figured to himself philosophers in square caps and long
gowns; but, thanks to these happy times, the reign of pedantry was
over. Our philosophers, said he, are of a different kind from those
awkward students. They are the best-bred men of the age, men of the
world, men of pleasure, men of fashion, and fine gentlemen. I will
undertake a lad of fourteen bred in the modern way shall make a better
figure and be more considered in any drawing-room or assembly of
polite people than one at four-and-twenty who hath lain by a long time
at school and college. He will say better things in a better manner,
and be more liked by good judges. I say, when a man observes and
considers all this, he will be apt to ascribe it to the force of truth
and the merits of our cause, which, had it been supported by the
revenues and establishments of the Church and universities, you may
guess what a figure it would make by the figure it makes without them.
People begin to open their eyes. It is not impossible but the revenues
that in ignorant times were applied to a wrong use may hereafter, in a
more enlightened age, be applied to a better."

"The money that went to found the Leland Stanford or the Johns
Hopkins University," says the modern reformer, "would have been
immeasurably better spent in bringing St. Marks at Venice and the
Uffizi at Florence into the lives of innumerable young Americans.
Here, then, is the opportunity for a wiser Cornell."

A few years ago an acquaintance of my own, himself an accomplished
psychologist, brought with him to Washington a young man, a native of
north Greenland, that he might take into his life the best substitute
for St. Marks at Venice that this country affords. While limited in
range, the results were as definite as one could wish, for two of the
most refined delights of our wonderful civilization--rum and
horses--were at once taken into the life of Eskimo Joe with all the
fresh enthusiasm of youth. In his boyish impetuosity he could not see
why a hired horse should not have the fleetness of Santa Claus's
reindeer and the endurance of wild dogs; and as few horses survived
the first lesson, the psychologist soon reconstructed the curriculum,
for Joe's progress in rum and oysters was most gratifying. You who
have attended my lectures in anthropology will remember that Nature
has bestowed on the Eskimos two endowments which are not elsewhere
found united, although they are exhibited separately in high
perfection by the anaconda and the camel. Joe was able to load himself
with food and drink like a pirate ship victualed for a long cruise,
and he became so proficient in three months that a two-year course
seemed unnecessary, so he was shipped off to Labrador at the first
opportunity, and was left there to carry St. Marks at Venice into the
homes of Greenland as best he might. It is clear that our
psychological reformer's plan is not new, but he says our curriculum
is some thousand years behind the times, and he asks, "Will somebody
one day have the wisdom to perceive that the education which sufficed
for the mediæval England of the Plantagenets is not absolutely adapted
to the America of the nineteenth century?" I myself know so little of
the curriculum of that day that this charge may, for all I know, be
well founded, and if so it were a grievous fault. For all I know the
dead-and-gone priests of the twelfth century may have read Homer in
the original Greek, and carried on their studies in trigonometry and
navigation with the aid of logarithms and the nautical almanac,
although it has come in my way to know something of their method of
teaching zoölogy, for my studies have led me to examine a text-book on
this subject, which was written early in the twelfth century for the
education of the young Queen Adelaide, who was married to Henry I of
England in 1121. The dedication is as follows:

"Philippi de Thann into the French language has translated the
Bestiary, a book of science, for the honor of a jewel, who is a very
handsome woman, Aliz is she named, a queen is she crowned, Queen she
is of England, may her soul never have trouble! In Hebrew in truth
Aliz means praise of God. I will compose a book, may God be with the
commencement!"

As a sample of the zoölogical curriculum of the twelfth century take
this chapter:

"Onager by right is named the wild ass; of it the Physiologus says, in
his speech, when March in his course has completed twenty-five days,
then that day of the month he brays twelve times, and also in the
night for this reason, that that season is the equinox, that is that
night and day are of equal length; by the twelve times that it makes
its braying and its crying, it shows that night and day have twelve
hours in their circuit. The ass is grieved when he makes his cry, that
the night and day have equal length; he likes better the length of the
night than of the day. Now hear without doubt the signification of
this. Onager signifies the devil in this life; and by March we
understand all the time that we have; by the day we understand good
people, by right, who will go in light; and by night we understand
those who were Neros; and by hours we understand the number of people.
And when the devil perceives that his people decrease, as do the hours
which are in the night, after the vernal equinox which we have in
March, then he begins to cry, to deplore greatly, as the ass does
which brays and crys."

One need not go back to the middle ages for a measure of progress, for
all who remember the American college of thirty years ago know there
has been notable improvement in this short time, and they also know
that every change has not been an improvement. All who are concerned
with education see many defects, and wish to do what they can to
remedy them, and to increase the efficiency and usefulness of our
whole educational system in all its branches from the lowest to the
highest, although I believe they still find much wisdom in the advice
of the prophet of old, "that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and
then look about us and discover what is the straight and right way,
and so walk in it."

Many who are now before the public as reformers seem to me to fall
into error through belief that our educational system has been
_devised_ by some one, either in the twelfth century or at some other
time, and that they may therefore hope to devise a better. All who
know that it is a highly complex and delicate organism which has grown
up imperceptibly and naturally in accordance with many needs,
fulfilling many different purposes and acting in many diversified and
far-reaching ways, know also that while reform always has been and
always will be needed, organic change is quite another matter. They
know, too, that a disposition to pull it to pieces in the interest of
some theory or speculation must inevitably end in disaster, for they
must agree with Bacon that "it were good, therefore, that men in their
innovations would follow the example of time itself, which indeed
innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be
perceived."

The complaint that learning is no longer treated with due deference is
not exclusively modern, for it was enumerated long ago among the
things that are not new under the sun; and he who for his own pleasure
or distinction devotes himself to work in fields that yield nothing
but the interest of the exploration should look to his own pleasure
for his reward, since learning is no more exalted by turning it into
an aristocratic and exclusive pleasure ground than by making it a shop
for profit. While no weak and foolish brother of the laboratory should
be permitted to think that he belongs to a favored class or has any
claims to support or respect except for service rendered, it is the
duty of our graduates to teach the world, by the example of their
lives, what the work of the university is.

Lyceum lectures and summer schools and systematic courses of reading
are good things, and the common school and the home are the foundation
of all education. Travel is a most valuable adjunct, but those who are
to profit by it must first know what they go out to see, "for else
shall young men go hooded and look abroad little."

No school or college can improve its work by calling itself a
university, although the prevalence of belief that its work is the
work of a university may bring harm incalculable; for that university
is universal, in the best sense of the word, where students are
inspired with enthusiasm for truth by the example of those whose minds
are "as a mirror or glass capable of the image of the universal world,
and joyful to receive the impression thereof as the eye joyeth to
receive light."

What nobler task can our graduate undertake than to teach the world
that while the benefits which learning confers are its only claim to
consideration, these benefits will cease so soon as they are made an
end or aim? All men prize the fruit; but who else is there to tell
them that the tree will soon be barren if they visit it only at the
harvest, that they must dig about it and nourish it and cherish the
flowers and green leaves? What better service can he render than to
point out that the gifts of learning are like health, which comes to
him who does not seek it, but flies farther and farther from him who
would lure it back by physic or indulgence?

The two authors I referred to at the beginning can not both be right,
and both may be partly wrong, for it is possible that neither
plutocracy nor a democratic majority makes a state. No university
need humble itself to seek the favor of either plutocracy or democracy
if its graduates can convince mankind, by their own lives, that its
aim is not to gain deference or success or distinction or reward of
any sort, but solely to propagate and diffuse among mankind "that
enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater
possession than much learning, a nobler gift than the power of
increasing knowledge."




IN THE LITTLE BROOK.

BY DAVID STARR JORDAN.


Long ago, in the old Devonian times, when life was very leisurely, all
the beasts and people that there were lived in the sea together. The
air was dull and murky on the land. It was so light that it gave no
support to the body, and so those that ventured about in it had to lie
prone on the ground all the time wherever they went. So they preferred
to stay in the water, where motion is much easier. Then, too, water is
so much better to breathe than air, if one has gills fitted for it! He
has only to open his mouth and the water rushes in. Then he has only
to shut his mouth and the water rushes out backward, bathing his gills
on the way. Thus, the air dissolved in the water purifies all the
little drops of blood that run up and back through the slender tubes
of which the gills are made.

But in those days, besides the gills, some of the beasts of the sea
had also a sac in the throat above the stomach in which they could
stow away air which they took from the atmosphere itself. This served
them in good stead when they were in crowded places, in which the air
dissolved in the water would fail them.

And those which were so provided used to venture farther and farther
out of the water, pushing their way heavily on the ground. And those
which could put forth most effort survived, until at last their
descendants were able to maintain themselves on the land altogether.
These gave rise to the races of reptiles and birds and mammals, the
ancestors of all the land beasts that you know, as well as men and
women and all the monkey people. But it was very long ago when this
happened, and because these ancestors came finally out of the water
they have no part in the story I am trying to tell to-day.

Those that remained in the water grew more and more contented with
their condition. Because the medium in which they lived was as heavy
as their bodies, they swam without much effort, and effort not being
needed, it was not put forth. As there was food enough in the water,
they did not need to go on land. As they did not go on land, they did
not use their lungs for breathing, the air sac gradually shrank away,
or was used for some other purpose, and all the parts of the body
became adjusted for life in water, as those of their cousins who left
the sea became fitted for the life in air. Being now fishes for good,
all the progress since then has made them with each succeeding century
more and more decidedly fishy.

And because they are fishes they are contented to live in little
brooks, which would not satisfy you and me at all. But our ancestors
in the early days were more ambitious, and by struggle and effort won
what seems to us a larger heritage.

So it happened one spring when the ice melted out from some little
brook that flows down from somebody's hills somewhere toward some
river that sets toward the Mississippi, the little fishes began to
run.

And first of all came the lampreys, but they hardly count as fishes,
for they have yet to learn the first principles of fishiness. A fish
is a creature whose arms and legs are developed as fins, having
cartilaginous rays spreading out fanlike to form an oar for swimming.
But the lamprey has no trace of arm or leg, not even a bone or
cartilage hidden under the skin. And its ancestors never had any limbs
at all, for the earliest lamprey embryo shows no traces of them. If
the ancestors ever had limbs, the descendants would never quite forget
it. Some little trace would be kept by the clinging force of heredity,
and at some time or another this rudiment would appear. And the lower
jaw they lack too, for that is really another pair of limbs joined
together in front--as it were, a pair of short hands clasped together
and never unlocked.

But though the lampreys have no limbs and no jaws and are not fishes
anyhow, they do not know the difference, and come up the brook in the
spring, rushing up the rapids, swirling about in the eddies, just as
if they were real fishes and owned the brook themselves. They are
long, slender, and slippery, shaped like eels, without any scales and
with only a little fin, and that along the back and tail, an outgrowth
from the vertebral column. The vertebral column itself is limp and
soft, the vertebræ only imperfectly formed and made of soft cartilage.
In front the lamprey seems to be cut off short, but if we look
carefully we see that the body ends in a round disk of a mouth, and
that this disk is beset by rows of sharp teeth. A row of the sharpest
of these is placed on the tongue, and two of these are above the
gullet, for the tongue to scrape against them. And the rest are all
blunt and are scattered over the surface of the mouth, which has no
lips nor jaws, but is surrounded by a belt of fringes. When the
lamprey is hungry he puts his mouth against the side of some fish,
exhausts the water between, and then the pressure of the outside water
holds him there tightly. When this is done, the fish swims away and
the lamprey rides with it, giving no thought to where he is going, but
all the while scraping away the flesh with his rasplike teeth. When he
has filed off enough fish flesh to satisfy his hunger he lets go, and
goes off about his business. The fish, who does not know what hurt
him, goes off to get well if he can. Usually he can not, for the water
of the brook is full of the germs of little toadstool-like plants, and
these fasten themselves on the fish's wounds and make them bigger and
bigger, until at last the cavity of the abdomen is pierced and little
creatures of many kinds, plant and animal, go in there and plunder all
this fish's internal organs, to carry them away for their own
purposes.

But when the lampreys come up the April brook it is not to feed on
fishes, nor is it to feed at all. Nature is insistent that the race
should be kept up, and every animal is compelled to attend to the
needs of the species, even though it be at the sacrifice of all else.
If she were not so, the earth and the seas would be depopulated, and
this is a contingency toward which Nature has never looked.

The lampreys come up the stream to spawn, and while on this errand
they fasten their round mouths to stones or clods of earth, that the
current may not sweep them away. When so fastened they look like some
strange dark plant clinging to the bottom of the brook. When the
spawning season is over some of them still remain there, forgotten by
Nature, who is now busied with other things, and they wear their lives
away still clinging--a strange, weird piece of brook-bottom scenery
which touched the fancy of Thoreau.

When the young are hatched they are transparent as jelly, blind and
toothless, with a mouth that seems only a slit down the front end of
the body. These little creatures slip down the brook unobserved, and
hide themselves in the grass and lily pads till their teeth are grown
and they go about rasping the bodies of their betters, grieving the
fishes who do not know how to protect themselves.

The lamprey is not a fish at all, only a wicked imitation of one which
can deceive nobody. But there are fishes which are unquestionably
fish--fish from gills to tail, from head to fin, and of these the
little sunfish may stand first. He comes up the brook in the spring,
fresh as "coin just from the mint," finny arms and legs wide spread,
his gills moving, his mouth opening and shutting rhythmically, his
tail wide spread, and ready for any sudden motion for which his
erratic little brain may give the order. The scales of the sunfish
shine with all sorts of scarlet, blue, green, purple, and golden
colors. There is a black spot on his head which looks like an ear, and
sometimes grows out in a long black flap, which makes the imitation
still closer. There are many species of the sunfish, and there may be
a half dozen of them in the same brook, but that makes no difference;
for our purposes they are all as one. They lie poised in the water,
with all fins spread, strutting like turkey-cocks, snapping at worms
and little crustaceans and insects whose only business in the brook is
that the fishes may eat them. When the time comes, the sunfish makes
its nest in the fine gravel, building it with some care--for a fish.
When the female has laid her eggs the male stands guard till the eggs
are hatched. His sharp teeth and snappish ways, and the bigness of his
appearance when the fins are all displayed, keep the little fishes
away. Sometimes, in his zeal, he snaps at a hook baited with a worm.
He then makes a fierce fight, and the boy who holds the rod is sure
that he has a real fish this time. But when the sunfish is out of the
water, strung on a willow rod, and dried in the sun, the boy sees that
a very little fish can make a good deal of a fuss.

When the sunfish goes, then the catfish will follow--"a reckless,
bullying set of rangers, with ever a lance at rest." The catfish
belongs to an ancient type not yet fully made into a fish, and hence
those whose paired fins are all properly fastened to the head, as his
are not, hold him in well-merited scorn. He has no scales and no
bright colors. His fins are small, and his head and mouth are large.
Around his mouth are eight long "smellers," fleshy feelers, that he
pushes out as he crawls along the bottom in search of anything that he
may eat. As he may eat anything, he always finds it. His appetite is
as impartial as that of a goat. Anything from a dead lamprey or a
bunch of sunfish eggs to a piece of tomato can is grateful to him. In
each of the fins which represent his arms is a long, sharp bone with a
slimy surface and a serrated edge. These are fastened by a
ball-and-socket joint, and whenever the fish is alarmed the bone is
whirled over and set in place; then it sticks out stiffly on each
side. There is another such bone in the fin on the back, and when all
of these are set there is no fish that can swallow him. When he takes
the hook, which he surely will do if there is any hook to be taken, he
will swallow it greedily. As he is drawn out of the water he sets his
three spines, and laughs to himself as the boy pricks his fingers
trying to get the hook from his stomach. This the boy is sure to do,
and because the boy of the Mississippi Valley is always fishing for
catfish is the reason why his fingers are always sore. The catfish is
careless of the present, and sure of the future. After he is strung on
a birch branch and dried in the sun and sprinkled with dust and has
had his stomach dug out to recover the hook, if he falls into the
brook he will swim away. He holds no malice, and is ready to bite
again at the first thing in sight.

The catfish uses his lungs as an organ of hearing. The needless lung
becomes a closed sac filled with air, and commonly known as the swim
bladder. In the catfish (as in the suckers, chubs, and most brook
fishes) the air bladder is large, and is connected by a slender tube,
the remains of the trachea, to the oesophagus. At its front it fits
closely to the vertebral column. The anterior vertebræ are much
enlarged, twisted together, and through them passes a chain of bones
which connect with the hidden cavity of the air. The air bladder
therefore assists the ear of the catfish as the tympanum and its bones
assist the ear of the higher animals. An ear of this sort can carry
little range of variety in sound. It probably gives only the
impression of jars or disturbances in the water.

The catfish lays her eggs on the bottom of the brook, without much
care as to their location. She is not, however, indifferent to their
fate, for when the little fishes are hatched she swims with them into
shallow waters, brooding over them and watching them much as a hen
does with her chickens. In shallow ponds the young catfishes make a
black cloud along the shores, and the other fishes let them alone, for
their spines are sharp as needles.

Up the brooks in the spring come the suckers, large and small--coarse,
harmless, stupid fishes, who have only two instincts, the one to press
to the head of the stream to lay their eggs, the other to nose over
the bottom of the stream wherever they go, sucking into their
puckered, toothless mouths every organic thing, from water moss to
carrion, which they may happen to find. They have no other habits to
speak of, and when they have laid their eggs in a sandy ripple they
care no more for them, but let go of life's activity and drop down the
current to the river whence they came. There are black suckers and
white suckers, yellow ones, brown ones, and mottled, and there is more
than one kind in every little brook, but one and all they are harmless
dolts, the prey of all larger fishes, and so full of bones that even
the small boy spits them out after he has cooked them.

Then come the minnows, of all forms and sizes, the female dull colored
and practical, laying her eggs automatically when she finds quiet
water, and thinking no more of them afterward. The male, feeble of
muscle, but resplendent in color, with head and fins painted scarlet
or purple, or silver white, or inky black, as may be most pleasing to
his spouse. His mouth is small and without teeth, for he feeds on
creatures smaller than fishes, and his head in the spring is covered
with coarse warts, nuptial ornaments, which fall off as soon as the
eggs are properly disposed of. In the little brook which comes to my
mind as I write two kinds of minnows come up the stream together
before the others realize that it is verily spring. The one is small,
dainty, translucent, and active, swimming free in the water near the
surface and able to take care of itself when pursued by a sunfish or
bass. Along the side of its body are two black stripes not quite
parallel, and between and below them the silvery scales are flushed
with fiery scarlet. The fins are all yellow, with scarlet at base, and
as the male passes and repasses before the female all these colors,
which she has not, grow brighter than ever.

The next is a larger fish, clumsy in form, hugging the bottom as he
swims. The whole body of the male is covered with coarse white warts,
and across each fin is a bar of black, white, and orange. This minnow
feeds on mud, or rather on the little plants which grow in mud, and
his intestines are lengthened out proportionally. In fact, they are so
long that, to find room for them, they are wound spool-fashion about
the air bladder in a way which happens to no other animal.

Of the other minnows, the one attracts his female by a big, jet-black
head; another by the painted fins, which shine like white satin;
another by his deep-blue sheen, which is washed all over with crimson.
In fact, every conceivable arrangement of bright colors can be found,
if we go the country over, as the adornment of some minnow when he
mates in the spring. The only exception is green, for to the fishes,
as to the birds, green is not a color. It only serves to cover one,
while the purpose of real color is to be seen.

And there are fishes whose colors are so placed that they are hidden
from above or below, but seen of their own kind which looks on them
from the side.

The brightest fishes in the world, the "Johnny darters," are in our
little brook. But if you look at them from above you will hardly see
them, for they are dull olive on the back, with dark spots and dashes
like the weeds under which they lie. The male is only a little fellow,
not so long as your finger and slim for his size. He lies flat on the
bottom, half hidden by a stone, around which his tail is twisted. He
will stay there for hours, unseen by other fishes, except by his own
kinsmen. But if you reach down to touch him with your finger he is no
longer there. The tail straightens out, there is a flash of blue and
scarlet, and a foot or two away he is resting quietly as before. On
the bottom is his place, and he seems always at peace, but when he
moves his actions are instantaneous and as swift as possible to a
creature who lives in the water. On the bottom, among the stones, the
female casts her spawn. Neither she nor the male pays any further
attention to it, but in the breeding season the male is painted in
colors as beautiful as those of the wood warblers. When you go to the
brook in the spring you will find him there, and if you catch him and
turn him over on his side you will see the colors that he shows to his
mate, and which her choice through ages has tended to develop in him.
But do not hurt him. He can only breathe for a moment out of water.
Put him back in the brook and let him paint its bottom the colors of a
rainbow, a sunset, or a garden of roses. All that can be done with
blue, crimson, and green pigments in fish ornamentation you will find
in some brook in which the darters live. It is in the limestone brooks
that flow into the Tennessee and Cumberland where they are found at
their brightest, but the Ozark region comes in for a close second.

There will be sticklebacks in your brook, but the other fishes do not
like them, for they are tough and dry of flesh, and their sharp spines
make them hard to swallow and harder still to digest. They hide
beneath the overhanging tufts of grass, and dart out swiftly at
whatever passes by. They tear the fins of the minnows, rob the nests
of the sunfish, drag out the eggs of the suckers, and are busy from
morn to night at whatever mischief is possible in the brook.

The male dresses in jet-black when the breeding season is on,
sometimes with a further ornament of copper-red or of scarlet. The
sticklebacks build nests in which to hide their eggs, and over these
the male stands guard, defending them with courage which would be
dauntless in any animal more than two inches long. Very often he has
to repel the attacks of the female herself, who, being relieved of all
responsibility for her offspring, is prone to turn cannibal. Even the
little dwellers of the brook have their own troubles and adversities
and perversities.

Last of all comes the blob, or miller's thumb, who hides in darkness
and picks up all that there is left. He is scaleless and slippery,
large of head, plump of body, and with no end of appetite. He lurks
under stones when the water is cold. He is gray and greenish, like the
bottom in color. He robs the buried nests of eggs, swallows the young
fishes, devours the dead ones, and checks the undue increase of all,
not forgetting his own kind. When he has done his work and the fall
has come and gone, and the winter and the spring return, the brook
once more fills with fishes, and there are the same kinds, with the
same actions, the same ways, and the same numbers, and one might think
from year to year, as the sun is said to do, that these were the
selfsame waters and the selfsame fishes mating over and over again and
feeding on the selfsame food.

But this is not so. The old stage remains, or seems to remain, but
every year come new actors, and the lines which they repeat were
"written for them centuries before they were born." But each
generation which passes changes their lives just a little, just as the
brook and the meadow itself is changing.




WHITE WHALES IN CONFINEMENT.

BY FRED MATHER.


The dolphin family (_Delphinidæ_) contains nine genera, with only one
species in each, but the most interesting one is the white whale
(_Delphinapterus leucas_ of Pallas, or _D. catodon_ [Linn.] of Gill),
because it is the only one that can be kept in confinement and its
habits observed under semi-domestication. It has fallen to my lot to
care for several of these animals in confinement, and to have a chance
to note their peculiarities.

"The Great New York Aquarium," at Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street,
New York city, was built by Messrs. Coup and Reiche, and opened in
1876. Mr. Butler was the superintendent. I supervised fish culture,
and when not otherwise engaged made collections of fishes and
invertebrates in Bermuda and in other parts. In 1877 I had charge of
their branch aquarium at Coney Island. At both places we had many
white whales at different times, for the management would keep whales
penned up on the St. Lawrence River to replace those which died, and
would never show more than two at a time, claiming that they were rare
animals and only to be had at "enormous" expense. The aquarium was a
private concern; admission fifty cents; and as the owners were W. C.
Coup, a former circus proprietor and once the business manager of
Barnum's Circus, and Henry Reiche, an animal dealer, who would sell
you giraffes, elephants, or white mice, the attractions were duly
exaggerated by the press agent, no matter what the facts might be.
This is why we kept a reserve stock of white whales. It would never do
to have the public know that they were common during the summer in the
St. Lawrence, and when one was getting weak another would be sent
down, and the public supposed that the same pair was on exhibition all
the time.

This species is common in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and
Arctic Oceans. According to the late Prof. G. Brown Goode, "stragglers
have been seen in the Frith of Forth, latitude 56°, while on the
American coast several have been taken within the past decade [1880]
on the north shore of Cape Cod. They are slightly abundant in New
England waters, but in the St. Lawrence River and on the coast of
Labrador are plentiful, and the object of a profitable fishery. They
abound in the Bering and Okhotsk Seas, and ascend the Yukon River,
Alaska, to a distance of seven hundred miles. The names in use are
beluga and whitefish among whalers, porpoise, dauphin blanc, marsouin
or marsoon in Canada, and keela luak with the Greenland Eskimos"
(Fisheries Industries).

The white whale grows to be sixteen feet long; we never had one over
ten feet in length, but they were billed, showman fashion, to be much
longer. An adult will yield from eighty to one hundred gallons of good
whale oil, besides several gallons of more valuable oil from the head
which is used on clocks and watches under the trade name of
"porpoise-jaw oil," which is sent in a crude state to manufacturers on
Cape Cod, who refine it and free it from all tendency to gum. The
skins make a leather that is waterproof and stands more hard service
than any other known leather. Large quantities of it are sent to
England and made into "porpoise-hide boots" for sportsmen, and in
Canada the hides are converted into mail bags. The flesh is eaten to
some extent by the fishermen, fresh, salted, and smoked.

Zach. Coup said: "I have eaten the fresh steaks several times, and
found the meat a fair substitute for beef when the choice was between
fish and bacon as a continuous diet, down on the islands where these
three things were the only possible variation in the line of animal
food, and a very limited choice in the vegetable line, comprising
dried beans and rice, for when I was with them there was a scarcity of
potatoes for seed, and canned goods had not attained their present
popularity, even if these poor fishermen had been able to buy them."

The fat, oily blubber is an overcoat, a nonconductor of heat, and is
between the muscle and the skin, as is largely the case with the hog,
and, like the latter animal, there is savory muscle which may be cut
into succulent steaks below it.

At first the white whales were not in my care, but, being strange
animals, were watched with curiosity. The whale tank was as nearly
circular as a twenty-sided tank could be whose glass plates were four
feet wide with iron standards between, making a pool of about thirty
feet in diameter. The pool was of cement and tapered down to an outlet
about three feet below the floor, for drainage, and on the floor the
cement basin arose two and a half feet, while the panes of one-inch
glass were six feet high, with the water line two feet below the top
of the glass. This gave the spectators a view of the animals below
water, and of their backs as they came up to blow. The white whale and
the harbor porpoise (_Phocæna brachycion_), known as the herring-hog,
etc., do not make as much of a "spout" as the larger whales do; they
roll up and exhale either less strongly or with less water over the
blow-hole than their larger relatives. They merely send a mist into
the air which can not be seen at a distance of a thousand yards, while
the "blowing" of the larger whales may be seen for miles. Half a
century ago we boys were taught by the text-books that the
whale--there was only one mentioned--drew in water through its mouth,
strained out the jellyfishes and other life, and then ejected the
water, after the manner of a fire engine, through the top of its head.
That this nostril, equipped with the best water-tight valve ever
invented, enabled an air-breathing mammal to exhale and inhale,
without getting much water into its lungs, we never suspected. If we
thought about it at all we looked at the whale as a fish, having gills
somewhere, and let it go at that. As our laws speak of "whale
fisheries" and "seal fisheries" in connection with these great aquatic
mammals, it would be just as correct to speak of all animals which
frequent the water as "fishes," and legislate on the "muskrat
fisheries," "mink fisheries," etc.; there is really no difference.

I have seen newspaper reports that about thirty years ago a white
whale, brought there by a Mr. Cutting, lived in captivity in Boston
for two years. Beyond the fact that one was brought there by a Mr.
Cutting, and was on exhibition about that time, is all that I have
been able to learn, and it is doubtful if it lived one year (see
Fisheries Industries, section 1, page 19). One was exhibited at
Barnum's old museum, at Broadway and Ann Street, New York, that is
said to have lived nine months and was then burned up when that
building burned, in March, 1868. As these animals only come into the
St. Lawrence, where all live ones have been captured, in May and June,
there is no reason to doubt that it did live in confinement for nine
months, but none that have been exhibited since that time have
survived more than half as long, and I have had personal knowledge of
every one since Barnum's.

Coup's Broadway Aquarium opened on October 11, 1876--too late to get a
white whale that year. But early next spring Mr. Coup sent his brother
to the St. Lawrence River for specimens. This brother, "Zach.," had
never seen a whale, but he had full instructions concerning their care
from Professor Butler, who had charge of the one at Barnum's Museum.
There was an air of mystery about the expedition, and in May "Zach."
brought a solitary specimen and at once went for more. The town was
billed, the daily press was worked in true circus fashion, the crowd
came and expressed various opinions. Standing by the tank, I heard
strange comments:

"Do you call that little thing a whale?" This to an attendant.

"Yes, sir, it's a white whale from the northern coast of Labrador, the
only one ever captured or ever seen by the oldest whaleman. It was
reported to have been seen near the entrance to Hudson Bay, and Mr.
Coup fitted out an expedition and captured it at an expense of over
one hundred thousand dollars." He had evidently been reading what the
press agent had stuffed into the newspapers.

The visitor took another look and remarked: "The papers said it was
twenty feet long; I should think it might be six feet, but no more."

"Well," answered the attendant, "water is mitey deceivin', an' that
whale is more'n three times as long as it looks. The fact is, the
papers did report it to be longer than it is, for when we drew off the
water to clean the tank yesterday we put a steel tape over the whale
and it measured just nineteen feet eleven inches and a half."

Then a rural couple came, and she remarked: "Oh, I'm so glad we came
here, and can tell the folks that we've seen a real live whale!"

"Lucy," said he, "this city is full of all kinds of cheats, an' I
don't believe that thing is alive more'n Methuselah is; it's some
indy-rubber contraption with clockwork in it that makes it go round
and puff in that way."

After the season for hatching trout and salmon was over, in April, I
was detailed to build a branch aquarium at Coney Island, with
instructions to construct a whale tank the first thing, in order to be
ready for the next arrivals. I employed a maker of beer vats, and he
brought three-inch planks for the bottom, staves eight feet high, and
iron for hoops. The tank was to be twenty-five feet in diameter, with
a "chime" nine inches below the bottom, making the tank seven feet
deep inside. It was to set with its top eighteen inches above the
soil, which was to be the water line, giving the whales five feet and
a half of water--little enough when we realize that a ten-foot animal
has a diameter of nearly three feet. Heavy timbers were laid under the
bottom of the tank, carefully leveled, for no weight can be borne by
the staves in a tank of that size.

All this was planned, as well as the engine and pumps, and was well
under way, when I received an order from Mr. Coup to go to Quebec and
bring down two whales while Zach. went for more. Then I learned the
secrets of the live white whale trade. The first whale had been kept
back until it could be delivered at night, and its transportation was
a mystery intended to arouse the curiosity of the public.

At the railroad station at Quebec two boxes were turned over to me.
They were about fifteen feet long, four feet wide, and four feet deep.
They were upholstered with "bladder wrack," a most soft cushion, and
in each box a white whale lay on these pneumatic cushions. A plug in
the bottom of each box had let the water out while the boxes were
being lifted by the rope handles on the sides, but when on the cars
the plugs were replaced and water to the depth of a foot was poured
in; this served to keep the under parts moist, while frequent sponging
or the use of a dipper served to keep the skin from drying. The
nostril, or "blow-hole," needed the most attention, for it has a valve
which must not be allowed to get even partially dry, and a saturated
sponge was kept suspended over this all the time during the journey by
rail to New York.

The white whale is a very timid animal, and comes up the St. Lawrence
in May and June, when the young are brought forth; it is believed that
they then go to the river to avoid their enemies, among which is the
"killer" or orca whale. Their food, according to Professor Goode, is
"bottom fish, like flounders and halibut, cod, haddock, salmon,
squids, and prawns." From my knowledge of this whale in confinement I
am surprised at the above list, for those under my observation not
only preferred live eels, but could not swallow one whose diameter was
over one inch, and it was difficult to get quantities of eels as small
as three quarters of an inch in diameter, especially when an adult
whale would consume about twenty pounds in a day. When larger eels
were placed in the tank they would be taken out dead in a day or two
with their sides scratched and torn by the small teeth of the whale
which had failed to swallow it. We tried other food, for eels are
quite expensive in New York city, costing fifteen and eighteen cents
per pound, but the whales refused small flatfish, flounders, etc., and
the only other food they ate was small tomcods. They refused dead
herrings and all fish that were cut in pieces.

The animals are captured at the small French fishing village of
Rivière l'Ouelle, on Isle aux Coudres, seventy miles below Quebec,
where life is as primitive as it was two hundred years ago in this,
one of the oldest of Canadian settlements. Luke Tilden, one of our
aquarium men, who went up with Zach. Coup, told of the capture of the
whales, and the following is from notes taken by me as Luke told it:
The men all fish and the women do a little gardening, but their
harvest is the marsouin, a name common to the white whale and to the
black porpoise. A fair white whale will weight eight hundred pounds
and yield nearly one hundred gallons of oil worth fifty cents per
gallon, so that when they trap twenty in a season it means prosperity
to the colony; in 1874 they took one hundred, but the catch has fallen
off since. "When we reached the island," said Luke, "we went straight
to Father Alixe Pelletier and donated ten dollars to the Church for
prayers for our success, and it was well invested. The good old man
is the head of that colony and keeps everything straight. In 1863
there was an epidemic of indifference to the Church, and the men went
to the bad, got drunk, fought, fished on Sundays, and reviled the
priest, withholding all dues to him. Then he said, 'God is angry with
you, and to punish you will send no more marsouin until you repent.'
They laughed at him, and for three years no marsouin came to them, and
they were very poor. They went to the father on a Christmas day and
implored him to intercede for them, and he did. The next spring there
was a great catch of marsouin, and the men have remained faithful
since.

"The tides here rise and fall some twenty feet, and the whales are
trapped in an inclosure made of poles, the entrance to which is closed
when a school enters. The pound is about a mile square, and is made of
slim poles put two feet apart, space enough to let a whale through,
but they will not attempt it. The tide falls and leaves them on the
mud, quaking with fear. When we want live ones the boxes are made,
padded with seaweed, shoved out over the mud, tipped on one side, and
the whale rolled into it, where its struggles soon put it on an even
keel, and then it gives up and does nothing but breathe as the boxes
are taken on board a schooner for Quebec."

I was fortunate in getting the above story from Luke Tilden, for a few
weeks afterward he died in the aquarium; and Zach. Coup would tell
nothing that could be relied on, not even to the locality where the
whales were caught.

The white whale is the only one of its tribe that can be captured in
the manner related, because of its cowardly timidity. The harbor
porpoise, or "herring-hog," would jump nets and break barricades or
die. It would not bear the confinement of an aquarium, for it would
leap out of the tanks or dash its brains out in trying to do so; but,
once placed in a tank of either salt or fresh water, the white whale
starts to circle it, always to the left, with the sun, and contentedly
blows at intervals of from five to fifteen minutes, and seems as
contented as a canary bird in its cage.

The whale does not always swim in circles to the left when free, and
why it does so in confinement is a question. I merely assert the fact.
Perhaps wiser men know why perfectly still water in a washbowl will
rotate to the left with an accelerated motion when the plug is
withdrawn, but I do not. As the motion to the left is invariable there
must be a rule for it, but, granting that this motion has some
relation to the motion of the earth, the question of how this affects
the voluntary movements of an animal remains to be answered. I have
watched over a dozen white whales in captivity, dumped into tanks from
the most convenient side without regard to the direction of their
heads, and every one turned and circled to the left. The question
arises, Why do they do this? At the new aquarium now at Battery Park,
New York city, the big sturgeon always circles to the left except when
feeding.

The two whales at Coney Island were good-sized ones, nearly ten feet
long, and they raced around, side by side, and played for nearly two
hours before they began to take the eels which had been in the tank
several days, although the large mammals had been without food for at
least seven days. On the way down I had noticed a difference in the
sound of their breathing, that of the female being sharp and clear,
while her mate seemed to have a hoarseness, and occasionally gave
something like a cough. I called attention to this and told Mr. Coup
that the animal had some lung trouble. He consulted a man who
professed to know about these animals, and then reported his opinion
that the cough was nothing to fear, "merely a little water in the
blow-hole."

"This may be true," I replied; "I'm not a medical man, but I've heard
many consumptives cough, and that whale imitates them. I doubt if it
lives a month."

It lived just twenty-six days after its arrival at Coney Island. The
last five days of its life it took no food, and its labored breathing
was annoying to all who knew the cause of it. Then came a touching
display of affection. The female slackened her pace day by day to
accommodate it to that of her constantly weakening companion, and as
the end neared she put her broad transverse tail under his and
propelled him along. He stopped breathing at 10 A. M., but his mate
kept up her efforts, occasionally making a swift run around the tank,
as if to say, "Come, follow me," and then slowing up at his side,
resumed the work of sculling him along, as before. Rude men expressed
pity for the living one, and after my men had rigged a derrick and
hoisted her mate from the pool she would rise higher out of water when
she came up to blow, remembering that he had gone out over the top of
the tank. An autopsy by local physicians, whose names have been
forgotten, assisted by a medical student then in my employ, now Dr. J.
R. Latham, 126 West Eleventh Street, New York city, disclosed the fact
that the whale died of pneumonia.

A white whale which reached the Broadway aquarium about July 1st,
after mine came, lived seven months, dying January 28, 1878. My whale
was either diseased when captured or took a cold at Isle aux Coudres.
The New York one was sound all summer, and I told Mr. Coup that it
might live for years, but the artificial heat of the aquarium in
winter was not what a subarctic animal could endure, and it succumbed
as most of Peary's Eskimos did in New York last winter. The autopsy on
this whale was performed by Dr. F. D. Weisse, professor of practical
and surgical anatomy of the medical department of the University of
the City of New York, assisted by Prof. J. W. I. Arnold, of the same
university, and Dr. Liautard, superintendent of the Veterinary
College. They agreed that pneumonia was the cause of death, induced by
a change of temperature of the water in which the animal had been
kept. The official measurements of this female specimen, whose organs
were kept in the two institutions named, were: nine feet six inches
from snout to tail tips; three feet between tips of caudal fins, with
a body breadth of twenty inches and a head breadth of thirteen inches.
The lungs, weighing twenty-two pounds, presented on dissection the
appearance of having been affected with chronic catarrhal pneumonia.
The liver weighed nineteen pounds. The four stomachs were all free
from any trace of previous disease.

In looking up the life history of the white whale when opportunity
offered, during the last twenty years I have consulted many old
whalemen, and they all say that whales of all kinds take their babies
on their flukes and scull them along as my female sculled her dying
and dead partner. This must be a fact, for the little one could never
swim with its parent. But another question arises: Is this purely a
female instinct to provide for its young, which was, in the case of my
pair, developed into a desire to preserve a companion? or, in other
words, would a male have done this, or would a female have done it if
she were free and had other companions? Was it love for her mate, or a
feeling of selfishness at her lonely position? My female was afterward
sent to England in the old transportation box, and was nine days
without food, for they will not swallow food in transit, and it lived
four days in London, clearing more than enough to pay for the animal
and all expenses.

When the free aquarium at Battery Park, New York city, was opened,
December 10, 1896, there was talk of getting white whales the next
spring, but there was no way to employ men to go for them at a stated
salary, as they would have to pass a civil-service examination and
become regularly appointed employees of the city. In this emergency
Mr. Eugene G. Blackford came forward and advanced the money for the
expedition, and it started early in May. On June 4th Professor Butler
delivered a pair of them to the superintendent, Dr. Bean. I was aware
of their coming, and was at the aquarium, and so was Dr. Latham. The
male was lead-colored, was said to be a year and a half old, and was
nine feet long. The female was of the usual cream-color, ten feet and
a half long, and was said to be a year older than her mate. It is
known that young and immature specimens are darker than adults, but I
am skeptical about the ages, especially as there is a half year
credited to each at the exact time the young are brought forth, and do
not know on what the ages are based further than that the young are
darker in color for a time.

"How does the breathing of the big one sound to you?" the doctor
asked.

"Like ours at Coney Island that died from lung trouble," I replied,
"and I would not have brought that animal down unless it was the only
one to be had during the season."

"I think I'll give her about ten days to live," replied the doctor.

As these were not my whales, I declined to talk of their prospects of
life to several reporters who knew me, and the whale in question died
of pneumonia on June 11th, just a week after its arrival in New York,
and several days before the trained ear of Dr. Latham had allotted its
span of life.

The male came to its death by an accident at 9 P. M. on June 24th,
just twenty days after arrival. An eel got into its blow-hole and it
drowned. According to an account published in the New York Sun of
Monday, July 26, 1897, said to be obtained from Dr. Tarleton H. Bean,
director of the aquarium, the whale "was as healthy a one as ever
spouted until late on Friday afternoon, the 24th, when one of the
keepers noticed that something was wrong. His attention was attracted
by the loud wheezing that accompanied each blow that the whale made
when he came up for air. The wheezing could be heard all over the
aquarium. Dr. Bean was sent for. He was certain that the whale's lungs
were all right. He cited a fact, known to the custodian and to all the
keepers, that the mammal for the past month had remained under water a
little longer after he came to the surface to blow. This convinced Dr.
Bean that the whale's lungs were sound and that some other cause of
illness must be found."

Then the whale coughed out a piece of an eel that it had bit in two,
and as it came up to blow again there was another piece hanging from
the blow-hole which could not shut, and so let water into the lungs.
Dr. Bean ordered the water drawn off the tank in order to get at the
animal, but a former superintendent, who had planned the tanks, had
put in such small drainage pipes that by the time the water was drawn
down so that the men could get at the whale it was dead.

I do not believe that a white whale lived two years in Boston, because
this subarctic animal could not endure the extremes of Boston's
temperatures without contracting lung disease in some form. Think of
such an animal living through climatic conditions that an Eskimo can
not stand, and in a public institution where thousands of people are
vitiating the air!

Animals which live wholly in water are more susceptible to changes of
temperature than those which live on land. The white whale can be kept
the year round in New York city if it can have a refrigerating plant
to give it the temperature which it needs, and proper food.

We bring polar bears to New York which suffer in summer, if not in our
comparatively mild winters, and tropical animals which barely survive,
but these land mammals are not so susceptible to climatic influences
as are the fishes and the purely aquatic mammals, like the whales.
These can never be kept long by the crude means which have been
employed. From the purest air they have been changed to the more or
less vitiated air where thousands of human beings are crowded and in a
temperature which is unnatural. If we would keep them we must give
them better chances for living than in open tanks in the summer
temperature of New York.




UNUSUAL FORMS IN PLANTS.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED.


The unexpected is apt to occur. Along with the regularity in living
things, which we call "uniformity of Nature," there is so strong a
tendency to vary that one almost expects to find a turn in the avenues
of life sooner or later, and that gradual or sudden, as the case may
be. We will not stop to discuss the open question of whether we are
possessed by an inherent quality of variation, or as creatures of
circumstances, subject to the controlling forces of our environment.

Yesterday while looking at a row of seedling peaches, all from the
same lot of pits, one of the miniature trees was found to be bronze or
copper colored throughout. This set me to thinking. Here was a
"sport," as it is termed, and if I take good care of the abnormity,
bud it into common stock, etc., the landscape architects and
ornamental gardeners may thank me for the novelty that will please
their wealthy patrons.

Leaving aside the abnormal as met with in the animal world, for much
of it is more painful than otherwise to contemplate, let us glance at
some of the unusual things occurring among plants.

One first thinks of some strange forms in leaf, and if the eyes are
opened to them they may be met with upon every hand. The "four-leaf"
clover is lucky perhaps only because the finder is sharper-eyed than
others, and stands a brighter chance of seeing success as it crouches
almost invisible in the wild grass, the tilled field, or wherever the
eyes may be set to find it.

The child who brings me the oddities of vegetable forms is knowing in
the normals of his class of curiosities, or else he would not see the
novelties from the finding and exhibiting of which he gains so much
pleasure. The person who is familiar with the striking beauty of the
cardinal flower (_Lobelia cardinalis_) is the one who rejoices at the
variations that may occur in the tints of the bright corolla. His
delight would reach a high pitch should the conspicuous spikes be
found upon dry ground, and not by the bank of some stream half hidden
by the overhanging grass. But should the wandering plant display white
flowers, then an albino of a most interesting kind has been met with,
and some reason for it is sought in the unusual locality. Only a few
days ago a white variation of the _Lobelia syphilitica_, cousin to the
cardinal, was seen by the writer treasured in the Botanical Garden at
Cambridge, Mass., and it called to mind the rage for pink water
lilies, that twenty years ago were only met with wild in ponds at
Plymouth, Mass. I asked an expert recently if there was any call for
the pink or "Plymouth" lilies, and he informed me that the fad had
died out with the transplanting and widespread culture of the pink
"sports" of the nymphæa ponds.

Abnormal colors in flowers are among the most common freaks in wild
plants, and none are more frequent than the albinos. One could fill a
page with instances of this sort. Some of our most common weeds, as
the moth mullein (_Verbascum blattaria_), have a large percentage of
the plants with white blossoms, and the patches of the white
interspersed with the normal yellow-flowered plants in poorly kept
meadows and neglected land has led the writer to gather seed of each
to test the truth of the opinion that the white strain may be
transmitted to the offspring, but the proof is not yet at hand.

The writer knows where there is a patch of the hound's tongue
(_Echinospermum_) with a good sprinkling of plants producing white
corollas instead of the normal deep maroon. The two colors make a good
subject for students who are gaining an elementary knowledge of the
stability of species, and the range of striking variations that must
be allowed for them.

Next to the albinos the instances where the floral parts approach
leaves in size and color are the most common. A few weeks ago while
passing through a field once devoted to corn, but now overgrown with
weeds, and therefore of special interest to a botanist, my eyes fell
upon a daisy plant all the heads of which were with olive-green ray
flowers instead of the ordinary pure white ones. These rays were
smaller than the normal and quite inclined to roll, as shown in Fig.
1, and form quills, as seen in some of the fancy chrysanthemums. By
the way, our common field daisy is a genuine chrysanthemum, and that
which is produced in one species under the guiding, fostering hand of
the skilled gardener was here shadowed forth in the field of waste
land.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--GREEN AND NORMAL OXEYE DAISY HEADS.]

A week or so later, while going through a similar field in an
adjoining county to the one where the daisy freak was found, I came
upon nearly the same thing as seen in the heads of the "black-eyed
Susan," or cone flower (_Rudbeckia hirta_ L.). Here were the two
leading weedy daisies, the white and the yellow, the former coming to
our fields from the East and across the sea, while the latter, as a
native of our Western prairies, journeys to make a home here and help
to compensate by its pestiferous presence for the vile weeds that have
gone West with the advance of civilization. Both of these daisies
revealed that tendency in them to vary in their floral structures that
if made use of by the floriculturist might result in forms and colors
as attractive and profitable as met with in their cousins the
chrysanthemums of the Orient.

Perhaps the season which we have had, with its excess of moisture and
superheat, has made the abnormal forms more abundant than usual. The
even current of life has been met by counter streams, so to say, and
the channels were broken down. In walking through a meadow in early
June it was a common thing to find the spikes of the narrow-leaved
plantain (_Plantago lanceolata_ L.) branched and compounded into
curious shapes. Some of the normal and malformed spikes are shown in
Fig. 2.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--MALFORMED HEADS OF PLANTAGO LANCEOLATA.]

As a tailpiece to this portion of the subject it is a pleasure to
introduce a freak among the native orchards, as shown in Fig. 3. A
word of explanation is needed of the normal form of the lady's slipper
here shown. As found in the moist woods, the plant above ground
consists of two leaves and a single pink and strange-looking blossom
terminating the stalk. This is the rule, and it has been strictly
adhered to, so far as the writer knows, for centuries with a single
exception, and that exception is the one here presented. It is as
remarkable as a double-headed dog, and as difficult of explanation as
the twin thumb.

Perhaps the best way is to make no attempt to account for the freak,
and leave the subject open for those who have a gift of insight into
the secrets of the abnormal and the unexpected. Other species of
cypripediums regularly bear more than one flower; this one may have
done so in former ages, and here is the link that binds our pretty
unifloral species to its remote and possibly extinct ancestor. On the
other hand, a double-flowered form is possibly in embryo, and before
the next century closes the _Cypripedium acaule_ Ait. may need to have
its description changed so as to embrace two flowers.

The influence of moisture, heat, and light is very great upon
vegetation, and one only needs to observe the same species of plant as
grown in a moist, shady place, as compared with the ones that are
located in the full sun where the soil is dry. Size and shape of
parts, and even their color and the surface, are different, and this
all leads us up to the cultivated plants where variation is the rule
and constancy the exception.

Among wild plants where similar surroundings obtain for all members of
the species the albino is noted, and any replacement of stamens by
petals, as in the wild buttercup, is the rare exception. But the
cultivated plants have led a charmed life, and we scarcely wonder that
the plants in the bed of sweet peas or gladiolus, canna or dahlia, are
as diverse in form and color as the pieces in a crazy-bedquilt. Man,
with all his ingenuity and skill, has been at work molding the plant
clay made plastic by generations of special culture.

In one sense the greenhouse, the garden, orchard, and even the
cultivated field are all dealing with monstrosities. The well-filled
horticultural hall at a State or county fair is a vast collection of
unnatural curiosities--that is, they do not occur in Nature, but are
truly the creations of the mind of man as worked out along lines of
vegetable physiology and stimulated plant production. For dinner this
very day the writer ate a slice of a modern watermelon. What a triumph
of horticultural art was exhibited in that giant fruit, each seed of
which was filled with the accumulated tendencies of a generation of
high breeding! There was represented the influence of soil and
selection, of crossing and of culture, until the wild melon, which
none of us sees or cares to see, is gone and a special creation takes
its place, with its great demands upon any one who would attempt to
grow it to perfection.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--A TWIN-FLOWERED CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE (AIT.).]

The art of breeding might possibly have deprived it of seeds had there
been some other convenient method for propagation, as is true of many
of our tree fruits, the navel orange being a striking example. Along
with the absence of seeds and the presence of fine flavor there is
truly a monstrous form, in that one orange is within and at the
"navel" end of the other.

Should we glance at some of our garden vegetables, as, for example,
the cabbages in their various races, every one will be struck with the
strangeness, to say the least, of the forms produced. In contrast with
the head of the true cabbage, where leaf is folded upon leaf until a
mass of metamorphosed foliage as large as a half bushel is produced,
there is the cauliflower, with the edible substance stored in a fleshy
inflorescence that has lost its normal function and become truly
monstrous. Were it not so tender and delicate a food we might be
disposed to smile at the absurdity of the whole thing, or at the
kohl-rabi, with its turniplike bulb in the stem just above the surface
of the ground. It is certainly a plastic species that will give such
diverse and fantastic forms--so far from the wild state, and for that
reason so useful to man.

In the same manner a comparison of our orchard fruits with the forms
from which they came would lead to the thought that man has made them
to his liking, and not for service to the plant species. They are
abnormal, judged by all standards in Nature; monstrous in size and in
many cases have lost their essential structure as seed-producing
organs.

Coming to the ornamental grounds, the disguises are largely swept
away, and there is but little hope of judging what the original plants
may have been from which have descended the favorites of the flower
bed and the conservatory. Species have been split into a thousand and
one varieties, each with its peculiarities and each with the potency
for greater deviation. Where shall we cast the line and land an
example? The rose show of June is only surpassed by the chrysanthemum
exhibition in autumn. There must be the new sorts brought out each
year, whether the fancy be for a special shade or color or a striking
new shape of bud or form of bloom. Would you realize what a novelty
means to those in the craft who watch a group of carnation growers as
they hang over the exhibit of a "new" rival, and consider all the
merits and defects of the candidate for a certificate?

All the beauties of the flower garden are so familiar to us that it is
not expected that they will be considered unnatural. If the hydrangea
makes a panicle larger than it can bear, man helps it out with a
string or stake, for by overdoing it is not undone any more than is
the coddled peach tree held up at fruiting time by a dozen poles, or
the forced lily with a weak back supported upright by an artificial
green stem at church on Easter morning.

But even here there are monstrosities in the true sense. The asparagus
or sweet potato stem occasionally broadens out into a ribbon, and it
passes as an abnormity. The same thing takes place in the flower
cluster of cockscomb (_Celosia cristata_), and if it failed to produce
a strange fan-shaped and highly colored and crested top the owner
would complain that her seed had given her only an inferior pigweed,
and therefore not come true to name. The attractiveness of the
cockscomb resides in the strange habit the plant has of broadening the
upper end of the flower stalk out into a form that is truly monstrous.
And this brings me to speak of a form that attracted my attention
during the present season, samples of which are shown in Fig. 4.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--MONSTROUS BLOSSOMS OF FOXGLOVE.]

The striking feature of the specimens of foxglove (_Digitalis
purpurea_) under consideration is the production of an enormous
somewhat bell-shaped flower at the extremity of the long racemose
inflorescence, and at a time when only a few of the lowermost blossoms
upon the stem have opened. The normal digitalis flower has a large
pendant purple corolla much spotted upon the middle lobe of the larger
and lower lip. On the other hand, the truly monstrous flowers, two to
three inches across, are borne terminally and are quite uniformly
bell-shaped, with the lobes from twelve to fourteen and spotted evenly
over all the surface. The four stamens of the normal flower have
increased to twelve in three examined and to thirteen in another.
These stamens are normal in size and situated upon the corolla tube,
except that there is no indication of their being in long and short
pairs.

The single pistil is many times enlarged in the monstrous blossom--in
one instance two thirds of an inch in diameter for the ovary. Within
the outer ovarian wall there was a circle of five petaloid pistils,
some showing the placentæ and ovules intermixed with the pink and
purplish petaloid expansions.

Within the circle above mentioned there was a second pistil, tipped
like the original with petal-like lobes instead of a stigma. The
column was found so closely built up that the parts would not
separate, and a cross-section was made through it, which showed that
the pistil had a greenish central stalk around which the ovarian
cavities were scattered quite irregularly, all bearing numerous
ovules. In the flowers with twelve stamens there were four tips to the
stigma, and the eight cavities were to be distinguished in the ovary,
although they were not arranged in any regular order and not uniform
in size. In short, the transections of these resembled the seed
cavities seen in a slice of a large tomato of the "trophy" or
"ponderosa" type.

The florists' catalogues advertise in a few instances this "_Digitalis
monstrosa_," and it is presumed that the specimens from which the
engraving was made were from a packet of this "strain" of seed. As but
a small percentage of the plants in the bed examined were monstrous,
letters were addressed to some German growers of the seed, with
questions as to this commercial monstrosity. One reply contained the
statement that the form known as "monstrosa" had been in the market
about ten years, and that about fifty per cent of the plants produce
the strange terminal flowers. Another correspondent recalls the form
in question as having been catalogued for more than forty years, and
that it is described in a work upon gardening published in 1859, in
which it states that the seed of this variety must only be gathered
from the capsules of the monstrous flowers in order to preserve the
abnormity. Concerning this last my correspondent said that it is all
the same whether the seed is taken from the capsules of monstrous
flowers or from the whole spike. Seed taken in this way will give from
twenty-five to thirty-five per cent of the monstrous flowers, but the
ratio varies from year to year.

There are some advantages to the floriculturist in the monstrous form
as the first bloom in it is uppermost and very conspicuous, while in
the normal form the blooms appear from below upward, and the drooping
tip of the spike is the last to produce flowers. The case in hand is a
remarkable deviation from the type in many ways, but most interesting
of all is the fact that floriculturists have by selection developed a
variety that, in a packet of a hundred seeds, is quite certain to give
some plants of the type "monstrosa," which it bears as its trade name.




MALAY LITERATURE.

BY R. CLYDE FORD.


The Malay has a literature peculiarly his own, and in it comes to
light all that subtle appreciation of Nature which marks him as a
_Naturmensch_, but not a savage. This lore of his race he carries
mostly in his memory, for to reduce it to writing has been, until
recently, a task at once laborious and scholarly, and the ordinary
Malay, living in the ease of perpetual summer, is neither. Still,
there are dog-eared old manuscripts which circulate from one village
or _campong_ to another, and these are often read aloud in the
evenings to eager companies. And it makes a scene never to be
forgotten, to see a dozen people seated in the shadows around some old
man and to listen to the mellow cadences of his voice as he reads to
them a tale of the olden time, of the great days of his race, before
the foreigner's ships had scared the fish from the bays or turned them
into noisy harbors; the sparkling stars peep through the ragged,
whispering fronds of the palm trees, the yellow light of the _damar_
torch shines on eager faces, crickets chirp in the grass, and from
afar comes the booming of the sea borne on the soft breath of the
night wind.

Malay literature, like most literatures, has had an ancient and a
modern period. In the former we behold a primitive people dominated by
Sanskrit life and civilization, and naturally enough the literature of
this time is mostly translations of Sanskrit poems and romances, or at
least productions inspired by such, and full of allusions to Hindu
mythology. Probably to this early time may be traced such works as
_Sri Rama_, a free translation of the _Ramayana_; the _Hikayat Pancha
Tantra_, an adaptation of the _Hitaspodêsa_; _Radin Mantri_, a history
of the love affairs of a Javan royal prince; the _Shaïr Bidasari_, an
epic; and several other such epics and romances.

One must not think that the language of these works is old-fashioned
or obsolete, as Beowulf and Chaucer are to us, or the Niebelungen Lied
in German. On the contrary, they are full of Arabic words and many
other marks of recent composition; but it is the matter, the
conditions of life described, the evident antiquity of the very
feeling of the productions, that lead one to refer them to the early
period.

There are also some works that are genuinely Malay in origin and
inspiration, and probably of a date that would put them between the
ancient and modern periods. Of such is _Hong Tuah_, a story of a
prince of Malacca who was a kind of King Arthur of his day. This work
exists in several manuscripts, some of which are in England, one in
Leyden, and one or two in the East Indies, and the date of the oldest
is not before 1172 of the Hegira. Considering the fact that the year
1317 of the Mohammedan era does not commence till May 12, 1899, we
thus see that many of the manuscripts of Malay literature are of no
great antiquity. Another of these intermediate works is the _Sejarat
Malayu_, or Malay Annals, which narrates the history of the Malays of
Malacca, and their heroic defense against the Portuguese in the year
1511. It is divided into chapters, and is about the only notable
historical composition in the language.

The modern period is that period which marks the domination of Islam
in the far East, the period in which the Malay mind has adjusted
itself to a new faith and a new education. It is hard to tell when
Mohammedanism first obtained a real foothold among the Malays, but
probably not much before the fourteenth century. However, the conquest
when once effected was complete, and to-day the people of Tanah Malayu
are among the strictest followers of the Prophet.

In a certain sense this period of the literature has been fruitful,
but not so fruitful as the former one. Originality has been checked
and imagination deadened, and the result is seen in a loss of
sprightliness and vivacity. Works of morals and philosophy and
compilations of Mohammedan law, have flourished. Still, we find some
prose works of this period which are commendable; they even have some
of the spirit of the earlier writings by which, no doubt, they were
inspired; among these may be mentioned the _Tadju Elsalathin_, or
Crown of Kings, by a mendicant monk, and the _Hikayat Sultan Ibrahim_,
a religious romance of some beauty and pathos.

Within the last seventy-five years the prose literature has received
some notable additions through the writings of Abdulla bin Abdulkadir,
a famous _moonshi_ of Singapore, who attained to some distinction
under the Straits Government, being sent once or twice on missions to
native states. He was born in Malacca toward the close of the last
century, of Arab-Malay parentage, and received the ordinary education
of a Malay lad of good family. After Singapore was founded, in 1819,
he moved thither, where he thenceforth spent most of his life. His
most important works are the _Hikayat Abdulla_, an autobiography, the
_Pelayaran Abdulla_, an account of his trip for the government to
Kelantan, and a narrative of his pilgrimage to Mecca made in the year
1854.

Without a doubt Abdulla was the most cultured Malay who ever wrote. In
his capacity as teacher he was often called upon to help missionaries
with their translations of the Bible into Malay; though a devout
Mohammedan, he was more than ordinarily liberal in belief, and quite
willing to see the contest between Christianity and Islam go on fairly
and on its merits. He once assisted a Mr. Thompsen, of Malacca, in
translating portions of the Scriptures, but it was a thankless task,
for the missionary was obstinate, and thought he knew more about the
language than the _moonshi_ himself. As a result, such wretched Malay
got into the work that Abdulla felt called upon in his autobiography
to set himself right before the world. This is what he says:

"... But let it be known to all gentlemen who read my autobiography
that where there are wrong expressions or absurd Malay phrases in Mr.
Thompsen's translation they must consider well the restraint put upon
me, wherein I could neither add nor subtract a word without the
concurrence of Mr. Thompsen. Now, because of all the circumstances
mentioned here, let no gentleman rail at my character, for I was
merely Mr. Thompsen's _moonshi_ or instructor. I acknowledge I am not
destitute of faults, but truly by God's grace I am able to distinguish
between right and wrong in all that relates to the idiom of the Malay
language, for I have made it my study. I did not attain it by hearing,
nor by the way, nor in the bustle of the crowd."

But it is in poetry that we must look for whatever of originality and
beauty there is in Malay literature, a fact not to be wondered at if
we consider the softness and mellifluence of the language, which lends
itself easily to the requirements of rhyme and rhythm. Two chief forms
of poetry are recognized--the _pantun_ and the _shaïr_.

THE PANTUN.--The _pantun_ in Malay literature corresponds to the lyric
verse of Western lands. It consists of one or many quatrains, as the
case may be, the lines usually from ten to twelve syllables in
length. However, if worse comes to worst, the Malay poet with true
poetic license suits himself in preference to others, and frequently
employs as few as six or as many as thirteen syllables in a line. The
length of a syllable is determined by tonic accent, but penult
syllables not ending in a consonant are long, those ending in silent
_i_ are short. But here, too, the Malay often departs from theory, and
his rhymes, instead of being always exact, are constructed for the eye
and not for the ear; and as for the short lines, they have to be
drawled out into a legitimate scansion. The lines are not written one
below another as with us, but the second opposite the first, the third
under the second and opposite the fourth, and so on.

The _pantun_ is much employed in improvisation, the stanzas being
recited alternately by the two taking part. To the Malayan mind the
beauty of this kind of verse lies in the artistic perfection of each
quatrain by which it is made to veil some charming metaphor, which in
turn serves in the last two lines to point a moral or express some
sentiment of love or friendship, depending on the allegory of the
preceding. To illustrate:

      _Tinggih tinggih pokok lamburi
      Sayang puchok-nia meniapa awan
      Habis teloh puwas kuchari
      Bagei punei menchari kawan._

      _Bulan trang bintang berchaya
      Burong gagah bermakan padi
      Teka tuan tiada perchaya
      Bela dada, melihat hati._

      The lamburi tree is tall, tall,
        Its branches sweep the sky;
      My search is vain, and o'er is all,
        Like a mate-lorn dove am I.

      Clear is the moon, with stars agleam,
        The raven wastes in the padi field;
      O my beloved, when false I seem,
        Open my breast, my heart is revealed.

       *       *       *       *       *

      The waves are white on the Kataun shore,
        And day and night they beat;
      The garden has white blossoms o'er,
        But only one do I think sweet.

      Deeper yet the water grows,
        Nor the mountain rain is stilled;
      My heart more longing knows,
        And its hope is unfulfilled.

In poetry of more pretentious style, and in improvisations also, each
stanza contains a key-word or line which becomes the text, so to
speak, of the next. As artificial and unnatural as this may seem, it
is, nevertheless, an ingenious way of keeping the thread of one's
discourse when other inspiration fails. The best results of Malay
verse come from it. A beautiful example may be cited from the Asiatic
Journal of 1825:

      Cold is the wind, the rain falls fast;
      I linger, though the hour is past.
      Why come you not? Whence this delay?
      Have I offended, say?

      My heart is sad and sinking too;
      O break it not--it loves but you!
      Come, then, and end this long delay;
      Why keep you thus away?

      The wind is cold, fast falls the rain,
      Yet weeping, chiding, I remain.
      You come not still, you still delay--
      O wherefore can you stay?

Adelbert von Chamisso, the German poet, who has another claim to fame,
however--his scientific career was charmingly described in the Popular
Science Monthly for December, 1890--includes in his published poems
three songs, In Malay Form, for which he doubtless obtained
inspiration during his voyage to the far East in 1815 to 1818. They
are so faithful in spirit and style to their source that we can not
forbear quoting one in translation. It is called The Basketmaker, and
is in the form of a dialogue, each stanza having the usual "key" line:

      The shower's gone by, the sun shines bright,
        The weather vanes now gayly swing;
      We maidens here in merry plight
        Quick beg of you a song to sing.

      The weather vanes now gayly swing,
        Through fire-red clouds the sun shines fair;
      Right gay and quick to you I'll sing
        A song that's full of dread despair.

      Through fire-red clouds the sun shines fair,
        A bird sings sweet and lures the bride;
      Pray what concerns your dread despair
        To maidens fair and dear beside?

      A bird sings sweet and lures the bride,
        A net for fishes there is spread;
      A maiden fair and dear beside,
        A sprightly maiden would I wed.

      A net for fishes there is spread,
        The moth's wings burn in bright flame hot;
      A sprightly maiden wouldst thou wed,
        But thee the maiden chooseth not.

THE SHAÏR.--The _shaïr_ is very different from the _pantun_; the
latter is lyric, the former epic in its nature; the _shaïr_ may be
heroic or romantic, the _pantun_ never. However, it employs the same
measure as the _pantun_, but all the lines of each stanza rhyme,
instead of by pairs, as in the quatrains of the lyric verse. It is to
the _shaïr_ that we must look for the really great works of Malay
poetry, where some are bold enough to declare we may find passages of
Homeric beauty. The most famous works of this nature are _Radin
Mantri_, _Kin Tambouhan_, and _Bidasari_. The first two of these tell
the story of the love of a prince of the royal house of Nigara for a
maiden of his mother's court. It is a beautiful tale, abounding in
parts of striking eloquence and pathos, and the characters are strong
and well portrayed.

The _Bidasari_ is the longest poem in the language, and typically
Malayan. Its author is unknown, likewise the time and place of its
composition. The only hint as to the writer is in the opening lines:

"... Listen to this story of the history of a king in a province of
Kambayat. A fakir has turned the narrative into a poem."

And again at the conclusion, where it says:

"This poem is weak and faulty because my knowledge is imperfect. My
heart was troubled--for that reason have I written it. I have not made
it long, because I was sad; but I have finished it and thereby
obtained many blessings."

Internal evidence, however, indicates that the poem is old, of a time
long before the Europeans first came to the East, possibly before the
Mohammedan conquest. It shows plainly the influence of Hindu theology,
yet in the customs and scenes described, and the mode of life and the
manner of thinking, it is essentially Malay, and so worthy, perhaps,
of a somewhat extended notice.

"There was once a king, a sultan, handsome, learned, perfect; he was
of the race of noble kings; he caused the land of merchants and
strangers to be swallowed up. From what people of his time say of him
he was a valorous prince who had never yet been thwarted. But
to-morrow and the day after to-morrow are uncertain." Such is the
beginning of Canto I, as given in the French translation by Louis de
Backer. The king marries, but just as joy and happiness are to be his,
a griffinlike _garuda_ sweeps down upon his land and ravages it.
Terrified, the monarch deserts his throne, takes his royal consort and
flees for his life. On the flight the queen gives birth to a child,
which, however, must be deserted, much to the mother's grief.

In Canto II a rich merchant is introduced--a man whose goods and
treasures are immense, whose slaves numerous, prosperity constant, but
who, alas! is childless. One morning as he and his wife are walking by
the side of a stream they discover a boat drifting near them, and in
it a child of such radiant beauty that they are moved to adopt it.

The lord of the region is Sultan Mengindra, whose queen is beautiful,
but unhappy, through constant looking forward to the day when she
shall be displaced by some woman more beautiful than she. At last she
has a costly fan made, and sends out spies to offer it for sale in
every village and town, but not to tell its price. If they discover a
woman of rare beauty they are to return and notify her.

In course of time the spies come to the old merchant's home, and see
Bidasari, the handsome adopted child. After some delay she is brought
to court, where she has to undergo much studied ill treatment from the
jealous queen. By a subterfuge the girl escapes and is then removed by
the merchant to a secret place in the desert.

Canto III tells how Sultan Mengindra goes to hunt in the desert, and
there finds a sleeping beauty whom he awakens and consoles with the
music of a _pantun_.

In Canto IV the story returns to the King of Kambayat. He and his
queen have succeeded in reaching a distant part of their kingdom, but
the fate of the young princess whom they so shamefully deserted
oppresses them. Finally, the king's son, stirred by his mother's
tears, sets out to search for this sister whom he has never seen. In
his search he meets with Bidasari's adopted brother, who detects the
resemblance between the young prince and his sister. Together they go
to obtain audience of the sultan and Bidasari, who is now queen.

Canto V. Convinced that the story of the prince is true, Sultan
Mengindra dissuades him from returning, but bids his minister write a
missive in letters of gold and dispatch it at once, with presents and
jewels, to the King of Kambayat.

In Canto VI we have the last chapter. The King of Kambayat receives
the letter, which, however, makes no mention of Bidasari, and at once
accompanies the messengers to Sultan Mengindra's court. He makes his
entry into the strange capital with becoming splendor, and is received
with great honor. The queen now makes herself known to her father, who
is moved to tears. Banquets and great tournaments follow, and
happiness pervades the court. The king returns after a time to his own
land, but continues as long as he lives to send gifts and goods to his
daughter and her royal lord.




THE COLORS OF FLOWERS.

BY HENRI COUPIN.


Much might be said, from an artistic and poetic point of view,
concerning the colors of flowers. It is in the corolla that they
reveal themselves in their most minute delicacy. The tints so widely
diffused among animals, even those of butterflies, are coarse as
compared with them, and the painter's palette is powerless to
reproduce them. They run through the whole gamut of the solar
spectrum, even to its most minute details. Some naturalists have
striven to establish a classification of them, and it will be
convenient to be acquainted with their efforts, though they are not
decisive and are somewhat artificial, like all classifications. We
give one of the most ingenious of them:

                                GREEN.
                 { Greenish-blue. | Yellow-green.  }
                 { Blue.          | Yellow.        }
  Cyanic series. { Blue-violet.   | Yellow-orange. } Xanthic series.
                 { Violet.        | Orange.        }
                 { Violet-red.    | Orange-red.    }
                                 RED.

The type of the cyanic series is blue, and that of the xanthic series
yellow. The first is sometimes denominated the deoxidized series, and
the second the oxidized, but these designations have hardly solid
enough foundations to be preserved. De Candolle, who publishes the
table in his Vegetable Physiology, appends some interesting remarks to
it.

It will be noticed by the inspection of the table that nearly all the
flowers susceptible of changes of color, as a rule, simply go up or
down the scale of shades of the series to which they belong. Thus, in
the xanthic series the flowers of the _Nyctago jalapa_ may be yellow,
yellow-orange, or red; those of _Rosa eglantina_ yellow-orange or
orange-red; those of nasturtium from yellow to orange; the flowers of
_Ranunculus asiaticus_ present all the colors of red up to green;
those of the _Hieracium staticefolium_, and of some other yellow
_Chicoraceæ_ and of some _Leguminosæ_ like the lotus, become
greenish-yellow when dried, etc. In the cyanic series the flowers of
many _Boraginaceæ_, especially of _Lithospermum purpureo-cæruleum_,
vary from blue to violet-red; those of hortensia from rose to blue;
the ligulate flowers of the asters from blue to red or violet; those
of the hyacinths from blue to red, etc.

There are, however, a few apparent exceptions to this rule. Thus,
although the hyacinths usually vary only in the blues, reds, or
white, yellowish varieties, indicating an approach to the xanthic
series, are sometimes found in gardens. The auricula, which is
originally yellow, passes to reddish-brown, to green, and to a sort of
violet, but never reaches pure blue; and single petals occasionally
give suggestions of both series in distinct parts of their surfaces.

Some surprise may be felt that white does not figure in De Candolle's
table. This is because an absolutely white color does not seem to
exist in any flower. The fact may be shown by placing some flowers
supposed to be of the purest white, like the lily, the white
campanula, or the wood anemone, on a leaf of clear white paper. It
will be found that the white of the corolla is really washed with
yellow, blue, or orange, according to what flower is taken. If the
tint does not appear distinct, infusions of the corollas in alcohol
will present tones unmistakably yellow or red, etc. White flowers are
therefore flowers with tints appertaining to one of De Candolle's
series, but albinized, as if they were etiolated. A small number of
flowers begin white, and are subsequently colored under the action of
light. The _Cheiranthus chameleo_ passes from white to citron-yellow
and a slightly violet-red; the _Ænothera tetraptera_, at first white,
becomes rose and then almost red; the petals of the Indian tamarind
are white the first day and yellow the second; and the corolla of the
_Cobea scandens_ comes out greenish-white and turns to violet the
second day. The most remarkable plant in this respect is _Hibiscus
mutabilis_, which Rumph calls the hourly flower, because it starts
white, turns flesh-color toward noon, and becomes red at sunset.

In his recent work on Plants and their Cosmic Media, M. Costantin has
some remarks concerning the precocity of various races and the tint of
their flowers. Hoffmann made observations on this point for several
years. He remarked, as the result of eight years' observation, that
the common lilac with white flowers blooms on an average six days
earlier than the normal form with purple flowers. This might be a
curious anomaly with no bearing, but the more we advance in the study
of Nature the more we perceive that all phenomena, even the most
insignificant, deserve to be examined. Similar results have been
observed in varieties of radish (_Raphanus raphanistrum_) and of
saffron (_Crocus vernus_); in the former the white flowers expand on
an average of sixteen days earlier than the yellow ones (twelve years
of observation), and in the latter plant the difference is four days.

These changes of tint sometimes appear to depend on the temperature.
Thus, the white lilac was obtained by horticulturists under the
influence of a temperature of between 30° and 35° C. We can not,
however, affirm that spontaneous races with white flowers originated
in the same way as the white lilac. It will be enough to point out a
few facts that may contribute to the guidance of persons who are
seeking to learn the origin of these colored varieties. The _Papava
alpinum_ has a very stable variety with yellow flowers, which,
according to Focke, has been observed in the polar regions, while the
white varieties have been seen in Switzerland. The cultivation of the
same species at Giessen, Germany, has made it possible to obtain
specimens with white flowers by metamorphosis from specimens with
yellow flowers, but it is impossible to say whether or not heat is the
agent that produces the changes in these cases. The experiments of MM.
Schübela and Bonnier have shown that flowers become darker without
changing their color in high regions and in those near the pole; but
this phenomenon is one of light and not of color. Be their origin what
it may, these white and colored forms have remarkable fixedness.

It will be observed that black does not figure in the table of the
classification of colors given above. Absolute black, in fact, does
not exist in any flower. If some parts appear black, it is only
because their tint is excessively dark. The black of the petals of
_Pelargonium triste_ and of the bean is yellow, and that of the
_Orchis nigra_ is a brown. Apparent blacks are, moreover, extremely
rare.

The gamut of the reds is much more varied than that of other colors.
The reds of the xanthic series are generally more lively-hued,
carnation or flame-colored; those of the cyanic series present tints
more nearly approaching violet. These two reds may furthermore give
rose-colors, but a little skill will divine their origin. The rose of
the hydrangea inclines to blue, while that of the rose tends rather
toward yellow. Blue colors are the most variable, and readily pass to
violet and red, but most frequently to white. The most tenacious hues
are those of yellow, and we might affirm that the bright and
glistening yellow of the buttercup may be said never to change. The
paler yellows change more easily, but rarely pass to anything but
white. Green flowers, not being readily distinguished from the foliage
around them, need not be specially mentioned. They are believed to be
much rarer than they really are.

Horticulturists are able, by cultivation, selection, and
hybridization, to cause the colors of flowers to vary in considerable
proportions. Not much is known of the laws of these variations,
chiefly because gardeners who might tell botanists of them if they
would have not the scientific spirit. We cite here what MM. Decaisne
and Naudin[7] say respecting the variations of the color of flowers:

    [Footnote 7: Manuel de l'amateur des jardins.]

"Change in this respect is effected in two ways: sometimes there is a
simple discoloration, drawing the red, yellow, or blue tints of the
corolla toward a more or less pure white; sometimes there is a radical
substitution of one color for another. Flowers in which red or blue
are the dominant tints are most subject to turn white, but the change
may also be observed on some flowers that are naturally yellow, such
as the disk of the daisy, the dahlia, and the chrysanthemum when those
flowers suffer ligular transformation. Nothing, on the other hand, is
more common in our gardens than white varieties of pink or of red
roses, lilac, scarlet runners, larkspur, purple digitalis, Canterbury
bells, etc.--in fact, nearly all plants with lilac, rose, red, purple,
blue, or violet flowers. There are some flowers, however, in these
categories the coloration of which is very persistent, and rarely
fades perceptibly--as may be seen in the purple petunias, the hue of
which does not lose its vivacity even when it is crossed with the
white variety.

"The radical substitution of one color for another, whether over the
whole corolla or only on some of its parts, in the form of spots,
stripes, or variegations, is also of frequent occurrence, and is one
of the sorts of modifications which horticulturists have used with
great advantage. A considerable number of 'fancy' plants derive almost
all their importance from the facility with which the liveliest colors
replace one another, blend, and intermix in a thousand ways and in
relative proportions of which nothing is fixed, so that we can not
find in these collections, when they are well chosen, two plants out
of a hundred that are exactly alike in the tone and distribution of
their colors. These multicolored varieties, all the offspring of
cultivation, are generally perpetuated true by cuttings, while the
seedlings compensate for the uncertainty of what they will produce by
the certainty that they will give rise to new combinations of colors.
This is not the case with single-colored varieties, which, unless they
are crossed with others, tend to perpetuate themselves through their
seedlings. The yellow, white, and purple varieties of the
four-o'clock, for example, when they are pure, reproduce themselves
constantly; when crossed with one another they give rise to
intermediately colored flowers, and more frequently to variegated
ones."

Mr. Hughes Gibb observed, in the mild winter of 1897-'98, that flowers
blooming out of season were liable not to have the same color as
regularly blooming ones.

The cactus dahlia, usually red, has put out flowers almost orange and
with exterior florets sometimes nearly yellow. On the other hand,
these dahlias have often shown a marked tendency to return to the
simpler form.

A species of nasturtium, habitually of a bright scarlet-red, has given
in the cold frame late flowers of a bright yellow, a red band near the
center of the petals remaining the only vestige of the normal color.
In both cases the change of color began on the edges of the petals.
The flower of the myosotis, normally bright blue, has become almost
clear rose, without the slightest trace of blue; and a pure blue phlox
has shown a tendency toward greenish-yellow.--_Translated for the
Popular Science Monthly from La Nature._




FOLKLORE OF THE ALLEGHANIES.

BY FRANCES ALBERT DOUGHTY.


The West Virginia mountaineer lives very close to Nature, and viewed
from many standpoints the relation is characterized by pleasing
amenities: juicy berries refresh him along the road; nuts drop into
his path; "sang" (ginseng), which makes one of his sources of revenue,
reveals itself to his eye as he follows the cows to pasture; a cool
brook springs up to quench his thirst when weary of following the
plow; pine knots are always within reach to make light as well as
warmth; mud and stones easily combine in his hand to shape a daub
chimney; and a trough dug out of an old tree furnishes a receptacle
that is as good for dough at one end as for a baby at the other.

Often, however, this close relation to Nature assumes a war attitude,
fierce and uncompromising. If hungry wolves no longer howl furiously
at the back fence after nightfall, or gnaw at the log pens which
secure the stock, and if panthers are seldom bold enough to spring at
a horse's flanks as a man rides along in the daytime, bears are still
numerous enough to devour a large number of sheep every year in spite
of precautions, and they have a pronounced taste for sweet young corn.
The living wrested from the soil in the short and changeable summer
months must cover the winter's need as well; it is generally so scant
and uncertain that the mountaineer feels a chronic discouragement
toward agriculture as a pursuit and resource. He must depend on it,
and yet as far back as he or his father can remember there has always
been some reason why "a good crop" could not be made that year. The
West Virginian lives in a large and thinly settled game preserve, but
the fleet deer usually contrives to escape the hunter's chill wait in
the autumnal dawn, the coy wild turkey is overshy of his lure, and the
wary trout requires a very patient rod. In the long winter deep snows
cover the fences, groups or "bunches" of cows and sheep often perish
in the drifts, and the human prisoners in their cabins, huddling
around the wood fires, are nearly always, as they express it, "short
of" some article which would be considered a necessity in the average
city home.

The varying, defiant, and incalculable moods and phases of Nature
bring so many chances into the humble lot of the mountaineer that it
is not surprising he should interpret her phenomena as having a
distinctly personal import. Anciently, around Olympus the talk was of
"omens," "auguries," and "fate"; dwellers along the chain of the
Alleghanies to-day talk of "signs," "spells," and "luck," and these
words held their significance for hundreds of years in the ancestral
stock of the first settlers in the region, most of the folklore being
directly traceable to a Scotch-Irish strain of blood. The mountain
pattern taken far from cities probably differs little either mentally
or physically from that of the colonial mountaineers. Even with the
railroad traversing a limited area, and the influx of summer visitors
during three months of the year, the only perceptible change wrought
in the natives is a little sharpening of their wits from the barter of
fruit and furs at the hotels in the extensive mineral-spring section.
The Alleghany mountaineer, ignorant, narrow-minded, honest, brave, and
hospitable, remains what he was when the eagle soared from the
inaccessible eyrie above his head to be chosen as the tutelary genius
of the unconquerable young republic. The chief distinction in the
temperament of the sexes is that the men are frank and talkative, the
women shy and uncommunicative. Beings approaching the legendary fauns
and satyrs, clad in the skins of wild animals, are sometimes
discovered by the solitary horseman in the wild mountain fastnesses;
they gaze at him as an apparition from a strange world, never having
seen a village or heard a railroad whistle.

There is a curious and persistent survival of the belief in witchcraft
through this mineral-spring belt in West Virginia. To draw out the
natives on this mysterious subject they must be approached
sympathetically; if twitted with their credulity they will shut up
like clams, for with all the simplicity of the unlettered their
intuition often arrives at a correct understanding of the estimate
placed upon them by more fortunate persons. When satisfied that he is
not expected to pose as a "freak," but is met on the equal plane of
human intercourse, the mountain story-teller seems to enjoy recounting
the traditions and beliefs of his people and their forefathers.
Leaving himself a loophole of escape, he is very likely to finish his
yarn with--

"'Tain't that I believe them things myself. I know they ain't nawthin'
but superstition; but I kin qualify that right round here, not many
miles away, there's people that believes in witches."

In a little cottage on a much-traveled thoroughfare one woman admitted
to me with bated breath, as though not quite sure her tormentor was
dead, that she had been bewitched. Her account was given in these
words:

"I kep' seein' an old woman with a cow's hoof in her hand; sometimes
she was by my side an' sometimes she was there on the wall. At last
she come up close to me, an' she was goin' to clap the cow's hoof over
my mouth, but I slapped at her right hard an' she went away. She ain't
never come again. Yes, I _know_ I was bewitched."

A cow's hoof is a frequent accessory, and animals that are brought
into the magic circle are always of a domestic character, completely
subservient to the power of the witch.

It is noticeable that the exercise of witchcraft is generally ascribed
to women; and that of witch mastery, the superior attribute, to men.

The form of a judicial process found favor with the Puritan
temperament in old Salem, although by a grim mockery the verdict was
decided in advance. The independent mountaineer likes to take the law
in his own hands, as the following story illustrates:

"A farmer believed a woman was bewitching his stock. He drew a picture
of her and set it up as a target; then he sunk a piece of silver in
his bullet with an awl, _that being the charm for shooting a witch_.
He aimed to shoot the picture through the heart, but fired a little
too low. On that very day the woman herself fell flat on the ground,
and a deep, awful hole was found in her side. From that minute she
suffered extreme agony, and died in a week."

The narrator had heard this grewsome tale from his grandmother, who
said that she had seen the hole.

One of the oldest inhabitants of Monroe County is responsible for the
ensuing chronicle; he dates it in the "forties" of the present
century:

"'Tain't so very long ago there was a woman livin' near the Sweet
Springs who used to be always seen with a cap and bonnet on; nobody
ever saw her without the cap. She was a hard, grim-lookin' monster. If
anybody was watchin' to see her ontie her cap strings, somehow they
never could see any more until the clean cap was on--now that's _so_,
there ain't any mistake about that! When she come over here from
Botetourt County the report followed her that she lived pretty close
to a man whose chillun went to school, an' a calf had been in the
habit of attackin' 'em an' bitin' em. The father concealed himself one
day and was watchin' to catch the calf. On that occasion it come out
an' attacked the chillun on a bridge across a little stream o' water.
He ran and caught the calf and cut off his ears with a knife. They
always believed that _the old witch had turned herself into that
calf_, and so when she turned back into a woman she wore the cap to
hide that she didn't have any ears. There was three sisters of 'em; it
was reported they was all witches, possessed of some uncommon art.
John and Harriet had two little pet pullets they thought a good deal
of. The cap-woman wanted 'em; they just fluttered an' fluttered till
they died. Her name was Nancy L----. Well, she wanted the carpenter to
make her a piece of furniture out of an old dirty plank she had, an'
he wouldn't do it. He said it was gritty and it would ruin his tools.
Then she got mad and said, 'I'll make you suffer in the flesh for
that!' One day soon after that he was at his hog pen feedin' the hogs,
when suddenly he was struck down perfectly helpless, so he couldn't
speak. He thought it was paralytic or rheumatism. In those days there
was an old doctor in Staunton, Augusta County, who had a kind o'
process to steam people and boil 'em in a big kettle, for rheumatism.
He put sump'n fireproof, a paste or ointment, all over 'em, like the
fireproof you put on buildings, an' boiled 'em an hour or two hours,
as the case might be. The carpenter went to consult him, an' he put
him in a kettle that was big enough for him either to stand or sit
down in it; a collar was fitted tight round his neck so the hot water
couldn't get into his face and eyes. The boilin' didn't seem to do him
any good. When he got home he halted about for twelve months or more.
First he felt a pain in his hip, and then he felt a pain by the side
of his knee as if it was gradually workin' down; then one day there
was sump'n jaggin' in the calf of his leg. He put his leg up on a
bench and an old gentleman seen sump'n stickin' out. He took a pair of
nippers an' ketched holt an' pulled out a big shirtin' needle. Hugh
kept the needle as long as he lived, and he believed Nancy the old
witch shot him with it. He halted on that leg the balance of his days.
_I've seen the needle_; it's God's truth!"

A spice of profanity seems to have the virtue of embalming a witch
story in the mountain memory. A rustic maiden who lives with her
family on one of the loneliest hilltops in the Alleghanies, only to be
reached on foot or horseback, makes this contribution to the folklore
of the region:

"An old lady not far off had three daughters, and she was going to
learn 'em to be witches. They had to sit on the hearth by the fire and
take off their shoes and grease their heels so as to go up the
chimney, and they were not allowed to speak. The mother was to go
first and the girls were to follow. The old lady and the two foremost
ones had all got up safe, but the last girl, when she was in a narrow
place in the chimney, said, 'This is a d--d tight squeeze!' With that
she fell back and was burned up."

The value of silence and self-control appears to be the only touch of
morality in the witch logic. Manifestations of the black art
frequently take place by or over running water. These characteristics
are observed in another story from the same maid of the mountain:

"Two witches were going to rob a store in the night, and they took a
young man with them as a partner. They put the greased witch cap on
his head so he could go through the keyhole. They all started out, and
presently they came to a river. They saw some calves in a field, and
caught three of 'em; they mounted the two that were heifers and the
boy got on the steer calf. They charged him of all things not to speak
on the journey. The witches jumped the river on their calves without
makin' a sound, but just as he was jumping across he cried out, 'That
was a d--d good jump for a steer calf!' Well, they all went on, and
when they got to the store they passed through the keyhole one after
another, the young man too. They took all the money they wanted, but
when the time came to leave he couldn't get out of the keyhole,
because he had spoken, and the spell was broken. He was found in the
store the next morning, and had to take all the punishment."

It is interesting to note as an offset to all these diabolic
attributes and potencies that a firm faith exists in a beneficent
Power back of them which under given conditions will prevail over
evil. "God is always stronger than the devil" is the mountain way of
expressing this dependence, and there are charlatans who take
advantage of it by going about as "witch masters." One of these died a
few years ago, and another farther back, an Irishman named "Mosey," is
quoted yet for his successes as "master of all the witches and all the
devils."

When the cows had been eating mushrooms and their milk became too
bitter to make good butter, Mosey was sent for at once to "cure the
witchcraft" and "take off the spell." He took his regular beat through
his part of the mountain country once in a while. An old man who
oscillates between the "White" and the "Sweet," selling canes,
remembers him well. He tells of one woman's experience who "filed a
complaint" that her cow wouldn't give much milk, and that the milk
wouldn't "gether" for butter.

"'Woman,' says Mosey, 'your cow's bewitched, and badly bewitched!'

"'Can you do anything for her, Mosey, and what will you charge?'

"'Yes, I can cure her if you'll pay me five dollars and give me five
pounds of butter to take home with me to burn in the fire to cap the
climax and burn out the spell.'

"Then he want through his enchantments over the cow, and took the
money and the butter home with him. One day when he had been drinking
a little I asked him if he really burned all that butter. 'Divil a
grain of it did I burn; I ate it with my pertaties.' It was on that
same trip when Mosey was curin' the cow that a man who lived near by
sent for him. 'I feel mighty quare, Mosey,' says he, 'an' I can't
describe exactly how I do feel!' 'You're bewitched, sir,' says he,
'and badly bewitched!' (he always used those words). 'Faith, an' I'll
try and cure ye! Have ye got any blue yarn about the house?' The man's
wife went to look for some, and she came back with a hank of blue
yarn. Mosey wound off enough of it to make a cord about the size of
his finger; they twisted it together, he pretending to put some
enchantments on it, and then he told the sick man to fasten it round
his waist next to his skin. 'Don't you lose it on peril of your life,'
says he, 'or you're a dead man!' 'Peggy, get a needle and sew it on
me!' he says to his wife, an' she done it. He gradually got well--may
be he'd a got well anyway. I can't vouch for that."

When asked if such things were still happening, the cane-seller
replied:

"Not three weeks ago a woman thought her cow was bewitched because her
butter wouldn't gather, and she het an old horseshoe hot and dropped
it in the churn of milk. When she churned again the butter on that
occasion gathered, and _it was the same milk_ that was in the churn to
burn the witch. You can put that down for June, '93."

The Potts Creek neighborhood is said to be a center for the witch
superstition. It is also a favorite place for "bush meetings," to
which the natives come from a distance in their wagons with picnic
dinners of salt-risen corn pone and sliced bacon, and there they
listen approvingly to fervid exhortations that are based on orthodox
Baptist and Methodist doctrines. The West Virginia mountaineer is
profoundly religious in temperament, and considers that he has
scriptural ground for a belief in witchcraft.

       *       *       *       *       *

     PROF. H. E. ARMSTRONG has described how, by taking incidents from
     suitable story books, children aged respectively seven and a
     half, ten, and twelve and a half years were set to work to test
     the physical facts mentioned, and how, by the systematic use of
     the balance, measuring instruments, and simple apparatus, or even
     household utensils, a true spirit of scientific research was
     engendered. Evidence of the good effect was exhibited in the
     notebooks made by the children, which demonstrate clearly how
     well the juvenile investigators have mastered the scientific
     method of observation.




ORIGIN OF ANCIENT HINDU ASTRONOMY.

BY THE COUNT GOBLET D'ALVIELLA.


It is manifest that India is indebted for some of its astronomy to the
Greeks. Not that it had not astronomy and astronomers from an epoch
anterior to the invasion of Alexander. It had, in fact, been necessary
to make observations of the heavens in order to fix a calendar that
would enable the sacrifices of the Vedic ritual in connection with the
return of the seasons and the revolutions of the stars to be
celebrated at the right dates. Further, the belief in astrology, or
the influence exercised by the movements of the planets on physical
phenomena and all the events of human life, would lead, in India as
elsewhere, to the observation and anticipation of everything relating
to the conjunction and opposition of the heavenly bodies.

The Rig-Veda has allusions to the phases and stations of the moon. The
stations (_nakshatras_) consisted, according to a tradition preserved
by the Brahmans, of twenty-seven constellations (afterward
twenty-eight) which the moon was supposed to traverse successively in
the course of its sidereal revolution. A lunar zodiac and a primary
division of time into months were thus obtained. The moon, moreover,
bears in the Veda the name of month-maker (_mâsakrit_). Each station
was assigned a uniform length of 13° 20' on the ecliptic, and a
denomination, generally derived from mythology. The month, in turn,
took its name from the constellation that had the honor of harboring
the moon. Manon and the Djyotisha (a special treatise included among
the Védângas, or commentaries on the Vedas) tell us that the year was
composed of twelve months, the month of thirty days, the day of thirty
hours, the hour of forty-eight minutes, all strictly sexagesimal
subdivisions, like our own measures of time. The Djyotisha also
teaches the art of constructing a clepsydra, or water-clock.

The adjustment of the solar year to correspond with the lunar year and
of the two with the civil year dates from this period. The month was
still composed of thirty days, but the solar years were grouped into
quinquennial periods, in the middle and at the end of which the lunar
month was doubled. Combining these quinquennial periods with the
revolutions of the planet _Brihaspati_ (Jupiter), which was calculated
as occupying about twelve years, the Indian astronomers computed an
astronomical cycle of sixty solar years. As the same cycle is found
with the Chaldeans, where, according to Berosus, it was called the
_Sossos_, we have to inquire how far Brahmanic astronomy was
influenced by the systems which were originally formed in ancient
Chaldea. The presumption of such an influence furnishes a simpler and
more probable hypothesis than the effort to trace the earliest
astronomical ideas of the Hindus, as M. W. Brennand has recently
suggested, to a period when the ancestors of the Aryans, the Semites,
and the Chinese were wandering together over the plateaus of central
Asia!

We know now, from the cuneiform inscriptions, that the Chaldeans had,
at a period far anterior to the entrance of the Aryans into India,
invented a double calendar, solar and lunar, with intercalary periods;
discovered the proper motion of the planets; calculated the return of
eclipses; and constituted a double metrical system, decimal and
sexagesimal; and, as was done, too, in India, had divided the
circumference into three hundred and sixty degrees of sixty minutes
each. It is impossible to draw the lines exactly between the
astronomical discoveries which the Hindus borrowed from abroad and
those which they drew from their own resources prior to the invasion
of the Greeks, but we need in no case go farther than Mesopotamia for
the source of the borrowed data.

The ancient literature of India contains observations of the positions
or conjunctions of some of the stars that carry us back to positive
dates in the history of the sky. The astronomers Bailly, Colebrooke,
and Bentley, and, more recently, M. Brennand, have found notes
relative to astronomical phenomena that took place in the twelfth,
fourteenth, fifteenth, and even the twenty-first centuries B. C. Max
Müller, however, advises prudence and reserve in accepting these
calculations, some of which may have been afterthoughts, and others
offer only apparent agreements.

In any case, the advent of Buddhism, by depreciating the religious
practices and astrological speculations of the Brahmans, contributed
to bringing on a decline of astronomy at the very time it was taking
its most vigorous stand among the Greeks. We learn from a passage in
Strabo that the Pramnai regarded the Brahmans as boasters and mad
because they were interested in physiology and astronomy. Now, there
really exists an ancient Buddhist treatise in which the predictions by
the Brahmans of eclipses of the sun and of the conjunctions and
oppositions of the planets, and their discussions of the appearance of
comets and meteors, are treated as despicable arts and lies.

It was just at this age that Hellenic culture was developed in
northwest India. It held astronomy, and astrology too, in great
esteem. The Milinda Panda mentions the royal astrologer as one of the
principal functionaries of Menander. No doubt there were, among the
Gavanas (Ionians) of Taxila and Euthydêmia, minds versed in the
knowledge of the principal cosmological systems formulated among the
Greeks from Thales to Aristotle, and also acquainted with all the
progress in the physical and mathematical sciences that had been
achieved by the Alexandrian astronomers in the last centuries before
Christ. To comprehend the extent of the influence of Hellenic science,
we have only to inquire what Hindu astronomy had become again at the
time of the restoration of the Brahmans in the sixth century A. D.
Aryabhatta teaches the rotation of the earth around its axis;
maintains that the moon, naturally dark, owes its light to the rays of
the sun; formulates the true theory of eclipses; assigns an elliptical
form to the planetary epicycles; and demonstrates the displacement of
the equinoctial and solstitial points. Varâha-Mihira devotes himself
especially to astrological labors, but also has the merit of having
condensed into a vast encyclopædia the _Pantcha Siddhântikâ_, the
principal astronomical treatises that were current in India. And
Brahmazoupta is especially famous for his revision of an older
treatise, the _Brahma Siddhânta_.

In the opinion of the most competent critics, these works, which are
chiefly empirical methods of determining the positions of the stars,
are inferior to those which the Alexandrians have left us. Yet, in
matters relating to the measurement of arcs and to spherical
trigonometry, they reveal a more advanced state of the science. It is
impossible to determine at what period this new astronomical science
was constituted in India. Some of its theories squarely betray their
indebtedness to Greek science, as, for instance, that of the
displacement of the equinoctial and solstitial points by a periodical
vibration or tremor. We can also say as much of the solar zodiac, the
names of the constellations of which strikingly resemble the Greek
names in form as well as in significance, and the same of the names of
the chief planets. Other expressions are found, notably in the works
of Varâha-Mihira, which indicate, if not a borrowing, a contact, at
least, with the works of the Greek astronomy, of which Mr. Burgess
gives a fairly complete list in his Notes on Hindu Astronomy and the
History of our Knowledge of it, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society. Among these terms, some are Greek words which have been
utilized in naming constellations or astronomical measures; others
have retained the special significations which they had in the works
of the Alexandrian astronomers. It would certainly be an exaggeration
to insist that the adoption of a foreign term of necessity implies the
borrowing of the idea which it expresses. It is, nevertheless,
probable that the Sanskrit writers would not have made use of so many
of these exotic denominations if the ideas they represent had already
found their expression in the languages of India.

Further, among the fine Siddântas which Varâha-Mihira collected and
condensed as including all the astronomical science of his time, there
are two, the _Romaka_ and the _Pauliça_, the names of which suggest
directly--the first the scientific culture of the Roman world, and the
other Paulus, a celebrated Alexandrian astronomer of the third century
A. D.[8]

    [Footnote 8: The Romaka Siddânta employs, as a measure of time,
    the _Guga_ of 2,850 years or 1,040,953 days, giving a tropical
    year of 365 days, 5 hours, 55 minutes, and 12 seconds, which is
    exactly the figure proposed by Ptolemy and Hipparchus.--_Burgess,
    Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society._]

We apparently find, likewise, the names of Manetho (fourth century A.
D.) in _Manittha_ or _Manimda_; of Spensippus in _Sporedjivadja_; and
of Ptolemy in _Asoura Maya_, whom the _Sounya Siddhânta_ designates as
the founder of astronomy, and who another treatise says was born at
Romakapouri, "the city of the Romans."

In this order of ideas the natives of India have never tried to deny
their sources. The Gavanas, we read in the _Gargí Samhitâ_, are
barbarians; but this science (astrology) has been constituted by them,
and they must be revered as saints. M. Weber affirms that a treatise
on astrology bearing their name, the _Gavana Çastra_, was reputed to
have been written in the land of the Gavanas by the god Sourya in
person, when, expelled from heaven by the resentment of his divine
rivals, he came down and was born again in the city of the Romans.[9]

    [Footnote 9: The term Romakapouri does not necessarily imply the
    city of Rome; the name was probably extended to Alexandria and
    perhaps also to Byzantium. In other writings we find the name
    Gavanapouri, the city of the Greeks (or Ionians), applied to
    Alexandria.]

We find, further, that the Greek calendar appears to have survived
Hellenic domination in northern India. General Cunningham, in 1862,
read in the inscriptions of the Indo-Scythians the names of the
Macedonian months Artemisios and Appellaios. Since then the names of
two other months of that calendar--Panemos and Daisios--have been
found in inscriptions in the Kharosthis character.

Another era of Grecian origin, that of the Seleucidæ, seems likewise
to have furnished the Hindus their first historical computation.[10]
It should be observed, in fact, that their most ancient era, that of
the Mauryas, dates from the year 312 B. C., or the beginning of the
era of the Seleucidæ. This had been adopted by the Grecian sovereigns
of India, as is attested by a coin of Plato, struck in the year 166 B.
C.

    [Footnote 10: Till then, the Hindus hardly seem to have sought for
    a common measure of time except for astronomical or mythological
    purposes.]

Beginning with the Indo-Scythians, India generally adopted the era of
the Cakas, which began, not, as had been long supposed, with the
expulsion of the Scythians, but with the coronation of their
principal sovereign, Kanichka.[11] Nevertheless, the inscriptions
offer still other historical computations, as, for instance, that of
the Gouptas era, which began in the year 240 of the Çaka era, and that
of Vikramâditya, which was made to begin retrospectively fifty-six
years B. C. Hence arise complications of a nature to make the task of
paleography and history no lighter.--_Translated for the Popular
Science Monthly from Ciel et Terre (from the author's essays on
Classical Influences on the Scientific and Literary Culture of
India)._

    [Footnote 11: M. Sylvain Levi has, however, lately reopened the
    question of the initial date of this era.]




SKETCH OF WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS.


The old problem of Nature _versus_ nurture that meets us in studying
the life history of any organism becomes especially interesting in
dealing with the biography of men of eminence. Are their achievements
the inevitable expression of the natural forces innate in them at
birth, or the product of environmental influences, or some resultant
of these two factors? And how much may we in each case assign to one
factor or to the other?

These difficult questions naturally suggest themselves in glancing at
the life of the subject of this sketch. Like so many men who have won
prominence in comparatively new countries, he seemed, in an
environment that had no apparent relation to his future, to grow from
innate tendencies toward something not suggested by the circumstances
about him, even to grow in opposition to the molding influences of
these, and to conquer them. Later, however, we find him surrounded by
influences that made a particular mode of self-expression easy, if
they may not be said to have forced such expression. It was then that
the casual observer might say that the circumstances made the man;
yet, looking backward, we can trace the initiative in the man that led
him into the congenial environment. A selection of proper environment
to express Nature has been rightly claimed as a potent factor in all
organic life; nurture, then, comes as a secondary power to mold, or
rather to translate, the inherent power.

WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS, the second son of Oliver Allen Brooks and
Eleanora Bradbury, daughter of the Rev. Phineas Kingsley, was born in
Cleveland, Ohio, in 1848. In 1877 he married Amelia Katherine,
daughter of Edward T. Schultz and Susan Rebecca, daughter of David L.
Martin. He has two children.

Brooks grew up amid the stimulating influences of a relatively new
country, where freedom of development was not so sharply restricted
but that all paths of life seemed equally open to one who would work.
As a boy he was not one of those precocious naturalists of the common
sort whose collecting instincts find expression in the hoarding of
dead animals or plants rather than the neater postage stamp; names and
authorities, classes and species, neatly arranged mummies, were not
his delight. At first there seemed no sign that zoölogy would claim
him as a most ardent admirer. Yet he was fond of live things and their
ways, and introduced into his home that most delightful microcosm, the
fresh-water aquarium (so much neglected in this country), in which he
could observe at ease the habits and slow changes of living things
when their native haunts were not accessible. Such early interest in
the essential wonders of livingness rather than in man's artificial
classification of phenomena was thus prophetic of much of his later
originality of thought and view.

He has never forgotten how much he owes to the instruction of the
earnest and broad-minded teachers in the public schools of Cleveland.

His college life began at Hobart, where two years left a deep
impression from an acquaintance with Berkeley's thought, gained in
browsing in the library, and long treasured up to produce fruit in
philosophic views of maturer years. Then at Williams College, where
the notable Natural History Society was sending out its expedition
across South America, his love of Nature matured and specialized for
two years longer, until he received the A. B. degree in 1870. It was
Williams also that later, in 1893, bestowed upon him the LL. D.
degree. For him the completion of college life was truly the
"commencement" and not the finish of his intellectual training. His
strong trend toward pure science and abstract mental life forced him
onward into post-graduate work. But this required funds, and America
was not Germany; the struggle for existence was not here so intense
that one might not win bread in many walks of life without special
training, and parents did not need to extend the larval period of
support for offspring beyond the completion of college life to gain
for them a place in any rank, social or intellectual. Now, a rapidly
increasing need for the Ph. D. degree as entrance to professional
life, necessitating several years of post-graduate study, often forces
parents to take up their share in the increased burden. Then, however,
few were agreed as to the advisability of prolonging an unpractical
life devoted to study beyond what seemed the maximum limit of
unproductive preparation for life--the day of graduation at college.
Beyond that the young man must make his own way as best he might. The
subject of this sketch chose to work his way by his own unaided
efforts into the fullest measure of academic training.

That was before the day of competition between universities, and there
was no temptation to go here rather than there in order to live a
semi-parasitic existence as scholar or fellowship holder.

First in his father's counting house, and then at a boy's school near
Niagara, young Brooks bravely gained the means to pursue higher
branches of natural history, and to devote himself to research. In the
former position he realized how futile for him would be a life given
to money-getting, and he palliated the uncongenial nature of that life
by such abstract thought as seemed useful, one immediate result of
which was the invention of a mechanical device for computing interest
and discounts in sterling money, that had considerable circulation.
This, though it scarcely indicated a stronger bias for mathematics
than for Nature study, showed a latent possibility that was not to be
developed. In the latter position, which brought him in close contact
with the wonders of time action, so plainly read in one of Nature's
books for the blind--Niagara Falls--he found food for thought, as well
as a deep interest in the action of young minds. Here was much
material for philosophical study of wood life too, as well as for
growth of conceptions of the way to learn and to teach.

Free, after serving three years, to follow his genius, Agassiz's
romantic venture at Pennikese drew this young naturalist, as it did so
many of that epoch; and henceforth marine life, with its revelation of
fundamental problems, fascinated him. Working on at Agassiz's museum,
learning its collections by heart, absorbing from this center of
American natural history and from its founder both stimulus and
method, influenced deeply also by the unobtrusive teachings of McCrady
and others who helped to make Cambridge the Mecca of naturalists, he
was already an active contributor to the discussion of problems in the
embryology of animals when he won his Ph. D. degree in 1875.

Quiet, diffident, slow to speak, leaving hasty action, too, for those
of other constitution, with thoughtful brow and keen eye to look
outward, as well as to regard inner thought, this young man with
flowing beard was a noticeable person. At this time he was to be seen
always accompanied by his faithful "Tige"; for, wiser than Ulysses, he
shared all the hardships and joys of life with this loved companion.

Now he sought his true environment, and found it in the new university
starting in 1876--the Johns Hopkins University. There he was appointed
Fellow, an honor subsequently won by many who are well known to
biological science, as W. T. Sedgwick, E. B. Wilson, K. Mitsukuri, A.
F. W. Schimper, H. H. Donaldson, H. L. Osborn, J. McKeen Cattell, H.
H. Howell, A. T. Bruce, E. S. Lee, H. E. Nachtrieb, W. Noyes, J.
Jastrow, E. B. Mall, H. V. Wilson, C. E. Hodge, S. Watase, and T. H.
Morgan. Like C. O. Whitman, in 1879, he did not enter upon the
privileges of that position, but as instructor and associate became at
once a guiding element in the new growth. In the freedom from old
traditions, from fixed conventions and routines offered by this new
university, this peculiar original mind found its best environment,
and while the opportunity doubtless did much for the man, the man
certainly reacted most favorably for the welfare of the highest ideals
of his new home.

We find him at once outspoken in emphasis of the philosophical aspect
of animal morphology, contributing thoughts upon "inductive reasoning
in morphological problems," upon "the relation between embryology and
phylogeny," upon "the causes of serial and bilateral symmetry," and
upon the "rhythmic nature" of the cleavage of an egg. Yet this period
was also, and pre-eminently, one of acquisition of hard-earned and
detailed facts. The development of Pulmonates and Lamellibranchs, of
Crustacea and of Medusæ, as well as of the marvels of Salpa's life
history, became absorbing studies.

This great field of the morphology of nonvertebrates could be properly
worked only with access to the marine fauna, and at that date there
were few facilities for seaside study in America. A true disciple of
Louis Agassiz, Professor Brooks saw the need of a marine laboratory,
and devoted himself, as Dohrn did at Naples, to the accomplishment of
an end so necessary for the advance of natural science. Encouraged by
the aid of a few citizens of Baltimore, in 1878 there was started an
experiment--"The Chesapeake Zoölogical Laboratory," at Fort Wool, Va.,
with Professor Brooks as director. With the absolute devotion of its
director to research as example, and with the liberal aid of the
trustees of the Johns Hopkins University, this laboratory became a
most important adjunct to the university and a virile center of
zoölogical study. So great was its success as a factor in the advance
of zoölogical knowledge that the trustees bravely continued to support
it whenever financial disaster did not rob them of the last penny. For
eight years in the Chesapeake, or in the remoter waters of North
Carolina, the station flourished; then, in 1886, we find the director,
with a few enthusiastic students, venturing in a small schooner to the
but little known Bahama Island, Green Turtle Cay, there to enlarge
their experiences with such delightful realization of naturalists'
dreams of the tropics as Haeckel experienced in his Journey to Ceylon.
Subsequent annual expeditions to Nassau, the Bemini Islands, and to
various parts of Jamaica served as marked eras in the lives of many
young naturalists who will not soon forget the contact with life thus
obtained.

From these sources and from his connection with the United States Fish
Commission, as director of the Marine Station at Woods Holl, Mass., in
1888, Professor Brooks drew inspiration and fact for the work and
thought by which he is so well known to the working naturalist. There
are few great divisions of the animal kingdom that have not excited
his special interest and claimed his long-sustained labor upon the
problems they express. Like McCrady, deeply fascinated by the
_Hydromedusæ_ and their wonderful changes, many smaller papers, as
well as the Memoir of the Boston Society of Natural History, entitled
The Life History of the _Hydromedusæ_ and the Origin of Alternation of
Generations, testify to his success in unraveling plots that thickened
with new discoveries.

An early interest in the mollusca, shown by his doctor's dissertation
upon the embryology of the fresh-water mussels, printed in part in the
Proceedings of the American Association, 1875, continued to be
expressed in his contributions to many problems in the embryology of
the fresh-water Pulmonates, of Gasteropods, of Lamellibranchs, and of
the Squid. The Crustacea also rightly claimed a large share of the
attention of a philosophic naturalist, bringing him face to face with
the rigid formulations of law which these creatures present. The
discovery of the very exceptional method of cleavage in the egg of the
decapod Lucifer, and the demonstration of the existence of a free
Nauplius stage there (published in the Philosophical Transactions of
the Royal Society in 1882), marked a most important advance in the
morphological interpretation of all Crustacea, and brought its author
to the first rank as an authority upon this much-studied group.
Studying and capturing at Beaufort those phantom-like sand burrowers,
the Squilla, gained him an insight into and an interest in this
strange division of Crustacea that enabled him to undertake that
difficult task, the description of Stomatopods collected by the
Challenger Expedition--a task completed in 1886. The report, published
in such a magnificent series as only the British Government could have
consummated, is noticeable for the author's clear, free illustration
of the creatures described and classified. In it we find a
classification of the numerous, weird, glassy larvæ, agreeing with the
classification of the adults and marking the success of the solution
of the problem--the reference of chance collections of various stages
of many species to their proper places in the life history of each
species.

When the fever for ancestral trees had spread among naturalists in a
much more virulent form than that endemic in Wales, and when the
Ascidians were brought into line as ancestral vertebrates, it was no
wonder to find Professor Brooks laboring upon these interesting
creatures, but his work in this group started from a different point
of view. As early as 1875, when studying in the laboratory of
Alexander Agassiz, he contributed to the Boston Society of Natural
History a description involving a most novel interpretation of the
embryology of a remarkable Ascidian, Salpa. This form is known to many
not naturalists as that beautiful animal chain which is sometimes so
common in the clear waters of Newport Harbor as to be dipped up in
every bucket of water, but more often not there at all. The female
buds forth male branches and gives each an egg (which is fertilized to
form a second generation of females). There is thus no alteration of
sexual and non-sexual generations at all; and, with characteristic
appreciation of a paradox, Professor Brooks subsequently emphasized
the fact that the poet naturalist Chamisso, in discovering, in 1814,
"Alternation of Generations" in Salpa, had discovered a phenomenon
where it did not exist, though subsequently found common enough in
many other animals. With the continuity of interest so marked in him,
the life history of Salpa, as thus revealed, continued to be one of
the living thoughts in Professor Brooks's mind for a long period of
years, and, with the accumulation of material and results of
researches afforded by his summer work, culminated in the monograph
Salpa--a quarto of nearly four hundred pages and fifty odd
plates--published in 1893, or after nearly twenty years of sustained
interest in this complex problem. In this volume we find first a
coherent view of the intricate life history of this animal illuminated
by such metaphors as make the necessary technicalities both readable
and thinkable. For instance, "A chain of Salpa may be compared to two
chains of cars on two parallel tracks, placed so that the middle of
each car on one track is opposite the ends of two cars of the other
track, and each joined by two couplings to the car in front of it on
its own track, and in the same way to the one behind it, and also to
those diagonally in front of it and behind it on the other track."
Again, in speaking of that startling process of egg development that
makes the embryology of Salpa one of the apparently insoluble problems
of this branch of inquiry, he says: "Stated in a word, the most
remarkable peculiarity of the Salpa embryology is this: It is blocked
out in follicular cells, which form layers and undergo foldings and
other changes which result in an outline or model of all the general
features in the organization of the embryo. While these processes are
going on the development of the blastomeres is retarded, so that they
are carried into their final position in the embryo while still in a
rudimentary condition. Finally, when they reach the places they are
to occupy, they undergo rapid multiplication and growth and build up
the tissues of the body, while the scaffolding of follicle cells is
torn down and used up as food for the true embryonic cells. An
imaginary illustration may help to make the subject clear. Suppose
that while carpenters are building a house of wood the brick-makers
pile clay on the boards as they are carried past, and shape the lumps
of clay into bricks as they find them scattered through the building
where they have been carried with the boards. Now, as the house of
wood approaches completion, imagine the bricklayers build a brick
house over the wooden framework and not from the bottom upward, but
here and there wherever the bricks are to be found, and that as fast
as parts of the brick house are finished the wooden one is torn down.
To make the analogy complete we must imagine that all the structure
which is removed is assimilated by the bricks, and is thus turned into
the substance of new bricks to carry on the construction."

Following that descriptive portion of the work comes a most
interesting interweaving of facts gathered in wide experience with a
scientific imagination possible only to one who had lived and thought
in close sympathetic contact with tropical marine life. It is an
account of the present conditions of life along tropical shores and
the probable steps that led to the evolution of the innumerable
sedentary and creeping things from the ancestral forms that floated on
the surface of the ocean before there were shores. Charming reading
for the layman, and for the specialist a broadening poetic insight
into life as it is and as it was when the world was young and the
pelagic forbears of the vertebrates competed with their simpler
associates in the annexation of the bottom as a vantage ground for the
"benevolent assimilation" of later immigrants. The third portion of
the work follows a most commendable plan: "Scientific controversy is
so unprofitable that I shall try to make it as subordinate as
possible, that the reader may devote all his attention to the life
history of Salpa, without interruption at every point where my own
observations confirm or contradict the statements of others." This
section deals with the refutation of criticism of the author's
interpretations, and endeavors to harmonize the discords that in this,
as in all complex morphological research, make progress slow though
surer.

The above brief references to the research work of the subject of this
sketch would be too incomplete did we omit mention of his papers upon
that very interesting and extremely ancient inhabitant of the
Chesapeake, the Lingula, or of the beautifully illustrated memoir of
the National Academy of Sciences, describing the crania of the Lucayan
Indians, an unfortunate race of gentle beings discovered by the
Spaniards and treated as part of the live stock of the New World and
soon annihilated, leaving but a few bones, and, as Professor Brooks
tells us, our familiar and pleasant word "hammocks," as evidences of
their having been.

Coming to maturity in the period of general acceptance of the
Darwinian hypothesis of organic evolution, Professor Brooks was
naturally deeply influenced, and no one who has read his works can
doubt his allegiance to natural selection as a powerful factor in the
formation of the present order of living things. In the American
Naturalist for 1877 he published the first outlines of a provisional
hypothesis of pangenesis that sought to "combine the hypotheses of
Owen, Spencer, and Darwin in such a way as to escape the objections to
which each is in itself liable, and at the same time to retain all
that renders them valuable." In 1883 the same hypothesis--that
variations are perpetuated chiefly through the male line by special
gemmules, and that the female is essentially conservative--was
elaborated in book form under the title of The Law of Heredity.

Thenceforth, in intervals of research work, Professor Brooks has
contributed to various periodicals, notably the Popular Science
Monthly, such essays upon kindred topics as spontaneously arose in his
mind in connection with current work here and abroad. Some of these of
a general philosophical interest have been incorporated with lectures,
originally given to students in Baltimore, as The Foundations of
Zoölogy, brought out this year by the Macmillan Company as Volume V of
the Columbia University Biological Series. This, it will be noted, is
dedicated "To Hobart College, where I learned to study, and, I hope,
to profit by, but not blindly to follow, the writings of that great
thinker on the principles of science, George Berkeley," and its
keynote might be said to be difficult to hold, expressing the
standpoint of one who says "The proof that there is no necessary
antagonism between mechanical explanations of human life and belief in
volition and duty and moral responsibility seems to me to be very
simple and easy to understand."

Though thus active in pushing forward the limit of fact and theory in
the domain of pure science, Professor Brooks has not shirked the duty
that falls to every member of society, but has labored earnestly to
build a sound basis for immediate practical application of zoölogical
research. In 1876 he organized a summer zoölogical laboratory for
teachers and others in Cleveland, with the co-operation of two other
young Clevelanders--A. H. Tuttle, now Professor of Biology in the
University of Virginia, and I. B. Comstock, Professor of Geology in
the University of Arizona.

Identifying himself with the interests of the community in which he
had cast his lot, he interested himself in the establishment of such
educational influences as that of a public aquarium, and it was
through no fault of the sower that the seed laboriously sown fell upon
stony ground. In the winter of 1880 he gave a course of lectures and
of laboratory work for teachers in the schools of Baltimore.

Again, his early studies of the development of the oyster (for which
he was awarded the medal of the Société d'Acclimatisation of Paris in
1883), his discovery that the American oyster could be reared like
fish from artificially fertilized eggs, since he found it to have a
different life history from its European fellow, led him to realize
the greater possibilities that awaited our oyster industries when they
should be based upon scientific fact. Living amid a population
dependent to no small extent upon these industries, Professor Brooks
threw himself with enthusiasm into the problem of warding off the ruin
that comes to every enterprise expanding faster than its capital is
replenished, and eagerly sought the means to magnify without
deterioration so important a factor in the existence of the
Commonwealth. As chairman of the Oyster Commission appointed by the
General Assembly of Maryland in 1882, he drew up the long, detailed,
and well-illustrated report, issued in 1884, which set forth the
condition of the oyster beds in the Chesapeake Bay and their
deterioration from overwork, and suggested a legislative remedy in the
form of a bill designed to remove this industry from that primitive,
barbaric stage in which our communal ownership of migrant birds and
fish still remains, and to place it upon the secure basis of personal
ownership underlying other live-stock business. But it is difficult to
change the customs of centuries' standing, and prophets rarely see the
fulfillment of their predictions. Many lectures and the issue of a
popular book--The Oyster, 1891--were necessary labors assumed by
Professor Brooks before the public mind was educated to some
appreciation of the nature of the problem, and the fruits of his
labors are yet to be matured and gathered.

But it is not so much by discovery of new facts or by aid to the
community in which one may chance to live that a man exerts his best
influence upon mankind; rather by his success in inspiring others to
see whatever of good there may be in his point of view and method of
attack upon old problems, that his followers may keep alive and
enlarge what he stands for in the growth of civilization. As a teacher
Professor Brooks has exerted a powerful influence by the stimulus of
example in his whole-hearted devotion to research, by originality of
suggestion, and by his clear intuition of the essential factors in
morphological problems. Convinced that naturalists, like poets, are
born and not made--or, if so, then self-made--his teaching has been
free from that too easily acquired hallucination that the forcible
introduction of facts, and frequent extraction of words by means of
examination, are a possible means to the making of zoölogists, or what
you will to order, to be ticketed and branded as such after a fixed
term of the above process. Those who are strong enough to grow in the
open have found in him a genial sunshine, but those needing hothouse
forcing have sometimes missed, perhaps, the care necessary to bring
them to a marketable state.

Many who have followed his lectures will recall the clearness and
simplicity with which complex and puzzling questions were presented to
their minds; the skull of the bony fish soon lost its terrors, while
the homologies of the limb bones were brought to the mind in a graphic
way, sure to leave a deep impression. Directness and lucidity, with
freedom from investment of unessentials, are characteristics of his
teaching and prominent features in his too little known Handbook of
Marine Zoölogy, which, despite technical faults, was so original and
honest, so free from closet natural history, that it marked an era in
the advance of biological instruction. It was a direct appeal to the
concrete study of living animals at a time when zoölogy for students
was still the learning of text-books, and text-books were too often in
spirit but modernizations of Pliny or of Aldrovandus.

It is this removal of the impeding paraphernalia of custom-bound
authority, and a direct, childlike communion with Nature in search of
truth by one's unaided labor, that this man has to offer to those who
come under his sway as teacher; with what success will be evident from
the work of those who recently united to honor his fiftieth birthday
with a portrait that might recall him to them as he taught them, and
from the work of those who, in coming years, will enjoy the privilege
of contact with his genius and be led to "seek admission to the temple
of natural knowledge naked and not ashamed, like little children."

       *       *       *       *       *

     FORESTRY, Professor Fernow said in his paper at the American
     Association, is not, as it seems to be popularly believed,
     "Woodman, spare that tree," but "Woodman, cut those trees
     judiciously." The handling of a slowly maturing crop like forest
     trees requires especial consideration of a problem quite unlike
     any other that presents itself to the business man. The trees
     ripen slowly, a full century often being necessary to the
     complete development of growth. Obviously it would be inadvisable
     to cut down the product and then wait a hundred years for further
     income from the land; another system is necessary, where merely
     the interest is taken, in trees which are in a condition to cut,
     while the principal, the forest itself, remains always
     practically intact.




Editor's Table.


_PRIMITIVE MAN._

Two articles contributed to the April and May numbers of the
Fortnightly Review by Mr. J. G. Frazer, the learned author of The
Golden Bough, and more recently of a monumental edition of Pausanias,
are worthy of the close attention of all who are interested in the
early history of mankind. The articles are entitled The Origin of
Totemism, and the object of the writer is to show that on this obscure
subject a flood of light has been shed by the lately published
researches of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen into the beliefs and
practices of the native tribes of central Australia, those tribes
being perhaps the best representatives now anywhere surviving of the
most primitive condition of the human race. Mr. Baldwin Spencer,
formerly a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, is at present Professor
of Biology in the University of Melbourne, while Mr. Gillen is a
special magistrate in South Australia, charged with the protection of
the aborigines. In their work, Mr. Frazer observes, "We possess for
the first time a full and authentic account of thoroughly primitive
savages living in the totem stage and practically unaffected by
European influence. Its importance," he adds, "as a document of human
history can, therefore, hardly be overestimated."

Evolution, it has often been remarked, and is again remarked by the
writer of these articles, is an outcome of the struggle for life, and
is rapid and vigorous or slow and feeble, according to the intensity
of the struggle and the number and variety of the competing elements.
Among the great land masses of our planet Australia is the smallest;
and, owing to this circumstance, and also to its physical
conformation, which renders large areas unfit for the maintenance of
life, population has been much restricted and competition has been at
a minimum. Hence the extremely backward and undeveloped condition of
its native tribes, a condition which enables us, as Mr. Frazer
observes, to detect humanity in the chrysalis stage, and mark the
first blind gropings of our race after liberty and light.

The account given of these tribes contains indeed some very remarkable
details. For example, "though they suffer much from cold at night
under the frosty stars of the clear Australian heaven, the idea of
using as garments the warm furs of the wild animals they kill and eat
has never entered into their minds." They attribute the propagation of
the human race wholly to the action of spirits, to whom they attribute
a fecundating power, treating as wholly irrelevant to the matter any
contact of the sexes. The idea of natural causation seems to be one
which they have no power to grasp. They believe that various results
are dependent on special antecedent conditions, but it is a pure
matter of accident what they shall conceive the conditions in any case
to be. Here we come to the origin of totemism. Heretofore totemism has
been considered, broadly speaking, as the identification of themselves
by some group of savages with a particular plant or animal or other
manifestation of the powers of Nature, accompanied by a complete or
partial _taboo_, so far as the group in question is concerned, of the
animal or other object adopted as totem, and also by a rule
prohibiting marriage within the group. What Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
have succeeded in doing has been to observe and detect the
significance of certain practices of the Australian tribes which have
never been observed, or at least never understood, before.

At a certain time of the year, it appears, each totemistic tribe goes
through elaborate ceremonies of a purely magical character for the
purpose of promoting the growth and multiplication of the particular
animal or plant, if it be one useful for food, with which the tribe is
identified, or of antagonizing its evil effects if it be of a hurtful
character. As "there is scarcely an object, animate or inanimate, to
be found in the country occupied by the natives which does not give
its name to some totemic group of individuals," the general scheme of
things is pretty well looked after in the various ceremonies that are
practiced by the different groups. Attention is here drawn to the
essential difference between religion and magic, religion being an
attempt to propitiate or conciliate the higher powers, while magic
undertakes to coerce them. "To the magician," as Mr. Frazer observes,
"it is a matter of indifference whether the cosmic powers are
conscious or unconscious, spiritual or material; for in either case he
imagines that he can force them by his enchantments to do his
bidding." The ceremonies of the native Australians, as we have said,
are wholly magical. They have the same kind of faith in their
incantations and other strange performances that the modern man of
science has in the preparations he makes for a physical experiment.
The difference is that imagination or the crudest kind of symbolism
has suggested the methods of the savage, while a careful scrutiny and
comparison of facts has dictated those of the man of science. The
_proprium_ of the savage mind is an utter insensibility to evidence,
or rather a lack of all power of conceiving what evidence is, and
therefore a total incapacity for feeling any need of it. The
scientific man, on the other hand, feels that he needs it every hour
and every moment.

It may be interesting to quote the description given by Mr. Frazer,
after Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, of the ceremonies performed by the
men whose totem is the "witchetty grub," a creature much prized as an
article of diet by the natives.

"The men of the witchetty-grub totem repair to a shallow cave in a
ravine where lies a large block of quartzite, surrounded by some small
rounded stones. The large block represents the full-grown grub; the
small stones stand for the eggs. On reaching the cave the head man of
the totem group begins to sing, while he taps the large block with a
wooden trough, such as is used for scooping the earth out of burrows.
All the other men at the same time tap it with twigs of a particular
gum tree, chanting the while. The burden of their song is an
invitation to the insect to go and lay eggs. Next, the leader takes up
one of the smaller stones, representing an egg, and strikes each man
in the stomach with it, saying, 'You have eaten much food,' after
which he butts at the man's stomach with his forehead.... Ceremonies
of the same sort are performed at ten different places. When the round
has been completed the party returns home. Here, at some distance from
the camp, a long structure of boughs has been got ready; it is
designed to represent the chrysalis from which the full-grown insect
emerges. Into this structure the men, each with the sacred design of
the totem painted in red ochre and pipe clay on his body, enter and
sing of the grub in the various stages of its development. After
chanting thus for a while they shuffle out of the mock chrysalis one
by one, with a gliding motion, singing all the time about the
emergence of the real insect out of the real chrysalis, of which
their own performance is clearly an imitation."

The Emu men have their own ceremonies, equally elaborate and quite as
well adapted to promote the multiplication of emus as those of the
witchetty-grub men to produce an abundance of witchetty grubs. The
earnestness which is thrown into these ceremonies is beyond all
question; and it seems to be clear that each totemic group in turn
takes up its own burden of social responsibility: each has its duty to
the tribe as a whole, and performs it to the best of its ability.
Through their united efforts, as they firmly believe, the various
processes of Nature are maintained in satisfactory activity; the
succulent grub comes forth in due season and in reasonable quantity;
the emu, the kangaroo, the bandicoot, and other useful animals keep up
their numbers and continue to furnish food for the community; the
hakea flower and the manna of the mulga tree grow in normal abundance;
the winds blow; the streams flow; the clouds yield rain and the sun
goes on shining by day and the stars by night, with, on the whole, an
admirable regularity. A more satisfactory system it would really be
difficult to conceive. How absurd, not to say profane, it would be for
any one to suggest that ceremonies which were so abundantly justified
by results might without danger be omitted! Skepticism is indeed very
much out of place in certain stages of human development.

The interesting feature, however, as Mr. Frazer holds, in the
descriptions given by the two Australian writers we have named is the
proof they afford that totemism, instead of being an irrational,
unexplainable aberration of the nascent intellect of man, was really a
scheme for securing the greatest possible multiplicity of benefits for
the savage community. The whole tribe was divided into groups, and
each group undertook to look after some function of Nature and keep it
up to the mark. Here was a notable step in the direction of division
of labor. How it came about that the particular animal or plant which
was the totem of a group became wholly or partially _taboo_ to the
group is not very easily explained; but it seems not impossible that
some sense of tribal duty, gradually developed, kept those who were
credited with providing any particular food element from being
themselves greedy consumers of it. So far as that article was
concerned they may have felt themselves as sustaining somewhat the
character of hosts or entertainers of the tribe, and it may thus have
become the custom that they should either not partake at all of that
special thing, or partake of it only sparingly. If so, we find the
foundations already laid both of politeness and of morality. It is an
interesting question how far the notions which have been described
have died out of modern civilized society. That they are wholly
extinct it would be rash to affirm. There are many traces, indeed, of
the surviving influence of symbolism, and here and there lingering
tendencies toward a belief in magic are easily discoverable. Perhaps
the wisest of us may learn to understand ourselves a little better by
studying the operations of the human mind in its very earliest stages,
before reason had yet shaken itself free from the random suggestions
of sense.


_THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY AND SCIENCE._

Apropos of the recent notable issue, by the Boston Public Library, of
a comprehensive Bibliography of the Anthropology and Ethnology of
Europe, to accompany Professor Ripley's Races of Europe, the twofold
and diversely opposed interests of a great institution of this sort
are called to mind. On the one hand are its manifold obligations to
the great mass of the public, to the average reader, to the
ubiquitous novel and fiction consumer, to private clubs, and to school
children. A field of activity and value in popular education is
involved, scarcely secondary to that of the public schools, appealing
to the general reader, the taxpayer, and, above all, to the
well-wisher for democratic political institutions and representative
government in the future. In stimulating work of this character in
Boston, in bringing the Public Library into deserved prominence among
the educational institutions of the community, Mr. Herbert Putnam
achieved great and deserved success during his administration, winning
commendation upon all sides.

The second aspect of public library duty is revealed by the recent
undertaking at Boston above mentioned. It concerns the relations of
great libraries to science, to original research, not to the average
reader, but to the specialist. Instead of the purchase of twenty
copies of David Harum, or perhaps of A Bloodthirsty and Self-laudatory
History of the Recent Spanish War, by One who killed fifty men with
his own hand, to meet a sudden demand on the part of readers, the
expenditure of perhaps an equal sum of money for some rare and costly
work in a foreign language, intelligible to but half a hundred men in
the entire city, is involved. Such obligations do not of course rest
upon libraries of secondary size and importance. Their path of duty is
clearly marked out for them in the interests of the public, both on
the score of financial ability and of demand as well. With the leading
libraries of the country the case is different. Our universities are
fast taking rank with the very best in Europe. Specialists in science
and technology, the peers of those abroad, are plentiful on every
hand. Oftentimes their private means are as limited as their
appreciation and ambition are great. Without these rare books--the
tools of their trade--they are powerless. In former days they were
denied the opportunity for research, or else were obliged to spend
months of study in Europe. We have the men and the minds here in
America now; there is every indication that the books and apparatus
are speedily becoming available as well.

This Bibliography of the Boston Public Library is a case in point. A
collection of works relating to the physical history, the origins,
migrations, and languages of the peoples of Europe is indicated upon
its shelves, in all probability, we venture to predict, superior to
any single one existing in Europe. This startling statement is based
upon several considerations familiar to any specialist. Scientific
book materials are of two classes. The first are the expensive and
compendious volumes, generally to be found in great libraries,
although oftentimes the paucity of their scientific collections is
very surprising, especially in all that concerns the newer sciences of
biology, anthropology, and the like. The second order of publications,
often rarer and scientifically more valuable than the first, are the
scattered monographs or pamphlets published in all manner of forms and
by societies, oftentimes ephemeral and of all degrees of eminence.
This second class of materials is generally richly represented in the
collections of the various scientific societies, especially in the
form of reprints presented by the authors. But the great and expensive
tomes are seldom thus presented, and the societies can seldom afford
to purchase them. Thus it comes about that these two classes of raw
materials have to be separately hunted down, being rarely found
together. For example, the library of the Société d'Anthropologie at
Paris, judging by its printed catalogues, while abounding in
scattered monographs and reprints, contains very few of the expensive
volumes. One must seek these, and if they be in English or German,
very likely in vain, in the Bibliothèque Nationale.

The Public Library of the city of Boston has apparently tried an
experiment in this direction, and is certainly to be congratulated
upon the result. To a very rich collection of standard works has been
added, by co-operation with a special investigator, a large part of
the _flotsam_ and _jetsam_ which is of such extreme value to the
student of original sources. The library has set a worthy example of
encouragement to research; it has offered definite proof of the
ability of our American institutions to rival their European
contemporaries. And a peculiarly appropriate rounding-out to the
successful career in the distinctively popular phases of
administration of the institution of the late librarian, Mr. Herbert
Putnam, is afforded in this work, the last at Boston officially,
perhaps, to bear his signature and the stamp of his approval.


_OUR RACE TROUBLES._

The article which we publish in the present number of the Monthly,
under the title of The Race Problem in the United States, is a sequel
to one which appeared in the May number entitled The Negro Question.
Both writers have a special acquaintance with the subject, and are
widely known as active workers for the elevation of the negro
race--Mr. Booker T. Washington, the writer of the second article,
being himself one of its most distinguished representatives. While
both manifest abundant sympathy with the negro, and a deep sense of
the pressing nature of the problems to which the presence of a large
negro element in the population of certain of our States gives rise,
they virtually acknowledge that it is extremely difficult in
discussing the subject to do more than present a few broad general
views. That there is a very bad condition of things in some of our
Southern States no one will dispute. The crimes which have been
committed by white men, in avenging real or supposed crimes committed
by black men, stamp a character of utter savagery on the communities
in which they have occurred, and in which they have remained
unpunished. At the same time there is no doubt that the existence of
so large a negro element in the South constitutes a serious obstacle
to the moral and intellectual as well as to the economic development
of that part of the country, and tends to keep alive a dangerous
condition of public feeling. Our contributor, Dr. Curry, states
significantly that he could give very impressive details on this
point, were it not that it would furnish altogether too unpleasant
reading.

What are we going to do about it? No doubt we have before us an
illustration of the old adage, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and the children's teeth are set on edge." The South had its "peculiar
institution" for some generations, and held to it with extraordinary
tenacity--went to war rather than give it up. Now, by the simple force
of events, the old patriarchal and slaveholding system is broken up,
and there the former slaves and their descendants are--emancipated
citizens who have their rights under the Constitution, and who
therefore have to be reckoned with. They can not be deported against
their will; they have the same right to live in the country that any
white man has.

Manifestly there is but one honorable way of dealing with the blacks,
and that is to treat them with absolute justice. Upon this point we
are in entire agreement with Mr. Booker T. Washington. If a black man
is excluded from the suffrage on account of his ignorance, let the
equally ignorant white man be equally excluded. We have great faith in
the educative effect of justice, and a firm administration of law. It
would at once raise the self-respect of the negro to know that what
was law for the white man was law for him, and _vice versa_; and
self-respect is a sure ground for further advance. In the matter of
education, we hold that education for the colored race should be
almost wholly of a practical kind. We go further, and say that the
education given to white children everywhere might with great
advantage be much more practical than it is. The proper education for
any individual is that which will tend to make him more efficient,
successful, and self-sufficing in the position which he is called to
occupy. This principle, far from implying a stationary condition of
the individual, is precisely the one which provides best for his
advancement. It is the man who is thoroughly competent for the work he
has at any given moment to do who passes beyond that work to something
better. The misery of existing systems of education is that to so
large extent they educate for a hypothetical position beyond that for
which an immediate preparation is necessary. The result is that the
schools unload upon the community year by year a levy of adventurous
youths who at once begin to live by their wits in no very creditable
sense, and who constitute a distinct menace to the stability of
society.

We would therefore urge most earnestly upon all who take an interest
in the education of the colored race to keep in view above all things
the importance and necessity of fitting the negro to take an active
part in the practical industries of the country, and above all in
agriculture. An education directed mainly to this end would do far
more to develop his intelligence than one of a more abstract and
ambitious character and would furnish a far better foundation for
success in life. Far from tying the negro down to manual occupations,
it would prepare the way for his eventual participation in all
occupations. But occupation for occupation, where is there one that
can reasonably be rated higher than the intelligent and successful
cultivation of the soil? If the negro problem can not be solved by
common sense and common honesty it can not be solved at all. Before
giving it up as insoluble we should make full proof of these homely
specifics. We have long been proclaiming that the negro is a man and a
brother; let us therefore treat him as such, and if we find out
anything that is particularly good for his moral and intellectual
improvement, let us try a little of it ourselves. It surely will not
do us any harm.




Scientific Literature.


SPECIAL BOOKS.

_The Lesson of Popular Government_[12] is a fruit of thirty years'
study, by Mr. _Bradford_, of certain peculiarities in the political
workings of our institutions. The book is not for those who consider
it patriotic to shut their eyes to whatever is going wrong, but for
those whose regard for the Federal Constitution and the organization
of our governments is only increased by the consciousness of the
strain to which they are exposed, and who feel strongly that while the
principles of the Government and the character of the people "are
still sound and reliable, some modifications and readjustments of the
machinery must take place, unless we are to drift through practical
anarchy and increasing corruption to military despotism." For the sake
of putting the subject in a clearer light, the three more prominent
approaches to democratic government in modern times--those of England,
France, and the United States--are studied comparatively in the former
part of the work. The carrying on of governments in accordance with
the expressed wish of the people is spoken of in the beginning as the
appearance of a new force which has changed the whole face of society,
and points to still greater changes in the future. How it has worked
in the three countries in which it has been in operation for a little
more than a century, and what it has done, are the questions which the
author undertakes to answer. In England, popular government has taken
the form, with a powerless hereditary sovereign commanding universal
loyalty, of a ministry responsible to a Parliament, which is directly
responsible to the people. In France, the executive is controlled by a
legislative body chosen by universal suffrage, the majority of which
is held together by party discipline. The virtue of this government is
undergoing a supreme test in the Dreyfus case, the right issue of
which would show a greater proportional advance in true liberty and
the justification of popular government than has taken place in any
other nation. In the United States, power is passing more and more
into Congress, a body chosen separately from the President, whose
members are actuated by personal, local, and partisan motives, and
rarely rise to the conception of broad national views or look further
than to the immediate present, while the nation at large and the
Executive are without representation such as insures the co-operation
of the ministry and Parliament in England. In all other respects than
appointments to office, which must be made "in strict subordination to
the demands of members of his party in both Houses of Congress," the
recognized power of the Executive is confined within very narrow
limits. In matters of legislation he has no voice whatever beyond
general recommendations, such as are open to any citizen, and to which
Congress pays little or no attention. In fact, that body resents
anything like an expression of opinion from the President. The system
is not encouraging to the filling of the office by men of the first
rank, and men of that rank seldom reach it. The House of
Representatives, meeting every two years a new body, suffers from its
entire want of coherency and the absence of a qualified leader, and
falls an easy prey to the lobbyist and the boss. So, while "there are
still many, perhaps the majority, of men of good character in public
life, the tendency is steadily downward." It has been customary in
some quarters to charge the evils we suffer upon universal suffrage,
but Mr. Bradford maintains that it is this which to-day is keeping up
the character of the Government, and that but for the restraints
imposed by it our political condition would be a great deal worse than
it is. Further light is sought upon the situation, and further
pictures are given of the conditions existing in comprehensive reviews
of the State and municipal governments of the country. In considering
proposed remedies the referendum is dismissed as tending to destroy
personality and diffuse responsibility even more than is done now--the
reverse of the concentration of executive power as the only really
indispensable part of the Government, which should be sought. The
enforcement of this principle of executive supremacy with immediate
responsibility is the purpose of the book. Mr. Bradford would obtain
this by giving the representatives of the administrative departments
seats in the House, with power to suggest legislation, make
explanations, and participate in debate. His final argument is that it
can not be charged that democracy is a failure; but, "with a wholly
new force introduced into the world, the proper machinery for its
application has not yet been employed. In its nature it is reasonable,
sound, and, on the whole, beneficent." Using the words of an English
writer, "the failures of government in the United States are not the
result of democracy, but of the craftiest combination of schemes to
defeat the will of democracy ever devised in the world."

    [Footnote 12: The Lesson of Popular Government. By Gamaliel
    Bradford. New York: The Macmillan Company. Two volumes. Pp. 520
    and 590. Price, $4.]

We have already published a fairly comprehensive review of _Richard
Semon's In the Australian Bush_,[13] based upon the German original,
by Prof. E. P. Evans, in the fifty-second volume of the Monthly
(November, 1897). But little needs to be added to what Professor Evans
has said of the book besides announcing the appearance of the English
edition, the translation for which was written under the author's own
superintendence, and the contents of which do not differ in any
important particular from the German impression. Professor Semon went
to Australia on a special zoölogical mission, and spent two years
there. His purpose was the study of the wonderful Australian fauna,
the oviparous mammals, marsupials, and ceratodus (lungfish). These
animals represent forms which, with a few notable exceptions, have
long since become extinct in other countries, where they have to be
studied in such parts of their bony forms as happen to have been
preserved in the rocks, while here they can be examined alive and in
the flesh--"living fossils," as the author fittingly calls them, links
between the present age and one of the geological periods of the past.
His observations on these subjects are in course of publication in a
special scientific work, not quite half of which has appeared. The
present volume consists in the notes of travel and adventure, the
dealing with men, the anthropological studies, and what we might call
the _obiter_ observations of the expedition. Almost simultaneously
with Professor Semon's narrative we have from the same publishers
another book, on _The Native Tribes of Central Australia_,[14] which
deals more fully, exclusively, and perhaps more expertly with the
anthropology of a part of the Australian continent. Of the authors,
Mr. _Gillen_ has spent the greater part of the past twenty years in
the center of the continent, and as sub-protector of the aborigines
has had exceptional opportunities of coming in contact with the Arunta
tribe; and both of them have been made fully initiated members of that
tribe. Though both about Australia, the two books do not cover the
same ground. Australia is very large, and its physical conditions are
such that the groups of tribes inhabiting the various regions have for
a long period of time been isolated from one another and have followed
different lines in development. Professor Semon's observations were
made in the Burnett district of northeastern Queensland, while those
recorded in the work of Spencer and Gillen were made in the very
center of South Australia and of the continent. Consequently, in
reading them we read really about different things. In addition to the
investigation of various customs, such as those connected with
initiation and magic, special attention has been paid by Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen to the totemic system and to matters connected with
the social organization of the tribes; and here again the authors
insist upon the differences between the groups of tribes, and that the
customs of no one tribe or group can be taken as typical of Australia
generally in any other sense than as broad outline. Both works deal
with considerable fullness with the institution of marriage among the
Australians, and the customs by which too close intermarriage is
prevented. Among other subjects treated with especial fullness by
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen are the totems, the bull-roarers, the
Intichuma ceremonies (associated with the totems), the initiation
ceremonies, customs relative to the knocking out of teeth, traditions,
burial and mourning, spirit individuals, medicine men and magic,
methods of obtaining wives, myths, clothing, weapons, implements,
decorative art, and names. Professor Semon formed a moderate opinion
of the capacity of the Australians. Though coarse and heavy, their
faces are not bad looking and have expression. They are "no link
between monkeys and men, but human creatures through and through,"
though of one of the lowest types. They have no pottery, no
agriculture, no abstract ideas of any kind, can not count very far,
but are clever in learning to write, read, and draw, are experts in
signaling, and have their intellect and senses "brilliantly developed
in all directions bearing on the hunt," with great dexterity in the
use of weapons.

    [Footnote 13: In the Australian Bush, and on the Coast of the
    Coral Sea. Being the Experiences and Observations of a Naturalist
    in Australia, New Guinea, and the Moluccas. New York: The
    Macmillan Company. Pp. 552. Price, $6.50.]

    [Footnote 14: The Native Tribes of Central Australia. By Baldwin
    Spencer and F. J. Gillen. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp.
    671, with maps and plates. Price, $6.50.]


GENERAL NOTICES.

Miss _Mary H. Kingsley_ has given in her _West African Studies_[15] a
book marked by pungent wit and striking originality in its sketches of
adventure and observation, and containing in the chapters devoted to
ethnology results of her personal studies. She was already known by a
record of her adventures of a young Englishwoman traveling alone
through some of the worst regions of West Africa, embodied in her book
Travels in West Africa, which was published in the latter part of
1898. The present book may be regarded, as its name implies, as the
result and the embodiment of the afterthoughts of that hazardous
journey. It includes, after descriptions in which the unconventional
directness of expression is much to be remarked, an account of African
characteristics and a description of fishing in West Africa, chapters
of a soberer sort on fetich, schools of fetich, witchcraft, African
medicine and the witch doctor, and historical and economical chapters
on Early Trade, French Discovery, Commerce, the Crown Colony System
and some of its incidents, The Clash of Cultures, and African
Property. Miss Kingsley's criticisms of the present system of
administration being regarded as rather destructive, she endeavors to
set forth, in a chapter entitled An Alternative Plan, "some other way
wherein the African colonies could be managed." Special attention is
invited by the author to two articles in the appendix to the volume by
M. le Comte C. N. de Cardi and Mr. John Harford. We are pleased to
note the high appreciation which Miss Kingsley expresses of the
anthropological work concerning west-coast tribes of our former
contributor, Colonel A. B. Ellis--Sir A. B. Ellis when he died.

    [Footnote 15: West African Studies. By Mary H. Kingsley. New York:
    The Macmillan Company. Pp. 633, with Map. Price, $5.]

Mr. _Frederick Palmer's In the Klondyke_[16] is an unpretentious book
and free from the appearance of sensationalism, but gives a clear and
graphic account of the region and its ways and of the getting there at
the breaking up of winter. The author was at Dyea late in February,
having intended to go with a Government relief expedition which had
found no occasion to proceed farther. Being thus left out, he
undertook, with dogs and sledges and two companions who proved
congenial, the "untried journey" of six hundred miles over the ice
fields of the Lewes Lakes and the ice packs of the Yukon River, which
had been the contemplated route of the expedition. The start was made
about the 18th of March, with little time to spare, because the Yukon
was expected to become impassable by the 20th of April. The Chilkoot
Pass was achieved in a day, and the rest of the journey was made
"downhill with the current of the river at the rate of eight inches to
the mile," in weather that became very variable, with now hard
freezing and now slush in the middle of the day. The difficulties of
the journey must have been formidable, with considerable suffering,
besides a week in a hut with the measles, but no complaint further
than the mention of the incidents appears in the author's story. On
some of the days the thermometer ranged from 10° to 20° below zero at
two o'clock in the morning, to 80° above at night, and the author "had
one ear blistered by the frost and the other by the sun in the same
day." The party arrived at Dawson just four days before the final
break-up of the ice in the river. Accounts corresponding in temper and
vividness with that of the journey are given of Dawson, the miners and
mining, the history of the Klondyke mining enterprise, Klondyke types
of character and adventure, the toils and trials and profit and losses
of the "Pilgrims," the workings of the Government, and the return home
to civilization--which does not appear, after all, to have offered
transcendentally superior attractions to those who had experienced the
pleasure of adventure.

    [Footnote 16: In the Klondyke, including an Account of a Winter's
    Journey to Dawson. By Frederick Palmer. New York: Charles
    Scribner's Sons. Pp. 218, with plates. Price, $1.50.]

The _History of Physics in its Elementary Branches_[17] has been
prepared by Professor _Cajori_ in the belief that some attention to
the history of a science helps to make it attractive, and that the
general view of the development of the human intellect gained in
reading a history on the subject is in itself stimulating and
liberalizing. The author has had in mind Professor Ostwald's
characterization of the absence of the historical sense and the want
of knowledge of the great researches upon which the edifice of science
rests as a defect in the present method of teaching. The subject is
treated by periods. In ancient times the Greeks, while displaying
wonderful creative genius in metaphysics, literature, and art, being
ignorant of the method of experimentation, achieved relatively little
in natural science. The Roman scientific writers were contented to
collect the researches of Greek professors. Except in a few instances
the Arabs did not distinguish themselves in original research. Writers
in the middle ages were only commentators, and knew nothing of
personal investigation. The physicist of the renascence abandoned
scholastic speculation and began to study Nature in the language of
experiment. The seventeenth century was a period of great experimental
as well as theoretical activity. In the eighteenth century speculation
was less effectively restrained and guided by experiments. The
nineteenth century "has overthrown the leading theories of the
previous one hundred years, and has largely built anew on the older
foundations laid during the seventeenth century." The evolution of
physical laboratories, first for teachers and then for students, is
the subject of the last chapter.

    [Footnote 17: A History of Physics in its Elementary Branches,
    including the Evolution of Physical Laboratories. By Florian
    Cajori. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 322. Price, $1.60.]

"The Great Commanders Series" of D. Appleton and Company is enriched
by a biography of _General Sherman_,[18] whom the author, General
_Manning F. Force_, styles "the most picturesque figure in our civil
war." He was more than this; he was its scholar and statesman--a man
distinguished by the possession of high military combined with the
best civil qualities. Further, as General Force well says, "his
character was absolutely pure and spotless." In his dealings with the
Vigilance Committee in San Francisco he assumed a position which it
required courage of a much higher order than a soldier's to maintain.
While comfortably situated as an honored professor in the State
Military Academy of Louisiana when the Legislature passed the
Ordinance of Secession, he had no hesitation in deciding what to do.
He at once gave in his resignation in a letter that is a model of
manliness, declaring his preference "to maintain allegiance to the
Constitution of the United States as long as a fragment of it
survives." His career as a general in the civil war is described at
length. Through it all his foresight, seeking always to accomplish the
most with the least expenditure and ultimate suffering, to which his
strategy was adapted, is conspicuous. At this time and afterward his
supreme thought appears to have been as to what would best conduce to
the permanent good of the republic. To his military ability and
self-effacing patriotism he added a far-seeing wisdom in council that
could always be relied upon. "In his most unguarded words his
principle was always clear, noble, and intensely patriotic, and his
careless colloquial expressions often covered a practical wisdom and
insight of a most striking kind."

    [Footnote 18: General Sherman. By General Manning F. Force. New
    York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 353.]

In preparing their _Text-Book of Algebra_[19] the authors, assuming
that mental discipline is of the first importance to every student of
mathematics, have endeavored to present the elements of the science in
a clear and logical form, while yet keeping the needs of beginners
constantly in mind. Special attention is given to making clear the
reason for every step taken; each principle is first illustrated by
particular examples, and then rules and suggestions for performing the
operation are laid down. The authors have endeavored to avoid apparent
conciseness at the expense of clearness and accuracy, and have thereby
made their volume somewhat larger than ordinary text-books. Features
to which attention is called are the development of the fundamental
operations with algebraic numbers and the concrete illustrations of
these operations; the use of type forms in multiplication and division
and in factoring; the application of factoring to the solution of
equations; the solutions of equations based upon equivalent equations
and equivalent systems of equations; the treatment of irrational
equations; the discussions of general problems and the interpretation
of positive, negative, zero, intermediate, and infinite solutions of
problems; the treatment of inequalities and their applications; the
outline of a discussion of irrational numbers; a brief introduction to
imaginary and complex numbers; and the great number of graded examples
and problems.

    [Footnote 19: Text-Book of Algebra, with Exercises for Secondary
    Schools and Colleges. By George Egbert Fisher and Isaac J.
    Schwatt. Part I. Philadelphia: Fisher & Schwatt. Pp. 683. Price,
    $1.25.]

The material of the _Primary Arithmetic_, Number Studies for the
Second, Third, and Fourth Grades, of _A. R. Hornbrook_ (American Book
Company), has been chosen with careful reference to the development of
the number sense of little children, as noticed by the author and as
reported by many other observers. A distinctive feature of the work is
the use of diagrams called "number tables," as a concrete basis for
the child's thinking while he is getting his first ideas of the facts
of the addition and multiplication tables. In them the numbers up to
one hundred are presented in columns of tens, and so handled as to
exhibit to the child's conception the relations of the several digits.
By their use he first learns the properties of ten, then of two, and
so on of the others--not presented in regular order, but with a view
of exhibiting special properties--and their relations to one another.
The method is ingenious and appears useful.

The study on _Rhode Island and the Formation of the Union_, of the
Columbia University Series in History, Economics, and Public Law (The
Macmillan Company, New York), was undertaken by Mr. _Frank Greene
Bates_ in order to ascertain why Rhode Island so long delayed its
ratification of the Federal Constitution. The delay seems to have been
largely a matter of the assertion of State rights, in which Rhode
Island appears at that time to have been but little, if any, behind
South Carolina. Liberty "was the presiding genius of the spiritual
life of the colony, and the principle of freedom of conscience was
never lost sight of; and this could not otherwise than heighten the
other characteristics of the colony--individualism." The course
pursued was the natural outcome of the conditions of the times, the
"outcropping of the undying love of the people of the State for
democracy and liberty, and their jealousy of all authority outside
their own boundaries."

"No book up to recent date," says the author of _Pantheism, the Light
and Hope of Modern Reason_, who signs his name _C. Amryc_, and gives
no publisher's name, "has treated pantheism as consistently as it
deserves to be treated"; and he adds that "it is no creed; it is a
logic; it makes absolutely no demand upon 'belief'; what is not
logical is rejected, what is logical to-day is accepted, no matter
whether it was unlogical a thousand years ago or will be illogical a
thousand years hence; we are only responsible for our times." As
pantheism, if it is a true logic, must be applicable to all races, the
author has not chosen his examples from one nation or tribe; and he
believes that the views he expresses are also those of nine tenths of
what is called modern science. Many topics are treated of, some of
which would not at first thought be associated with an exposition of
pantheism. The matter and manner of the book are various. Parts of it
are fairly good reading; other parts strike us as different.

A book on _The Principles of Agriculture_, prepared by Prof. _L. H.
Bailey_ as a text-book for schools and rural societies, is published
as a number of the Rural Science Series of the Macmillan Company
($1.25). In it agriculture is treated as a business, not a science,
but as a business which is aided at every point by a knowledge of
science. "It is on the science side that the experimenter is able to
help the farmer. On the business side the farmer must rely upon
himself, for the person who is not a good business man can not be a
good farmer, however much he may know of science." The principle of
the intelligent application of knowledge is illustrated in a remark of
the author's about the treating of drainage. The learner is apt to
begin at the wrong end of his problem. In the usual method the pupil
or reader is first instructed in methods of laying drains. "But
drainage is not the unit. The real unit is texture and moisture of
soils--plowing, draining, green cropping, are methods of producing a
given or desired result. The real subject-matter for first
consideration, therefore, is amelioration of soil, rather than laying
of drains." Professor Bailey aims throughout this book to get at "the
real subject-matter for first consideration" in matters relating to
soils, the plant and crops, and the animals and stock.

_Ideals and Programmes_ (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y., 75 cents) is
a collection of thoughtful and suggestive essays, by _Jean L. Gourdy_,
on the practical side of school life and the teaching of children. The
author's ideal seems to be that the teacher should have a plan for her
work, preparing for it so as to have the whole course marked out on
general lines for the entire school year. Thus, her occupation should
be to qualify herself for doing the work right. These statements of
general principles are followed by essays on reading and plans for
teaching, correlation as "the headstone of the corner of successful
teaching, geography, sand modeling, field lessons, kindergarten
training, and discipline." The burden of the whole is by skillful
adaptation to get the best possible out of every lesson, in which a
liberal use of field work assists greatly, and above all to avoid the
stiff, formal, juiceless lessons of the old style of teaching.

There have been several biographies of Faraday, most of them now out
of print; but the life, work, methods, character, and aims of the
man--who was "beyond all question the greatest scientific expositor of
his time"--can not be kept too constantly or too long before the minds
of students. Welcome, therefore, is the easily accessible and
convenient volume _Michael Faraday: His Life and Work_, which has been
prepared by Prof. _Sylvanus P. Thompson_, and is published by the
Macmillan Company in their Century Science Series ($1.25). The work by
which Faraday contributed so much to the advancement of knowledge is
made prominent, and is illustrated largely, due regard being had to
the limitations of the size of the book, with citations from his own
journal and copies of his drawings.

In _American Indians_, a book second in order but first in date of
publication of a series of "Ethno-Geographic Readers" (D. C. Heath &
Co., Boston), Prof. _Frederick Starr_ has succeeded in conveying a
large amount of information about our aborigines in a very small
space, and has done it in a clear style and a very satisfactory
manner. The book is intended as a reading book for boys and girls in
school, to whose tastes and capacity it seems well adapted; but the
author will be pleased if it also interests older readers, and hopes
it may enlarge their sympathy with our native Americans. Besides the
accounts of the tribal divisions, general customs, manner of life,
houses, and institutions--which when they are counted up are found to
be quite numerous--it has articles on the sign language, medicine men
and secret societies, the mounds and their builders, George Catlin and
his work, the cliff-dwellings and ruins of the Southwest, the tribes
of the Northwest coast, matters of religious and mythological
significance, the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the ruined cities of Yucatan
and Central America.

The revision, for the fifth edition, of _H. Newell Martin's The Human
Body_ (Henry Holt & Co., New York, $1.20) was undertaken by Prof.
_George Wills Fitz_ with the idea of bringing the book into accord
with the late developments of physiology, of simplifying the treatment
of some parts while expanding that of others, and of giving additional
illustrations. Every effort has been made to avoid injuring those
features of the author's work which have contributed to making the
book so favorably known. The changes in the first nine chapters are
largely verbal; but considerable alterations and additions have been
made in some of the succeeding chapters. The directions for
demonstrations and experiments have been greatly enlarged and
collected into an appendix. They include the new requirements in
anatomy, physiology, and hygiene for admission to Harvard College and
the Lawrence Scientific School.

We have already noticed some of _Lucy S. W. Wilson's_ excellent
Manuals on Nature Study, particularly the one intended for the
guidance of teachers. We now have in the same line the _First Reader_
of a series on _Nature Study in Elementary Schools_ (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 35 cents), a book composed of original matter and
selections which has been prepared "with the desire of putting into
the hands of little children literature which shall have for their
minds the same interest and value that really good books have for
grown-up people." But the author does not expect to accomplish this by
merely giving the book to the child and leaving the reading to work
out its own effect. Each of the lessons is intended to be preceded by
a Nature lesson. During or after the reading a lesson should be given
in the new words introduced, and afterward the lessons should be
grasped for the sake of thought. The lessons, which have appropriate
illustrations from Nature, present some novel features. Among them is
an apparent intention in the original compositions to follow the
child's method of thought.

_The American Elementary Arithmetic_ (American Book Company) is
intended by the author, Prof. _M. A. Bailey_, to cover the first five
years' work (beginning apparently very young) in the study, and is the
first of a two-book series. It is divided into two parts--for the
primary and for the three succeeding grades. It contemplates the use
of apparatus, consisting of paper, pasteboard, toy money, blocks, and
splints. The attempt is made to give every subject twice: first in
pictures, and second in the particular form of printed words.
Mathematical conceptions are presented in the first chapter in the
order in which they are supposed to arise in the child's
consciousness--first, once or more, indefinitely; next, how many, by
holding up fingers, laying down sticks, etc.; and then by words, and
so on--all introductory work designed to develop step by step a
mathematical vocabulary, and to form a habit of clear mathematical
thinking. The laboratory plan is followed in the succeeding chapters.

In the _Language Lessons_ of _J. G. Park_ (American Book Company) an
arrangement of the matter is aimed at which will draw upon the student
for such effort as may be expected at a given stage of advancement,
which will cause him to think first and then to express his thought
with clearness and precision. In the succeeding parts are given
exercises on language work, with special drills upon capitalization
and punctuation, inductive lessons in grammar, and, finally, lessons
so graded that a student may advance very readily from them into the
higher work of grammar. The study is facilitated by the use of
striking illustrations as the basis of lessons.

The _Semi-annual Report of Schimmel and Company_ (Leipsic and New
York), though primarily a business document, furnishes much
information about the industries in essential oils and fine chemicals,
and concerning progress in the departments of chemical science
relating to these. The report for October, 1898, speaks of much
research and many valuable studies as having been carried on during
the preceding six months in the domain of the essential oils and their
constitution, and of ample material for scientific reports as having
been gathered.


PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins and Reports. Connecticut:
No. 128. Commercial Feeding Stuffs. Pp. 12; No. 129. Inspection and
Care of Nursery Stock. By W. E. Britton. Pp. 10. Twenty-second Annual
Report, Part II, Food Products. Pp. 120.--Cornell University: No. 165.
Ropiness in Milk and Cream. By A. R. Ward. Pp. 16; No. 166. Sugar-Beet
Investigations for 1898. Pp. 50; No. 167. The Construction of the
Stave Silo. By L. A. Clinton. Pp. 16.--Hatch Station, Massachusetts
Agricultural College: No. 61. Asparagus Rust. By G. E. Stone and R. E.
Smith. Pp. 20.--Iowa Agricultural College: No. 40. Relation of Acid
Fermentation to Butter Flavor and Aroma. Pp. 12; No. 41. New Orchard
Fruits and Shrubs. Pp. 64; No. 42. Weeds and Potato Scab. Pp. 12.--New
Hampshire Agricultural College: No. 63. Third Potato Report. By F.
William Ranes. Pp. 32; No. 64. The Forest Tent Caterpillar. By
Clarence M. Weed. Pp. 24.--New Jersey: No. 136. Field Experiments with
Nitrogenous Fertilizers. By E. B. Voorhees. Pp. 32.--New York: No. 149
(popular edition). Will Poultry thrive on Grain Alone? By F. H. Hall
and W. P. Wheeler. Pp. 7; No. 151 (popular edition). How Ringing
affects Grapes. By F. H. Hall and Wendell Paddock. Pp. 4; No. 152
(popular edition). Two Apple Pests and how to check them. By F. H.
Hall and V. H. Lane. Pp. 8; No. 153. Director's Report for 1898. By W.
H. Jordan. Pp. 36; No. 154 (popular edition). Profitable Potato
Fertilizing. By F. H. Hall and W. H. Jordan. Pp. 2; No. 155 (popular
edition). Sugar-Beet Success for the Season. By F. H. Hull and L. L.
Van Slyke. Pp. 8.--Ohio: No. 100. The Home Mixing of Fertilizers. By
C. R. Thorne. Pp. 40; No 101. Oats. By J. F. Hickman. Pp. 24; No. 102.
Treatment for Insect Pests and Plant Diseases, etc. By W. J. Green and
others. Sheet; No. 103. The San José Scale Problem. By F. M. Webster.
Pp. 24. Newspaper Bulletin No. 192. Bovine Tuberculosis. Pp.
2.--Purdue University: No. 75. The Sugar Beet. By H. A. Husten and A.
H. Bryan. Pp. 20; No. 76. Skim Milk for Young Chickens. By W. B.
Anderson. Pp. 8; No. 77. Field Experiments with Corn. By W. C. Latta
and W. B. Anderson. Pp. 160.--University of Illinois. Eleventh Annual
Report. Pp. 16; No. 84. Spraying Apple Trees. By J. C. Blair. Pp.
36.--United States Department of Agriculture. Natural History of the
Marias Islands, Mexico. By E. W. Nelson. Pp. 96.--West Virginia.
Nursery Hints. By L. C. Corbett. Pp. 24.

Barber, Edwin Atlee. Anglo-American Pottery, Old English China with
American Views. Indianapolis, Ind.: Press of the Clay Worker. Pp. 175.

Barrett, John. The Philippine Islands and America's Interests in the
Far East. Hong-Kong. Pp. 65.

Binet, Alfred. The Psychology of Reasoning. Based on Experimental
Researches In Hypnotism. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company. Pp.
191. 75 cents.

Bridges and Framed Structures. Monthly. Vol. 1, No. 2. May, 1899.
Chicago: The D. H. Ranck Publishing Company. Pp. 92, with plates. 30
cents.

Brooks, William Keith. The Foundations of Zoölogy. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 339. $2.50.

Bullen, Frank T. Idylls of the Sea. With an Introduction by J. St. Loe
Strachey. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 286. $1.25.

Bulletins, Reports, Transactions, etc. American Society of Civil
Engineers: Proceedings. Vol. XXV. No. 4. Pp. 150.--British Columbia,
Province of: Annual Report of the Minister of Mines to December 31,
1898. Pp. 280, with maps.--Chicago Manual Training School (University
of Chicago): Catalogue, 1898-'99. Pp. 20.--City of Seattle, County of
King, State of Washington: Report of the Chamber of Commerce. Pp.
33.--City Library Association, Springfield, Mass.: Bibliography of
Geographical Instruction. By W. S. Monroe. Pp. 8.--Geographical
Society of Washington: Presidential Address of Arnold Hague, Minutes
for 1897 and 1898, etc. Pp. 48.--Massachusetts Institute of
Technology: Annual Report of the President and Treasurer for 1898. Pp.
96, with plates; Annual Catalogue, 1898-'99. Pp. 347.--Michigan
College of Mines: Catalogue, 1896 to 1898. Pp. 192.--New York Academy
of Natural Sciences: Annals. Vol. XI, Part III. December 1, 1898. Pp.
230.--Ohio State University, Department of Zoölogy and Entomology, No.
1: The Odonata of Ohio. By David S. Kellicott. Pp. 116.--United States
Department of Labor: No. 21. Pp. 188.--United States Life-Saving
Service: Annual Report of Operations to June 30, 1898. Pp. 448.--Utah,
State of: Second Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public
Instruction, to June 30, 1898. Pp. 317, with tables.--War Department
of the United States: Customs Tariff and Regulations for the
Philippine Islands. Pp. 40.

Burgess, O. O. A Question of Consciousness. San Francisco. Pp. 40.

Cumulative Index to a Selected List of Periodicals. Third Annual
Volume, 1898. Cleveland, Ohio: The Helman-Taylor Company. Pp. 792.

Coming Age, The. A Magazine of Constructive Thought. B. O. Flower and
Mrs. C. K. Reifsnider, Editors. Boston and St. Louis. Vol. I, No. 3.
March, 1899. Pp. 112. 20 cents.

Eidlitz, Leopold. On Light. An Analysis of the Emersions of Jupiter's
Satellite I. New York: The Knickerbocker Press. Pp. 12.

Elrod, M. J. The College, Past and Present. Bloomington, Ill.: The
University Press. Pp. 26.

Fay, Edward Allen. Marriages of the Deaf in America. Washington, D.
C.: The Volta Bureau. Pp. 527.

Gardiner, Charles A. Our Right to acquire and to hold Foreign
Territory. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 56.

International Express Company, New York. Chart of Express Routes over
the World. Sheet.

Interstate Commerce Commission. Statistics of Railways in the United
States to June 30, 1897. Pp. 687.

Jacoby, Johann. The Object of the Labor Movement. Translated by
Florence Kelley. New York: International Publishing Company
(International Monthly Library). Pp. 36. 5 cents.

Jackson, Frederick G. A Thousand Days in the Arctic. With Preface by
Admiral S. F. Leopold McClintock. New York: Harper & Brothers. Pp.
940.

Jordan, David Starr, with Official Associates and Special
Contributors. The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific
Ocean. In Two Parts. Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp. 606,
with plates.

Krüger, F. C. Theo. A Step Forward, A Treatise on Possible Social
Reform. New York: Isaac H. Blanchard & Co. Pp. 30.

Lucas, Fred Alexander. The Hermit Naturalist. Trenton, N. J.: William
Hibbert. Pp. 121.

McLaughin, Andrew C. A History of the American Nation. New York: D.
Appleton and Company. Pp. 587. $1.40.

Marsh, O. C. The Dinosaurs of North America. United States Geological
Survey. Pp. 112, with 84 plates.

Marshall, Percival. Small Accumulators, How Made and Used. New York:
Spon and Chamberlain. Pp. 78. 50 cents.

Michigan Ornithological Club, The. Bulletin of, Monthly. Vol. III, No.
1. January, 1899. Grand Rapids, Mich. 50 cents a year.

Moon, Clarence B. Certain Aboriginal Mounds on the Coast of South
Carolina. (Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia.) Pp. 40, with plates.

Moses, Alfred J. The Characters of Crystals. An Introduction to
Practical Crystallography. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company. Pp. 211.
$2.

Munro, John. The Story of the British Race. (Library of Useful
Stories.) New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 228. 40 cents.

Palmer, Frederick. In the Klondyke. Including an Account of a Winter's
Journey to Dawson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 218. $1.50.

Porter, Robert P. Industrial Cuba, Being a Study of Present Commercial
and Industrial Conditions, etc. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.
428. $3.50.

Reprints. Bolin, Jacob. On Group Contests. Pp. 14.--Coulter, John M.
Notes on the Fertilization and Embryology of Conifers. Pp. 4, with
plates.--Grabau, Amadeus W. Moniloperidæ, A New Family of Palæozoic
Corals. Pp. 16, with 4 plates.--Hunter, S. J. The Coccidæ of Kansas.
II. Pp. 12, with 6 plates.--Oliver, Charles A. The Value of Repeated
and Differently Placed Exposures to the Roentgen Rays in determining
the Location of Foreign Bodies in and about the Eyeball. Pp.
4.--Tyson, James, M. D., Philadelphia. The Uric-Acid Diathesis from a
Clinical Standpoint. Pp. 15.--Washburn, F. L. Hermaphroditism in
Ostrea Lurida. Pp. 3.

The Sanitary Home. A Magazine devoted to Foods, Hygiene, and
University Extension Work. Monthly. Fargo, North Dakota. Pp. 24. 10
cents. $1 a year.

Schimmel & Co., Leipsic and New York. Semi-annual Report (Essential
Oils, etc.). April, 1899. Pp. 68.

Smith, D. T. Philosophy of Memory, and other Essays. Louisville, Ky.:
John P. Morton & Co. Pp. 203.

Smithsonian Institution. Crookes, William. Diamonds. Pp. 16.--Nutting,
J. C. Hydroida from Alaska and Puget Sound. Pp. 12, with plates.

Todd, David P. Stars and Telescopes. A Handy Book of Astronomy.
Boston: Little, Brown & Co. Pp. 419. $2.

Wetterstrand, Otto Georg. Hypnotism and its Application to Practical
Medicine. Authorized Translation. By Henrik G. Petersen. New York: G.
P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 166.

Wilkensen, H. E., Acting Secretary, and French, H. A., Acting
Secretary. An Earnest Word to Our Friends. Portland, Oregon. (Home
Making there.)

Woodhull, John F., and Van Arsdale, M. B. Chemical Experiments. New
York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 136.




Fragments of Science.


=The Gypsies and their Folk Tales.=--In the introduction to his
collection of Gypsy Folk Tales Mr. Francis H. Groome describes the
wide dispersion of the gypsy race as extending, in Europe, from
Finland to Sicily, and from the shores of the Bosporus to the Atlantic
seaboard; in Asia, from Siberia to India, and from Asia Minor
(possibly) to China; in Africa, from Egypt and Algeria to Darfúr and
Kordofan; and in America, from Pictou in Canada to Rio Janeiro.
Believing that the gypsies, originating in India, left that region at
an unknown date very long ago, he traces their migrations in the past
and shows that a part of the race is still very migratory, passing,
among other routes, between Scotland and North America, and between
Spain and Louisiana. Another migration not mentioned in his book is
the annual oscillation between north and south of the North American
gypsy colony, which is growing healthily. The author finds it at
present quite impossible to fix the arrival of the gypsies in
southeastern Europe at a thousand years before Christ or a thousand
years after. If the Komodromoi of the Byzantine writers were gypsies,
then these people must have been a recognized and familiar element of
the Balkan population about as early as the latter date. Gypsies pass
for a very cunning people, and such they are to outsiders, so that
Romany or gypsy guile is a very common expression. Centuries of
suspicion and repression have taught them to arm themselves proof
against confidence in strangers; but to those who become acquainted
with them, as Mr. Groome professes to have done and George Borrow did,
they present a character of simplicity and frankness. There is, as a
gypsy woman once said to a writer in The Athenæum, "somethin' in the
mind of a Gorgio that shuts the Romany's mouth and opens his eyes and
ears." Gypsies are active transmitters of folklore, and have rich
funds of stories; and many believe that the folklore stories of Europe
are traceable to Indian sources, whence they may have been transmitted
to Europe. Mr. Groome suggests how some of these stories may have
originated by telling of a gypsy girl he knew who dashed off "what was
almost a folk tale impromptu." She had been to a picnic in a
four-in-hand with "a lot of real tiptop gentry," and "Reia," she said
to me afterward, "I'll tell you the comicallest thing as ever was.
We'd pulled up to put the brake on, and there was a _puro
hotchiwitchi_ (old hedgehog) come and looked at us through the hedge,
looked at me hard. I could see he'd his eye upon me. And home he'd go,
that old hedgehog, to his wife, and 'Missus,' he'd say, 'what d'ye
think? I seen a little gypsy gal just now in a coach and four horses,'
and 'Dabla,' she'd say, 'bless us, every one now keeps a carriage.'"

=Educational Work of an Experiment Station.=--The survey of the year's
work of Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station in its
efforts to "help the farmer" by dealing with present-day problems
includes mention of its investigations, related in bulletins published
or to be published in reference to fruits, their insect and fungoid
enemies, vegetables, flowers, sugar beets, potatoes, fertilizers,
beans, the dairy, veterinary science, horticulture, and plant disease.
Much of the work of the station can not be published, consisting as it
does of correspondence, personal advice, attending meetings, making
records, or the performance of special illustrative experiments at
farmers' homes or in neighborhoods as object lessons. "It is a pity,"
the report says, "that every farmer in the State can not be personally
touched at least once in his life by the methods and the inspiration
of a good teacher." The itinerant schools which were held in the early
days of the extension work are regarded as being most beneficial when
the community has been awakened by simpler and more elementary means,
while the larger part of the work can be done more economically than
by them. Yet in particular places and cases they are of greatest
value, and they are still held when suitable conditions prevail.
Special dairy schools, largely of the nature of practical
demonstrations, were held at various places. The report lays much
stress on the importance of beginning the educational work with the
children and upon the value of Nature study. More than sixteen
thousand school children have requested and been supplied with
information on the making of gardens.

=Flies as Bearers of Disease.=--In estimating the relative importance
of flies and water supply in spreading disease, Dr. M. A. Veeder
distinguishes between intestinal and malarial disorders. In the former
the infection is a bacillus of some sort, the presence of which can be
traced to contamination by excretions from a diseased bowel. In the
latter the source of infection is peculiar to marshy or stagnant
water, and independent of contamination from human sources. It is the
author's belief that, with relatively unimportant exceptions,
intestinal diseases are spread almost exclusively by flies and
malarial diseases by water, and he supports it by citations from
recent army experiences. Likewise, during the recent British campaign
in Fashoda, which was most carefully planned and took place in a
climate that is exceptionally dry and hygienic, there was no abatement
of typhoid fever. In the case of an outbreak of malignant dysentery
described by the author in a previous paper, taken at its height, not
a new case occurred after measures were adopted that made conveyance
by flies impossible, although there had been fresh ones every day for
some time previously. Another more recent "lively epidemic" of typhoid
mentioned by the author was ended in a day by measures directed
against conveyance by water. "When flies are responsible, there are
little neighborhood epidemics, extending in short leaps from house to
house, without reference to water supply or anything else in common.
But when water is at fault the disease follows its use wherever it may
go.... Epidemics spread by flies tend to follow the direction of
prevailing warm winds, as though the fly, wandering outdoors after
contact with the source of infection, had drifted with the wind, but
nothing of the sort is perceptible in the case of water-borne
disease."

=Pottery Making and Lead Poisoning.=--The report of Professors Thorpe
and Oliver on the subject of the employment of compounds of lead in
the manufacture of pottery, especially in its relation to the health
of the work people, has just been issued as an English blue book. It
appears that of the total male workers in the year 1898, 4.9 per cent
became "leaded," while of the female workers the proportion was 12.4
per cent. It is stated that in the last six months many successful
attempts have been made by the manufacturers to substitute a leadless
glaze, and there seems no doubt that glazes of sufficient brilliancy,
covering power, and durability are now within the reach of the
manufacturer. The exclusion of women from certain parts of the work,
except where leadless glazes are used, is advocated, and also various
expedients for preventing the absorption of the lead by the skin, such
as rubber gloves or "dipping" tongs. Their general conclusions are as
follows: "That by far the greater amount of earthenware of the class
already specified can be glazed without the use of lead in any form.
It has been demonstrated, without the slightest doubt, that the ware
so made is in no respects inferior to that coated with lead glaze.
There seems no reason, therefore, why in the manufacture of this class
of goods the operatives should still continue to be exposed to the
evils which the use of lead glaze entails. There are, however, certain
branches of the pottery industry in which it would be more difficult
to dispense with the use of lead compounds. But there is no reason
why, in these cases, the lead so employed should not be in the form of
a fritted double silicate. Such a compound, if properly made, is but
slightly attacked by even strong hydrochloric, acetic, or lactic acid.
There can be little doubt that, if lead must be used, the employment
of such a compound silicate--if its use could be insured--would
greatly diminish the evil of lead poisoning. The use of raw lead as an
ingredient of glazing material, or as an ingredient of colors which
have to be subsequently fired, should be absolutely prohibited. As it
would be very difficult to insure that an innocuous lead glaze shall
be employed, we are of opinion that young persons and women should be
excluded from employment as dippers, dippers' assistants, ware
cleaners after dippers, and glost placers in factories where lead
glaze is used, and that the adult male dippers, dippers' assistants,
ware cleaners, and glost placers should be subjected to systematic
medical inspection. In the 1893 report the medical members of the
committee expressed the opinion that 'many old factories are wholly,
or in part, unfit in a sanitary point of view for occupation,' and
they suggested that 'there should be some authority to close them, or
whatever part of them is condemned, on the same principle as dwellings
are declared uninhabitable.' We share this opinion and we concur in
the suggestion. Certain of the factories we have inspected are in the
last stages of dilapidation, and it appears to us to be well-nigh
impossible to introduce into them such rearrangements or additions as
are required by the amended special rules."

=The Longevity of Animals.=--The following interesting table, showing
the periods of maturity and the full term of life of various animals,
was prepared by E. D. Bell and appeared in Nature for March 23d. The
table was made for the purpose of demonstrating a constant relation
(in length) between these two periods of life, which the author
expresses in the following formula, in which f. t. l. = full term of
life, and p. m. the time required to arrive at maturity:

  f. t. l. = 10.5(p. m.) / [3root](p. m.), or 10.5 × (p. m.)^{2/3}

and which seems to be fairly well borne out by the table:

  ----------+-----------------------------------+----------
            |           OBSERVATIONS.           | f. t. l.
  ANIMAL.   |-----------------+---------+-------|   by
            |   Authority.    |  p. m.  | f.t.l | formula.
  ----------+-----------------+---------+-------+----------
            |                 |Mos. Yr. |  Yrs. | Years.
  Dormouse  | Ainslie Hollis. | 3  .25  |  4-5  |  4.167
  Guinea-pig| Flourens.       | 7  .583 |  6-7  |  7.33
  Loprabbit:|                 |         |       |
    Buck    | R. O. Edwards,  |         |       |
            |  p. m.          | 9  .75  |   8   |  8.67
    Doe     | R. O. Edwards,  |         |       |
            |  p. m.          | 8  .667 |   8   |  8.013
            |                 | Years.  |       |
  Cat       | St. G. Mivart.  |   1     |  12   | 10.5
  Cat       | J. Jennings.    |   2     |  15   | 16.67
  Goat      | Pegler.         |   1.25  |  12   | 12.18
  Fox       | St. G. Mivart.  |   1.5   | 13-14 | 13.76
  Cattle    | Ainslie Hollis. |   2     |  18   | 16.67
  Large dogs| Dalziel, p. m.  |   2     | 15-20 | 16.67
  Eng. thor-|                 |         |       |
   oughbred |                 |         |       |
   horse    | Ainslie Hollis. |   4.5   |  30   | 28.62
  Hog       | James Long.     |   5     |  30   | 30.7
  Hippopot- |                 |         |       |
   amus     | Chambers's      |         |       |
            |   Encyclopædia. |   5     |  30   | 30.7
  Lion      | St. G. Mivart.  |   6     | 30-40 | 34.67
  Eng. horse|                 |         |       |
   --hunter | Blaine.         |   6.25  |  35   | 35.63
  Arab horse| Ainslie Hollis. |   8     |  40   | 42.00
  Camel     | Flourens.       |   8     |  40   | 42.00
  Man       | Buffon, f. t. l.|  25     | 90-100| 89.77
  Elephant  | Darwin.         |  30     | 100   |101.4
  Elephant  | C. F. Holder    |         |       |
            |   and Indian    |         |       |
            |   hunters.      |  35     | 120   |112.35
  ----------+-----------------+---------+-------+----------

=The Manufacture of Firecrackers in China.=--There were exported from
China during the year ending June 30, 1897, 26,705,733 pounds of
firecrackers, all from the province of Kwantung. The exports, however,
represent only a small portion of the number manufactured, as the use
of the cracker is universal all over China. They are used at weddings,
births, funerals, at festivals, religious and civil, and in fact on
all occasions out of the ordinary routine. The United States consul
general at Shanghai gives the following account of the industry: There
are no large factories; the crackers are made in small houses and in
the shops where they are sold. In making them only the cheapest kind
of straw paper is used for the body of the cracker. A little finer
paper is used for the wrapper. A piece of straw paper, nine by thirty
inches, will make twenty-one crackers an inch and a half long and a
quarter inch in diameter. The powder is also of the cheapest grade,
and is made in the locality where used. It costs about six cents per
pound. For the fuse a paper (called "leather" in Shanghai) is used,
which is imported from Japan, and is made from the inner lining of the
bamboo. In other places a fine rice paper is used, generally stiffened
slightly with buckwheat-flour paste, which the Chinese say adds to its
inflammability. A strip of this paper one third of an inch wide by
fourteen inches (a Chinese foot) long is laid on a table, and a very
little powder put down the middle of it with a hollow bamboo stick. A
quick twist of the paper makes the fuse ready for use. The straw paper
is first rolled by hand around an iron rod, which varies in size
according to the size of cracker to be made. To complete the rolling a
rude machine is used. This consists of two uprights supporting an axis
from which is suspended, by two arms, a heavy piece of wood, slightly
convex on the lower side. There is just room between this swinging
block and top of the table to place the cracker. As each layer of
paper is put on by hand, the cracker is placed on the table and the
suspended weight is drawn over the roll, thus tightening it until no
more can be passed under the weight. For the smallest "whip" crackers,
the workman uses for compression, instead of this machine, a heavy
piece of wood fitted with a handle like that of a carpenter's plane.
In filling crackers, two hundred to three hundred are tightly tied
together in a bunch; red clay is spread over the end of the bunch, and
forced into the end of each cracker with a punch. While the clay is
being treated a little water is sprayed on it, which makes it pack
closer. The powder is poured in at the other end of the cracker. With
the aid of an awl the edge of the paper is turned in at the upper end
of the cracker, and the fuse is inserted through this. The long ends
of the fuses are braided together in such a way that the crackers lie
in two parallel rows. The braid is doubled on itself, and a large,
quick-firing fuse inserted, and the whole is bound with a fine thread.
The bundle is wrapped in paper and in this shape is sent to the
seacoast. A variety of cracker which is very popular in China is the
"twice-sounding" cracker; it has two chambers, separated by a plug of
clay, through which runs a connecting fuse. There is also a fuse
extending from the powder in the lower chamber through the side of the
cracker. When the cracker is to be fired, it is set on end and fire
applied to the fuse. The powder exploding in the chamber throws the
cracker high in the air, where the second charge is exploded by fire
from the fuse extending through the plug between the two chambers. In
the manufacture of these the clay is first packed in with a punch to
form the separating plug. The lower chamber is then loaded with powder
and closed by turning over the paper at the end. The upper chamber is
loaded and closed with clay. A hole is punched in the side of the
lower chamber with an awl, and the fuse inserted through this opening.

=An Enchanted Ravine.=--During his archæological researches in the
Uloa Valley, Honduras (Memoirs of Peabody Museum), Mr. George Byron
Gordon made an excursion to the wonderful enchanted ravine, _Quebrada
Encantada_, which was famous through all the country for its weather
wisdom. It was situated in a deep valley, and, Mr. Gordon says, "sends
forth a loud melodious sound which may be heard many miles away, and
is regarded by the people of the region as an infallible sign of rain.
In fact, it is a regular weather bureau, with this peculiarity, that
it is always reliable; for the sound is so modulated as to indicate by
its pitch whether the coming storm is to be heavy or light. The amount
of promised rain is in exact proportion to the volume of the sound,
and thus it proclaims to the accustomed ear with unerring precision
the approach of a passing shower or heralds the terrific thunderstorm
of the tropics; and this is no fiction, but a fact, which any one may
demonstrate for himself by going and listening to it." Tradition says
the ravine was the abode of a golden dragon, and that in former times
"it was lined with golden pebbles and the sands at its margin were
grains of gold, and it was the custom of the golden dragon to rise
occasionally to the margin of the pool and receive the offerings that
were made to him by the people. If they wanted rain, they would bring
their offerings and lay them on the golden sand behind the pool or
cast them on the water; then, while all the people chanted a prayer,
the dragon would rise from the cave where he dwelt in the depths of
the pool, and take the good things that were offered him, and there
was never a drought or a famine in the land. Then, when the Spaniards
came and the people were driven from their homes, the golden pebbles
and grains of gold disappeared, and the golden dragon, retiring into
the uttermost corner of his watery cavern, withdrew forever from the
upper world. There he still lives, and, as formerly, controls the
clouds and the winds that bring the rain. The spirits of the Indians,
too, still hold their meetings of an occasional evening by their
accustomed pool, now lost in the solitude of the forest, and it is the
sound of their chanting that makes the voice of the ravine." The pool
is formed by a cataract tumbling down the side of the mountain and
making a final fall of fifty feet, and the sound of the tumbling of
the waters forms the basis of the pretty legend.

=The Work of the Field Columbian Museum.=--Making only a selection
from the numerous items of general interest in the Annual Report of
the Director of the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, for 1897-'98, we
find mentioned the fall and spring courses of nine lectures each, as
having been more largely attended than ever before, hundreds of
persons having been turned away from some of them, and in one case
nearly a thousand. The library contains 9,003 books and 9,630
pamphlets, and has had some valuable additions, particularly in the
department of Americana. The additions to the collections include
specimens from Egypt, Italy (ancient Etruscan and renaissance
Venetian), Portuguese South Africa, Pacific islands, and Alaska, the
department representing which now numbers more than ten thousand
objects. Valuable contributions have been received from the expedition
of the curator of the anthropological (physical) department to
Arizona. The herbarium of the late Mr. M. S. Bebb, added to the
botanical department, represents much of the flora of the Western
States, and "about all" that of Illinois. Numerous other botanical
collections and additions to the geological and zoölogical departments
are mentioned. Field work was prosecuted by Mr. G. A. Dorsey among the
Hopi Indians in Arizona, C. F. Millspaugh in the collection of North
American forest trees, and O. C. Farrington in the Tertiary geology of
South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Other excursions were made among
the zinc-lead deposits of southeast Missouri, to the Olympian
Mountains of the Northwest, to "a point beyond which nothing unless
provided with wings could go," etc., all resulting in collections of
one kind or another. The museum was visited by 3,963 more persons than
in the year before.

=A Year at Harvard Observatory.=--The director of Harvard College
Observatory reports the addition to the resources of the institution
of twenty thousand dollars bequeathed by Charlotte Maria Haven, and
twenty-five thousand dollars by Eliza Appleton Haven, without further
restriction in the application of the income than that it shall be for
direct purposes connected with astronomical science. In these bequests
the legators fulfilled the wishes of their brother, Horace Appleton
Haven, as expressed half a century ago. By the peculiar organization
of the force of the observatory, with a single director to oversee all
and a large force of assistants, each having a special work and many
of them skillful only in that, an increased amount of work can be done
for a given expenditure, and great advantages for co-operation are
secured, but too much depends upon a single person--the director. In
the examination of the spectra of stars photographed in the Draper,
Bruce, and Bache telescopes by Mrs. Fleming, twelve new variable stars
were discovered by means of their bright hydrogen lines, and the
spectra of a considerable number of other stars were determined.
Valuable results, obtained by other examiners, are mentioned. An
instrument has been constructed by which prismatic spectra can be
converted into normal spectra or any other desired change of scale can
be effected. By photographs obtained of stars in the vicinity of the
north pole material is believed to be furnished for an accurate
determination of the constants of aberration, nutation, and
precession. Sixteen circulars were issued during 1897-'98. When fifty
of these circulars have been issued, a title-page and index are to be
published for binding.

=Putting Life in the School.=--The discussion of the hygiene of
instruction, said Dr. G. W. Fitz, in addresses which are published in
the American Physical Education Review, brings us at once face to face
with one of the gravest problems of our educational system--the
depressing effect of school routine. In the search for a remedy "the
school programme has been pronounced poor, and efforts have been made
to enrich it. The work has been pronounced abstract and object lessons
have been introduced; uninteresting and bright colors, varied shapes,
pictures innumerable, have been rushed upon the child until he has
been bewildered by the multiplicity of detail, and further exhausted
by the demand for more discriminating attention. The fundamental
difficulty has been that too much has been required of the child in
the beginning, and the attempt at enrichment and greater variety has
but increased the burden." Children begin learning to read before they
have acquired experience and ideas to match the text; and "experience
has shown over and over again that the child who begins to read at
eight or even ten years of age is in no wise handicapped in his later
intellectual progress. He has the inestimable advantage of intense
interest, roused by his growing ability to unlock the secrets of books
and papers after the fashion of his elders." Writing is taught before
the child has acquired the art of fine co-ordination, and the effort
demanded in the use of the pen "leads to a degree of nervous
exhaustion unapproached by any other school work." In arithmetic the
children "are unable to grasp the numerical relations involved, and
the drill, which makes it a pure exercise of memory, is necessary.
Much of the aversion to arithmetical problems found later is
undoubtedly due to this disheartening primary work. Here again the
child who begins arithmetic at eight or ten years of age finds himself
able to take it up quickly and has the liking for it that easy mastery
always gives." Nature work, on the other hand, "offers wonderfully
interesting and valuable material for awakening the intellectual
activities of childhood, and while its material for study and
description is unlimited, its demand upon the child may be perfectly
adapted to his power of observation. We must remember that physical
activity is the supreme factor in the development of the child." This
means spontaneous play under favorable conditions, not "that nervously
exhausting and deadening drill known as the Swedish gymnastics, which
... adds fatigue to fatigue, by taking the initiative away from the
child and forcing him to pay constant attention to the orders of the
teacher." As to discipline, "the child is self-disciplined when he is
held to his work by the reflex attention of interest. This can always
be secured when the work is adapted to his grasp, when he has the
sense of power which comes with easy conquest, when he is not
exhausted by the imposition of a sequence logical to the adult mind
but meaningless to him, when his attention is not dulled by a demand
for attention continued beyond a physiological limit."

=Beautifying the Home Grounds.=--The Horticultural Division of the
Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station has been making
efforts during the past few years, under the auspices of the
agricultural extension work, to improve the surroundings of rural
houses, a part of which consists in the publication of bulletins
giving hints as to how improved conditions and simple adornments may
be obtained without great expense. One of these indicates as one of
the means of making the home attractive and "keeping the boy on the
farm" the brightening of the place with flowers. Assuming that the
main planting of any place should be of trees and shrubs, the flowers
are then used as decorations. They may be thrown in freely about the
borders of the place, but not in beds in the center of the lawn. They
show off better when seen against a background, which may be foliage,
a building, a rock, or a fence. "Where to plant flowers is really more
important than what to plant. In front of bushes, in the corner by the
steps, against the foundation of the residence or outhouse, along a
fence or walk--these are places for flowers. A single petunia plant
against a background of foliage is worth a dozen similar plants in the
center of the lawn.... The open-centered yard may be a picture; the
promiscuously planted yard may be a nursery or a forest. A little
color scattered in here and there puts a finish to the picture. A dash
of color gives spirit and character to the brook or pond, to the ledge
of rocks, to the old stump, or to the pile of rubbish." The flower
garden, if there is one, should be at one side of the residence or at
the rear, "for it is not allowable to spoil a good lawn even with
flowers."


MINOR PARAGRAPHS.

Of the twelve genera and fifty species of known North American frogs
and toads, Mr. William L. Sherwood says, in his paper in the
Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, New York, that five genera and
fifty species are found in the vicinity of New York city. Some of
these are less secretive in habit than salamanders, and therefore much
better known. As ponds and ditches have been drained, the aquatic
forms have removed to greater distances from human dwellings, and only
the more terrestrial toad and arboreal tree frogs have remained. All
of our species have been described, but the author believes that the
first mention of the cricket frog being found in this region is in a
paper on salamanders, read by him in 1895. The breeding habits of
these animals vary, but all lay their eggs in water or moist places.
The purely amphibious and really aquatic species are three. Of the
other eight species, one is burrowing, five tend to be terrestrial,
inhabiting the woods and fields, and two are arboreal. The eggs are
laid in gelatinous envelopes, which swell after leaving the adult. At
the time of hatching the young tadpole has three pairs of external
gills, but no mouth or anal opening. Two small suckers, just back of
where the mouth is to appear, enable it to cling to aquatic plants and
prevent its dropping to the bottom of the pond and getting smothered
in the mud. It soon develops into a tadpole, and proceeds to its
development; but if prevented from coming to the surface of the water
no metamorphosis takes place, and the changes are delayed by cold and
dark.

At a meeting recently held in Berlin in behalf of a German antarctic
exploration, Dr. von Drygalski, speaking of the scientific, practical,
and national importance of the enterprise, said that from a
geographical point of view the fundamental problem attached to the
south polar region--the verification or disproof of a polar
continent--is still unsolved. No less important questions likewise
await solution with respect to the geological structure and character
of the southern lands--so important in connection with a knowledge of
volcanic action and the supposed former connection of South America
and Australia--and with respect to the conditions of inland ice. Even
the study of the floating ice broken away from the main mass may lead
to important conclusions as to its mode of origin and the nature of
the land from which it comes. Other problems to be investigated are
the origin of the cold ocean currents that take their rise in the
south, the conditions of the atmospheric pressure and temperature in
that region, and the questions relating to terrestrial magnetism,
which have a very important bearing on the practice of navigation. The
present seems to be a particularly favorable period for the resumption
of south polar research by reason of the unusual amount of drift ice
which has within the last few years broken away from the main mass,
and because, according to Supan, we are passing through a warmer
temperature period.

Over and above the statistics and the bare record of facts the annual
reports of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the
Blind afford a continuous and growing interest to friends of suffering
mankind in their stories of the development of mental life and
illumination. Pupils come there blind and deaf, and apparently without
any avenues of intelligent communication with the outer world, and are
there brought to full consciousness and keenness of intellect that
would be remarked even in many persons possessed of all their senses
perfect from birth. The record began with Laura Bridgman, was
continued with Helen Keller, and has been occupied for five or six
years past with the wonderful mental growth of Elizabeth Robin, Edith
M. Thomas, and Tommy Stringer. Before Dr. Howe began with Laura
Bridgman, such things would have been deemed impossible and not to be
thought of.


NOTES.

The Swiss Association for the Protection of Plants, which was formed
in Geneva in 1883, has more than 900 members, and publishes 1,500
copies of its bulletin, which is sent, besides the members of the
association, to the libraries of foreign Alpine clubs, the press,
botanists, _curés_, and municipalities in countries harboring plants
that require protection. Under its care, or the influence of its work,
gardens have been created in various places and devoted especially to
the cultivation of such plants as are most threatened with extinction.
Of these are the Linnea Garden in the Valais, 5,500 feet above the
sea; the Chanousia, founded five years ago by R. P. Chanoux, rector of
the Hospice of St. Bernard, 6,800 feet; and the Rambertia, at the foot
of the Rochers de Naye, 6,500 feet above the Lake of Geneva. Lectures
are given under the auspices of the association, and no occasion for
informing the public is lost. A neat chromo-poster calling attention
to the association and its purpose has been prepared to be put up in
railroad stations and hotels, to which is appended a motto emphasizing
the importance of caring for rare plants.

The report of Heinrich Ries on the Kaolins and Fire Clays of Europe,
published in the reports of the Geological Survey, is based largely on
notes collected by the author during visits in 1897 to most of the
important kaolin and clay deposits. To these such facts of importance
concerning the clays as have already been published have been added.
Some manufacturers have claimed that the foreign kaolins are superior
to the American, but the evidence, Mr. Ries says, does not seem to
bear out the statements. Notes are added respecting the clays and
clay-working industries in the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana,
Iowa, New York, and North Carolina.

According to the report of the _Commission Internationale des
Glaciers_ for 1897, thirty-nine out of fifty-six glaciers observed in
Switzerland are retreating, five are at a standstill, and twelve are
growing. Of the Italian glaciers, those of the Disgrazia and Bernina
groups and the glaciers of Mont Canin in the Julian Alps show a marked
retreat. Retreat seems to be almost universal in the Scandinavian
glaciers. The report includes also information from the Caucasus,
Altai, and Turkestan, and notes on a few glaciers in the United States
and Mexico, concerning which we have not the particulars.

In a book on social types among the French people, M. Edmond Demolins
tries to show that varieties of types are the products of constant
causes which it is possible to analyze exactly, and the most
fundamental principle of which is the nature of the place and of the
occupation. Thus there is a social type derived from the pastoral
occupation; another from the cultivation of fruit trees, among which
the several classes determine as many modalities of the type; one is
derived from petty gardening, and another from large farming; another
from manufacturing, and another from transportation and commerce.
Close analysis permits the detection of still more delicate shades of
types of varieties in each of the categories named, whereby notable
modifications are produced in the same region and the same work.

The brewing industry in Germany is credited with the following output
of beer for the year 1897-'98: Germany proper, 8,055 breweries,
exclusive of Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and Alsace-Lorraine,
916,000,000 gallons; Bavaria, 6,364 breweries, 351,000,000 gallons;
Würtemberg, 6,285 breweries, 90,000,000 gallons; Baden, 946 breweries,
60,000,000 gallons; Alsace-Lorraine, 127 breweries, 21,230,000
gallons--a grand total of 1,438,230,000 gallons, from the taxation of
which the Government received a revenue of $22,305,150.

Speaking in his society of the Relation of Britain to Folklore,
retiring President Alfred Nutt urged that it was the privilege of that
country to enshrine in its literature the ancient customary wisdom of
many races, as the English system of law was itself largely derived
from custom. The accidents of the geographical position and historical
circumstances of Britain had made it the preserver of a great body of
archaic tradition, which it was the function of the Folklore Society
to study and interpret.

We have to record the deaths of Dr. William Hankel, Professor of
Physics in the University of Leipsic; Prof. F. K. C. L. Büchner,
author of the famous book, Force and Matter, at Darmstadt, Germany,
May 1st; Dr. Francis W. MacNamara, State Examiner of Medical Stores at
the India Office, London, formerly Professor of Chemistry in Calcutta
Medical College, and later Chemical Examiner to the Government of
India, March 5th, aged sixty-seven years; he was author of a number of
books and papers on hygiene and medical chemistry; Jeremiah Head,
engineer, President of the Mechanical Science Section of the British
Association in 1893, and President of the British Institute of
Mechanical Engineers in 1885-'86, March 10th, aged sixty-four years;
who was instrumental in introducing into England important American
improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel; Franz Ritter von
Hanse, Austrian geologist, Intendant of the National Museum in Vienna,
Director of the Imperial Geological Survey in 1866, and author of the
Geological Map of Austria, Bosnia, and Montenegro, and of geological
books, March 20th, aged seventy-seven years; Surveyor Major G. C.
Wallich, March 31st, in his eighty-fourth year, and Count Abbé F.
Castracan, of Rome, the two oldest Fellows of the Royal Microscopical
Society; Dr. P. L. Ryke, of the University of Leyden, aged eighty-six
years; Joseph Stevens, honorary curator of the museum at Reading,
England, author of archæological and geological papers; Dr. C.
Brogniart, entomologist, and author of a memoir On Fossil Insects of
the Primary Period, at Paris; Charles L. Prince, author of papers on
meteorology and astronomy, at Tunbridge Wells, England, April 22d; Dr.
Wilhelm Jordan, Professor of Geometry and Geodesy at the Technical
Institution, Hanover, April 17th, aged fifty-seven years; Sir William
Roberts, of the Royal College of Physicians, author of lectures and
papers on digestion, diet, uric acid, the opium habit in India, etc.;
Prof. Karl Scheibler, chemist, at Berlin, aged seventy-two years; Dr.
Josef Wastler, docent in geodesy at the Technical Institute in Graz;
Dr. H. A. Wahlforso, Professor of Chemistry at Helsingfors, aged sixty
years; and Philip Thomas Main, Fellow of St. John's College,
Cambridge, England, author of a treatise on astronomy.




Transcriber's Notes:


Words surrounded by _ are italicized.

Words surrounded by = are bold.

Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent
spellings have been kept, including inconsistent use of hyphen (e.g.
"widespread" and "wide-spread"), and proper names (e.g. "Siddânta" and
"Siddhânta").

Some illustrations were relocated to correspond to their references in
the text.







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