The Popular Science Monthly 1878-11: Vol 14

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. NOVEMBER, 1878. THE CONTRAST OF COLORS.’ By Prorzssor O. N. ROOD. bis a previous chapter we have studied the changes which colored surfaces experience when viewed under various kinds of illumina- tion, or when modified in appearance by the admixture of more or less white or colored light. Tho appearance which a colored surfac: pre- sents to us can, however, be altered very materially, by a method which is quite different from any of those that have thus far been mentioned: we can actually change color to a considerable extent without at all meddling with it directly, it being for this purpose only necessary to alter the color which lies adjacent to it. The truth of this can be seen by a very simple experiment: If we cut out of a sheet of red paper two square pieces, about an inch in size, and then place one of them on RED GREEN RED RED . Fie. 1—SHEEts or RED AND GREEN PAPER WITH RED SQuARES. a sheet of red, the other on a sheet of green paper, as indicated in Fig. 1, it will be found that the red square on the red paper will not appear nearly so brilliant and saturated in color as that placed on the green ground ; hence the observer will be disposed to doubt whether the two * From the advance-sheets of a work on “ Chromatics, with Applications to Art and Industry.” VOL, xIV.—1 Sa, solos: ae > a oe Wey \y ra a) ,

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2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. squares are really identical in hue. By a somewhat analogous pro- ceeding we can cause a surface which properly has no color of its own, which is really gray, to appear tinted red, blue, green, etc. These changes, and others of a like character, are produced by what is called contrast, and are partly due to actual effects generated in the eye itself, and partly to fluctuations in the judgment of the observer. The subject of contrast is so important that it will be worth while to make a some- what careful examination of the laws which govern it, and it will be well for the reader to repeat some of the simple experiments described below. If we place a small piece of bright-green paper on a sheet of gray drawing-paper, in the manner indicated in Fig. 2, and then for several seconds attentively look at the small cross in the centre of the green slip, we shall find, on suddenly removing it, that in its place a faint image of a rose-red color makes its appearance (see Fig. 3). This GRAY GRAY i Fig. 2.—Gray Parer wits GREEN SLIP. Fie. 3—GraYr Pargn ae ROBSE-COLORED ted image presently vanishes, and the gray paper resumes its natural appearance. The rose-red ghost which is thus developed has a color which is complementary to that which called it into existence, and this will also be the case if we employ little squares of other colors: red will give rise to a greenish-blue image, blue to a yellow, violet to a greenish-yellow, etc., the color of the image being always complement- ary to that which gave rise to it. Upon this account these images are called negative, since as far as the color goes they are just the re- verse of the images which are first presented to the eye of the observer. They are also often spoken of, in older treatises on optics, as “ the acci- dental colors.” It is quite easy to explain their production with the aid of the theory of Young and Helmholtz. Let us take as an example the experiment just described: According to our theory the green light from the little squares of paper, acting on the eye, fatigues to some extent the green nerves of the retina, the red and violet nerves mean- while not being much affected. When the green paper is suddenly jerked awhy by the string, gray light is presented to the fatigued reti- _ Ma, and this gray light may be considered to consjst, as far as we are _ concerned, of red, green, and violet light. The red and violet nerves, not being fatigued, respond powerfully to this stimulus ; the green nerves, however, answer this new call on them more feebly, and in consequence

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THE CONTRAST OF COLORS. 3 we have presented to us, mainly, a mixture of the sensations red and violet, giving as a final result rose-red or purplish-red. The green nerves, of course, are not so fatigued that they do not act at all when the gray light is presented to them, but the only effect that their par- tial action has, is to render the rose-colored image somewhat pale or whitish in appearance. The fatigue of the optic nerve mentioned here does not differ essentially from that which it undergoes constantly even under the conditions of ordinary use, where the waste is constantly made good by the blood circulating in the retina, and by the little in- tervals of rest constantly occurring. In our experiment we have merely confined the fatigue to one set of nerves, instead of distributing it equally among the three sets. The above experiments and explanation will enable us easily to comprehend the more complicated case, where, instead of placing our little green square on gray, we lay it on a sheet of colored paper. In- stead, then, of gray, let us take yellow paper, placing the green square on it as before (see Fig. 4). On suddenly withdrawing the green square, we find it replaced by an orange-colored ghost (Fig. 5), which YELLOW YELLOW “ Fie. 4—YELLoOw GROUND WITH Fie. 5.—YELLow Grounp wrH ORANGE- GREEN SLIP. COLORED Imace. we account for thus: As before, the green nerves are fatigued, the red and violet nerves remaining fresh; when the square is removed, yellow light is presented to the retina, and this yellow light, as explained in Chapter [X., tends to act on the red and green nerves equally, but the green nerves in the present case do not respond with full activity, hence the action is more confined to the red nerves, and, as explained in Chapter X., the resultant tint is necessarily orange, that is to say, we have a strong red sensation mingled with a weak green sensation, and the result i8 the sensation called orange. In this experiment the vio- let nerves do not come into play to any great extent. If the green square is placed on a blue ground the image becomes violet, for the reason that the blue light which is presented to the fatigued retina acts, as explained in Chapter [X., on the green and violet nerves; but the green nerves being already fatigued, the action is mostly confined to the violet nerves, and hence the corresponding sensation. In this case the red nerves hardly come into play at all. It follows, from the above examples and reasoning that the final effect is, that we obtain as an after-image what amounts to a mixture

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4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. of the complementary color of the small square with the color of the ground ; and, by recollecting this, we can easily retain this class of facts in the memory. There is another similar experiment, which is simpler than those just described, but which nevertheless is instructive: A small square of black paper is to be placed on a sheet of red paper, and the atten- tion in this case is to be directed to a mark on the edge of the former (see Fig. 6). When the black square is suddenly removed, the obsery- er sees in place of it a more luminous spot, which in the case before DULL RED Fie. 6.—Rep Ground wiTH BLAcK PAPER. Fie. 7.—Rzp Ground WITH INTENSE Rep Laage. us will, of course, be red; but what is remarkable is the circumstance that this red image will be more intense or saturated in color than the rest of the ground. The rest of the sheet of red paper will look as though gray had been mixed with its color (Fig. 7). This experiment will, of course, succeed with paper of any bright color, and Helm- holtz has found that the same effect can be obtained with the pure colors of the prismatic spectrum. The explanation, according to our theory, runs about thus: While we are in the act of looking at the edge of the black square, red light is passing into the eye, and is fa- tiguing all those portions of the retina that are not protected by the presence of the black square; it thus happens that the ability of the larger portion of the retina to receive the sensation of red is consid- erably diminished; the ability of the protected portion, of course, suffers meanwhile no such change. When the black square is sud- denly removed, the unfatigued portion of the retina receives a power- ful impulse from the red surface, but the effect produced upon the rest of the retina is inferior in degree. This accounts for the fact that the image of the square is brighter or more luminous, and we can easily understand why it is at the same time more intense or saturated in color, if we remember, as explained in Chapter IX., that red light ex- cites into action not only the red nerves, but to a lesser extent the green and violet nerves, Now, as the red nerves begin to be fatigued, the action of the other two sets will be relatively more powerful than at first, so that gradually the sensations of green and violet begin to add themselves to that of red, or, what is the same thing, the sensation

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THE CONTRAST OF COLORS. 5 . of white mingles itself with that of red and makes the red color of the paper look a little grayish. The success of the experiment with the pure colors of the spectrum, which contain no white, is easily accounted for by the explanation just given. All these phenomena are cases of what is called successive contrast, because we look in succession from one surface to another. "When colored surfaces are placed near each other and compared in a natural manner, successive contrast plays an important part, and the appearance of the colors is more or less modified according to its laws. If we attempt to confine our attention to only one of the colored surfaces, this still holds good, for the eye involuntarily wanders to the other, and to prevent this requires a good deal of careful practice, for fixed vision is quite opposed to our natural habit. It follows from this that, in the natural use of the eye, the negative images, although present to some extent, are not sharp and distinct, and hence usually remain unobserved by persons not trained to observations of this character. Nevertheless these images modify to a considerable extent the appear- ances of colored surfaces placed near each other, and the changes of hue are visible enough to the most uneducated eye. One of the most common cases belonging here is represented in Fig. 8. We have a gray pattern traced on a green ground; the GREEN GROUND Fie. 8.—Gray Figure on a GREEN Grounn. tracery, however, will not appear pure gray, but tinged with a color complementary to that of the ground; that is, reddish. We can, of course, substitute for the green any other bright color, and it will always be found that the gray pattern is more or less tinged with the

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a. 2 RAE SEE Bes + aes ~ * A Ar ARR a he Al eam Nm abe eS BO die ON 6 te * 5 ws 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. * complementary hue. As black is really a dark gray, we should expect to find it also assuming, to some extent, a color complementary to that of the ground, and this is indeed the case, though the effect is not quite so marked as with a gray of medium depth. Chevreul, in his great work on the simultaneous contrast of colors, relates an anecdote which illustrates the matter now under consideration: Plain red, violet-blue, and blue woven stuffs were given by certain dealers to manufacturers, with the request that they should ornament them with black patterns. When the goods were returned the dealers complained that the pat- terns were not black, maintaining that those traced on the red stuffs were green; on the violet, dark greenish-yellow; and on the blue, cop- per-colored. Chevreul covered the grounds with white papers in such a manner as to expose only the patterns, when it was found that their color was truly black, the effects which had been observed being entire- ly due to contrast. The remedy in such cases is not to employ pure black, but to give it a tint like that of the colored ground, taking care to make it just strong enough to balance the hue generated by contrast. If we substitute a white pattern for the black, something of this same effect can often be observed, but it is less marked than with gray or black. In cases like those now under consideration, the contrast is. stronger when the colored surface is bright and intense or saturated in hue. The effect is also increased by entirely surrounding the second color with the first ; the circumscribing color ought also to be consider- ably larger than its companion. When these conditions are observed, the effect of contrast is generally noticeable only on the smaller sur- & we Fie. 9.—ARRANGEMENT TO SHOW THE EFFECTs OF SIMULTANEOUS ConTRAST (ONE-HALF SIZE). face, the larger one being scarcely affected. When, on the other hand, the two colored surfaces are about equal in extent, then both suffer change. If it is desired to produce a strong effect of contrast, the col- ored surfaces must be placed as near each other as possible, This is beautifully illustrated in one of the methods employed by Chevreul in studying the laws of contrast. Two colored strips were placed side by

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THE CONTRAST OF COLORS. 7 side in contact, as shown in Fig. 9, duplicate strips being arranged in the field of view at some distance from each other, The tints of the two central strips were both altered ; those placed at a greater distance apart suffered no change. In the experiment represented in Fig. 9, the central ultramarine by contrast is made to appear more violet, the central cyan-blue more greenish; the color of the outlying strips is scarcely affected. As it requires a little consideration to predict the changes which colors undergo through contrast, we give below a table containing the most important cases: Pairs of Colors. Change due to Contrast. | Pairs of Colors. Change due to Contrast. Red. ........... becomes more purplish. i Orange,........ becomes more yellowish. j Orange. ...-++.. yellowish. | ( Violet......... * bluish, eee = purplish. ; Yellow......... “ — orange-yellow, Yellow. .....--- “ greenish. | ‘ Green......... “ _bluish-green, Se « brilliant. { Yellow ........ “ — orange-yellow. i Blue-green... .-- “ - Cyan-blue...... 4 blue, Red... . . +0 “ orange-red. ; Yellow ........ “ brilliant. Blue......----- os greenish. | ‘ Ultramarine-blue - Rod... 2220s s orange-red. i otasun eX “ yellowish-green. i Violet.......-++ “ bluish. | ( Blue........... ag purplish. { Orange........- “ red-orange. Green ........- “ yellowish-green. Yellow.......-- “ greenish-yellow. | ¢ Violet.......... * purplish, Orange.....-..- xs red-orange. ; Greenish-yellow. 2 brilliant. i Green.......+.. “ bluish-green. | ( Violet......... - ‘3 { Orange........- - brilliant. ; Blue... ..ecsee am greenish. Cyan-blue...... “ ° Wialth ice vin.cases a purplish. It is easy and instructive to study the changes produced by contrast with the aid of a chromatic circle (Fig. 10), and it will be found that alterations in color produced by con- trast obey a very simple law: when any two colors of the chromatic cir- cle are brought into competition or contrasted, the effect produced is, ap- parently, to move them both farther apart. In the case, for example, of orange and yellow, the orange is moved toward the red, and assumes the appearance of reddish-orange ; the yellow moves toward the green, and appears for the time to be green- ish-yellow. Colors which are comple- mentary are already as far apart in Fie. 10.—Curomatic Crees. the chromatic circle as possible, hence they are not changed in hue, but merely appear more brilliant and sat- urated, This is indeed the effect which a strict application of our rule

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8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. leads to: The two colors are to be moved farther apart; they are al- ready situated on the opposite extremities of a diameter of the circle, and, if they are to recede still farther from each other, they can accom- plish this in no other way than by moving outside of the circumference of the circle; but this corresponds, as explained in the previous chapter, to an increase of saturation. If the experiments indicated in the pre- vious table are carefully repeated, it will be found that all the pairs of colors there enumerated are not equally affected by contrast. The changes of tint are greatest with the colors which are situated nearest to each other in the chromatic circle, and much less with those at a distance. Thus both red and yellow are much changed by contrast, the red becoming purplish, the yellow greenish, while red with cyan- blue, or blue, is much less affected in the matter of displacement or change of hue. On the other hand, the colors which are distant from each other in the chromatic circle, while suffering but. slight changes in hue, are made to appear more brilliant and saturated—that is, they are virtually moved somewhat outside of the circle, the maximum effect taking place with colors which are complementary. Colors which are identical are affected by contrast in exactly the opposite way from those which are complementary—that is, they are made to appear duller _ and less saturated. The author finds that these and other effects of contrast can be studied with great advantage by the aid of two identical chromatic circles laid down on paper. One set of these lines should be traced on a sheet of transparent paper, which is afterward to be placed over the companion-circle. The use of these circles will best be made evident with the aid of an example: Let us suppose that we wish to ascertain with their aid the effect produced by red, as far as contrast goes, on all the other colors, and also on red itself. We place the trans- parent circle on its companion so that the two drawings may coincide in position, and we then move the upper circle along the diameter join- ing the red and green-blue some little distance, so that the two circles no longer have the same common centre. We then transfer the points marked red, orange, yellow, etc., on the upper circle, by pricking with a pin through to the lower circle; these pin-marks on the lower circle will indicate the changes produced on all the colors by competition with red. Fig. 11 gives the result. The dotted circle with the crosses represents the new positions of the different colors when contrasted with red. If we examine it we find that red, when contrasted with greenish-blue, causes this last color to move away from the centre of the circle in a straight line; hence, as the new point is on the same diameter, but farther from the centre, we know that the greenish-blue is not made more or less blue or green, but is simply caused to appear more saturated or brilliant. The new point for the red lies also on the same diameter, but is nearer to the centre of the circle; that is, the color remains red, but appears duller or less saturated. Experience confirms this: if a considerable number of pieces of red cloth are ex-

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THE CONTRAST OF COLORS. 9 amined in succession, the last one will appear duller and inferior in brilliancy to the others, but it will still appear red. Proceeding with the examination of the effects produced on the other colors, we find that orange has been moved toward yellow, and also toward the centre of the circle ; hence our diagram tells us that red, when put into competition with orange, causes the latter to appear

ap } ef é OME < if “ Wire Fie. 11.—CuRomatic CIRCLE DISPLACED By Contrast (shows the effects produced by red upon the other colors). more yellowish, and at the same time less intense. Advancing along the circumference of the circle, our diagram informs us that yellow is not much affected in the matter of saturation or intensity, but is simply made to appear more greenish. The two circles during superposition cut each other near the position of yellow ; from this point onward the effect changes as far as intensity or saturation is concerned, the green- ish-yellow being moved decidedly outside of the original circle as well as toward the green; it is made, therefore, by contrast with red, to appear more brilliant as well as more greenish. Green is made to appear somewhat bluish and more brilliant. Greenish-blue has been considered, Cyan-blue is made to appear slightly more greenish as well as much more brilliant ; the same is true of blue, though its increase in brilliancy by contrast with red is rather less than is the case with cyan- blue. Violet has its hue considerably altered toward blue ; its satura- tion is diminished. Purple is made to look more violet and is much ' diminished in saturation. If we wish to study the effects produced on the colors of the chro- matic circle by contrasting them with yellow, we have of course merely - to displace the upper circle along the line joining yellow and its com- plement, ultramarine-blue, and then proceed as before. It is quite evident that this contrast-diagram will furnish correct results only on condition that the colors in it are properly arranged ; if the angular positions of the colors are laid down falsely, the results in ‘the matter of increase or diminution of brilliancy will also be false.

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10 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The author has made many experiments to settle this question, and in Fig. 12 gives his result in the form of a diagram. From the foregoing, then, it is evident that the effect of contrast may be helpful or harmful ; by it colors may be made to look more beauti- ful and precious, or they may damage each other and appear dull, pale, or even dirty. When the apparent saturation is increased, we have the first effect; the second, when it is diminished. Our diagram (Fig. 11) shows that the saturation is diminished when the contrasting colors are situated near each other in the chromatic circle, and increased when the reverse is true. It might be supposed that we could easily over- + 2 Ge ew : e | fy = > ‘ Raye, As PQ Ley oF VERMIL ion © 0.6. BLU SP.RED G.C.BLUE CARMINE Rs 7 ale os By aye ee . VY ky a fe fee ee ¥ = Fie. 12.—ConTrast-D1AGRAM, acconpine To O. N. Roop. come the damaging effects of harmful contrast by simply making the colors themselves from the start somewhat more brilliant ; this, how- ever, is far from being true. The pleasure due to helpful contrast is not merely owing to the fact that the colors appear brilliant or satu- rated, but that they have been so disposed and provided with such companions that they are made to glow with more than their natural bril- liancy. Then they strike us as precious and delicious, and this is true even when the actual tints are such as we would call poor or dull in isolation. From this it follows that paintings made up almost entirely of.tints that. by themselves seem modest and far from brilliant, often strike us as being rich and gorgeous in color ; while on the other hand the most gaudy colors can easily be arranged so as to produce a de- pressing effect on the beholder. We shall see hereafter that, in making,

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THE CONTRAST OF COLORS, eT chromatic compositions for decorative purposes or for paintings, artists of all times have necessarily been controlled to a considerable extent by the laws of contrast, which they have instinctively obeyed, just as children in walking and leaping obey the law of gravitation, though hardly conscious of its existence. The phenomena of contrast as exhibited by colors which are intense, pure, and brilliant, are to be explained to a considerable extent by the fatigue of the nerves, as set forth in the early part of the present chap- ter. The changes in color and saturation become particularly con- spicuous after somewhat prolonged observation, and are often attended with a peculiar soft glimmering, which seems to float over the surfaces, and, in the case of colors that are far apart in the chromatic circle, to lend them a lustrous appearance, Still, upon the whole, the effects of contrast with brilliant colors are often not strongly marked at first glance, from the circumstance that the colors, by virtue of their actual intensity and strength, are able to resist these changes, and it often requires a practised eye to detect them with certainty. The case is quite otherwise with colors which are more or less pale or dark—that is, which are deficient in saturation, or luminosity, or both, Here the original sensation produced upon the eye is comparatively feeble, and it is hence more readily modified by contrast. In these cases the fatigue of the nerves of the retina plays but a very subordinate part, as we recognize the effects of contrast at the first glance. We have to Fie. 13,—Saapow or Rop 1n A DaRKENED Room. deal here with what is known as simultaneous contrast, the effects tak- ing place when the two surfaces are, as far as possible, regarded simul- taneously. In the case of simultaneous contrast, the changes are due mainly to fluctuations of the judgment of the observer, but little to the fatigue of the retinal nerves, We carry in ourselves no standard by

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12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. which we can measure the saturation of color or its exact place in the chromatic circle ; hence, if we have no undoubted external standard at hand with which to compare our colors, we are easily deceived. A slip of paper, of a pale but very decided blue-green hue, was placed on a sheet of paper of the same general tint, but somewhat darker and more intense or saturated in hue. The small slip now appeared pure gray, and by no effort of the reason or imagination could it be made to look otherwise. In this experiment no undoubted pure gray was present in the field of view for comparison, and, in point of fact, the small slip did actually approach a pure gray in hue more nearly than the large sheet; hence the eye instantly accepted it for pure gray. The matter did not, however, stop here: a slip of pure gray paper was now brought into the same green field, but, instead of serving as a standard to correct the illusion, it assumed at once the appearance of a reddish-gray. The pure gray slip really did approach reddish-gray.more than the green field surrounding it, and hence was accepted for this tint. It has been stated above that the effects produced by simultaneous contrast are due not to retinal fatigue, but to deception of the judg- ment ; now, as the effects of simultaneous contrast are identical in kind with those generated by successive contrast, it is evident that the state- ment needs some proof. This can be furnished with the aid of a beau- tiful experiment with colored shadows. In making this experiment, we allow white daylight to enter a darkened room through an aperture, A, arranged in a window, as imdicated in Fig. 13.. At & we set up a rod Fie. 14—SHapows or Rop, ustne DAYLIGHT AND CANDLE-LIGHT. and allow ?+s shadow to fall on a sheet of white cardboard or on the white wall of the room. It is evident, now, that the whole of the card- board will be illuminated with white light, except those portions occu- pied by the. shadow, 1. We then light the candle at C (Fig. 14); its light will also fall on the cardboard screen, and will then cast the

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THE CONTRAST OF COLORS. 13 shadow 2—that is, the candle-light will illuminate all parts of the screen except those occupied by the shadow.2; this portion will be illumi- nated with pure white light. Instead, however, of appearing to the eye white, the shadow 2 will seem to be colored decidedly blue. For the production of the most powerful effect, it is desirable that the shadows should have the same depth, which can be effected by regu- lating the size of the aperture admitting daylight. Now, although the shadow cast by the candle is actually pure white, yet, by contrast with the surrounding orange-yeliow ground, it is made to appear decidedly ies, strong is the illusion that, even after the causes which gave rise to it have disappeared, it still persists, as can be shown by the fol- lowing experiment of Helmholtz : While the colored shadows are falling on the screen, they are to be viewed through a blackened tube of cardboard held in such a way that the observer has both the shadows in his field of view ; the appearance, then, will be like that represented in Fig. 15. After the blue shadow YELLOW Fie. 15.—BLue anp YELLOW SHADOWS VIEWED THROUGH A TUBE. has developed itself in full intensity, the tube is to. be moved to the left, so that the blue shadow may fill the whole field. The tube being held steadily in the new position, the ‘shadow will still continue to appear blue instead of white, even though the exciting cause, viz., the orange-yellow candle-light, is no longer acting.on the eye. The candle may be blown out, but the surface will still appear blue, as long as the eye is at-the tube. On removing the tube, the illusion instantly van- ishes, and it is perceived that the color-of the surface is identical with that of the rest of the screen, which.is at once recognized as white. In a case like this, the fatigue of the retinal elements can play no part, as the illusion persists for a far longer time than is necessary for their complete rest ; we must hence attribute the result to a deception of the judgment. The simple experiments of H..Meyer are less troublesome than those just described, and at the same time highly instructive. A small strip of gray paper is placed on a sheet’ of green paper, as indicated

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2 eRe OR se De tA Sale, AIO thle ie isle elt 3 Ry aes ae aie on. 7 i . 7 Fe eS hes PP eel thee 2 : 14 “THE POPULAR SCIENOE MONTHLY. in Fig. 16; it will be found that the tint of the gray paper scarcely changes, unless the experimenter sits and stares at the combination for some time. A sheet of thin white tissue-paper is now to be placed over the whole, when it will instantly be perceived that the color of the small slip has been converted by contrast into a pale red. Persons seeing this illusion for the first time are always much astonished, Here we have an experiment showjpg that the contrast produced by strong saturated tints is much feebler than with tints which are pale or mixed with white light, for, by placing tissue-paper over the green sheet, the color of the latter is extraor- Fic. 16.—Greex ann Gray Parers dinarily weakened and mixed with a large (Onn) ™“** quantity of white light. In this experiment it often happens that the red, which is due to contrast alone, seems actually stronger than the green ground itself. If, instead of using a slip of gray paper, we employ one of black, the contrast is less marked, and still less with one of white. It is scarcely necessary to add that, if red paper is employed instead of green, the small gray slips become tinted by contrast with the complementary color—i. e., greenish-blue ; the same is true with the other colors. By preparing with India-ink a series of slips of gray paper, ranging from pure white to black, an interesting series of observations can be made on the conditions most favorable for the production of strong contrast- colors. The strongest contrast will be produced in the case of red, orange, and yellow, when the gray slip is a little darker than the color on which it is placed, the reverse being true of green, blue, violet, and purple; in every case the contrast is weaker if the gray slip is much lighter or much darker than the ground. We must expect, then, in painting, to find that neutral gray will be more altered by pale tints of red, orange, or yellow, which are slightly lighter than itself, and that the gray will be less altered by these colors when differing considerably from it in luminosity ; analogous conclusions with regard to green, blue, violet, and purple, can also be drawn. Saturated or intense colors in a painting have less effect on white or gray than colors that are pale ; this was shown in the preliminary experiment when gray was placed on a ground of strong color. In repeating these experiments it will be noticed that the effect of contrast is stronger with green, blue, and violet, than with red, orange, or yellow—that is to say, it is stronger with the cold than with the warm colors. We must next examine the effects that are produced by contrasting colors that differ in luminosity or in saturation. If the two colors are identical except in the matter of saturation, it will be found that the one which is more saturated will gain in intensity, while its pale rival

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t THE CONTRAST OF COLORS. 15 will appear still paler. A slip of paper painted with a somewhat pale red, when placed on a vermilion ground, appears still paler, and may actually be made to look white. If a still paler slip be used, it may even become tinged greenish-blue, its color being in this case actually reversed by the effect of contrast. When the colors differ in luminosity, analogous effects are observed : a dull-red slip was placed on a vermil- ion ground; the effect was as though a quantity of gray had been added to the slip; it looked-more dingy and somewhat blackish. An- other slip, still darker and containing less red, when placed on the same und looked as if it were tinged with olive-green ; a still darker slip, with still less red color, when treated in the same way looked black, with a tinge of blue. When, however, this last slip was placed on a white ground, or compared with true black, it was seen that its color was far from black. The general result of contrasting colors which differ much in strength then is, that the feebler one appears either more whitish or grayish, or assumes the complementary tint; the stronger one, on the other hand, appears still more intense. If the strong and weak colors are complementary to each other, then each of them gains in intensity and appears purer, this gain seeming to be greater in the case of the pale tint. From this it follows that while the juxtaposition of strong with feeble colors usually injures or greatly alters the latter, colors that are complementary furnish an exception, the reason of which is evident at the first glance. When the pale or dark colors are not complementary to their more intense or brilliant rivals, they undergo the same changes indicated in the table on page 7, the changes in the case of the dull or pale colors being considerably greater. - In proportion as the colors are distant from each other in the chromatic circle, do they gain in saturation and beauty ; while, as they approach, their character is altered and they are apt to look very pale, or, in the case of the dark colors, blackish or dirty. This is particularly so when the brilliant color is large in sur- face and surrounds the darker one; with the reversed conditions the effect is not so much felt. Thus, a somewhat dull red near vermilion no longer looks red but brown; a dull orange tint under the same con- ditions looks like a yellowish-brown. It might be supposed, from what has preceded, that colors would enrich each’other only when separated by a large interval in the chro matic circle, and from a purely physiological point of view this is indeed true; still there are other influences of a more spiritual character at work which modify, and sometimes even reverse, this lower law. Thus the presence of a pale color in a painting near that which is richer often passes unperceived, simply making the impression of a higher degree of illumination. We recognize the representation of a flood of light, and delight in it without finding fault with the pale tints, if only they are laid with decision and knowledge ; again, pale color we delight in as representing the distance of a landscape; the pale greenish-gray,

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eeccee + 16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. bluish-gray, and faint tints of purple, which make it up, we never think of putting into envious competition with the rich, intense colors of the foreground, but enjoy each separately, and rejoice in the effects of at- mosphere and distance which neither alone by itself could adequately render. That is to say, for the sake of light and atmosphere or dis- tance, we gladly sacrifice a large portion of the powerful tints at our disposal and consider ourselves gainers, The same is also true in an- other direction: we are ready to make the same sacrifice for the sake of avoiding monotony and gaining variety, provided only we can justify the. act by a good reason. Cases of this kind often occur in large masses of foliage, which, if of the same general color, are apt in a painting to look monotonous and dull, unless great labor is bestowed in rendering the light and shade and the small differences of tint which actually exist in Nature. Under such circumstances the observer feels a certain relief at the presence of a few groups of foliage, which are decidedly paler in color than the surrounding masses, provided only there is a good excuse for their introduction. Again, the mere contrast of dark or dull tints enhances the color and luminosity of those that are bright, and the observer receives the impression that he is gazing at a mass of gay and beautiful coloring, scarcely noticing the presence of the much larger quantity of tints that are darkened by being in deep shade. These darkened shade-tints are usually not variations of the same hue as the brighter ones, but are more bluish, so that technically these combinations would often present instances of harmful contrast, were it not for the fact that the bright and dull tints do not belong even to the same chromatic circle, but to circles situated in different planes, as explained in the previous chapter. Putting this into more ordinary language, we should say simply that the strong contrast of light and shade masked such effects of harmful color-contrast as were present. There is, however, another case where we are not so indifferent or so lenient: if two objects are placed near each other in a painting, and there is good reason why both should display the same color with equal intensity, if one is painted with rich color, the other with a pale or dark shade of the same color, then the latter will look either washed out or dirty, and a bad effect will be produced. As a familiar illustra- tion of this kind of effect, we may allude to the use in dress of two widely-differing shades of ribbon which have still the same general color. There is a still more general reason upon which the pleasure that we experience from contrast depends: after gazing at large surfaces filled with many varieties of warm color, skillfully blended, we feel a peculiar delight in meeting a few mildly contrasting tints ; they prevent us from being cloyed with all the wealth of rich coloring so lavishly dis- played, and their faint contradiction makes us doubly enjoy the richer portions of the painting. So also when the picture is mainly made up of cool bluish tints ; it is then extraordinarily strengthened and bright- ened by a few touches of warm color.

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EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 17 ; : THE EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. ” By HERBERT SPENCER. ' a VII.—TITLES. l- eo e HE undeveloped human intelligence does not initiate. Adhering y tenaciously to whatever his fathers taught him, the primitive man e deviates into novelty only through unintended modifications. That a which every one now knows holds of languages, that they are not de- D vised but evolve, equally holds of usages. To many proofs of this h the foregoing chapters of this series have added further proofs, 8 The like holds of titles. Looked at as now existing, these appear : ; artificial: there is suggested the idea that they were at some time or ” yo other consciously settled. But this is no more true than it is true that q ; our common words were once consciously settled. Names of objects a . 4 and qualities, and acts, are at first directly or indirectly descriptive ; ; and the names we class as titles are in this respect like all others. Just as the deaf-mute who calls to mind a person he means by mimick- _ ing a peculiarity has no idea of introducing a symbol, so neither has \ the savage, when he recalls a place as the one where the kangaroo was killed or the one where the cliff fell down ; so neither has he when he suggests an individual by referring to some marked trait in his appefir- ance or fact in his life ; and so neither has he when he gives those 3 names, literally descriptive or metaphorically descriptive, which now 4 and again develop into titles. : The very conception of a proper name grew up unawares. The fact that among the uncivilized a child is for years known as “ Thunder- storm,” or “ New Moon,” or “ Father-come-home,” shows us that there was originally nothing more than a reference to an event which oc- curred on its birthday, as a way of raising the thought the particular child meant. And if afterward it gets such a name as “ Squash-head,” or “Dirty-saddle” (Dakota names), this results from spontaneously using an alternative, and sometimes better, means of identification. Evidently the like has happened with such less needful names as titles. These must have differentiated from ordinary proper names, simply by being descriptive of some trait, or some deed, or some function, held in honor. Various savage races give a man a name of renown in addition to, or in place of, the name by which he was previously known, on the occasion of a great achievement in battle. The Tupis furnish a good illustration. ‘“ The founder of the [cannibal] feast took an additional mame as an Honorable remembrance of what had been done, and his female relations ran through the house shouting the new title.” And VOL, XIv.—2

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a A a a ee a ee ee eee i sew 2 a > . s —F f 7 - “ r: ‘ eh. - 18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. of these same people, Hans Stade says: “So many enemies as one of them slays, so many names does he give himself; and those are the no- blest among them who have many such names.” In North America, too, when a young Creek Indian brings his first scalp he is dubbed a man and a warrior, and receives a “ war-name.” Among the more advanced people of ancient Nicaragua, this practice had established a general name for such : they called one who had killed another in battle tapa- lique ; and cabra was an equivalent title given by the Indians of the Isthmus. How descriptive names of honor, thus arising during early mili- tancy, become in some cases official names, we see on comparing evi- dence furnished by two sanguinary and cannibal societies in different stages of advance. In Feejee, “ warriors of rank receive proud titles, such as ‘the divider of’ a district, ‘ the waster of’ a coast, ‘the depopulator of’ an island—the name of the place in question being affixed.” And then in ancient Mexico the names of offices filled by the king’s brothers or nearest relatives were, one of them, “Cutter of men,” and another, “ Shedder of blood.” Where, as among the Feejeeans, the conceived distinction between men and gods is vague, and the formation of new gods by apotheosis of chiefs continues, we find the gods bearing names like those given during their lives to ferocious warriors, “The Woman-stealer,” “the Brain-eater,” “the Murderer,” “ Fresh-from-slaughter,” are naturally such divine titles as arise from descriptive naming among ancestor- worshiping cannibals. That sundry titles of the gods worshiped by superior races have originated in a kindred manner, is implied by the ascription of conquests to them. Be they the Egyptian deities, the Babylonian deities, or the deities of the Greeks, their power is repre- sented as having been gained by battle; and with accounts of their achievements are in some cases joined congruous descriptive names, such as that of Mars—“the Blood-stainer,” and that of the Hebrew god—“the Violent One ;” which, according to Keunen, is the literal interpretation of Shaddai. Very generally among primitive men, instead of the literally de- scriptive name of honor, there is given the metaphorically descriptive name of honor. Of the Tupis, whose ceremony of taking war-names is instanced above, we read that “they selected their appellations from visible objects, pride or ferocity influencing their choice.” How such names, first spontaneously given by applauding companions, and after- ward accorded in some more deliberate way, are apt to be acquired by men of the greatest prowess, and so to become names of rulers, is. sug- gested by what Ximenez tells us respecting the more civilized peoples of Guatemala. Their king’s names enumerated by him are—“ Laugh- ing Tiger,” “Tiger of the Wood,” “Oppressing Eagle,” “Hagle’s Head,” “ Strong Snake,” etc. Throughout savage Africa there is a like

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5 .* + a 7, q ek a ® EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. ig ‘ genesis of royal titles. The King of Ashantee has among his glorifying names “ Lion ” and “Snake.” In Dahomey, titles thus derived are made superlative : the king is “the Lion of Lions.” And in a kindred spirit the King of Usambara is called “Lion of Heaven :” a title whence, should this king undergo apotheosis, myths of sundry kinds may nat- urally result. From Zulu-land, along with evidence of the same thing, there comes an illustration of the way in which names of honor derived from imposing objects, animate and inanimate, are joined with names of honor otherwise derived, and pass into certain of those forms of ad- dress lately dealt with. The titles of the king are—“ The noble ele- phant,” “Thou who art forever,” “Thou who art as high as the heay- ens,” “Thou who begettest the men,” “The black one,” “Thou who art the bird who eats other birds,” ‘‘ Thou who art as high as the mountains,” ‘‘ Thou who art the peacemaker,” etc. Shooter shows us how these Zulu titles are used, by quoting part of a speech addressed to the king—“ You mountain, you lion, you tiger, you that are black. There is none equal to you.” Further, there is proof that names of honor thus originating pass into titles applied to the position oecupied, rather than to the occupant considered personally ; for Shooter says that a Caffre chief's wife “is called the Elephantess, while his great wife is called the Lioness.” ‘ Guided by such clews we cannot miss the inference that the use of animal-names as names of honor, traceable in the records of extinct historic races, similarly arose. If we find that now in Madagascar one of the king’s titles is ‘‘ Mighty Bull,” and are reminded by this that to the conquering Rameses a like laudatory name is given by defeated foes, we can scarcely avoid suspecting that, from animal-names thus given to kings, there result the animal-names given as names of honor to deities; so that Apis in Egypt becomes an equivalent for Osiris and the Sun, and so that Bull similarly becomes an equivalent for the con- quering hero and Sun-god Indra. With titles derived from imposing natural objects and powers, it is the same. We have seen how among the Zulus the hyperbolic compli- ment to the king—‘ Thou art as high as the mountains ”—passes from the form of a simile into the form of a metaphor when he is addressed as “you Mountain.” And that the metaphorical name thus used some- times becomes a proper name, proof comes to us from Samoa, where “the chief of Pango-Pango being now Maunga, or Mountain, that name must never be used in his presence.” There. is evidence that among the ruder. ancestor-worshipers divine titles are similarly de- rived. The Chinooks and Navajos and Mexicans in North America, and the Peruvians in South America, regard certain mountains as gods; and since these gods have other names, the implication is that in each case an apotheosized man had received in honor either the general name Mountain, or the name of a particular mountain, as has happened in New-Zealand. From complimentary comparisons to the sun, there re-

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“ Te PR RO A PO BE EE OO OO A RE Oil i A PR TIE se se DARN AE I 0 ght ay — ee 2 hy Sa yi ‘ f 4 ee tet . ‘ “al ee ee ee - =e 20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. . sult not only personal names of honor and divine names, but also official titles. On reading that the Mexicans distinguished Cortes as “ the off- spring of the Sun,” that the Chibchas called the Spaniards in general “children of the Sun,” and that in Tlascala Alvarado was named by the people “Sun ”—on reading that “Child of the Sun” was the com- plimentary name often given to any one particularly clever in Peru, where the Incas, regarded as descendants of the Sun, successively en- joyed a title hence derived—we are enabled to understand how “ Son of the Sun” came to be a title borne by the successive Egyptian kings, which was joined with proper names individually distinctive of them, And remembering how in Egypt, along with elaborate ancestor-worship, there went worship of living kings, we shall have no difficulty in see- ing that as the kings, besides the solar title borne in common by them, took from the same original such special titles as “the Sun becoming victorious,” “the Sun orderer of Creation,” etc., there naturally result- ed, among their gods arising by apotheosis, solar titles similarly special- ized; as “the Cause of Heat,” “the Author of Light,” “the Power of the Sun,” “the Vivifying Cause,” “the Sun in the Firmament,” and “the Sun in his Resting-place.” Given, then, the metaphorically-descriptive name and we have the germ from which grew up these primitive titles of honor; which, at first individual titles, become in some cases titles attaching to the offices filled. To say that the words which in various languages are the equiva- lents of our word “God,” are originally descriptive words, will be a startling proposition to those who, unfamiliar with the facts, credit the savage with thoughts like our own; and will be a repugnant proposi- tion to those who, knowing something of the facts, yet persist in as- serting that the conception of a universal creative power was possessed by man from the beginning. But whoever studies the evidence without bias will find proof that the general word for deity was at first simply a word expressive of superiority. Among the Feejeeans the name is ap- plicable to anything great or marvelous; among the Malagasy to what- ever is new, useful, or extraordinary ; among the Todas to everything mysterious—so that, as Marshall says, “it is truly an adjective noun of eminence.” Applied alike to animate and inanimate things, as indicat- ing some quality above the common, the word is in this sense applied to human beings, both living and dead; .but as the dead are supposed to have acquired mysterious powers of doing good and evil to the liv- ing, the word comes to be more especially applicable to them. Though ghost and god have with us widely-distinguished meanings, yet they are originally equivalent words ; or rather, originally, there is but one word for the supernatural being. Besides being shown this by mis- sionaries who have found no native word for god which did not also mean ghost, demon, or devil ; besides being shown this by the Greeks

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EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 2, and Romans, who used for the spirits of deceased relatives the same word which they used for their great deities ; and besides being shown it by the Egyptians, in whose hieroglyphics the same “ determinative ” means, according to the context, god, ancestor, august person—we are shown it by the Hebrews, who applied the word elohim not only to their supreme supernatural being but also to ghosts: indeed, giving as they did this same name to living persons of power, they show us, just as primitive peoples at large do, that superiority of one or other kind is the sole attribute ascribed. And since in early belief the other-self of the dead man is equally visible and tangible with the living man, so that it may be slain, drowned, or otherwise killed a second time; since the resemblance is such that it is difficult to learn what is the dif- ference between a god and a chief among the Feejeeans; since the in- stances of theophany in the “ Iliad” prove that the Greek god, capable of being wounded by men’s weapons, was in all respects so like a man that special insight was required to discriminate him—we see how nat- urally it results that the title “god,” given to a powerful being com- monly thought of as invisible, is often given to a visible powerful being : the title being applied under the belief that he may be the other-self of some dreaded man come back, even if it is not applied be- cause of his natural superiority. Indeed, as-a sequence of this theory, it almost inevitably happens that men transcending in capacity those around them are suspected to be these returned ghosts or gods, to whom unusual powers are ordinarily ascribed. Hence the fact that Europeans, considered as the doubles of their own deceased people, are called ghosts by Australians, New-Caledonians, Darnley-Islanders, Kroomen, Calabar people, Mpongwe, etc. Hence the fact that they are called by the alternative name gods by Bushmen, Bechuanas, East Af- ricans, Fulahs, Khonds, Feejeeans, Dyaks, ancient Mexicans, Chibchas, etc, Hence the fact that, using the word in the sense above explained, superior men among uncivilized peoples occasionally call themselves gods; as do the palas, a kind of priests among the Todas, and as do some chiefs among the New-Zealanders and among the Feejeeans. The original meaning and application of the word being thus under- stood, we need feel no surprise on finding “God” used as a title of honor. The King of Loango is so called by his subjects, Battel tells us; and Krapf says the like of the King of Msambara. At the present time among wandering Arabs, the name “God” is applied in no other sense than as the generic name of the most powerful living ruler known to them. This makes more credible than it might otherwise be, the state- ment that the Grand Lama, personally worshiped by the Tartars, is called by them “God, the Father.” It is in harmony with such other facts as that Radama, King of Madagascar, is addressed by the women who sing his praises as “‘O our God ;” and that to the Dahoman king the alternative word “ Spirit” is used; so that, when he summons any one, the messenger says, “The Spirit requires you,” and when he has

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22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. spoken, all exclaim, “The Spirit speaketh true.” All which facts make comprehensible that assumption of Oed¢ as a title by ancient kings in the East which is to moderns so astonishing. Descent of this name of honor into ordinary intercourse, though not common, does sometimes occur. After what has been said above, it will not appear strange that it should be applied to deceased persons; as, according to Motolinia, it was by the ancient Mexicans, whd “ called any of their dead ¢eotl so and so—i.e., this or that god, this or that saint.” And prepared by such an instance we shall understand the better its occasional use as a greeting between the living. Colonel Yule says of the Kasias, “The salutation at meeting is singular— ‘Kublé! O God!’” _ The connection between “God” as a title and “ Father” as a title becomes clear only on going back to those early forms of conception and language in which the two are undifferentiated. The fact that, even in so developed a language as Sanskrit, words which mean “ making,” “fabricating,” “ begetting,” or “ generating,” are indiscriminately used for the same purpose, suggests how naturally in the primitive mind the living father, as begetter or visible causer of new beings, becoming at death a causer of new beings who is no longer visible, is associated in word and thought with dead and imvisible causers at large, who, some of them acquiring preéminence, come to be regarded as causers in general —makers or creators. When Sir Rutherford Alcock remarks that “a spurious mixture of the theocratic and patriarchal elements forms the bases of all government, both in the Celestial and the Japanese Empires, under emperors who claim not only to be each the patriarch and father of his people, but also divine descent,” he adds one to the many mis- interpretations produced by descending from our high conceptions, in- stead of ascending from the low conceptions of the primitive man. For what he thinks a “ spurious mixture ” of ideas is, in fact, a normal union of ideas; which, in the cases named, has persisted longer than common- ly happens in developed societies. The Zulus show us this union very clearly. They have traditions of Unkulunkulu (literally, the old, old one), “who was the first man,” “who came into being and begat man,” “ who gave origin to man and everything besides” (including the sun, moon, and heavens), and who is inferred to have been a black man because all his descendants are black. The original Unkulunkulu is not worshiped by them because he is supposed to be permanently dead ; but instead of him the Unkulun- kulus of the various tribes into which his descendants have divided are severally worshiped, and severally called “ Father.” Here, then, the ideas of a Creator and a Father are directly connected. Equally spe- cific, or even more specific, are the kindred ideas conveyed in the an- swers which the ancient Nicaraguans gave to the question, “ Who made heaven and earth?” After their first answers, “ Tamagastad and Cipat-

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EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 23 toval,” ‘our great gods whom we call teotes,” cross-examination brought out the further answers—‘ Our fathers are these teotes ;” “all men and women descend from them ;” “they are of flesh and are man and woman ;” “they walked over the earth dressed, and ate what the Indians ate.” Gods and first parents being thus identified, fatherhood and divinity become allied ideas. The remotest ancestor supposed to be still existing in the other world to which he went, the creator of his descendants, “the old, old one,” or “ancient of days,” becomes the chief deity; and so “father” is not, as we suppose, a metaphorical equivalent for “god,” but a literal equivalent. Therefore it happens that among all nations we find it an alternative title. In the before-quoted prayer of the New-Caledonian to the ghost of his ancestor—‘* Compassionate father, here is some food for you; eat it; be kind to us on account of it”—we are shown that original identi- fication of fatherhood and godhood to which all mythologies and theolo- gies carry us back. We see the naturalness of the facts that the Peru- vian Incas worshiped their father the Sun; that Ptah, the first of the dynasty of the gods who ruled Egypt, is called “the father of the father of the gods ;” and that Zeus is “ father of gods and men.” After contemplating these early beliefs in which the divine and the human are so little distinguished, or after studying the beliefs still ex- tant in China and Japan, where the rulers, “sons of heaven,” claim descent from these most ancient fathers or gods, it is easy to see how the name father, in its higher sense, comes to be applied to a living potentate. His proximate and remote ancestors being all spoken of as fathers, distinguished only by the prefixes grand, great-great, etc., it results that the name father, given to every member of the series, comes to be given to the last of the series still living. With this cause is joined a further cause. Where establishment of descent in the male line has initiated the patriarchal family, the name father, even in its original meaning, comes to be associated with supreme authority, and to be there- fore a name of honor. Indeed, in nations formed by the compounding and recompounding of patriarchal groups, the two causes coalesce. The remotest known ancestor of each compounding group, at once the most ancient father and the god of the compound group, being continuously represented in blood, as well as in power, by the eldest descendant of the eldest, it happens that this patriarch, who is head not of his own group only but also of the compound group, stands to both in a relation analogous to that in which the apotheosized ancestor stands ; and so com- bines in a measure the divine power, the paternal power, and the kingly power. Hence the prevalence of this word as a royal title. It is used equally by American Indians and by New-Zealanders in addressing the rulers of the civilized. We find it in Africa. Of the various names for the king among the Zulus, the name father heads the list; and in Daho- mey, when the king walked from the throne to the palace, “every in-

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24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. equality was pointed out, with finger-snappings, lest it might offend the royal toe, and a running accompaniment of ‘ Dadda! dadda!’ (Grand- father! grandfather!) and of ‘Dedde! dedde!’ (softly! softly!) was kept up.” In Asia, we find cases in which the titles “Lord Raja and Lord Father” are joined together. In Europe, at the present time, father is applied to the czar ; and in ancient times, under the form sire, it was the common name for potentates of various grades—feudal lords and kings ; and still continues to be one of the names used in address- ing a monarch." More readily than usual, perhaps from its double meaning, has this title been diffused. Everywhere we find it becoming the name for any kind of superior. Not to the king only among the Zulus is the word “baba,” father, used; but also by inferiors of all ranks to those above them. In Dahomey a slave applies this name to his master, as his master applies it to the king. And Livingstone narrates how he was referred to as “our father” by his attendants, as also was Burchell by the Bachassins. It was the same of old in the East; as when “his ser- vants came near, and spake unto Naaman, and said, My father,” etc.; and it is the same in the remote East at the present time. A Japanese “apprentice addresses his patron as ‘father.’” In Siam “children of the nobles are called ‘father and mother’ by their subordinates ;” and Huc narrates how he saw Chinese laborers prostrating themselves be- fore a mandarin, exclaiming, “Peace and happiness to our father and mother!” Then, as a stage in the descent to more general use, may be noted its extension to those who, apart from their rank, have acquired the superiority ascribed to age: a superiority sometimes taking prece- dence of rank, as in Siam, and in certain ways in Japan and China. Such extension occurred in ancient Rome, where pater was at once a magis- terial title and a title given by the younger to the elder, though not re- lated ; and in Russia, at the present time, the equivalent word is used to the czar, to a priest, and to any aged man. Eventually it spreads to young as well as old. Under the form sire, at first applied to feudal rulers, major and minor, the title of father originated our familar sir ; once general among us in speech and still in letters. A curious group of derivatives, common among uncivilized and semi- civilized peoples, must be named. The wish to compliment by ascrib- ing that dignity which fatherhood implies, has in many places led to the practice of replacing a man’s proper name by a name which, while it recalls this honorable paternity, distinguishes him by the name of his 1 Though the disputes respecting the origins of sire and siewr have ended in the con- clusion that they are derived from the same root, meaning originally elder, yet it has be- come ¢lear that sire was a contracted form in use earlier than siewr (the contracted form of seigneur), and hence acquired a more general meaning, which became equivalent to father. Its applicability to various persons of dignity besides the seigneur, is evidence of its previous evolution and spread ; and that it had a meaning equivalent to father, is shown by the fact that in early French grant-sire is used as an equivalent for grand-pére, and also by the fact that sire was not applicable to an unmarried man.

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EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 25 child. The Malays, says St. John, have “the same custom as the Dyaks of taking the name of their first-born, as Pa Sipi, the father of Sipi.” Marsden names the usage as common in Sumatra; and Ellis illustrates it from Madagascar. It is so too among some Indian hill- tribes : the Kasias “‘ address each other by the names of their children, as Pabobon, father of Bobon!” Africa also furnishes instances, Be- chuanas addressing Mr. Moffat used to say, “I speak to the father of Mary ;” and in the Pacific States of North America there are people so solicitous to bear this primitive name of honor that, until a young man has children, his dog stands to him in the position of a son, and he is known as the father of his dog. The supremacy associated with age in patriarchal groups and in so- cieties derived by composition from patriarchal groups, shown primarily in that honoring of parents which, as in the Jewish commandments, is put next to the worship of God, and secondarily in the honoring of old men in general, gives rise to a kindred but divergent group of titles. Age being dignified, words indicating seniority become names of dignity. The beginnings may be discerned among the uncivilized : councils being formed of the older men, there arises a connection between the local name for an older man and an office of power and therefore of honor. Merely noting this, it will suffice if we trace among European peoples the growth of titles hence resulting. Among the Romans, senator, or member of the senatus, words having the same root with senex, was the name for a member of the assembly of elders ; and in early times these senators or elders, otherwise called patres, represented the component tribes : father and elder being thus used as equivalents. From the further cognate word senior, we have, in derived languages, signore, seigneur, senhor ; first applied to head-men, rulers, or lords, and then by diffusion becoming names of honor for those of inferior rank. The same thing has happened with ealdor or aldor. This, says Max Miller, “like many other titles of rank in the various Teutonic tongues, is derived from an adjective implying age;” so that “ earl” and “alderman,” both diverging from this root, are names of honor, similarly resulting from that social superiority which went along with Whether or not the German title Graf should be added, is a moot point. If Max Miller is right in considering the objections of Grimm to the current interpretation inadequate, then the word originally means gray; that is, gray-headed. We may deal briefly with the remaining titles which reillustrate, in their respective ways, the general principle set forth. Like other names of honor that grew up in very early times, the name “king” is one concerning the formation of which there are dif- ferences of opinion. By general agreement, however, its remote source

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26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, is the Sanskrit ganaka ; and “in Sanskrit, ganaka means producing, parent, then king.” If this is the true derivation, we have simply an alternative title for the head of the family group, of the patriarcha] group, and the cluster of patriarchal groups. The only further fact respecting it calling for remark is the way in which it becomes com- pounded to produce a higher title. Just as in Hebrew Abram, meaning “high father,” came to be a compound used to signify the fatherhood and headship of many minor groups; and just as the Greek and Latin equivalents to our patriarch signified, by implication if not directly, a father of fathers—so in the case of the title “king” it has happened that a potentate recognized as dominant over numerous potentates has in many cases been descriptively called “king of kings.” In Abyssinia this compound royal name is used down to the present time ; ancient Egyptian monarchs assumed it; and it occurred also as a supreme title in Assyria. And here again we meet a correspondence between terres- trial and celestial titles. As “father” and “king” are applied in com- mon to the visible and to the invisible ruler, so also is “king of kings.” , This need for marking by a distinct or additional name the ruler who becomes head of many rulers leads to the introduction of other titles of honor. In France, for example, while the king was but a predominant feudal noble, he was addressed by the title of sire, which was a title borne by feudal nobles in general; but after the middle of the sixteenth century, when his supremacy became settled, the word “ majesty ” came into use as distinctively applicable to him. Similarly with the names of secondary potentates. In the earlier stages of the feudal period, the titles baron, marquis, duke, and count, were often confounded: the reason being that their attributes as feudal nobles, as guards of the marches, as military leaders, and as friends of the king, were so far common to them as to yield no clear grounds for distinction. But as the differentiation of functions progressed, these titles differentiated in their meanings. “The name ‘ baron,’” says Chéruel, “ appears to have been the generic term for every kind of great lord, that of duke for every kind of military chief, that of count and marquis for every ruler of a territory. These titles are used almost indiscriminately in the romances of chivalry. When the feudal hier- archy was constituted the name baron denoted a lord inferior in rank to a count and superior to a simple knight.” That is to say, with the progress of political organization, and the establishment of rulers over rulers, certain titles became specialized for the dignifying of the superiors, in addition to those which they had in common with the inferiors. As is shown by the above cases, special titles, like general ones, are not made, but grow—they are at first descriptive. Further to exem- plify this descriptive origin, and also to exemplify the undifferentiated use of titles in early days, let me enumerate the several styles by which,

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e-ob& o al ‘ "vv r Fe we Oe OG EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 27 in the Merovingian period, the mayors of the palace were known, viz. : major domds regia, senior domds, princeps domds, and in other in- stances prepositus, prafectus, rector, gubernator, moderator, dux, cus- tos, subregulus. In which list (noting as we pass how our own title “mayor,” said to be derived from the French maire, is originally de- rived from the Latin major, meaning either greater or elder) we are shown how further names of honor carry us back to words implying age as their originals; and how in place of these descriptive words the alternative words used are descriptive of functions. Perhaps better in the case of titles than in any other case is illus- trated the diffusion of ceremonial forms that are used to propitiate first the most powerful, then the less powerful, and, finally, all others. Uncivilized and semi-civilized peoples, civilized peoples of past times, and existing civilized peoples, all furnish examples. Among Samoans “it is usual, in the courtesies of common conversation, for all to call each other chiefs. If you listen to the talk of little boys even, you will hear them addressing each other as chief this, that, and the other thing.” In Siam, a man’s children by any of his inferior wives address their father as “‘ my lord, the king;” and the word Nat, which is the name for chief among the Siamese, “ has become a term of ciyil- ity which the Siamese give to one another.” A kindred result has occurred in China, where sons speak of their father as “family’s majes- ty,” “prince of the family;” and China supplies a further instance, which is the more noteworthy because it is special. Here, where the supremacy of ancient teachers became so great, and where the titles tze or futze, signifying “ great teacher,” added to their names, were subse- quently added to the names of distinguished writers, and where class distinctions based on intellectual eminence characterize the social or- ganization, it has resulted that this name of honor, signifying teacher, has become an ordinary complimentary title. Ancient Rome furnishes other evidences. The spirit which led to the diffusion of titles is well exhibited by Mommsen in describing the corrupt giving of public tri- umphs that were originally accorded only to a “supreme magistrate who augmented the power of the state in open battle.” “In order to put an end to peaceful triumphators, . . . the granting of a triumph was made to depend on the producing proof of a pitched battle which had cost the lives of at least five thousand of the enemy ; but this proof was fre- quently evaded by false builetins. . . . Formerly the thanks of the community once for all had sufficed for service rendered to the state; now every meritori- ous act seemed: to demand a permanent distinction. . . . A custom came into vogue, by which the victor and his descendants derived a permanent surname from the victories they had won. . . . The example set by the higher was fol- lowed by the humbler classes.” And under the influence thus illustrated, dominus and rex eventually became titles used to ordinary persons. Nor do modern European na-

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28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. tions fail to exemplify the process. The prevalence of names of rank on the Continent, often remarked, reaches in some places great extremes, In Mecklenburg, says Captain Spencer, “ it is computed that the nobil- ity include one-half of the population. . . . At one of the inns I found a Herr Graf [count] for a landlord, a Frau Griifin [countess] for a land- lady, the young Herren Grafen filled the places of hostler, waiter, and boots, while the fair young Friulein Griifinnen were the cooks and chambermaids, Iwas informed that in one village . . . . the whole of the inhabitants were noble except four.” French history shows us more clearly perhaps than any other the stages of diffusion. Just noting that in early days, while madame was the title for a noble lady, mademoiselle was used to the wife of an ad- vocate or physician, and that when, in the sixteenth century, madame descended to the married women of these middle ranks, mademoiselle descended from them to the unmarried women, let us look more espe- cially at the masculine titles sire, seigneur, sieur, and monsieur. Set- ting out. with sire, as an early title for a feudal noble, we find, from a remark of Montaigne, that in 1580, though still applicable in a higher sense to the king, it had descended to the vulgar, and was not used for intermediate grades. Seigneur, introduced later as a feudal title, while sire was losing its meaning by diffusion, and for a period used alterna- tively with it, became, in course of time, contracted into sieur. By- and-by sieur also began to spread to those of lower rank. Afterward, retstablishing a distinction by an emphasizing prefix, there came into use monsieur ; which, as applied to great seigneurs, was new in 1321, and which came also to be the title of sons of kings and dukes, And then by the time that monsieur also had become a general title among the upper classes, siewr had become a bourgeois title. Since which time, by the same process, the early sire and the later sieur, dying out, . have been replaced by the universal monsieur. So that there appear to have been three waves of diffusion: sire, siewr, and monsieur, have successively spread downward. How by this process high titles eventually descend to the very low- est, we are shown most startlingly in Spain, where “even beggars ad- dress each other as Sefior y Caballero—Lord and Knight.” For form’s sake, though scarcely otherwise, it is needful to point out how we are taught here the same lesson as before. The title-giving among savages which follows victory over a foe, brute or human, and which literally or metaphorically distinguishes the individual by his achievement, unquestionably originates in militancy. Though the more general names father, king, lord, elder, and their derivatives, which afterward arise, aré not directly militant in their implications, yet they are indirectly so; for they are the names of rulers evolved by militant activity, who habitually exercise militant functions: being in early stages always the commanders of their subjects in battle. Dawn to

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oo, Se Cs wae ae ar en hy oj ‘ i Pa. EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 29 our most familiar titles we have this genesis implied. “Esquire” and “ Mister” are derived the one from the name of a knight’s attendant and the other from the name magister—originally a ruler or chief, who was a military head by origin and a civil head by development. As in other cases, comparisons of societies of different types disclose this relation in another way. Remarking that in sanguinary and des- potic Dahomey the personal name “can hardly be said to exist; it changes with every rank of the holder,” Burton says : “ The dignities seem to be interminable; except among the slaves and the canaille, ‘handles’ are the rule, not the exception, and most of them are he- reditary.” So, too, under Oriental despotisms. “The name of every Burman,” says Yule, “ disappears when he gets a title of rank or office, and is heard no more;” and in China “there are twelve orders of nobility, conferred solely on the members of the imperial house or clan,” besides “the five ancient orders of nobility.” In Europe it is the same, Travelers in both Russia and Germany, with their social organizations subordinated to the purposes of war, comment on the “insane rage for titles of every description :” the results being that in Russia “ a police- office clerk belongs to the eighteenth grade, and has the right to the title of Your Honor ;” while in Germany the names of ranks and names of office, so abundantly distributed, are habitually expected and studi- ously given, in both speech and writing. Meanwhile England, for ages past less militant in type of structure, has ever shown. this trait in a smaller degree; and along with the recent growth of industrialism and accompanying changes of organization, the use of titles in social inter- course has greatly decreased. With equal clearness is this connection shown within each society. Names of honor pertain to members of that regulative organization which militancy originates. By the thirteen grades in our army and the fourteen grades in our navy, we are shown that the exclusively militant structures still continue to be characterized in the highest de- gree by numerous and specific titular marks, To the ruling classes, descendants or representatives of those who in past times were heads of military forces, the higher distinctions of rank still mostly belong ; and of remaining higher titles, the ecclesiastical and legal are also associated with the regulative organization, Meanwhile the producing and exchanging parts of the society, carrying on industrial activities, only in exceptional cases bear any titles beyond those which, descend- ing and spreading, have almost lost their meanings. It is indisputable, then, that, serving first to commemorate the triumphs of savages over their foes, titles have expanded, multiplied, and differentiated, as conquest has formed larger societies by consolida- tion and reconsolidation of small ones ; and that, belonging to the type of social structure generated by habitual war, they tend to lose their meanings, their uses, and their values, in proportion as this structure is replaced by one fitted for carrying on the pursuits of peace.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS, By W. K. BROOKS. * aves original investigator of Nature soon learns by constant expe- rience that descriptions or even drawings, however correct, do not exactly represent the objects themselves, but are imperfect and ideal abstractions. This is true, to a greater or less extent, of every draw- ing of the simplest organ or tissue, and of every description of a species or genus of animals or plants; but it is especially and most emphati- cally true of all attempts at definitions of the larger and more compre- hensive groups of organisms. A definition of such a group as an order or class of animals, attempt- ing as it does to state in a few words the characteristics which are com- mon to all the forms included, is necessarily abstract, and may not, in fact cannot, be exactly embodied in any one individual of the whole group. Then, too, certain characteristics which are exhibited by only one or two aberrant forms, and are accordingly not characteristic of the group as a whole, may be emitted from the definition, although they furnish the clew to the relationship with allied groups, and are therefore of the utmost importance. An illustration which is not drawn from the organic world may make this more evident. The fact that printed books have followed and are a perfected form of the parchment manuscripts of the middle ages is shown by the ornamental initial letters, imitations of the illuminated letters of the manuscripts, which are placed at the heads of the chapters of a few books. Not- withstanding their significance, these initial letters would not find a place in any definition or general description of a modern book, As a consequence of this inevitable lack of agreement between natural objects and their definitions, all knowledge of Nature is of very little value unless it is based upon a direct personal acquaintance with Nature itself. How different, for instance, will be that conception of such a group as the Cclenterata, which is formed by the study of a short, definite, verbal description, from the idea in the mind of the student whose knowledge of the group as a whole has been acquired gradually by the study and comparison of the various forms of life which it includes ! Definitions are valuable and indispensable aids to study, and, as long as their necessary lack of agreement with the reality is kept in mind, they can do no harm; but the history of science warns us to be con- stantly on our guard, lest distinctions which seem to be sharp and ab- solute, when stated in words, come to be regarded as having as real an existence in Nature as in words, and we thus come, in the words of Bacon, to exchange “things for words, reason for insanity, and the world fora fable.”

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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS, 31 The tenacity with which many thinkers still cling to a belief in the reality and absoluteness of such distinctions as those expressed by the terms “organic and inorganic,” “living and dead,” “animal and vege- table,” “rational and instinctive,” etc., is plainly the result of this ten- dency to attribute to Nature the exactness of words. The terms animal and plant were not established as the result of scientific and thorough study and comparison, but were first introduced to give expression to the most superficial and obvious difference be- tween living things. Originally an animal was a living thing which could move and feel, and a plant one which could not; and this is still the popular view, although the scientific definitions are quite different. As soon as prim- itive man began to observe and to generalize and to use abstract words, one of the first generalizations which attracted his attention was that, of the bodies which were of most importance to him, and like him grew up, matured, and died, some were still more like himself in having the power to move and feel, while others lacked this power, and were fixed and insensible. We do not intend to imply that this gener- alization took this definite shape, but simply that it was reached and put into words at a very early period; and this is shown by the fact that in nearly all languages, and among all but the lowest races of men, this division of living things into two great groups is recognized, and definite words are employed to distinguish the animal from the vegetable organism. At a later period, when living things came to be more carefully studied, and superficial observation gave place to more exact and careful comparison, these two groups were found to have a real existence in Nature; and, as long as this study was confined to the more familiar, abundant, and easily-studied organisms, the increase of scientific knowledge only served to render the distinctness of the two groups more evident, It was soon found that all the common plants are alike in many other respects besides being fixed and insensible, and that all ordinary animals have many common characteristics, and it was found convenient to express these resemblances briefly and absolutely in definitions, and thus the terms animal and plant came to have a more and more @##@t and scientific value. It was seen, too, that all living things havé much in common, and that the chief difference be- tween plants and animals is the possession by the latter of the new properties of sensation and voluntary motion, added to those character- istics which they share with the plants. It is not at all strange that it was thought desirable to express this fact by a word, and that, in the same way that living things were said to differ from inorganic bodies by having, in addition to all the properties of the latter, a new and higher quality, vitality, animals were said to possess the new and higher faculties of feeling and will, in addition to all the faculties of the plant. Thus was gradually built up that conception of Nature which re-

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32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. gards the three kingdoms—the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal— as three successive steps in an ascending series, each being supposed to have all the properties and characteristics of the groups below it, and something new and entirely different in addition. This conception admits of such brief and definite statement, and when put into words is so clear and simple, that its general acceptance is quite natural; and we need not be surprised that it only gives way very slowly in favor of a view which does not admit of the same definite and simple formn- lation. We will. now examine the reasons which have led modern thinkers to reject this view, and to hold that, real and actual as the differences between animals and plants are, they are by no means absolute, The most conspicuous and superficial difference between animals and plants is the one which we have already noticed. Animals have the power of free locomotion and of independent action, which is deter- mined within the animal; these powers are called into action by changes in the external world, and imply the existence of sensation and con- sciousness. In all the ordinary plants the power of locomotion is lack- ing, and there are no voluntary actions like those which result from the sensitiveness of the animal. This difference finds its expression in the well-known dictum of Linnzus: “ Plante vivunt; animalia vivunt et sentiunt ;” and upon it is based the classification of the functions and organs of the animal as those of vegetative and those of animal life, Those functions which are carried on independently of the will, and are not influenced directly by changes in the external world—digestion, assimilation, secretion, circulation, and reproduction, for example—are called the vegetative functions of the body ; while those of reiation, such as sensation and voluntary motion, are called, in contradistinction, the functions of animal life. The difference which has led to the general acceptance and current use of these and many similar expressions is real, as far as the higher and more familiar animals and plants are concerned, but, with the growth of our knowledge of the lower forms of life, the necessity for expansion and modification of the definition of both groups becomes apparent, Many of the lower animals, such as the hydroids and sponges, as well as many highly-organized animals, like the tunicates and oysters, lack the power of locomotion; and, on the other hand, many of the lower plants are quite actively locomotive. Certain plants which are by no means low are quite sensitive to external changes, and the actions by which they respond to these changes in the Venus’s-flytrap, for in- stance. give quite as good proofs of the existence of volition as are afforded by the actions of many of the lower animals. Another superficial and easily-recognized distinction between ani- mals and plants is afforded by the contrast in general form and struct- ure; this, iike the first, is real, as long as our attention is restricted to the higher forms of the two groups. In the animal we find a sharply

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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 33 and definitely limited body, within which is a complicated mass of viscera, while in the plant the physiological equivalents of these, the nutritive and respiratory organs, are distributed in areas of consider- able extent over the diffused and indefinite outer surface of the body. In the animal the absorbent surfaces of these organs are internal; in the plant, external. In nearly all the higher animals there is a mouth- opening, through which solid as well as liquid food may pass into the digestive cavity, which is furnished with specialized glandular append- ages, such as the salivary glands, liver, etc. Within the digestive tract the food is elaborated and prepared for digestion and digested, and the indigestible refuse is discharged from the body through a defi- nite anal opening. The nitrogenous products of decomposition are excreted from the body, usually in solution, by definite urinary organs, There is a muscular pulsating heart, by which the nutritive fluid or blood is propelled through blood-vessels with definite walls, and respi- ration is effected almost entirely by definite limited organs which are usually internal. The animal also has internal reproductive organs, as well as a nervous system and organs of sensation. In the plants those organs which exist at all are present in a much simpler form. The roots absorb nutritive matter through their sur- faces, usually as a fluid, and the surfaces of the leaves are the respira- tory organs, absorbing and giving off gases. The complicated system of internal organs, so characteristic of the animal, is entirely wanting in the plant, and the internal substance of the latter is made up of a comparatively homogeneous parenchyma of cells and tubes, through which the fluids circulate. The reproductive elements are not formed in limited local internal glands, but externally, and there are no nerves or sense-organs. This distinction is diagnostic but not perfectly characteristic ; that is, we may safely classify as an animal any organism in which we find a definite, sharply-limited body, and complicated internal viscera, such as a digestive tract, respiratory organs, blood-vessels, internal reproduc- tive organs, and a nervous system and sense-organs ; while we may, with almost equal safety, refer to the vegetable kingdom an organism in which the nervous, sensory, and circulating organs are wanting, and the processes of absorption and respiration take place through the outer surface, This distinction is therefore diagnostic, for it enables us to determine, with considerable certainty, to which of the two groups a given organism is to be referred ; but it is not characteristic, and cannot be made the basis of an absolute definition, for it gradually disappears as we study the lower animals and plants. As a matter of fact, each one of the peculiarities given above as distinctive of animals will be found lacking in organisms the animal nature of which is un- doubted, and many animals will be found to want all of them. Even among the vertebrates the organs of respiration,are greatly simplified in the lower forms. In the adult frog the skin aids the lungs in aérating VOL. XIvV.—3

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34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. the blood, and is so thin and delicate, and so richly supplied: with blood-vessels, that, when moistened, it readily admits of the interchange of gases. During the breeding-season the abdomen of the female is so distended by eggs that there is no room for the inflation of the lungs, and respiration is entirely carried on through the skin, ~~ In those marine and aquatic animals of small size whose bodies are not covered by impervious shells, respiration may take place, as in plants, over the whole surface of the body ; and in many groups, the larger and protected members of which are furnished with highly- specialized respiratory organs, these organs may be entirely wanting in the smaller naked forms. This is the case, for instance, with many of the naked mollusks. In place of a closed system of vessels for the circulation of the blood, this fluid may, in parts of its course, find its way through the spaces among the viscera, and in the Tunicata a pulsating heart keeps in motion a hemal fluid, which is nowhere confined by distinct blood- vessels, but fiils and circulates through all the intra-visceral spaces of the body. In most mollusks, again, the musculur movements of the various parts of the soft body aid the heart in maintaining the cireu- lation ; and in the Polyzoa both vessels and heart are lacking, and. the movements of the blood are due to muscular contractions, aided in many cases by cilia. ‘ The salivary glands are frequently wanting in marine animals ; the water swallowed with the food taking the place of saliva. The liver and other appendages to the digestive tract are wanting in many of the lower animals, and a parasitic life may entirely do away with the need for them, even in an animal which belongs to a highly-specialized group, The ordinary gasteropod mollusks have digestive organs which are almost as highly specialized as those of a vertebrate ; but “ entocon- cha,” a strange parasitic gasteropod, has no jaws or teeth, no salivary glands or liver, no anus, or any other specialized appendage to the digestive cavity, which is a simple pouch, which is not divided into cesophagus, stomach, and intestine, and the animal lives inside the body cavity of a holothurian, attached to the wall of its stomach, and is nourished by the fluids which it sucks from the digestive cavity of its host, In the sponges and hydroids there is no digestive cavity distinct from the body cavity, and the food is received directly into the latter, Even the mouth is wanting in many parasitic worms, and the liquid food is absorbed through the outer surface of the body, precisely as in plants, and some parasites put forth root-like processes which penetrate the tissues of the host and absorb its juices. The nervous system and organs of special sense are wanting in many of the lower animals, and in the fresh-water hydra the reproduc- tive organs are not formed in specialized internal glands at definite points, but resemble those of plants in making their appearance at many points upon the surface of the body.

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| er + EE EE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 345 Many of the lower animals resemble plants in their mode of growth, as well as in simplicity of structure; the colonies or clusters of the compound hydroids, and the coral-making polyps, are very plant-like, and, as they also lack the power of locomotion, their animal nature was for a long time disputed, and they were classified as plants. However much the body of one of the higher animals differs in gen- eral form and structure from that of one of the higher plants, it is in, from the facts which we have pointed out, that the two groups cannot be absolutely and arbitrarily separated upon this basis, although the general value of the distinction is obvious. Histology furnishes another difference which is quite general but not universal. There are well-marked and pretty constant contrasts between the cells and tissues of the one group and those of the other, and these contrasts furnish what is, perhaps, the most constant mor- phological distinction. The constituent cells of the tissues of the plant retain their original form and individuality, while, in the animal, they undergo the greatest modifications, and their individuality is usually entirely lost. A vegetable tissue or organ may easily be shown to be made up of a mass of nearly similar cells, each of which is inde- pendent and sharply defined; while the tissues of animals present the greatest differences in structure and appearance, and sharply-defined individual cells are seldom to be seen. The cause of this difference in the appearance of the tissues is a difference in the cells themselves. The protoplasmic contents of the vegetable cell are inclosed by a thick, strong outer membrane or cellulose wall; while the outer surface of the animal cell is usually only a little more dense than the protoplasmic contents, and does not usually form a distinct cell-wall. The vegetable. cell may, however, be destitute of the cellulose wall; and, on the other hand, many animal tissues—cartilage, for instance—resemble the tissues of plants in being made up of independent cells, each of which has an outer layer. The most universal and characteristic difference between animals and plants is physiological, and relates to the nature of the food and the character of the nutritive process. From comparatively simple inorganic substances, such as water, carbonic acid, and ammonia, the _plant is able to build up the highly-complex protein compounds which are so characteristic of living beings. The animal feeds, in part, upon inorganic substances, such as water, and certain carbonates and phos- phates, but it derives all its protein from plants, either directly, or, as in the case of the carnivorous animals, indirectly, through the aid of vegetable-feeding animals. In the body of the animal the complex pro- tein compounds are broken down into simpler substances, and the energy thus set free is converted into the various manifestations of “vital force.” The animal organism is thus a consumer of protein and 8 liberator of force. The vital activities of the plant depend, like those of the animal, upon the liberation of energy by the breaking ‘a

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 36 down of protein compounds; but, as the formation of new protein within the body of the plant usually exceeds this consumption, plants, as man- ufacturers of protein, are broadly distinguished from animals, It is now known, however, that many very highly-organized flowering plants are carnivorous, and digest and make use of the protein of the animals which they capture, and it is probable that the potato-fungus and many other parasitic plants obtain all their protein ready made, like animals; and, as it is impossible to show that none of the lower animals have the power to make protein for themselves, this distinction cannot be made the basis of an absolute line between the two groups. The difference in the process of respiration in animals and plants is well known. Animals while in a state of vital activity absorb oxygen from the air; and this is given off from their bodies, usually united with carbon, as carbonic acid. The green plants, on the contrary, absorb carbonic acid, which is separated by the chlorophyll, under the influence of sunlight, into carbon, which is appropriated by the plant, and oxygen, which is given off and may be again taken up by an animal. This difference is made use of in the arrangement of an aqutfa- rium ; enough green plants being placed in the water to absorb the excess of carbonic acid given off by the animals, and to supply the oxygen for their respiration.. The difference is not by any means abso. lute, however, since the vital changes of the plant are dependent, like those of the animal, upon oxidation, and result in the formation of car- bonic acid. The colorless plants, like animals, absorb oxygen and give off carbonic acid. This is also true of green plants which are not ex- posed to light ; but in the latter plants this process is normally masked and hidden by the opposite process already spoken of. It is plain, from what has been said, that the separation of organ- isms into two great groups—animals and plants—is convenient and natural, and that the distinctions between them are real but not abso- lute; and it is possible to define, that is give, all the characteristics which are distinctive of an animal, without implying or assuming that all animals conform with the definition to the same degree, or that no plant shares any of the characteristics. Since the lower representatives of the two groups resemble each other more closely than the higher forms, and since all positive characteristics gradually disappear as we approach the point of union or origin, we must, in order to give our definition any definiteness whatever, neglect the lowest and simplest forms, and consider only the more specialized. As shown by the highest forms, an animal may be described mor- phologically as an organism made up of cells, which are usually without a cell-wall or membrane. In the adult, the individuality of these cells is usually lost, since they are united to form membranes, tissues, and fibres. In nearly all animals the tissues thus built up from cells fall into four groups—epithelium, connective tissue, muscular tissue, and nervous tissue.

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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS, 37 The organs of the body are composed mainly of these tissues, and present the greatest diversity of structure and function; but they may be roughly arranged, according to their functions, into four groups: organs of nutrition, such as the digestive, circulatory, and respiratory organs; organs of reproduction, organs of motion, and organs of rela- tion, such as the nervous system and sense-organs, and organs of de- fense or protection, such as horns or spurs. Except among the lower and simpler groups the individuals are not organically united, as in plants, into a community, although such communities as pairs, or flocks, or herds, are frequent. In such a community as a hive of bees the dif- ferent individuals are specialized for the good of the whole, and are unable to exist apart; and the community is as real as in the case of a plant, although the connection is not material, but purely ideal. Physiologically, animals are characterized by the fact that, with few exceptions, they are able to receive solid food into a definite internal digestive cavity, in which it is digested, and then absorhed through the wall of the cavity. They absorb oxygen from the surrounding medium, air or water, and, in addition to certain inorganic substances, take into their bodies, as their proper nutritive material, complicated protein compounds, which they derive either directly or indirectly from plants. Through the oxidation of these compounds they form substances of a simpler chemical structure, such as carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, and discharge these through their bodies as waste. Since the sum of the chemical changes which take place in the animal is the breaking down of the highly-complex protein-molecules, derived from plants, into the simpler molecules of water, ammonia, and carbonic acid, it results that the potential energy thus set free is shown by the animal as “ vital force,” and the body of the animal is therefore a magazine or store- house of force which may manifest itself as animal heat or light, or as sensible motion, or nervous disturbance ; an animal, then, is an organ- ism which has the power to change the potential energy of vegetable protein by oxidation into “vital force,” which may manifest itself as animal heat, or, in the case of many marine animals, as light, or by peculiar disturbances of the nerves and muscles, organs which are pecul- iarly diagnostic of animals. The changes of the muscles result in mo- tion, either of the animal as a whole or of the various parts in relation to each other. The structure and functions of the nervous system of one of the higher animals are so entirely different from any other phe- ‘nomena, that they seem to be sué generis and peculiar; but we must not forget that there are true animals which entirely lack a nervous organization, and that in the history of each individual, as well as in the history of the animal kingdom, we may pass without any considerable break from animals with a complicated system of nerves and sense- organs to animals which give no evidence of conscious life, and are no more sensitive than ordinary plants. The nervous system of an animal may be roughly described as a regulative apparatus by which the vari- _

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38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ous parts of the body are brought into relation with each otker, in such a way that a disturbance or change in one part shall bring about in another part the liberation of a certain amount of energy, which shall result in change tending to bring the organism into harmony with the conditions which determined the first change. In many cases the action of the nervous system is accompanied by consciousness, and in the higher animals it has a subjective existence as intelligence and volition, Such, briefly stated, are the most important characteristics of ani- mals as they are manifested by the higher representatives of the group, and it is hardly necessary to call attention again to the fact that none of them furnishes a basis for the absolute separation of animals and plants, or to point out again that many of them are met with only in the higher animals, while others are not confined to animals, but are shared by some plants. The two groups are related to each other somewhat like two streams which have their sources in the same water- shed, but flow in different directions, and through regions of different characters. It is almost impossible to say whether the springs and marshes among which they rise belong to one stream or the other, and they may be connected with both; but, as we pass from this common source, the characteristics of each stream become more marked, until at last their differences, the result of the different conditions to which they have been exposed, overbalance and sink the resemblances which are due to their common source, We must not suppose that this fact does away with the idea of the essential diversity of animals and plants, or that the distinction between them is any the less real and natural because they can be traced to a common source, and cannot be absolutely defined. As much confusion of ideas exists with reference to this point, it may not be out of place to give an illustration, drawn from another field, to show that a distine- tion may be real without being absolute : A person in charge of a small library would find it easy to arrange his books under a few headings: some being devoted to history or science; others to theology or philosophy; others to fiction, poetry, and so on. In most cases the placing of a book would present no difficulty; but, as the size of the collection increased, works would be met with which, though devoted to history, were in part fictitious, and many works of fiction would be found to be historical. Novels would be met with, the aim of which is the exemplification of some psychological, physiological, or religious truth; and so with all the other departments. Most of the new books could still be arranged under headings as readily as in a smaller collection, but every increase in the size of the library would render the inosculation of the various departments of literature more apparent, and would increase the need of a catalogue with cross-references. If the librarian did not confine his attention to the books in his library, but studied the history of the growth of literature, its embryology and paleontology, he would find

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THE ENGLISH COPYRIGHT COMMISSION. 39 that departments which are now widely separated were once united, and sprang from a common source. He would find that there had been a time when all history and all theology were poetical, and all poetry historical or theological ; that all romance was originally more or less historical, and that all history or science was at first more or less imaginary. By the study of the less frequent and familiar forms of literature, 3 and by the history of its growth, he would, like the naturalist, learn ‘— that his distinctions and classifications are only relative ; of great value, indeed, but by no means absolute ; but he would not therefore conclude that his groups are not real. He would not conclude that, because some novels are historical, there is no such thing as a history and no such thing as a novel, although he would perceive that they are connected by intermediate forms, and have originated from a common source, The fact that there is no arbitrary line between the groups of natural objects, between animale and plants for instance, or between two related species of animals, does not prove that the groups them- selves have not a real existence. The differences between plants and animals are real, and each group may be defined, but no definition can embrace all the forms of one group, and exclude all of the other, any more than a definition of fiction or of poetry can exclude all historical works. } The things, like the words, are real; but the definiteness of words is . very different from the indefiniteness and complexity of Nature. PROFESSOR TYNDALL BEFORE THE ENGLISH .COPY- RIGHT COMMISSION.’ UESTION (Chairman). I believe you have published not only in England, but in the United States ? Answer. I have published about a dozen volumes in England, and most, if not the whole of them, have been reproduced in the United States, @. With your sanction ? A, With my sanction. I make an arrangement with my publishers, the Messrs. Appleton, in New York, and they every year send me an account of their sales, and allow me a certain percentage on the retail price of my books. Q. Now you have heard, I think, since you have been in this room, the scheme which has been submitted to the consideration of this com- ' Tuesday, April 17, 1877: Lord John Manners, M. P., in the chair. Members of the commission present : Sir H. D. Wolff, Sir Julius Benedict, Sir James Stephen, Dr. William

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’ 40 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. mission, by which the existing law of copyright would be repealed and the system of royalty established in its place, under which a publisher of the first edition of a new work would have what we may call a close time of a year, and after that it would be open to any other publisher, paying a fixed royalty to the author, to bring out new editions of that work, Have you turned your attention to the probable operation of a scheme of that sort, on the works, for instance, that you yourself have published ? A, I have given it some attention since the subject was first men- tioned to me by a member of this commission, and I have listened to’ the evidence given in this room since I came into it. In that evidence I have heard over and over again beliefs expressed of what would occur if the royalty scheme were to become law. These beliefs are to be pitted against what we now know as certainties; and taking everything into account, I prefer the certainty now known to me to the beliefs ex- pressed by the witness who preceded*me. It would be in my opinion a gross injustice, and might open a channel to interference of a still more serious and sweeping character, if the rights of an author over his hard-earned intellectual property were interfered with in the manner I have heard indicated here. Q. Now under the present law has it been your custom to part with your copyright in the first instance, or only for a limited period ? A. The first work that I ever published was given to an eminent publisher; and I was averse to making any arrangement whatever with him. In those days I thought it in a measure ungentlemanly to bar- gain or haggle with a publisher; and I left it to him to do what he pleased with the volume. Subsequently, the Messrs. Longman, and particularly Mr. William Longman, pressed me more than once to pub- lish a volume of lectures, and about 1862 I agreed to do so. There was at that time a subject of great and growing importance, regarding which the English public were entirely uninformed, though the public intelligence was raised, I thought, to a sufficient level to profit by a clear exposition. With very hard labor I accomplished a volume on this subject. I felt myself free (and this is the liberty that I should very much object to see limited in any way) to say to Mr. Longman that I should regard him as a business-man ; that publishers were, to my knowledge, very competent to take care of themselves, and that I was determined, if he published a volume of mine, also to take care of myself and meet him on business-terms, It was his wish that I should do so, and we then and there entered into an agreement for a single edition of the work. That has been my practice with Messrs. Longman up to the present hour. I sell my books to them edition by edition, always retaining the right to dispose as I please of the subsequent editions of each work. The expenses of each edition—of printing, paper, and advertisements—are added up, the book is priced by mutual, agreement, the profits are ascertained, and on the day of publication

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THE ENGLISH COPYRIGHT COMMISSION. 42 I receive a certain proportion of those profits. I do this for the pur- pose of detaching myself as much as possible from business questions when the work is done. . Under the present law you make your own arrangements for the sale of each edition ? A, I do. Q. And under the proposed change of the law, as you apprehend it, instead of your having the freedom to do that and make an arrange- ment on your own terms with your publisher, the law would step in . after the first edition and insist upon a certain rate of remuneration being afforded you by any publisher who chose to take your work and publish a new edition of it? A, That is the impression that I have received of the proposed scheme, and I conceive that nothing can be more unfair. I think it would be simply flagitious to interfere with the rights of an author to that extent. Q. (Sir J. Benedict), Could you imagine any change in the law which you would propose to facilitate the acquirement by the public of works of such a character as you write yourself, or would it be pos- sible to make the agreement such that the price of the books, which now is the great bar to their popularity in the first instance, could be lowered without injury to the author and to the publisher ? A, That is a subject on which at the moment I should not like to offer an opinion. I am here speaking of an author’s rights over the produce of his own hard work. I may perhaps refer to a fact that was brought to my mind by the examination of the gentleman who pre- ceded me. I think it perfectly fair for an author, if he thinks fit, to write a work that appeals to the wealthier classes of the community.’ I wrote a little book some years ago called “‘ Faraday as a Discoverer,” in which I gave a sketch of Faraday’s life and work. The book was published at 6s. or 7s.; it is a small book; I gave myself great trouble to write it, and the edition was very soon sold. Many of my friends urged upon me that it was almost a duty for me, and that for the pub- lic it would be a boon if a cheap edition of that book were published. It was accordingly published at the price of 3s. 6d., but the sale of that book was by no means so rapid or so remunerative as the sale of the dearer one had been. Q. (Sir H. D. Wolff’). In regard to that book, will you forgive my asking you, do not you think that the reason why the sale of the cheap edition at 3s, 6d. was slower than of the edition at 6s. was owing to the two prices being rather near each other ;.there is not that enormous gap between the prices that there is, for instance, between 25s. and 6s. ? A, That is true ; but I should not be inclined to ascribe the slower sale of the cheaper book to the smallness of the gap. I think the first ‘ Mr. Gould, for example, wrote books on birds so sumptuously illustrated, that none but the wealthy could buy them. a en

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42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. book appealed to a highly-intelligent class, that associated with their intelligence the means of purchasing the book, and they did purchase it. Had the book been published in the first instance at 3s. 6d., no doubt that same class of buyers would have purchased the book, but it would certainly have been at my personal loss. Q. Perhaps that may be the case; but if you had published i€ orj- ginally, instead of at 6s., at a higher price, do not you think that prob- ably your sale would not have been as large as it was at 6s. ? A, That I cannot say. I always have a conversation with my pub- lisher on these matters, and I defer very much to his knowledge, Q. But at once by publishing at 6s. you addressed yourself toa public who could afford 6s., instead of to a public only who could afford a higher price. Many people could pay 6s. who could not pay 12s, 6d. ? A, I assume authors to possess a certain amount of conscience; and if Mr. Longman had proposed to me to pyblish that book at 12s. 6d., I should have objected to the price. Considering the amount of labor I had invested in the book, I should not have allowed him to publish it at 12s, 6d. Q. That is because you are an exceptionally conscientious man perhaps ? A, Speaking for myself, I certainly should have prohibited that, @. You mentioned that you considered that the plan that we have been discussing with the last witness would be an interference with your rights, May I ask you exactly to define what you think your rights are? I will tell you why I ask you that ; it is this, 1 want to know whether your rights are rights of remuneration, or rights of con- trol over the publication, that is to say, the type in which it is to be, or the particular form in which it is to be published ? A, I am speaking altogether of rights of remuneration. An illus- tration occurs at the present moment. I am now engaged on the sixth edition of my book on “ Heat,” and I really intend to go in a few days to the Messrs, Longman and to say, “I think that, considering your labor and mine, we ought to have another arrangement, and that I ought to receive a higher proportion of the profits than I have hitherto re- ceived. You know it is open to me to go to another publisher, and you also know that I shall have no difficulty in obtaining the terms which I now offer to you.” 1 regard it as my undoubted right, con- sidering the labor I have expended on those works, to take them to the best market. If Longman does not give me my terms I should like to have the liberty of going to Macmillan, Chapman & Hall, Mr. Henry King, or Mr. Murray. That is the right I claim. Q. You stand in a far better position toward Mr. Longman than an unknown man would? . A, I dare say; but I have had to raise myself into that position by very hard work. _ Q. You said just now that these were only “ beliefs” that we had.

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THE ENGLISH COPYRIGHT COMMISSION. 43 You think that the system now proposed would not act as advantage- ously as the present system does; that is only putting one belief against the other, is it not? A. Irrespective of beliefs I object to my liberty of action being in- terfered with. Even if I felt sure that I should lose nothing by the proposed change, I should still fight for my liberty of action. Q. Now I am going to ask you a question which you can answer or not, as you like. Are your books published in America at a cheaper rate than they are in England? A. It will perhaps be best to answer by definite examples. My volume on “Sound” was published at 9s. in England, and at 8s. 4d. in the United States. A little volume entitled “ Forms of Water” was published at 5s. in this country, and 6s, 3d. in the States. “Heat” was published at 10s. 6d. in this country, and at 8s. 4d. in the States, Considering the price of labor in America, I should have inferred that books there were dearer than here, but on the whole my books appear to be somewhat cheaper in the States than in England. It should not, however, be forgotten that I usually send them ‘stereotyped from my printer here to my publishers in New York, and that some of them have been published in a smaller form in America than here. Q. May I ask if the percentage that you receive (if it is not a liber- ty to ask the question) in America on your books is as large as it would be if you had copyright in America, this voluntary percentage that they give you? A. I cannot say, but I should be inclined to think so, because I am in the hands of a most high-minded publisher. I believe that I should gain no advantage by the copyright in America that I do not possess at present. But though I should be unaffected, on public grounds I hold that a copyright ought to exist. Q. Then there are illustrations, I suppose, in your books, are there not ? A, Many of them are illustrated. @. Do you give them the plates of your illustrations, or do they re- produce them ? A, I send them over the plates of everything. I say, for instance, to Messrs. Longman, “ Messrs. Appleton will requtre stereotyped plates, and also plates of the engravings of this book.” The Longmans fix the price of the plates and receive it from the Appletons, and I am saved any further trouble in the matter. Q. Then you have a greater protection altogether than an ordinary popular writer, inasmuch as’ in the first place you address yourself to a particular class, which I suppose you do to a certain extent ? A, Yes, undoubtedly. @. And in the second place you have the hold over your plates, To pirate your books, supposing they did that against your will, they would have to go to a great expense ? 5 as

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44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. A, No doubt to some extent, but the plates are not of that expen- sive character that would deter a pirate. My chief safeguards are that the Messrs. Appleton are very powerful publishers, and could af- ford to undersell a‘rival, and that there is a kind of tacit understanding among the larger publishers in America that the books published by one should not be pirated by another. Q. If Messrs. Appleton were not high-minded people they would still have a difficulty in pirating your book, because they would find a difficulty in getting the plates, you having the whole of the plates ? A, Yes ; but that would apply equally to other publishers, The plates have to be produced in England and paid for in England, and a book that pays for plates in England would pay for them in America, They could not perhaps produce the books so cheapiy as they now do if they had to produce the plates. Q. Is your circulation larger in America than in England ? A. I could not say so. I have been assured over and over again that it is. very large. Q. I fancy your books are not books much read in circulating libra- ries ; they are more books which people would study, are they not ? A, My first book that related to the Alps and glaciers might have got into the circulating libraries ; but I do not remember to have seen any of my more strictly scientific works in them. Q. (Dr. Smith.) We are right then in supposing that you object entirely to the legislature interfering by any enactment with your books, and that you prefer to make your own bargain with your own publisher ? A, I should like to be able to express to you the strength of my objection to any such interference. I hold my right to my own intel- lectual work to be at least as sacred as is the right of my excellent friend, whose propositions have been discussed here, to Abinger Hall. DRINKING-WATER FROM AGRICULTURAL LANDS. By J. A. JUDSON, C. E., MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, FELLOW CF THE AMERICAN GEO- GRAPHICAL SOCIETY, ETO. ITTLE as it appears to be appreciated, there is to-day no question of sanitary science of greater vital importance than that of the ‘quality of the water-supply entering into the daily domestic economy. The requirements and refinements of modern civilization demand not only a plentiful but a profuse supply of water, and at a moderate cost— facts long ago recognized and acted upon. While enormous capital and the best engineering talent have been very generally called upon, both

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— * a: @ os yg DRINKING-WATER FROM AGRICULTURAL LANDS. 45 in this country and in Europe, to economically furnish water in ample quantity, a corresponding degree of skill and enterprise has not always been directed to the determination of its quality. It is not impossible to point out authorities on sanitary matters so wedded to pet theories that they unhesitatingly deny that the conver- sion of a pure running stream, or even a large river, into a conduit for the sewage-filth of a great city, will have any deleterious effect on the potable quality of the water taken a few miles below the filth-entering point. It has been demonstrated that this is not only false in theory but also in fact. It was Dr. Letheby, of the English “Royal Commis- sion on the Water-Supply of London,” it is believed, who was the first to announce what has since been proved a fallacy, viz., that “if sewage be mixed with twenty times its volume of river-water, the organic mat- ter which it contains will be oxidized and completely disappear while the river is flowing a dozen miles or so;” and further, that “it is safe to drink sewage-contaminated water after filtration.” The “ Royal Rivers Pollution Commission” of 1868, nnwilling that this expression of opinion should remain untested, submitted it to careful and ingen- ious experimental investigation. The result is thus announced: .. . “Tt is thus evident that so far from sewage mixed with twenty times its volume of water being oxidized during a flow of ten or twelve miles, scarcely two-thirds of it would be so destroyed in a flow of one hundred and sixty-eight miles, at the rate of one mile per hour, or after the lapse of a week.” And, after mentioning certain details in, support of this, the commissioners conclude’with the remark that “it will be safe to infer, however, from the above results, that there is no river in the United Kingdom long enough to effect the destruction of sewage by oxidation.” Dr. Frankland, an eminent English authority, before the Royal Commission on Water-Supply, gives some strong testimony in support of the statement that it is impossible to remove the sewage- contamination from water by any known process, natural or artificial, so as to render it harmless, except by boiling for a long time, or by distillation ; and, as these two processes are impracticable on a large scale, then, he says, in his opinion, “ water that has once been contami- nated by sewage ought not afterward to be used for domestic pur- poses; and, inasmuch as it is generally believed that the noxious matter of sewage, exists there in the form of minute germs, which are proba- bly smaller than blood-globules, I do not believe that even filtration through a stratum of chalk could be relied upon to free the water per- fectly from such germs.” According to the same authority, “the noxious part in sewage is that which is held in mechanical suspension, not held in solution ;” and yet, he says, and truly, “no system of filtra- tion will secure its removal.” Colonel J. W. Adams, C. E., in a‘valu- able paper on river-pollution,’ follows up this subject to its logical con- + “Report on Water-Supply for the City of Philadelphia,” made by a commission of engineers in 1875.

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46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. clusions, Dr. Folsom, in the “ Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts for 1876,” also attacks this branch of the question, re. marking that “excessive dilution simply diminishes the chances of danger from any particular tumblerful.” He here states a case of transmission of disease in dilute sewage, to which special attention ig invited, as showing quite conclusively the fatal result ensuing from reposing too great faith in the extermination of disease-germs by oxi- dation, and of reducing the chances of transmitted disease by diffusion of disease-germs through a large body of running water. Dr. Folsom says: “The most striking case illustrating this law is one reported by Dr. E. D. Mapother, of Dublin. Forty cases of typhoid fever occurred in a hospital which received its supply from a river. The cause was traced to some barracks twenty-five miles higher up, from, which ty- phoidal dejections had been emptied through drains into the river,” It would be easy to multiply authorities on this point. Suffice it to say that this pernicious theory is happily exploded, and that the Second English Rivers Pollution Commission publish conclusions, based on the’ examination of some two thousand samples of water claimed to be drinkable, condemning river-water because it is liable to contamination from drainage of cultivated land, towns, and manufactories. They state that “the admixture of even a small quantity of these infected ~ discharges (of persons suffering from cholera or typhoid fever) witha large volume of drinking-water, is sufficient for the propagation of those diseases among persons using such water.” The case related by Dr. Folsom, previously quoted, as well as numberless others of a similar sort, proves the accuracy of this conclusion. The English commissioners then classify potable waters as follows, and, when we consider the high authority for this scale of wholesome- ness, it would seem that it should carry great weight with it. Though often published before, it cannot be too frequently repeated :. 1. Spring-water. 2. Deep-well water. 8. Upland surface-water. (Very palatable.) 4, Stored rain-water. 5. Surface-water from cultivated land. (Moderately palatable.) 6. River-water to which sewage gets access. 7. Shallow-well water. WHOLESOME. SvUspPIcious. DANGEROTS. i While wholesale river-pollution from any source is utterly inad- missible on any sanitary grounds, so infinitesimal pollution by dilute sewage, indirectly discharged into the water-course, is equally danger- ous, and attended with sure though more remote fatal results, “ eape- cially if human excreta be present in any form whatever.” The whole subject is intimately connected, but it is to this latter point more’ particularly that this paper leads, as touching the pollution of entire — b

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DRINKING-WATER FROM AGRICULTURAL LANDS. 47 water-basins through the application of organic manure to their gather- ing-surfaces, for agricultural purposes, and the consequent pollution of the water derived therefrom. ; It is well known that many years ago the pollution of the water- courses began to excite public attention in England, and the labors of the several “‘ Rivers Pollution Commissions,” and other sanitary com- mittees organized by authority of Parliament, bear testimony in their -elaborate and invaluable reports to the truth that humanity can no longer afford to ignore that foul water will breed disease. The dense population of England, and the resultant mass of concentrated filth, have there compelled attention to those laws of health that we, with our enormous area of comparatively thinly-settled ‘country, and the conse- quent high dilution of foul water and foul air, have felt safe in disre- rding. This feeling of safety is, however, fallacious; for, as facts attest, “ filth-diseases ” are as liable to break out in an isolated house as in.a crowded city, if the fundamental hygienic laws are violated. The distinguished labors of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, as well as those of various other similar boards, bring the subject home to us in a forcible manner, and the sooner we know what sort of water we are drinking the better for us and for those who succeed us. As fair water is at once a prime necessity and a priceless blessing, so foul water is a scourge and curse; nor will any but a sewage-rectify- ing enthusiast hesitate for an instant which to choose, provided he has the means of knowing one from the other. Gross pollution is sensible to the sight, the taste, the smell, and we instinctively revolt ; lesser pollution, though perhaps not apparent to any of the senses, yields its secret to the chemist’s skill; while infinitesimal pollution eludes all, even the art of the chemist himself, revealing its presence only in its fatal effects, the mortality statistics proving the presence of that subtile poison chemical analysis is powerless to detect. Special stress should be laid on this latter point, because the popular cry generally is, where water is suspected, “ Let’s have it analyzed!” whereas the truth is, beyond a certain point, the chemist can tell us nothing at all about it. Sir Benjamin Brodie, in speaking of the detection of infinitesimal pol- lution, says : “. . . I think you have a much better chance of getting at these relations through accurate medical statistics, properly applied, than you have through chemical analysis, because chemical analysis is one of the poorest things possible to reach those delicate quantities. You cannot get at those small quantities at all; chemical analysis must be limited by our power of weighing and measuring. We can only do those two things. We can weigh and we can measure, and we can do that with certain accuracy, and there we stop ; but that accuracy is not capable of being multiplied ad infinitum. It may go on to a cer- tain point, but we cannot go beyond that point.” - - Having once determined in what pollution consists, then any sus- picious water should be unhesitatingly condemned. Colonel Adams

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48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. says (in the paper previously quoted), “ Grounds for distrust in deter. mining the purity of water are grounds for its rejection, especially when brought into comparison with water from a source of undoubted purity.” It has been objected that no water outside the laboratory is abso. lutely “pure ;” that water ordinarily available for town-supply is only relatively pure, and that too high a degree of purity must not be ex- pected, lest the cost of the works be too great a public burden. This is true, abstractly, yet who will have the temerity to draw the line and say: “Our town can and must stand such and such a death-rate, but no more ; let us risk it and take our water from this contaminated pond close by, and let the death-rate be so and so, rather than spend so many thousands more in bringing pure living water from the everlasting hills miles away, and thus reduce our death-rate to the minimum ! ” The question of cost should never for a moment weigh against the question of purity of quality. Foul, though apparently pure, water may be the cheaper in the beginning, but it will surely be the dearer to the community in the end, when it is remembered that health and life itself tremble in the balance. Cost and quantity should not be underrated, certainly, neither should quality. It is the frequent neglect of this latter element of calculation, in designing works for the water- supply of towns, that results in the frightful epidemics usually and impiously attributed to the “ mysterious dispensations of Providence,” rather than to human ignorance, or cupidity, or negligence. Recently an English clergyman actually preached to his parishioners that a dev- astating fever among them was a visitation from God upon them in punishment for their sins, while at the same time a gentleman, writing to the authorities to complain of the water-supply, dipped bis pen in, and wrote with water from the river instead of ink! Setting aside now all other sources of water-contamination, let us see what the best authorities say would be the effect on the quality of drinking-water derived from agricultural lands enriched with organic manures, and especially that manure which consists largely of human excreta from privy-vaults and the contents of house cesspools. Two propositions may here be stated that are perfectly sustained by proof : 1. Any organic matter will poison water, and is not removable ex- cept by boiling or distillation. 2. Human excremental matter is the most dangerous organic sub- stance likely to be contained in privy-vaults or cesspools, and its viru- lence is largely increased when it consists partly of the excrementitious matter of cholera and fever patients. We will take as an example a compactly-built town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants. Each habitation has its one or more privy-

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DRINKING-WATER FROM AGRICULTURAL LANDS. 49 vaults and cesspools, some of which overflow into the few rude sewers built without any systematic plan, and themselves but “ elongated cesspools,” or, as some one pertinently calls them, retorts for the generation of poisonous gases.” A large majority of these sinks of abominations have no communication with any sort of sewer, but after prolonged conservation, resulting in horrible putrefaction, when no longer tolerable, are finally emptied by hand into carts and hauled Adjoining the town is the gathering-ground of the water- away. works of thousands of acres in extent, whose waters, discharged into running streams in a long valley, are collected and retained in a dammed-up pond at the foot, and pumped to the distributing reservoir on a neighboring hill. Water-works and sewerage systems should go hand-in-hand ; but in this case there is no connection—the latter, in- deed, existing only in name. Even this state of things might be toler- able, were it not that, in addition to poisoning the air and the already supersaturated soil, the contents of these vaults are now directly em- ployed to pollute the water-supply. Destitute of any official control, probably more than one-half of the accumulated town filth is annually spread bodily, spring and fall, over a large part of the water-shedding surfaces. The tank-carts employed are at all hours of the day filled at the doorways of the houses, and shamelessly hauled through the public streets, jolting and slopping their foul contents, marking their route by a train of filth on the roadway, while a column of stench in the air, that lingers long after the pestilence-breeding ox-cart has lumbered away in the distance, proclaims adherence to the practices of the dark ages, and defiance to the rules of decency and the laws of health. A century ago, when there was no generally-known method of deodoriz- ing sewage or decently removing it, this sort of thing had to be done, perhaps, but it instinctively sought the cover of nightfall (as the very term “night-so#” implies) ; but in this incredible case, in the last quarter of the brilliant nineteenth century, in the midst of a civilized community, there is no attempt to disguise the abominable fact! The water-slopes are thus heavily manured. What is the result? We shall see. These farms are very rich and valuable, made so at the expense of the water they shed for domestic use. But this sort of fertilizing must not be confounded with what is known as “ sewage-farming,” a system of irrigation which is declared by the highest authorities to be the best, cheapest, safest, and most inoffensive mode of disposing of all excrementitious and other waste matter, “ provided its effluent water does not get into the domestic water-supply.” The scope of this article will not admit even a brief description of this mode of érrigation (not manuring), with its appliances of brick, concrete, and earthenware con- duits, its valves and sluice-boards, and its trained and careful administra- tive corps of workmen efficiently supervised. Those interested in this subject (and which is a side-issue here) ean consult the “Conditions of VOL, XIV.—4

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. > Sewage-Farming ” as stated by the First Rivers Pollution Commission of England, and reprinted, with much other valuable information ap- pertaining, in the “ Report of the Massachusetts State Board of Health for 1876” (pages 276-408), in a paper by Dr. C. F. Folsom, on “ The Disposal of Sewage.” Mahy modes of “ disposal ” are herein described, but such “ disposal ” as this—sowing pestilence broadcast—was never contemplated by any one. Of course it can be prevented, but it is not proposed to discuss that matter now. Now, these organically manured slopes are, many of them, very steep, varying, by actual measurement, from one in seven to one in fifty, and flatter. When the heavy rains of spring and fall occur, the effluent water from those slopes is dilute sewage, dilute human excrement, and, especially if the land has been recently ploughed, a large quantity of the surface-soil, and with it the freshly-applied Auman excreta, and the remaining noxious parts of the previously-applied batch of filth still present in the soil, must necessarily be, and is, washed down-hill and into the water-supply of the town. The English scientific periodical Engineering records that, early in the spring of 1876, “the piers of Vauxhall Bridge were coated with a covering of upward of a foot deep of soil, brought down from the upper portion of the Thames during one tide, and this minor instance is but a slight indication of the enormous deposits cast into our (British) rivers through the washing of the sur face-soil from the adjacent fields. . . . The water, before being drawn into the Thames companies’ reservoirs, was loaded consequently with soil, manure, sewage, and every imaginable abomination that newly ploughed and manured fields and towns could supply.” Of course, this pollution was on a larger scale than could occur in the case here treated. Nevertheless, if the quantity of polluting mat- ter be less, so is the volume of water polluted, hence the proportion of foulment may be approximately the same. At any rate the fact re- mains that the water is contaminated, and, as has been already shown, infinitesimal may be quite as fatal as profuse pollution. The elements that go to make dilute sewage unfit for assimilation in man, especially fit it for plant-food, a fact well known to every gar dener. Dr. Folsom says that “a celebrated horticulturist in Brighton, England, dilutes his manure until it has neither taste nor smell.” If such attenuated “barn-yard coffee ” can have manurial effect on vege- tation, what physiological effect—pathologic and hygienic—would it be likely to have when employed as a beverage? This very question is answered in a report to the English “General Board of Health” in 1856, the substance of which is as follows: “‘. . . It is now gener- ally admitted that the substances which constitute the organic matter of water act injuriously, by no means (necessarily) in consequence of being- poisonous themselves, but by undergoing those great processes of transformation called decay and putrefaction, to which all vegetable and animal matter is subject, when no longer under the control of vir

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1e ll d il f 1 a” a a, a ae DRINKING-WATER FROM AGRICULTURAL LANDS, 51 tality, either in plants or animals. These putrefactive processes either give rise to the formation of poisonous bodies, or they act simply as ferments, generating similar processes of decomposition in the sub- stances composing the animal organism.” The “ controlling vitality ” of plants and man have widely differing requirements : what is food to one is to the other poison, and sewage- lluted water is just what the Brighton gardener uses. Dr. Corfield says, in a lecture before the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham, that “. . . mere passage over the soil will not purify sewage satisfactorily. The effluent water which goes off the land is, to all intents and purposes, sewage.” And Mr. Denton, a dis- tinguished engineer and scientist, says, in a lecture before the same school, that “. . . water collected from the surface of cultivated lands, and from the under-drains of cultivated lands, is always more or less polluted with the organic matter of manure, even after subsidence in lakes or reservoirs.” Shallow-well water is declared by the Rivers Pol- lution Commissioners to be the most dangerous of all waters, “ when- ever the wells are situated, as is usually the case, near privies, drains, and cesspools ;” and it is this shallow-well water that Denton refers to when he goes on to say the commissioners declare that “such polluted surface or drainage water (referred to above) is not of good quality for domestic purposes, but it may be used with less risk to health than polluted shallow-well water, if human excrementitious matters do not form part of the manure applied to the land.” Mark this, on the highest authority, that shallow-well water, the most dangerous stored well-water known, is safer to drink than the effluent water from such slopes as this article describes. When it is added that the Royal Com- missioners, having examined the waters of some four hundred and twelve shallow wells in different geological formations, pronounce them all, with few exceptions, “entirely unfit for human consumption,” the force of the objections raised against the water from the foul slopes may be appreciated, It may be suggested that filtering be resorted to, or the sewage “disinfected,” as some are pleased to call certain processes. But the English commissioners say that “as applied to sewage, disinfectants do not disinfect, and filter-beds do not filter. Both attemipts have been costly failures.” And again they say, “No process. has yet been de- vised of cleansing surface-water once contaminated with sewage, so as to make it safe for drinking.” To this the late Mr. Kirkwood, the dis- tinguished American engineer, adds, “. . . If this view of the case may seem to be over-cautious, it is to be remembered that the poison, how- ever trifling, is taken daily, and that, although when in robust health the individual will not suffer from it, it may be sufficient to make itself felt when he is prostrated by sickness, and his powers of resistance to such influences are then proportionally impaired.” It has been supposed that if the sewage be applied to these slopes

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52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. while the ground is frozen, the greater part, at least, will percolate into the earth, owing to the higher temperature of the sewage and the heat disengaged by continued fermentation, and so be out of harm’s way be- fore the advent of the thaws and rains of spring. It has been proved by experiments in Maine, with the thermometer at 0° Fahr., that the sewage disappears soon after it is applied. It would be safer, no doubt, but the “ brown scum,” which, it is said, remains on the surface, would be thrown down by the spring rains, and other poisonous matter would follow as soon as the plough broke the surface. The danger might, perhaps, be diminished, as in the case of dilution in running water— nothing more. Too much stress cannot be laid on the death lurking in all manner of human excreta, especially those of the sick. Dr. Folsom, the Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, and one of the first sanitary authorities, says: “In no case is it entirely safe to drink water which has once been contaminated with human excreta containing the germs of disease, unless it has been exposed to a sufficiently high temperature or has stood long enough for these ‘ germs’ to become inert. How long this time must be, we do not yet know.” And again he says that, “under certain conditions, human excrementitious matter in certain diseases is almost certain poison, producing the parent-disease in great numbers of cases of those exposed to it, with a degree of virulence pro- portional to its concentration.” The cases on record sustaining this are numerous ; two very strik- ing ones must suffice here : Colonel George E. Waring, Jr., in his “ Sanitary Drainage ‘of Houses and Towns,” relates the case of an outbreak of “ filth-fever” in Over- Darwin, England, a few years ago. “The first case,” he says, “ was an important one, occurring in a house some distance from the town. The patient had contracted the disease, came home, and died with it.... The drain of the closet used by this patient emptied itself through the irrigating channels of a neighboring field. The water-main of this town passed through this field, and, although special precautions had been taken to prevent any infiltration of sewage into the main, it was found that the concrete had sprung a leak, and allowed the contents of the drain to be sucked freely into the water-pipe. The poison was regularly thrown down the drain, and as regularly passed into the water-main of the town. . . . Within a short period 2,035 people were attacked, and 104 died.” The “Massachusetts State Board of Health Report for 1877” re- cords an epidemic of typhoid fever which occurred at Eagley, in England, in 1876. The report says: “ A certain small brook had been used by the operatives of a mill, so that ‘large quantities of fecal matter’ were found on its banks and in its bed. It was known, too, that one of the workmen was ill (it was thought that there was a possibility of the dis- ease being typhoid fever). This brook had formerly been used, two

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ve t= @ er er ES ee lcC(i SCrhlUlCéC DRINKING-WATER FROM AGRICULTURAL LANDS. 53 hundred yards below, for domestic purposes, but had generally been abandoned since it had become impure, although two families continued to use it, of whom one had typhoid fever, and the other (who boiled it before use) escaped. This same water continued to be used at a dairy, and was the only supply there. Although there is no positive evidence that the milk was diluted with it, it was acknowledged that the milk- cans were washed in it. “From January 30th .... to February 15th, 146 persons were attacked, when the epidemic declined.” After giving further details it is stated that in the town of Bolton, two miles distant, ‘‘ there were fifty families attacked, of whom forty-seven were supplied with milk from this same dairy.” The investigating offi- cer reported that “ not one household to which the milk was traced did he find entirely free from the disease.” Liebermeister, an eminent authority, says, speaking of the spread of typhoid fever through water-works: “Such infection of an aqueduct is most easily effected when excrements from privies containing the .typhoid poison are used as manure on the fields from which the aque- duct receives its supply. In this way originated the epidemic in Stutt- gart in the year 1872.” Aside from the water we take into our stomachs, sanitation and sen- timent alike demand that it should’be wholesome. Denton says: “The water used for personal ablution, and for the washing of the clothes we wear, and the utensils we use in cooking, have a material though not so direct an influence on our sanitary condition.” The milk-can case had not occurred when this was written, for, if that be true, he might have put it still stronger. We can safely conclude that it is the guality of the sewage-matter that determines the character and virulence of its poisonous effects, rather than the quantity of foul matter that may be present in the drinking-water, the taint from the fecal matter of one sick person creating wider-spread havoc than that from hundreds of those “ that need no physician.” Long before the milk-can case occurred, the English commissioners said that “really there is no reason whatever to believe that the in- jurious character of sewage depends, fundamentally, upon the quantity of that sewage ; in all probability it far more depends upon the quality of the sewage, namely, what it consists of.” As people generally have a vague idea of what sewage consists, any further than that it is a nasty mess, it may be well, in closing this article, to give the definition of the term “sewage” as applied by the English Rivers Pollution Commissioners. It is “any refuse from human habitations that may affect the public health. . . . Sewage is a very complex liquid ; a large proportion of its most offensive matters is, of course, human excrement discharged from water-closets and priy- ies, and also urine thrown down gully-holes. But mixed with this

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54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. there is the water from kitchens containing vegetable, animal, and other refuse, and that from wash-houses containing soap and the animal mat- ter from soiled linen. There is also the drainage from stables and cow. houses, and that from slaughter-houses containing animal and vegetable offal. In cases where privies and cesspools are used instead of water. closets, or these are not connected with sewers, there is a still larger proportion of human refuse in the form of chamber-slops and urine, In fact, sewage cannot be looked upon as composed solely of human excrement diluted with water, but as water mixed with a vast variety of matters, some held in suspension, some in solution.” In fact, were we to fall into the habit of looking upon it and calling it poison, instead of sewage, and treating it as we do any other poison, one step, at least, will have been taken on the high-road to safety, Surely no civilized community ought knowingly to use water polluted, no matter in what degree, with such filth as this. Denton says that from the réport on the “Army and Navy Diet Scales” he finds that “the estimated quantity of liquid of all kinds drunk in the two services averages 187} gallons per head per annum, or about two quarts per day. Though this quantity is drunk by adults of the male sex, it is some criterion of the quantity drunk by men, women, and children, and it will not be wrong to assume that two- thirds, or 125 gallons per head, is as much as is actually consumed by a mixed population in a year. Dr. Parkes says that an adult requires daily from seventy to one hundred ounces (three and a half to five pints) for nutrition, but about twenty to thirty ounces of this quantity are sometimes in the solid food.” This is what we daily put in our mouths, and it certainly should be pure and sweet. In fact, one way or an- other, we are pretty much all water. It is said that “the model man weighs 154 pounds, of which 116 is water and only 38 pounds dry matter;” based on which fact, Edmond About has written a curious romance, “The Man with the Broken Ear.” Water, then, is of all. things the one most essential to our existence, and if three-quarters of our very bodies and a large part of our daily food are composed of this element, then, like Czesar’s wife, it should be “clear even of suspicion.” Although, perhaps, there is no special occasitn for it in this con- nection, attention is invited, in the interest of accuracy, to the popular misuse of the term “ water-shed.” It is ordinarily employed to denote the area collecting the rainfall, and comprised between the highest and lowest points. Properly speaking, a “ water-shed” is “the anticlinal ridge separating one river-basin from another.” The highest crest-line of a ridge, therefore, is the water-shed ; the lowest area in the valley up to the highest water-level is the water-basin ; while the area between these (miscalled the water-shed) may be termed the “ gathering-ground,” or the “ collecting slopes.”

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EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. Ws EDUCATION AS A SOIENCE. dle er- By ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D., er PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. ze VI.—THE EMOTIONS IN EDUCATION (continued). of NOW proceed with the review of the Emotions as motives in to education. of Piay oF THE Emotions or Activiry.—Nothing is more frequently t prescribed in education than to foster the pupils’ own activity, to put d them in the way of discovering facts and principles for themselves, t This position needs to be carefully surveyed. q There is, in the human system, a certain spontaneity of action, the FS ‘ result of central energy, independent of any teelings that may accom- ° pany the exercise. It is great in children; and it marks special in- dividuals, who are said to possess the active temperament. It distin- . guishes races and nationalities of human beings, and is illustrated in 3 the differences among the animal tribes; it also varies with general bodily vigor. This activity would burst out and discharge itself in some form of exertion, whether useful or useless, even if the result were perfectly indifferent as regards pleasure or pain. We usually endeavor to turn it to account by giving it a profitable direction, in- stead of letting it run to waste or something worse. It expends itself in a longer or shorter time, but while any portion remains, exertion is not burdensome. ; Although the spontaneous flow of activity is best displayed and most intelligible in the department of muscular exercise, it applies also to the senses and the nerves, and comprises mental action as well as - bodily. The intellectual strain of attention, of volition, of memory, and of thought, proceeds to a certain length by mere fullness of power, after rest and renovation ; and may be counted on to this extent as involving nothing essentially toilsome. Here, too, a good direction is all that is wanted to make a profitable result. The activity thus assumed as independent of feeling is nevertheless accompanied with feeling, and that feeling is essentially pleasurable : the pleasure being greatest at first. The presence of pleasure is the standing motive to action; and all the natural activity of the system— whether muscular or nervous—brings an effluence of pleasure, until a certain point of depletion is arrived at. If, further, our activity is employed productively, or in yielding any gratification beyond the mere exercise, this is so much added to the pleasures of action. If, besides the delight of intellectual exercise, we obtain for ourselves the gratification of fresh knowledge, we seem to attain the full pleasure due to the employment of the intellect.

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56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. - Much more, however, is meant by the gratification of the self-activity of the learner. That expression points to the acquiring of knowledge, as little as possible by direct communication, and as much as possible by the mind’s own exertion in working it out from the raw materials, We are to place the pupil as nearly as may be in the track of the first discoverer, and thus impart the stimulus of invention, with the accom- panying outburst of self-gratulation and triumph. This bold fiction ig sometimes put forward as one of the regular arts of the teacher ; but I should prefer to consider it as an extraordinary device admissible only on peculiar occasions. It is an obvious defect in teaching to keep continually lecturing pupils, without asking them in turn to reproduce and apply what is said. This is no doubt a sin against the pupil’s self-activity, but rather in the manner than in the fact. Listening and imbibing constitute a mode of activity ; only it may be overdone in being out of proportion to the other exercises requisite for fixing our knowledge. When these other activities are fairly plied, the pupil may have a certain complacent satisfaction in his or her own efficiency as a learner, and this is a fair and legitimate reward to an apt pupil. It does not assume any inde- pendent self-sufficiency ; it merely supposes an adequate comprehension and a faithful reproduction of the knowledge communicated. ‘The praise or approbation of the master, and of others interested, is a superadded reward. Notwithstanding, there still remains, if we could command it, a ten- fold power in the feeling of origination, invention, or creation; but as this can hardly ever be actual, the suggestion is to give it in fiction or imagination. Now, it is one of the delicate arts of an accomplished instructor to lay before his pupils a set of facts pointing to a conclu- sion, and leave them to draw the conclusion for themselves. Exactly to hit the mean between a leap too small to have any merit, and one too wide for the ordinary pupil, is a fine adjustment and a great success, All this, however, belongs to the occasional luxuries, the bonbdons, of teaching, and cannot be included under the daily routine. It is to be borne in mind that although the pride of origination is a motive of extraordinary power, and in some minds surpasses every other motive, and has a great charm even in a fictitious example, yet it is not in all minds the only extraneous motive that may aid the teacher. There is a counter-motive of sympathy, affection, and admiration, for superior wisdom, that operates in the other direction; giving a zest in receiving and imbibing to the letter what is imparted, and jealously re- straining any independent exercise of judgment such as would share the credit with the instructor. This tendency is no doubt liable to run into slavishness, and to favor the perpetuation of error and the stagna- tion of the human mind ; but a certain measure of it is only becoming the attitude of a learner. It accompanies a proper sense of what is the fact, namely, that the learner és a learner, and not a teacher or a discov-.

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EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE, 57 erer, and has to receive a great deal with mere passive acquiescence, be- fore venturing to suggest any improvements. Unreasoning blind faith is indispensable in beginning any art or science ; the pupil has to lay up a stock of notions before having any materials for discovery or origination. There is a right moment for relaxing this attitude, and assuming the exercise of independence ; but it has scarcely arrived while the schoolmaster is still at work. Even in the higher walks of univer- sity teaching, independence is premature, unless in some exceptional minds, and the attempt to proceed upon it, and to invite the free criti- cism of pupils, does not appear ever to have been very fruitful.’ Piay or THE Emotions or Five Art.—This is necessarily a wide subject, but for our purpose a few select points will be enough, The proper and principal end of art is enjoyment ; now, whatever is able to contribute on the great scale to our pleasure, is a power over all that we do. The bearings on education are to be seen. The art-emotions are seldom looked upon as a mere source of en- joyment. They are apt to be regarded in preference as a moral power, and an aid to education at every point.. Nevertheless, we should com- mence with recognizing in them a means of pleasure as such, a pure hedonic factor, in which capacity they are a final end. Their function in intellectual education is the function of all pleasure when not too great, namely, to cheer, refresh, and encourage us in our work. There are certain general effects of art that come in well at the very beginning. Such are symmetry, order, rhythm, and simple design and proportion ; which are the adjuncts of the school, just as they should be the adjuncts of home-life. Proportion, simple design, a cer- tain amount of color, are the suitable elements of the school interior; to which are added tidiness, neatness, and arrangement, among the pupils themselves ; only this must not be worrying and oppressive. In the exercise suited to infants, time and rhythm are largely em- ployed. Of all the fine arts, the most available, universal, and influential, is music. This is perhaps the most unexceptionable as well as the cheapest of human pleasures. It has been seized upon with avidity by the human 1 It would lead us too far, although it might not be uninstructive, to reflect upon the evil side of this fondness for giving a new and self-suggested cast to all received knowledge. It introduces change for the mere sake of change, and never lets well alone. It multiplies variations of form and phraseology for expressing the same facts, and so renders all sub- jects more perplexed than they need be; not to speak of controverting what is estab- lished, because it is established, and allowing nothing ever to settle. Owing to a dread of the feverish love of change, certain works that have accidentally received an ascen- dency, such as the “ Elements ” of Euclid, are retained notwithstanding their imperfections. The acquiescent multitude of minds regard this as a less evil than letting loose the men of action and revolution to vie with each other in distracting alterations, while there is no judicial power to hold the balance. It is a received maxim in the tactics of legislation that no scheme, however well matured, can pass a popular body without amendment; it is not in collective human nature to accept anything simpliciter, without having a finger in the pie. ;

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58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. race in all times; so much so that we wonder how life could ever haye been passed without it. In the earlier stages it was united with poetry, and the poetical element was of equal power with the musical accom- paniment, if not of greater. As the ethical instructors of mankind have always disavowed the pursuit of pleasure as such, and allowed it only as subsidiary to morality and social duty, the question with leg- islators has been what form of music is best calculated to educe the moral virtues and the nobler characteristics of the mind. It was this view that entered into the speculative social constructions of Plato and Aristotle. Now, undoubtedly the various modes of music operate very differently on the mind: every one knows the extremes of martial and ecclesiastical music ; and fancy can insert many intermediate grades,’ For the moment, a musical strain exerts immense power over the mind, to animate, to encourage, to soothe, and to console. But the facts do not bear us out in attributing to it any permanent moral in- fluence ; nothing is more fugitive than the excitement of a musical performance. Excepting its value as a substantive contribution to the enjoyment of life, 1 am not able to affirm that it has any influence on education, whether moral or intellectual. Certainly, if it has any effect in the moral sphere, it has none that I can trace in the sphere of intel- lect, As a recreative variety in the midst of toil, it deserves every encomium. In those exercises that are half recreative, half education- al, as drill and gymnastic, the accompaniment of a band is most stimu- lating. In the Kindergarten it is well brought in, as the wind-up to the morning’s work. But music during ordinary lessons, or any sort of intellectual work, is mere distraction, as every one knows from the experience of street bands and organs. Excess in the pleasures of music, like every other excess, is un- favorable to mental culture. But some of the most intellectual men that ever lived have been devotees of music. In the case of Luther it seems to have been incorporated with his whole being ; Milton invoked it as an aid in poetic inspiration. These were men whose genius large- ly involved their emotions. .But the musical enthusiasm of Jeremy Bentham could have no bearing on his work, further than as so much enjoyment. ; Poetry is music and a great deal more. Its bearings are more nu- merous and complicated. In the ruder’stages of music, when it ac- companied poetry, the main effects lay in the poetry. The poetic form —the rhythm and the metre—impresses the ear, and is an aid to mem- 1 Plato, in the “Republic,” wishing to train a vigorous and hardy race, interdicted not simply the unfavorable musical strains, but the instruments most adapted to these. He permits only the lyre and the harp, with the Pan’s pipe for shepherds attending their flocks ; forbidding both the flute and all complicated stringed instruments. Disallowing the lugubrious, passionate, soft, and convivial modes of music, he tolerates none but the Dorian and the Phrygian, suitable to a sober, resolute, courageous frame of mind; to which also the rhythm and movement of the body are to be adapted (Grote’s “ Plato,” iii, 196).

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-_ - ae we Ft a. ie EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. ee ory ; whence it has been transferred from the proper themes of poetry to very prosaic subjects by way of a mnemonic device. The subject- matter of poetry comprises the stirring narrative, which is an enormous power in human life, and the earliest intellectual stimulus in education. Piay or THE Ernicat Emorions.—The feelings called ethical, cr moral, from their very meaning, are the support of all good and right conduct. The other emotions may be made to point to this end, but they may also work in the opposite direction. When the educator describes these in more precise and equivalent phraseology, he generally singles out regard to pleasure and displeasure of parents and superiors, together with habits or dispositions toward obedience ; all of which is the result of culture and growth. Any primitive feelings conspiring toward good conduct must be of the nature of the sympathies or social yearnings ; which are called into exercise in definite ways, well known to all students of human nature, By far the most powerful stimulus to acts of goodness toward others is good conduct on their side ; whoever can resist this is a fit subject for the government of fear and nothing else. The law says, “Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you.” The lower ground of practice is, “Do unto others as they do unto you.” This is as far as the very young can reach in moral virtue. It is too much to expect in early years generous and disinterested impulses, unreciprocated. The young have little to call their own; they have no means. Their fortune is their free, unrestrained vivacity, their elation, and their hopes. If they freely give up any part of this, it is in consideration of equivalent benefits. They are susceptible of being worked up to moments of self-renunciation, in which they may commit their future irrevocably, without knowing what they are about. But they cannot be counted on for daily, persistent self-restraint, will- ingly encountered, unless there be some seen reward, present or in the distance. It takes a good deal to bring any one even up to the point of fair and full reciprocity of services in all things. Tae FEELINGS AS APPEALED TO IN Discrptine.—The survey that has now been made of the sensibilities of the human mind available as motives, prepares for the consideration of discipline in teaching. The instructor finds that, in school moments and for school purposes, he has to restrajn all the unruly impulses and to overbear the sluggishness of the youthful nature. To succeed in this requirement, many arts are employed, corresponding to the wide compass of sensations and emo- tions that agitate the human breast. The question how to maintain discipline among masses of human beings is of very wide application, and is therefore the subject of a great variety of experiments. In the wide field of morai control, it in- cludes a principal function of government, namely, the repression of crime—a department that has lately received much attention. To col- lect the lights furnished in each of the spheres where moral control has

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60 | THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. to be exercised, is to contribute to the illumination of each. There has, undoubtedly, in former times been very great mismanagement in al- most every one of the regions of repressive authority—in the state, in the family, and in the school, in all which an excess of human misery is habitually engendered by badness in the manner of exercising con- trol. It is perhaps in the family that the mischief is most widely spread and most baneful. By degrees we have become aware of various errors that ran through the former methods of discipline, in the several institutions of the state, as well as in the family. We have discovered the evil of working by fear alone, and still more by fear of coarse, painful, and degrading in- flictions. We have discovered that occasions of offense can be avoided by a variety of salutary arrangements, such as to check the very dis- position to unruly conduct. We consider that a great discovery has been made in regard to punishments, by the enunciation of the maxim that certainty is more important than severity ; to which should be added, proportion to the offense. We also consider that by a suitable training, or education, the dispositions that lead to disorder and crime can be checked in the bud; and that, until there has been room for such training to operate, the mind should not be exposed to tempta- tion. We have become accustomed to lay more stress in cultivating the amicable relations of human beings, all which tend to abridge the sphere of injurious conduct on the part of individuals. The consideration of discipline in education supposes the relation of a teacher to a class, one man or woman exercising over a body of pupils the authority requisite for the work in hand. Nevertheless, it is not lost time to advert, in the first instance, to the maxims pertaining to authority in general. Authority, government, power over others, is not an end in itself; it is but a means, Further, its operation is an evil ; it seriously abates human happiness. The restraint upon free agency, the infliction of pain on individuals, the setting up a reign of terror—all this is justified solely by the prevention of evils out of all proportion to the misery that it inflicts. This might seem self-evident, but is not so. The deep- seated malevolence and lust of domination in the human mind makes the necessity of government a pretext for excesses in severity and re- pression ; to which must be added the opportunity of preying upon the substance of the governed. Mankind have had their eyes gradually opened to this state of things; the philosophy of society now endeavors to formulate the lim- its to authority, and to the employment of repressive severities. Not only is it restricted to the mildest penalties that will answer its pur- pose, but its very existence has to be justified in each case. Authority is not necessary to every teaching relation. A willing pupil, coming up to a master to be taught, is not entering into a rela- tionship of authority ; it is a mere voluntary compact, terminable at

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EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. _ 1 the pleasure of each, There is no more authority over the assemblies of grown men to hear lectures than over the worshipers at church or the frequenters of the play. There is nothing but the observance of mutual toleration and forbearance so far as requisite to the common good; if this were grossly violated, there would be an exercise of power either by the collective mass themselves, or by summoning the constable to their aid. No authority is lodged in the lecturer, preacher, or performer, to repress disturbances. Authority first appears in the family, and is thence transferred with modifications to the school. It is between these two institutions that the comparison is most suggestive. The parent’s authority is associ- ated with sustenance, and has an almost unlimited range; it is tem- pered by affection, but this depends upon mutuality of pleasure-giving, and supposes a limited number. The teacher’s authority has nothing to do with sustenance; his is a duty undertaken for payment; it is subsidiary to the single object of teaching a definite amount of knowl- edge; it wants the requisites of affection ; the numbers are too great, and the mutual concern too restricted. But affection is not wholly excluded, and in certain well-marked cases it may play a part. On the other hand, the family and the school have some important _ agreements. They both deal with immature minds, for whom certain kinds of motives are unsuitable. Neither can employ motives that are applicable only to grown men and women ; they cannot appeal to con- sequences in the distant and unknown future. Children do not realize a remote effect, and they fail even to conceive many things that will one day have great power over their conduct. To talk to them about riches, honors, and a good conscience, is in vain. A half-holiday is more to them than the prospect of becoming the head of a business. The position of immaturity is attended with another peculiarity, namely, that the reasons of a rule cannot always be made apparent, Sometimes they can, if not to the younger, at least to the older chil- dren. This is a highly-prized aid to obedience in every department of government. There are many important points of agreement in the exercise of authority in every sphere—the family, the school, the relation of mas- ter and servant, ruler and subject, whether in the state at large or in any subordinate societies. For example : 1, Restraints should be as few as the situation admits of: the mul- tiplication of grounds of offense is a great evil, and yet exceedingly natural. 2. Duties and offenses should be definitely expressed, so as to be clearly understood. This may not always be possible to the full ex- tent, but should be always aimed at. 3. Offenses should be graduated according to their degree of hei- nousness. This too needs clearness of discrimination and definite lan- guage.

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62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 4, The application of punishment is regulated according to certain principles, first clearly pointed out by Bentham. 5. Voluntary dispositions are to be trusted as far as they can go, 6. By organization and arrangement the occasions of disorder are avoided. Quarrels are obviated by not permitting crowds, jostling, and collisions. Dishonesty is checked by want of opportunity; remiss- ness, by the watchful eye and by definite tests of performance. 7. The awe and influence of authority are maintained by a certain formality and state. Forms and ritual are adapted to all the operations of law: persons in authority are clothed with dignity and inviolability, The greater the necessity of enforcing obedience, the more stern and imposing is the ritual of authority. The Romans, the greatest law- giving people, were the most stately in their official rites. A small portion of formality should accompany the slightest forms of au- thority. 8. It is understood that authority, with all its appurtenances, exists for the benefit of the governed, and not as a perquisite of the ruler. 9. The operation of mere vindictiveness should be curtailed to the uttermost. 10. So far as circumstances allow, every one in authority should assume a benign character, seeking the benefit of those under him, | using instruction and moral suasion so as to stave off the necessity of force. The effect of this attitude is at its utmost when its limits are clearly discerned and never passed. 11. The reasons for repression and discipline should, as far as possible, be made intelligible to those concerned ; and should be ref- erable solely to the general good. This involves, as a part of na- tional education, a knowledge of the structure of society, as being a regulated reciprocity among all its members, for the good of each and of all. The points of comparison and contrast between the school and family have been noted. The more special distinction of the school, as compared with relations of authority in general, is resolvable into its main object—instruction, for which the condition that needs to be imposed is attention and application of mind, with a view to perma- nent intellectual and other impressions, To evoke, charm, cajole, com- pel this attitude, is the first aim in all teaching. The hostile influences to be overcome are such as physical inability and exhaustion, irksome- ness in the work, diversions and distractions from other tastes, with the natural rebelliousness of human beings under authority. The arts of proceeding are not the same for a single pupil, and for a class. For the single pupil, individuality may be studied and ap- pealed to; for the class, individualities are not considered. The ele- ment of number is an essential feature ; carrying with it both obstruc- tions and aids, and demanding a very special manipulation. It is in dealing with numbers that the teacher stands distinguished

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EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE, 63 from the parent, and allied to the wider authorities of the state ; ex- ercising larger control, encountering greater risks, and requiring a more steady hand. With an individual pupil, we need only such motives as are personal to himself; with numbers, we are under the harsh necessity of punishing for example. Good physical surroundings are known to be half the battle. A spacious and airy building ; room for the classes to come together and depart without confusion or collision—these are prime facilities and aids to discipline. Next is organization, or method and orderly ar- rangement in all the movements; whereby each pupil is always found in the proper place, and the entire mass comprehended under the mas- ter’s glance. To this follow the due alternation and remission of work, avoiding fatigue and maintaining the spirits and the energies while the teaching lasts. After the externals and arrangements come the methods and arts of teaching, considered as imparting lucidity to the explanations, and easing the necessary intellectual labor of comprehension. If to this prime quality can be added extraneous interest or charm, so much the better ; but not to be at the expense of clearness, the first condition of getting through the subject. The personality of the teacher may be in favor of his influence : a likeable exterior, a winning voice and manner, a friendly expression, when relaxing the sternness of authority. This is the side of allure- ment or attraction; the other side is the stately, imposing, and digni- fied bearing, by which the master can impersonate authority and be a standing memento to the evil-disposed of the flock. It is seldom given to one man or woman to display both attitudes in their highest force; but wherever, and to whatever extent, they can be assumed, they constitute a barrier to disaffection and remissness. Any prominent displays of swagger and self-conceit operate against the teacher’s influence, and incite efforts to take him down. It is possible to temper authority with an unassuming demeanor. Much, of course, depends upon tact: meaning by that a lively and wakeful sense of everything that is going on. Disorder is the sure sequel of the teacher’s failure in sight or in hearing ; but, even with the sénses good, there may be absent the watchful employment of them. This is itself a natural incapacity for the work of teaching ; just as an orator is sure to fail if he is slow to discern the signs of the effect that he produces on his audience. A teacher must not merely be sensitive to incipient and marked disorder ; he must read the result of his teaching in the pupils’ eyes. That quietness of manner that comes not of feebleness, but of re- straint and collectedness, passing easily into energy when required, is a valuable adjunct to discipline. ‘To be fussy and flurried is to infect the class with the same qualities; unfavorable alike to repression and to learning.

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64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Any mistake, miscarriage, or false step, on the part of a teacher, is for the moment fatal to his ascendency. Such things will happen and they render undue assumption all the more perilous. The stress of the teacher’s difficulty lies in the heavings of a mass or multitude. The working of human beings collectively is wholly distinct from their individual action; a new set of forces and influences are generated. One man against a multitude is always in the post of danger. As units in a mass, every individual displays entirely new characters. The anti-social or malevolent passion—the delight in gain- ing a triumph—which is suppressed in the individual as against a more powerful individual, is reignited and inflamed in company with others, | Whenever a simultaneous charge is possible, the authority of a single person is as naught in the balance. It is often said that the teacher should get the collective opinion on his side—should, in short, create a good class-opinion. It is easier to deserve success in this than to command it. The fear is that, till the end of time, the sympathy of numbers will continue to manifest itself against authority in the school. There will be occasions when the infection of the mass is a stronghold of order, as when the majority are bent on attending to the work, and are thwarted by a few disturb- ers of the peace; or when they have a general sympathy with their teacher, and merely indulge themselves in rare and exceptional out- bursts. While a teacher’s merits may gain for him this position of advantage, more or less, he is never above the risks of an outbreak, and must be ready for the final resort of repression by discipline or penalties. He may still work by soothing applications, gentle and kindly remonstrance ; he may check the spread of disaffection by watchful tactics, and by showing that he has the ringleaders in his eye ; but in the end he must punish. It is this position of constant preparedness for disorder, sometimes in isolated individuals and sometimes in the mass, that demands an air and manner betokening authority, and carrying with it a certain hau- teur and distance ; the necessity for which is the stronger, as the war- ring elements are more rife. The discipline of numbers is impeded by two sorts of pupils: those that have no natural liking for the subject, and those that are too far behind to understand the teaching. In a perfectly-arranged school both sorts would be excluded from a class.—Awuthor’s advance- sheets.

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EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND. EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND.’ OUND is the sensation peculiar to the ear. This sensation is caused by rapidly-succeeding to-and-fro motions of the air which touches the outside surface of the drum-skin of the ear. These to-and-fro mo- tions may be given to the air by a distant body, like a string of a vio- lin, The string moves to and fro, that is, it vibrates, These vibra- tions of the string act on the bridge of the violin, which rests on the _ belly or sounding-board of the instrument. The surface of the sound- ing-board is thus set trembling, and these tremors, or vibrations, spread through the air in all directions around the instrument, somewhat in the manner that water-waves spread around the place where a stone has been dropped into a quiet pond. These tremors of the air, however, are not sound, but the cause of sound. Sound, as we have said, is a sensation ; but, as the cause of this sensation is always vibration, we call those vibrations which give this sensation sonorous vibrations. Thus, if we examine attentively the vibrating string of the violin, we shall see that it looks like a shadowy spindle, showing that the string swings quickly to and fro; but, on closing the ears, the sensation of sound disappears, and there remains to us only the sight of the quick to-and-fro motion which the moment before caused the sound. Behind the drum-skin of the ear is a jointed chain of three little bones. The one, H of Fig. 4, attached to the drum-skin, is called the hammer ; the next, A, is called the anvil ; the third, S, has the exact form of a stirrup, and is called the stirrup-bone. This last bone of the chain is attached to an oval membrane, which is a little larger than the foot of the stirrup. This oval membrane closes a hole opening into the cavity forming the inner ear ; a cavity tunneled out of the hardest bone of the head, and having a very complex form. The oval hole just spoken of opens into a globular portion of the cavity, known as the vestibule ; and from this lead three semicircular canals, SC, and also a cavity, C, of such a marked resemblance to a snail’s shell that it is called cochlea, the Latin word for that object. The cavity of the inner ear is filled with a liquid, in which spread out the delicate fibres of the auditory nerve. Let us consider how this wonderful little instrument. acts when sonorous vibrations reach it. Imagine the violin-string vibrating 500 times in one second. The sounding-board also makes 500 vibrations in a second. The air touching the violin is set trembling with 500 tremors a second, and these tremors speed with a velocity of 1,100 feet ? From “Sound: A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the Phenomena of Sound, for the Use of Students of Every Age.” By Alfred Marshall Mayer, Professor of Physics in the Stevens Institute of Technology. “Experimental Science Series for Beginners, No. II.” New York: D. Appleton & Co. VOL. xIv.—5

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66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. in a second in all directions through the surrounding air. They soon reach the drum-skin of the ear. The latter, being elastic, moves in and out with the air which touches it. Then this membrane, in its turn, pushes and pulls the little ear-bones 500 times in a second. The last bone, the little stirrup, finally receives the vibrations sent from the Fie. 4, violin-string, and sends them into the fluid of the inner ear, where they shake the fibres of the auditory nerve 500 times in a second, These tremors of the nerve—how we know not—-so affect the brain that we have the sensation which we call sound. In Chapter V. it is shown that the mechanical actions, which finally result in giving us the sensation of sound, always have their origin in some vibrating body, and that this vibrating body may be either solid, liquid, or gaseous. The author, after showing that the vibrations of a solid (a tuning-fork) and of a liquid (water running through a toy flageolet) give origin to sound, presents to his readers— An ExpERIMENT MADE WITH A WHISTLE AND A Lamp-CHIMNEY, SHOWING THAT, AS IN WIND-INSTRUMENTs, A VIBRATING COLUMN OF Arm MAY ORIGINATE Sonorovus Visrations.—aperiment 33.—The chimneys of student-lamps have a fashion of breaking just at the thin, narrow part near the bottom. Such a broken chimney is very useful in our experiments. At A, in Fig. 25, is such a broken chimney, closed at the broken end with wax. A cork is fitted to the other end of the ~ chimney, and has a hole bored through its centre. In this hole is in- serted part of a common wooden whistle. At B is an exact represen- tation of such a whistle, and the cross-line at C shows where it is to be cut in two. Only the upper part is used, and this is tightly fitted into the cork.

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EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND. 67 Inside the tube is a small quantity of very fine precipitated silica, probably the lightest powder known. Hold the tube in an horizontal position and blow the whistle. The silica-powder springs up into groups of thin vertical plates, separated by spots of powder at rest, as in the figure. This is a very beautiful and striking experiment. Eeperiment 33 a,—The following experiment shows that the sound is caused by the vibrations of the column of air in the tube and whistle, and not by the vibrations of these solid bodies. Grasp the tube and whistle tightly in the hands. These bodies are thus prevented from vibrating, yet the sound remains the same. The breath driven through the mouth of the whistle strikes on the sharp edge of the opening at the side of the whistle, and sets up a flut- ter or vibration of air. The air within the glass tube now takes part in the vibrations, the light silica-powder vibrates with it, and makes the vibrations visible. To exhibit this experiment before a number of people, lay the tube carefully on the water-lantern before the heliostat, and throw a projec- tion of the tube and the powder on the screen. When the whistle is sounded, all in the room can see the fine powder leaping up in the tube into thin, upright plates. From Chapter VI., which is on the transmission of sonorous vibra- tions through solids, liquids, and gases, we select— EXPERIMENTS SHOWING THAT THE AIR IS CONSTANTLY VIBRATING WHILE SonoRovs VIBRATIONS ARK PASSING THROUGH IT.—We must now add to our apparatus an open metal A-pipetabout seven and a half inches (nineteen centimetres) long, shown at C in Fig. 27. This pipe the organ-builder will accurately tune to your “ A-philharmonic ” fork. Experiment 43.—Get a glass tumbler about two and a half inches in diameter and about three and a half inches deep, though any tumbler - willdo. Take a piece of window-glass about three inches square and place it over the tumbler. The glass must touch the edge of the mouth of the tumbler all around. Now slowly slide the glass so that the open- ing into the tumbler gets larger and larger, while the vibrating fork is held all the time over this opening, as shown at A in Fig. 27. Pres- ently you will get an opening of a size that causes an intense sound,

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68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. much louder than any you have ever before heard from the fork alone, This is because the air in the tumbler is set in vibration, and adds the vibrations of its mass to those of the fork. That this isso you may prove for yourself by the following experiment : Eeperiment 44.—Being careful not to move the glass plate from its present position (Experiment 43), stick it with wax to the tumbler, Pour a little silica into the tumbler, and then hold it horizontally, and vibrate the fork near its opening, observing attentively how the silica- powder is acted on by the inclosed vibrating air. Eieperiment 45.—Take a piece of thin linen paper about four and a half inches square, and having wetted it paste it over the mouth of the tumbler, When the paper has dried it will be stretched tightly. Take a sharp penknife and carefully cut away the paper so as to make an opening as shown at B in Fig. 27. Make this opening small at first, and very gradually make it larger and larger. Hold the fork over the opening after each increase in its size, and you will soon dis- cover the size of the opening which causes the air inclosed in the tum- bler to vibrate with the fork, and thus greatly to strengthen its sound. You have now a mass of air in tune with the fork, and inclosed in a vessel which has one of its walls formed of a piece of elastic paper. With this instrument, which I have invented for you, you must make some charming experiments. Eizperiment 46.—If the air in the tumbler vibrates to the A-fork, it will, of course, vibrate to the A-pipe, which gives the same note as the fork. Scatter some sand on the paper, and then sound the A-pipe a foot or two from it. The sand dances vigorously about, and ends by arranging itself in a nodal line parallel to the edges of the paper, ip

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EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND. 69 the form of a U with its two horns united by a straight line. The vibrations of the pipe can only reach the tumbler by going through the air, and, as the sand vibrates when the tumbler is placed in any position about the pipe, it follows that the air all around the pipe vi- brates while the pipe is sounding. Experiment 47.—Sprinkle a small quantity of sand on the paper, and then, placing a thin book under the tumbler, so incline it that the sand just does not run down the paper, as shown in B, Fig. 27. Now go to the farthest end of the room and blow the pipe in gentle toots, each about one second long. At each toot, your friend, standing near the tumbler, will see the sand make a short march down the paper ; and soon by a series of marches it makes its way to the edge of the paper and falls into the tumbler. I have, in a large room, gone to the distance of sixty feet (18.28 metres), and the experiment worked as I have just described it. Experiment 48.—Again arrange the experiment as in Experiment 47, and standing three or four feet from the tumbler try how feeble a sound will vibrate the paper. If every part of the experiment is in good adjustment, you will find that the feeblest toot you can make will set the sand marching. To keep it at rest you must keep silent, Experiment 49.—To show these experiments on a greatly magni- fied scale, place the tumbler in front of the heliostat (see “‘ Light,” page 79) so that the sun’s rays just graze along the inclined surface of the paper. Cut off a piece of a match one-eighth of an inch long, and split this little bit into four parts. Place one of these on the inclined paper. Of course, the image of the tumbler is inverted, so the bit of wood appears to adhere to the lower side of the paper. If a little paper mouse cut out of smooth paper is used in place of the bit of wood, it is really amusing to see the mouse make a start at every toot of the pipe. Fre. 21. We make a long selection from Chapter VIIL, which treats of the “ Interferences of Sonorous Vibrations, and of the Beats of Sound,” in order to set forth the manner in which the author has knit together his simple experiments. ;

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7° THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Ezperiment 60.—Cut out two small triangles of copper-foil or tinsel, of the same size, and with wax fasten one on the end of each of the prongs of a tuning-fork. Put the fork in the wooden block, and set up the guide (as in experiment, Fig. 21). Prepare a strip of smoked glass, and then make the fork vibrate and slidé the glass under it, and get two traces, one from each prong. Holding the glass up to the light, you will see the double trace, as shown in Fig. 37. You observe that the wavy lines move apart, and Fie 387. then draw together. This shows us that the two prongs, in vibrating, do not move in the same direction at the same time, but always in op- posite directions. They swing toward each other, then away from each other. Experiment 61.—What is the effect of this movement of the prongs of the fork on the air? Asimple experiment will answer this question. Place three lighted candles on the table at A, B, and C (Fig. 38). . Hold the hands upright, with the space between the palms opposite A, while the backs of the hands face the candles Band C. Now move the hands near each other, then separate them, and make these motions steadily and not too quickly. You thus repeat the motions of the prongs of the fork. While vibrating the hands, observe attentively i the flames of the candles. When the hands are coming nearer each other, the air is forced out from between them, and a puff of air is 4 driven against the flame A, as is shown by its bending away from the hands. But, during the above movement, the backs of the hands have drawn the flames toward them, as shown in Fig. 38. When the hands are separating, the air rushes in between them, and the flame A is drawn toward the hands by this motion of the air, while at the same — time the flames at B and C are driven away from the backs of the hands. From this experiment it is seen that the space between the prongs and the faces of the prongs of a fork are, at the same instant, always acting oppositely on the air. This will be made clearer by the study of the diagram, Fig. 39. This figure supposes the student looking dowg on the tops of the prongs of the fork. Imagine the prongs swinging away from each

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EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND. 7 other in their vibration. Then the attion of the faces ¢ and ¢ on the air is to condense it, and this condensation tends to spread all around the fork. But, by the same movement, the space r r between the prongs is enlarged, and hence a rarefaction is made there. This rare- faction also spreads all around the fork. But, as the condensations produced at c and ¢ and the rarefactions at r and r spread with the st aise heaiisien,. 4 ~ SY ~ “g » \ J ‘ < \ J . Fre. 39. same velocity, it follows that they must meet along the dotted lines g, 9; %, 7, drawn from the edges of the fork outward. The full }-circle lines around the fork in Fig. 39 represent the middle of the condensed shells of air, while the broken }-circle lines stand for the middle of the rarefied shells of air. Now what must happen along these dotted lines, or, rather, surfaces ? Evidently there is a struggle here between the condensations and the ~ rarefactions. The former tend to make the molecules of air go nearer together, the latter try to separate them; but, as these actions are equal, and as the air is pulled in opposite directions at the same time, it remains at rest-—does not vibrate, Therefore, along the surfaces q, g, q; 7, there is silence. When the prongs vibrate toward each other they make the reverse actions on the air; that is, rarefactions are now sent out from ¢ and c, while condensations are sent from r and 7, but the’ same effect of silence along g, g, g, 7, is produced. Kperiment 62.—That this is so, is readily proved by the following simple experiment: Vibrate the fork and hold it upright near the ear. Now slowly turn it round. During one revolution of the fork on its foot, you will perceive that the sound goes through four changes. Four times it was loud, and four times it was almost if not quite gone. Twirl the fork before the ear of a companion : he will tell you when it

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72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. makes the loudest sound, and whén it becomes silent. You will find that when it is loudest the faces c, c of the prongs, or the spaces fr, r between them, are facing his ear; and when he tells you that there is silence you will find that the edges of the fork, that is, the planes g, g, g, J, are toward his ear. Our space will only permit one more selection, and this we take from Chapter XVII., “On the Analysis and Synthesis of Sounds,” in order specially to show how Prof. Mayer has placed within the reach of all teachers and students an instrument giving some of the most charming experiments in acoustics. The whole apparatus, if made at home, need not cost over seventy-five cents. EXPERIMENTS BY WHICH CoMPOUND SOUNDS ARE ANALYZED BY VIEWING IN A Roratrinc Mrrror THE VisraTions OF Kénia’s Mano- METRIC FLamEs.—Take a piece of pine board, A, Fig. 51, 1 inch (25 millimetres) thick, 14 inch (38 millimetres) wide, and 9 inches (22.8 centimetres) long. One inch from its top bore with an inch centre-bit a shallow hole 4 inch deep. Bore a like shallow hole in the block B, which is # inch thick, 14 inch wide, and 2 inches (51 millimetres) long.

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EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND. 73 Place a }-inch centre-bit in the centre of the shallow hole in A and bore with it a hole through the wood. Into this fit a glass or metal tube, as shown at Z Bore a #inch (5 millimetres) hole obliquely into the shallow hole in B, and into this fit the glass tube C. Then bore another #,-inch hole directly into the shallow hole in B. Puta glass tube in a gas or spirit flame and heat it red-hot at a place about two inches from its end. Then draw the tube out at this place into a narrow neck. Make a cut with the edge of a file across this narrow neck, and the tube will readily snap asunder at this mark. Then heat a place on the tube in a flame, and here bend it into a right angle, as shown at D, Fig. 51. Now fit this tube into the hole just made, as shown at D. These tubes may be firmly and tightly fitted by wrap- ping their ends with paper coated with glue before they are forced into their holes. Get a small piece of the thinnest sheet rubber you can find, or a piece of thin linen paper, and, having rubbed glue on the board A around the shallow hole, stretch the thin rubber, or paper, over this hole and glue it there. Then rub glue on the block B, and place the shallow hole in this block directly over the shallow hole in A, and fasten B to A by wrapping twine around these blocks. Thus you will — have made a little box divided into two compartments by a partition of thin rubber. Fasten the rod A to the side of a small board, so that it may stand upright. Attach a piece of large-sized rubber tube to the glass tube F, and into the other end of the tube stick a cone, made by rolling up.a piece of cardboard so as to form a cone eight inches long and with a mouth two inches (51 millimetres) in diameter. Now get a piece of wood one foot long, four inches wide, and a quarter of an inch thick. Out of this cut the square, with the two rods projecting from it, as shown at M. The lower of these rods is short, the one above the square is long. Cut the end of the shorter rod to a blunt point, and with this point make a very shallow pit in the piece of flat wood X for the rod and square to twirl in. Glue the piece of wood K on the end of a brick, Z. Get two pieces of thin silvered glass, each four inches square, and, placing one on each side of the square M, fasten them there by winding twine around the top and bottom borders of the mirrors. Ezperiment 112.—Through a rubber tube lead gas to C. It will go into the left-hand partition of the box and will come out at F, where you will light it. Now place the mirror-rod in the shallow pit in X, and hold the mirror upright, so that you may see the flame F re- flected from its centre. Hold the rod upright and twirl it slowly between the thumb and forefinger, which should point downward and not horizontally, as shown in the figure. The flame appears in the mirror drawn out into a band of light with a smooth top-border. While twirling the mirror put the

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74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. cone to your mouth and sing into it. The sonorous vibrations enter the side A of the box, and, striking on the thin rubber, force this in and out. When it goes in, a puff of gas is driven out of the other partition, B, of the box, and the flame /’ jumps up. When the sheet of rubber vibrates outward, it sucks the gas into the box B, and the flame F' jumps down. Therefore, on singing into the funnel, you will see in the mirror the smooth top-border of the luminous band bro- ken up into little tongues or teeth of flame, each tooth standing for one vibration of the voice on the rubber partition. Place a lamp-chimney around the flame, should the wind from the twirling mirror agitate it, and be careful not to have the flame too high. Scietnai 113.—Another way of showing the vibrations of the flame is to burn the jet of gas at the end of a glass tube stuck into the end of a rubber tube attached to # Now sling the tube round in a vertical circle, and you have an unbroken luminous ring ; but as soon as you sing into the cone this ring breaks up into a circle of beads of light, or sometimes changes into a wreath of beautiful little luminous flowers, like forget-me-nots. To make this experiment, you will be obliged to have a tube with a larger opening than that at F. This instrument will afford you many an hour of instruction and amusement. We have only space to show you a few experiments, Others will suggest themselves whenever you use it. Eeperiment 114.—Sing into the funnel the sound of 00 as in pool. After a few trials you will get a pure simple sound, and the flame will appear as in Fig. 52. Some voices get this figure more readily by sing- ing E. Experiment 115.—Twirling the mirror with the same velocity, grad- ually lower the pitch of the oo sound till your voice falls to its lower octave, when the flame will appear as in Fig. 53, with half the number of teeth in Fig. 52, because the lower octave of a sound is given by half the number of vibrations. ) Eieperiment 116.—Sing the vowel-sound o on the note and you will see Fig. 54 in the mirror. This evidently is not the figure that would have been made by a simple vibra- tion. It shows that this 0 sound is compound, and formed of two simple sounds, one the octave of the other. The larger teeth are made by every alternate vibration of the higher simple sound acting with a vibration of the lower, and thus making the flame jump higher by their combined action on the mem- brane. Experiment 117.—Fig. 55 appears on the mirror when we sing the English vowel a on the note f. Feperiment 118.—Fig.,56 appears on the mirror when we sing the English vowel a on the note c. Examine attentively Fig. 55. This shows that the English vowel @

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EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND. 75 gung on f is made up of two combined simple vibrations. One of these alone would make the long tongues of flame, but with this simple vi- bration exists another of three times its frequency; that is, the vibra- tion of greater frequency is the third harmonic of the slower. As the slower vibration, making the long tongues of flame, is f, the higher (hihi MiMi Mihi. VATA ASA LAS Fras. 52, 58, 54, 55, 56. must be c’’ of the second octave above f. Each third vibration of this higher harmonic coincides with each vibration of f; hence each third tongue of flame is higher than the others, Ezeperiment 119.—In like manner the student must analyze Fig. 56 into its simple sonorous elements. Then he should, with the vibrating flame, examine the peculiarities of the various voices of his friends, and make neat and accurate drawings of the flames corresponding to them, so that he may analyze them at his leisure. Experiment 120.—Blow your toy trumpet into the paper cone getitly; and then strongly, and observe that the sound given by the trumpet is a complex one. Try if you cannot get a flame somewhat like that the trumpet gives by singing ah, through your nose, into the cone.

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76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The student will soon find that different persons, in singing the ~ same note, as nearly alike as they can, will produce flames of very dif ferent forms. This is because the voices differ in the number and relg. tive intensities of the simple sounds which form them. THE RADIOMETER. By J, W. PHELPS. OME twenty-five years ago, when Foucault’s ingenious experiment for proving the earth’s motion on its axis was in vogue, the idea occurred to us that that fact might be proved in another way. Fou- cault’s method, it will be remembered, consisted in the vibration of the pendulum in a fixed direction, the earth’s motion being disclosed by the angular deviation of a given chalked line from that direction. In the pursuit of our own method we conceived the idea—which, though a very simple one, was not more simple than some others have been of experi- . mentalists, both before and after the fact—that, if a small needle, say of dry wood, could be suspended from its middle by a torsionless thread, and be excluded from the air, it would retain any fixed direction, while a parallel line under it would change from that direction in proportion as the horizon turned from west to east. In order to carry out this idea we suspended a wooden needle by a thread of spider’s web from the underside of the cork stopper of a large glass jar, and for addi- tional security against possible currents of air placed the whole inside of a large chest. On going to this chest to ascertain the result of our experiment, which we happened to do by night, and had to take a light with us, we were surprised to see, the moment we raised the lid, the needle begin to move! Our first thought was that we had made a great discovery: that light was a material substance, and that enough of that substance could emanate from one small candle to move a needle when freely sus- pended, in an horizontal position! The weight of light, of course, we knew must be infinitely small, if it had any weight at all ; but.then, by multiplying what little weight it might have by its known amazing great velocity, we did not know but that the motion which we wit- nessed might be produced in the way supposed. A little examination, however, into the matter, soon convinced us that our first impressions were erroneous. We preserved the glass jar with the needle suspended in it for many months ; and the most astonishing thing about it to us was that, however much the needle turned, though at times it would spin round ~ with great and long-continued velocity, the thread of spider’s web never — é

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= 8& | © s+ ree st “SS THE RADIOMETER. 77 twisted nor broke. At one period it was p/aced on the mantelpiece, over an open fireplace, and whenever a puff of wind came down the chimney, driving the heat of the fire up toward it, the needle would then spin with amazing rapidity, reminding us of the whirlwinds that spin up from heated plains of sand or dust, Our visitors were astonished to see that needle whirling there, without any visible cause, and with no apparent attachment, for the thread by which it was suspended was so slight as almost to escape observation. The application of the hand to the side of the jar would always cause the needle to move from a state of rest. It was very interesting to watch its motion at night, whenever the light of a candle entered the jar. It furnished a beautiful illustration of the effect which is pro- duced upon the still night-air of summer when penetrated by the first rays of the rising sun. We may conceive that the whole atmosphere at that moment responds with infinite currents, breezes, and motions, awak- ened into new life from a night’s rest by the heat of the sun’s rays. Of course, light, as a substance, has nothing to do with the motion. It results entirely from the expansion of the air by the force of heat. Our needle moved on the same principle precisely—and on no other—that the windmill moves in a current of air. If the glass jar were to be exhausted of its air, and the needle were then to move when struck by a beam of light, the motion might be supposed entirely due to that light; but it may well be doubted whether it is possible to produce a vacuum so perfect that it would be entirely void of gaseous substance of some kind. The planetary and starry spaces themselves are probably not entirely free from matter that would respond to the action of heat, if indeed such matter is not necessary for the transmission of light and heat. An infinitesimal portion of air, or even of vapor of mercury, spread through a large jar or receiver, would doubtless obey. the same law of expansion under heat that is observed by the atmosphere in its densest conditions, and, when set in motion, would prove sufficient to move a freely-suspended needle. As our instrument, devised for proving the rotation of the earth, did not prove that fact, but showed something else, so the radiometer, which was supposed to prove the material character of light, did not prove that fact, yet it may-serve to show something else. But we do not perceive why it should be called a radiometer, any more than the windmill should be called by that name.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. PLANTS AND THE PEOPLING OF AMERICA: By OTTO KUNTZE. HAVE spent some years as a botanist in the tropics of both hemi- spheres, and in the mean time have studied pretty thoroughly the tropical domesticated plants. In America and in Asia the principal domesticated tropical plants are represented by the same species; for instance, Manihot utilissima, whose roots yield a fine flour, the tarro ( Colocasia esculenta), the Spanish or red pepper (Capsicum annuum), which is in far more general use than the black pepper, and whose nv- merous domestic varieties justify the inference that it has been culti- vated from a very early period. This inference is still more valid in the case of the banana (Musa paradisiaca), called also the pisang, from which Musa sapientum is not specifically distinguishable ; its fruits, in the cultivated state, are always seedless, and the varieties of the plant far surpass in number those of our apples and pears. Other cultivated plants found in both hemispheres are the tobacco, maize, cocoanut— the American origin of none of which is at all proved ; then there is the tomato (ZLycopersicum esculentum), and the cultivated bamboo, in which among millions of specimens hardly one has flowers. Thus the bamboo is not propagated by means of seed any more than is the tarro, the ba- nana, the sweet-potato, or paritium. Of fruit-trees common to the Old and New Worlds I would further name the guava (Psidium guava), the melon-tree (Carica papaya), and the mango-fruit (Mangifera Indica). Finally, I may name Paritium tiliaceum, a malvaceous plant hardly noticed by Europeans, but very highly prized by the natives of the tropics. This tree, cultivated everywhere in the East and West Indies, South America, and the Malay Archipelago, supplies to the natives all the cordage they require; but in those countries cordage is not kept in stock as among us. If a rope is needed, a branch is broken off and stripped of its bark; the latter is divided into strips, which are held be- tween the toes and twisted by the hands. When a load is to be carried from one place to another the natives usually secure it with a fresh cord of this kind to both ends of a bamboo carrying-pole. In the cultivated state this malvaceous tree is nearly always. sterile, while the paritium- trees, which grow wild in the lagoons of the coast of Farther India, always bear seeds. This rope-tree appears to have existed in America before Columbus’s time, for it was at an early period imported thence into the Canaries. What we may only accept as probable concerning this plant we know with certainty concerning the cultivated banana or plantain, which is also seedless. It was generally cultivated in America prior to 1492. Now in what way was this plant, which cannot stand a voyage through the temperate zone, carried to America, to the New World, 1 Translated from the German by Dr. H. Hartogh Heys van Zouteneer.

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an Objection to the author’s views.—TRaNsLATOR. PLANTS AND THE PEOPLING OF AMERICA, 79 where it certainly does not grow in the wildstate? It must be remem- bered that the plantain is a tree-like herbaceous plant possessing no easily transportable bulbs like the potato or the dahlia, nor propagable by cuttings like the willow or the poplar. It has only a perennial root which, once planted, needs hardly any care, and yet produces the most abundant crop of any known tropical plant. On the average, a plantain annually bears nearly twenty kilogrammes, and sometimes a hundred- weight, of most nutritious fruit, which at the same time possesses a deli- cious flavor. The stem then dies and the root gives out new shoots. No doubt the American race, closely allied as it is with the Mongolian, carried with it, when it migrated to America, the plantain as a culti- vated plant from Asia where it grew wild. The plantain cannot have come from Africa or from Polynesia, where musa is also indigenous, for in that case African or Polynesian characters would exist in the abo- riginal population of America. Some writers have supposed that this seedless, herbaceous, cultivated plant must have been introduced into America by shipwrecked seamen, because it can exist only in a tropical climate and in living specimens. But in our geological epoch a party of Mongolians shipwrecked in their primitive craft could never have reached the shores of America alive’ at any point in the tropical zone, for they would be unprovided with sufficient food, and because the trop- ical distance between Asia and America is enormous, nearly thrice or four times as great as between Europe and America, Then, seamen are not wont to take living specimens of the plantain on their voyages; and, even if they did, these plants would be consumed as food in case of shipwreck. Even if we suppose the plants to have escaped this fate, they would surely perish for want of fresh water. An hypothesis which rests on four improbabilities is worth nothing, and we might wager one against thousands of millions that no importation of the plantain into America has ever happened in that wise. The only hypothesis which remains is, that the importation took place while the polar regions enjoyed a ’ tropical climate, and that the plantain was brought by the immigrating Asiatics by way of Kamtchatka and Alaska. This is the more prob- able, because many other tropical cultivated plants are in like manner propagated, not by seeds, but by “eyes,” etc. Now, a cultivated plant which does not possess seeds must have been under culture for a very long period—we have not in Europe a single exclusively seedless, berry-bearing, cultivated plant—and hence it is perhaps fair to infer that these plants were cultivated as early as the beginning of the mid- dle of the diluvial period. Moreover, the hypothesis of an immigration ’ The Chinese and Japanese are acquainted with the plantain, and possess large ships in which pretty long voyages may be made. In the summer the plantain might live in the temperate zone. It can hardly be doubted that long before Columbus’s time the junks of those peoples may have been wrecked on the Pacific coast of America. This seems

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Se Nn a La AG AEM DR aR MIG LS cee i Lae Et 2 ca a aint © Re 7 eee. s Px i 2 ; we oS Ne at ah Oe Dae ec + rate n A Nae whe rs 2) fe ae eee i Manta 80 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. of the Indians via a still tropical Northern Asia and North America ig 4 ; confirmed by their going naked. Had they passed through a climate like that of the Kamtchatka of to-day, they must have worn clothing; and a people that once has acquired that habit never abandons it after. ward. Further, it must be observed that the American Indians gener ally are bad seamen, attempting only coastwise voyages ; and this fact also renders the supposition of an oceanic immigration improbable, Whether man was the earliest cultivator of plants is doubtful, for we know of one or two species of ants which also regularly cultivate certain plants. We have, therefore, no reason to doubt that the very early ancestors of the Indians, however barbarous they may have been, cultivated a plant the culture of which is very easy and whose produce is most abundant, for it yields, as Humboldt has shown, on the same area, twenty-five times as large a crop and twenty-five times as much food-value as wheat. I will consider the only two objections that have hitherto been _ brought against my hypothesis: 1. The importation of this plant by seamen who would have reached the American coast in their frail canoes, being favored by ocean-cur- rents, is not possible, because within the tropics there is but one ocean- current from Asia toward America, namely, the equatorial current; but now this current, strictly speaking, does not touch Asia at all, but has its beginning at a point eastward of the Philippines and the Mo- lueccas. If we make the very bold supposition—for a waste of water 80° wide, or twelve hundred geographical miles, has to be crossed, or two thousand geographical miles from the Moluccas—that such immi- gration is possible, then Polynesian and not Mongolian races would inhabit America, which is contrary to the facts of the case. 2. Or, sup- posing an immigration along a line near to the equator, we must pre suppose a regular intercourse in prehistoric times between Southern China or Farther India and Central America, so that the later immi- grants might make preparation for carrying out with them on a long sea-voyage living plants, as the banana, paritium, bamboo, ete. : for this supposition there is no ground whatever. Besides, many tradi- tions currént among various American tribes point to an immigration from the north, while the equatorial current only touches America at Panama. I have still to meet another objection, namely, that the banana, when man began to cultivate it, must have had seeds (though this isso | no longer), and that the seeds only were brought to America at anearly period. This is inadmissible, because in that case the plantain must — often have reverted to the wild state, like all other seed-bearing tropi- cal fruits. But the plantain does not grow wild, though in tropical America it finds the same conditions of vegetation as in its native country, and hence thrives there. The wild plantain in India has small | stony seeds, and is distributed widely by monkeys, bats, and inne

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f —- @8 Os “Ss @& “es “7 s oo" we rete Foe Oo li Puy it) saa? Ww by . SO ROS Shino oy) hana iis tre S| “Sy Ba PLACE OF ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 81 which like the fruit but cannot destroy the seeds, In Asia wild, seed- bearing plantains are usually found growing in groups. In America, which has a much greater area of wilderness, the plantain must have spread far and wide, seeing that it has persisted in the wild state in the far more densely-inhabited East Indies. Therefore, it appears that in America the plantain has always been a seedless, cultivated plant, which can only have been introduced from Asia in preglacial times, through northern zones, for in that way alone was the immigration at all possible.— Ausland. THE PLACE OF ENGLISH IN THE HIGHER - EDUCATION.’ By A. B. STARK, LL. D.. PRESIDENT OF THE LOGAN FEMALE COLLEGE. l SHALL begin with an unequivocal statement of my position: the study of the English language and literature should occupy the cen- tral place—the place of honor—in every scheme of higher education for English-speaking men and women. This primacy I claim for two principal reasons: first, the knowledge obtained from this study is of most worth in the practical affairs of real life ; second, the right study of English may be made the instrument of the highest culture of the mind. All educators, I believe, are agreed that a thorough knowledge of our mother-tongue is of supreme importance to every educated man or woman. The friends of classical studies urge, among their strongest arguments in favor of Latin and Greek, that through a careful study of these languages is the shortest and surest way to a thorough knowl- edge of English; while, on the other hand, the advocates of the new education magnify the importance of studying English. I think it unnecessary to dwell on this first proposition, and shall, therefore, pass at once to a consideration of the educational value of the study of English. Tn my first advocacy of the importance of studying English—in a quarterly review article printed seventeen years ago—I concede “ that the study of the vernacular is almost valueless as a means of education, “ or as an instrument of intellectual culture and discipline.” I hope I am wiser to-day; I certainly hold a very different opinion. In that article I reviewed all the important books on the subject then published, and yet all those works, with the exception of Marsh’s “ Lectures ” and Latham’s “ Handbook,” have been forgotten. A course of real study * A paper read before the National Educational Association, Louisville, Ky., August ‘W, 1877. VOL, XIV.—6

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82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. in English was then unknown. A young man, whose time had been mainly given to Latin and Greek, might be expected to err in estimat. 7 ing the value of an undeveloped study. | After many years of experience in teaching I have come to believe that one may be liberally educated without knowing even Shakespeare’s “little Latin and less Greek.” Let us see what is claimed for classical studies by their friends. Dr. Jacob, in a lecture before the London College of Preceptors, after saying—what is most true—that it is “ of the greatest importance to accustom young boys or girls to exercise such mental powers as attention, observation, exactness or clearness of apprehension, the comparison of contrasts and similarities, general- ization from a number of particular instances, the facility in tracing order in the midst of variety,” tells us that Latin “affords peculiar opportunities for promoting the exercise of the very faculties which most need to be drawn out and trained in boys, if they are ta have an education which deserves the name.” I think it will puzzle Dr. Jacob, or any one else, to show wherein Latin affords peculiar opportunities for promoting this training. Indeed, an advocate of science-teaching may as well make a similar claim for the particular science which he recommends, Certainly the botanist may accept this language as a statement of his claim. These results can undoubtedly be deduced from the study of English, and, in fact, from almost any real study. We must, therefore, seek a higher ground for justifying the giving of so much precious time to the study of Latin and Greek. Let us try the real object of learning a language, to use it as a tool for receiving and conveying thought. The utter uselessness of Latin and Greek for. this practical purpose, to almost every one who studies them, puts them out of court at once. After all the years spent in the study of these languages, not one in a thousand of our college graduates even learns to read them, and I doubt if there are ten teachers of them in America who can read them. There are many who can translate a Latin or @ Greek book with the aid of a dictionary ; there are others who can translate without the help of a dictionary ; but translating is not read- ing. To reada book in a foreign language, you must think in its language—you must catch the thought at a glance without the inter- vention of English words at all. Now, who is there before me wh can thus read an unfamiliar passage in Latin or Greek? Although I have spent many of the best years of my life in studying these lan guages, I am free to say I cannot doit. Ihave never known aman ~ who could do it. Hence we know no more about the thought, the life, — the philosophy, the poetry of the Greeks and the Romans, than we | could have learned far more readily from good translations—using the _ correct translations of others in place of our own imperfect work, All this, I know, is unpardonable heresy. My sin is made worse by the fact that I have fallen from grace. I was trained up in the good orthodox creed that the study of Latin and Greek is the chief factor of

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PLACE OF ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 8; a liberal education—the central source of “ sweetness and light.” These gods of Greece and Rome, having played their part, still “lag super- fluous on the stage,” and we must push them from their places to make room for something better—for modern languages and physical sciences, It may be said there is room for all, but I doubt it. Many eminent teachers in America and in England, writing to me in regard to a prize- paper on “ Hamlet,” printed last year as a specimen of the work done by my pupils, use expressions of surprise and admiration that have as- tonished me, and confess that they are unable to do work so good on account of the over-crowded curriculums of their colleges and univer- sities. From numerous statements of this kind, I infer that, although able and learned men are employed in the department of English in our leading institutions, the students do not have time for any real, earnest work at English. There is too much of something else. We must find this encumbering something and drive it out, to make room for English. I think I see it in the form of Latin and Greek, and ab- stract mathematics in some colleges. Like the men of Ephesus who shouted “Great is Diana of the Ephesians” all the louder because they no longer believed in her greatness, we sometimes cling the closer to our idols after we see their utter powerlessness. So I have done, and in the curriculum of Logan Female College I permitted Latin to hold the place of honor after I had lost faith in its right. Meanwhile I was giving the primacy to the study of English in the actual work of the college. A copy of the college register having fallen into the hands of Mr, A. J. Ellis, formerly President of the English Philological As- sociation and author of “ Early English Pronunciation,” he wrote me a long private letter, in which he severely criticises my inconsistency, and presses me to an open avowal of my real faith. I can best fortify the position I have taken by quoting his words, as I find them in a lecture before the London College of Preceptors: “It is perfectly absurd to speak of the humanizing effect of Latin and Greek, the grand litera- tures which they contain, their poetry, their philosophy, their history, the enormous influence which they have had upon the literature, poetry, philosophy, the whole tone of thought prevalent among civilized na- tions—I say that it is perfectly absurd to advance all these arguments, when the only condition which could make them valid is wanting. That condition is, that those who acquire them should be able to use them; that is, should be able to take up a Latin or Greek book, and read as most of those who have learned French and German would be ashamed not to do with French and German books; should be able rapidly by the eye to drink in the sense without the laborious consultation of dic- tionaries, without ‘having to consider their own language at all ; should a em in the languages so far as to speak and write in them e facility, making the words and phrases immediate repre- es of thought. Without such power, we have no notion of the or literature of a language. The words are tasks to get up,

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is ee Oe Oty WEUAE OF 84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, ; or symbols to decipher, not the utterances of genius. . . . There are certainly not five in a hundred of those who learn Latin in our schools who can read with ease an unconned piece of Latin, or write off-hand a Latin letter on a familiar subject. I need not say a word about Greek, With all such people, learning Latin has been an arrant failure. They have done worse than waste their time. They have learned to make marks, to take places, to receive prizes, for mere botch-work.” These are the words of a man who devoted sixteen years of his early life to the dead languages, with a slight mixture of abstract mathematics. He tells us that, when he left Cambridge at the age of twenty-four, he was totally ignorant of the things he most needed to know, while his knowledge of Latin and Greek was “ very small, poor, and inaccurate.” My classical friends must not attempt to refute me by the fallacy of an epithet; that is, by calling me dliberal, narrow-minded. It is just possible that there is some illiberality on the other side ; it may be that if they knew more English they would think less of Latin and Greek. It is nc+ enough for them to enlarge upon the educating power of classical studies. I am willing to admit what they usually claim for their favorite studies in that direction, but at the same time I hold that tis highest and best discipline of mind is derived from a scientific study of English, German, and French; while the knowledge acquired in the process of learning these modem languages is incalculably more valu- able in the affairs of real life than the knowledge obtained by pursuing the iullest corvse in the classics. The frien’. of the old education must meet tiiis position squarely. Fine phrases about libera! culture will no fonger be a-cepted in place of facts. We, a0, believe in Libort! culture, But if a knowledg. of the highest therght or the sxcient world, as embodied in words by its forerr 2st think<re, +ends to liberalize and broad: tas mind of a student, it nus be trebly effective ix ite Wherelizine influences to bring te studert’s miad up to the levei of the nighest thought of our own age. We are the ancients—“ te bei.s of all the ages.” Our young men know vastly more than the wizest in. tho oid time knew. They will, therefore, get most profit in knowledge, and eque!l profit im discipline, from the study of modern lauguages. Afver learning these, if they have leiswre and inclination, they will anie themselves by learning Greek and Latin. Latin and Greek, being almost valueless in the work of fitting ove for the duties of modern life, and by no means indispensable in the work of mental development, are, therefore, relegated to the position of pleasant accomplishments, or that of professional helps for ministers, veachers, and specialists. The student who is rightly rained in the study of modern languages will in a very short time—one or two years —learn the grammatical forms and acquire facility in th translation of Greek and Latin. So far am I from accepting the once popular © notion—-still heard of in out-of-the-way corners of the country—that 7 ¢ ce 4 iy

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FS a— As li il Te PP Be 6 ed been dee, ed * eaer, +. ‘ PLACE OF ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 8&5 English is best learned through the study of Latin, that I maintain the opposite view ; namely, the true natural method is to pass from English, which is easy for us, to the study of Latin, which is difficult—to pass in true logical order from the known to the unknown. I apply this great principle in my method of teaching English, beginning with the simple modern forms that are known to the student, and working back grad- ually to older and more complex forms which, if presented at onee to the student, would seem as uncouth as Greek or Choctaw. I must now say a few words about the method of teaching English ; for, if the study of English is to occupy the foremost place in our insti- tutions of higher instruction, the method of teaching it becomes exceed- ingly important. I am disposed to think that the unfruitfulness so often seen in English teaching is the result of wrong methods. Most destructive of all good results is the theory of the grammar-mongers who, not recognizing the fact that the English language is a language with facts and idioms worthy of independent study, attempt to bring its facts into conformity with the rules of the Latin grammar. It would of course be just as wise to take English grammar as the basis of a Latin grammar. English is a Teutonic language, with its own independent grammar, and must be studied as English and not as a corrupt form of Latin. It has borrowed words, but not gram- matical principles, from the Latin. Whatever is common to the two languages comes to each alike from their common mother, the Aryan Ursprache. The two great instruments of study are history and comparison. The historical method of study is the only road to a critical knowl- edge of our mother-tongue ; but before we can employ this method in- telligently, we must get a clear conception of the continuity of English. We must recognize the fact that in English literature there has been an unbroken succession of authors from Cadmon to Tennyson, a period of twelve hundred years. The language of King Alfred and the Janguage of President Hayes are one and the same ENGLISH TONGUE. “In fact,” says Mr. Skeat, “there is no difference between modern English and that oldest form of it to which the name of Anglo-Saxon has been given, except such as has been naturally and gradually brought about by the mere lapse of time (occasioning the loss of some words and some alteration in the form and meaning of others), and by the en- largement of the vocabulary from foreign sources.+ In a word, old English i» the right key to the understanding of modern English, and those wo will net use this key will never open the lock with all their fumbling ”—with all their attempts to use the counterfeit Latin-gram- mar key. No critical student, following the historical method, can stop in the fourteenth century in his search for old English. He can find no resting-place—no distinct break in the continuity of the language. Between th» writers of one period and those of the preceding genera- the differences are always slight, even in times of most rapid

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86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. change—differences wholly insufficient to mark the death of one lap. guage and the birth of another. Old English is synthetic, with an elaborate system of inflections; modern English is analytic, and almost inflectionless. We must not fall into the error of supposing that this change has been brought about by the Norman Conquest. Other kindred dialects, as Danish and Low Dutch, have undergone similar changes without the influences of exter. nal causes. So our mother-tongue has developed itself into its present forms, not by chance or by the will of Norman masters, but accordi to fixed laws. In its wonderful growth, and in all its seemingly lawless transformations, it has followed necessary rules. In our teaching, we must leave the unfruitful field of guess-work, and investigate the man- ner in which the general laws of linguistic change and development are applicable to the growth of the English language. It is impossible to explain words and grammatical facts, or idioms, except by their history, We must first know their affiliations and the facts that have preceded them ; just as in the sciences of observation, such as chemistry or natural history, we can give an account of a fact only by knowing what bas preceded it. For instance, in order to explain the manner in which a tree is formed, it is not enough to study the tree as it stands before us in its full-leaved glory ; it is necessary to construct a history of the tree by the aid of accurate observations of the different states and forms through which it has successively passed. We are able to under- stand clearly what 7s only through a knowledge of what has been. We can discover the causes of a phenomenon only by taking a comprehen- sive view of antecedent phenomena. Grammar, in its true method, is the botany of language. Modern English without old English is a tree without roots—a lifeless trunk. The words that have been imported from Latin and other sources have been ingrafted upon the English stock, and draw their life-nourishment from roots that strike deep down into the death- kingdoms of the oldest Teutonic speech. Theoretically, we begin with what is oldest and farthest from us, to explain all that follows in the course of time ; but practically, in learning ard in teaching, we begin with what is nearest and best known, . and work back to what is less and less familiar. As aibillustration of what I mean by studying a fact historically, take the plural of the word foot. The boy or girl learns in the ele- mentary school that the plural of foot is feet, and accepts it as an ulti- mate, inexplicable fact. But the. man or woman in the college or uni- versity may ask why the plural is feet and not foots. I am afraid there are some very learned teachers of Latin and Greek who could not answer, except with a growl about the lawlessness of the English language. However, it is explicable. Going back twelve hundred years, we find our present form fét, fét. There seems to be anendof | our search. But we can go farther; for, looking into the old Saxon,

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et 2 PLACE OF ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 87 as spoken by our forefathers in their old home on thé eae tay settled in England, we find a plural in ¢, oti. But it is a known law, holding good in all the Teutonic dialects, except the Gothic, that a or o is changed into ¢ through the influence of ¢ in the following syllable; hence /6ti became féti. After a time, this final i, the true sign of the plural, was dropped, and then the modified ¢ was considered the sign of the plural. This Umlaut is itself an ultimate fact, like gravitation in physics, inexplicable in the present state of our knowledge. Whatever help to a right understanding of the constructions and inflections of modern English may be obtained from comparing them with the forms and laws of the Latin language, it is clear that vastly greater help may be obtained from studying them in the light of their own history. The second instrument of fruitful study is comparison, This opens a vast field for investigation ; for we must compare our English tongue with all the cognate Aryan languages ; but especially with German, Dutch, Danish, Icelandic, Gothic—all the Teutonic tongues, old and new—and with those languages with which it has come into contact during its long and wide-reaching history. English, the grandest lan- guage in the history of humanity, has the most extended affinities and historical connections. As an example of an English form that can be explained only by comparison with a cognate dialect, take ed, the sign of the past tense. No clew to the origin of this termination can be found in the English of any period. Our knowledge of Latin and Greek is again useless. In this case the Gothic will help us to the true explanation ; for it is simply a reduplicated perfect of the verb do, did. Hence the old lish Jufode is merely, I love did, that is, I did love. us studying English in its historical development, and comparing it at every point with the languages with which it is connected by kinship or by contact, the student sees language in every form in which an Aryan tongue can appear, and may learn every important truth of linguistic:science. Having learned English in this way and gotten a knowledge of French and German as collateral helps, the student will enjoy the best fruits of learning languages—a liberal culture, a critical knowledge: of his mother-tongue, an intelligent insight into the laws of ianguagé, and a key to what is best, usefulest, and most inspiring in literature. But, to learn the language in its living power, it is necessary to study it in its literature. The language is the body, the literature is its soul; they can be rightly und+ stood only by studying them to- gether. In a course of higher instruction in English, grammars, rhet- ories, and histories of literature, are useful only for reference. It would be hard to invent a course of study more useless than that which fills the mind of the student with barren dates and facts in the »

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88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. lives of our great writers, and with the opinions of other mer. aboyt their works. The student must go directly to the literature and study its mastep. pieces in their original forms, with the very spellag and punctuaciog of the authors. Study each work in the rost thorcugh way: study every part, every senience, every li=e, every \. 21d: s¢udy every allz- sion, every illustration, every figric: s*vdy «very thought, every opin. ion, every argument : study every fact in the author's life, every fact in the history of his time, ‘at will help in any wey to an understand. ing and appreciation of the work. No book of extracts should be used. A work of genius must be studied as 2 whole. If you can give but a few davs= to « writer, study some entire short work in pref- erence to using extra:'ts from larger works. A student will get far more profit ou‘ of Milton’s “T.ycidas” studied in this way than from going through “ Paradise Losi” in the ordinary way. Take a piay o: Shexespeare—what an instrument for the highest culture! Flow .ich tte rewards of diligent labor in this mine! What more inspirine thing is possibl:: for a human mind than to be brought so neer to the fore:1ost mind of all this world’s history? I am not dis- posed to un jervalue tle grand literatures of Greece and Rome ; they mark the highest tide of human thought in the old-world civilization; and yet, in their combived worth, they are outvalued by Shakespeare alone—without couuting in the worth of Chaucer, Langland, Spenser, Bacon, Hooker, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Tennyson—may the roll stretch out “to the crack of doom!” How unwise in us, in our anx- iety to teach our children the language of Plato and Cicero, to leave ther: in ignorance of the language of their own forefathers! I trust the time will speedily come when no man or woman, who is unable to read at sight « page of English of any age from Alfred to Victoria, wili be considered liberally educated, whatever else he or she may know. Certainly much has been done in the last ten years to encourage us, In the time of Richard IL., in 1385, English was admitted into English schools as a teaching medium: the close of our century will witness its full admission into English and American schools as a teaching subject, The future historian will record the significant fact that in our age the boys and girls of England and America were for the first time in structed carefully in the great classics of their mother-tongue—that they knew Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and Bacon, as the boys and girls of Greece knew Homer, and Sophocles, and Plato. Greek itself was admitted, as a subject of study, into the English universities in the sixteenth century, only after a long and fierce battle between the Greeks and the Trojans of that day. “There were many, . then, who from various points of view echoed the sentiment expressed by the Duke of Norfolk in 1540. ‘Z never read the Scripture,’ said that adherent of the departing age, ‘nor never will read tt. Jt was

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.F PLACE OF ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 8&9 merry in England before the new learning came up ; yea, I would all things were as hath been in times past.’ Who could laugh at these words of a strangely troubled spirit? Rather one might weep over them; there is a certain pathos in the helpless embarrassment and de- spair they reflect; but one can see they were not wise, provident words; one cannot regret that the ‘now learning came up.’ But not altogether unlike is the sentiment sometimes heard in these days of like unsettlement and transition.” The old Duke of Norfolk is the prototype of many living men; from an undefined dread of the New, they cling to the Old, in helpless, despairing bewilderment. As the world spins swiftly down the grooves of change, they become dizzy and sigh for rest. They smile at the narrow-mindedness of conservatives in other ages, but fail to see the same weakness in themselves. “Surely the wise course now is,” says Mr. Hales, “not to set our faces against the incoming studies, but to do our best to regulate and order their admission. Let us give these strangers a judicious wel- come. Let us frankly and generously examine what recommendations they have to advance for themselves. Let us banish utterly and for- ever from our minds the notion of finality in education. Let us recog- nize that all our efforts are but tentative, and that we are yet an im- measurable distance, not only from absolute perfection, but from that degree of perfection which is attainable. May it not be, indeed, that we are at present in an extremely rudimentary stage of advancement in this momentous respect ?—that the question of education is yet in its veriest infancy? Perhaps we are yet at the very foot of the mountain, and have not really commenced the ascent. Not odder, it may be, in our eyes is the educational system of the middle ages than our present system will be according to the decisions of posterity. These pos- . sibilities should surely make us, not reckless revolutionists, but thought- ful, considerate reformers. The changes that are now making will in their turn perhaps be modified or superseded. There is no such thing as an educational canon which closes and is complete.” . Our King Arthur, the spirit of the age, commands us “to fling far into the middle mere” the brand Excalibur, the marvelously-wrought Greek tongue. Let us not, like the bold Sir Bedivere, clouded with our own conceits, betray our king; but, while remembering the wop- ders of the brand and admiring its haft twinkling “. .. » With diamond studs, Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery,” ‘ “. . . . strongly wheel and throw it.” “* The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.’ ” Wosbee ek >) a

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go THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The rising glories of the new era far outshine the splendors of the ast. F “Then from the dawn it seem’d there came, but faint As from beyond the limit of the world, Like the last echo born of a great cry, Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice Around a king returning from his wars. Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb E’en to the highest he could climb, and saw, Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, Or thought he saw, the speck that Bare the king, Down that long water opening on the deep Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go From less to less and vanish into ‘light. And the new sun rose, bringing the new year.” THE ICE AGE. Br L. P. GRATACAP, Pu. B. Il! were months ago we described very rapidly the principal features of that widely-extended and enigmatical formation known as the Drift, and in conclusion indicated an intention to consider the views of ‘ geologists as to its cause, and in particular illustrate the paramount claims to our acceptance of the so-called Glacial Theory. In this paper those hypotheses are given, accompanied by a proof of the manifest power of existing ice-streams, thus offering the most striking argument for their colossal potency in times when their size and duration were factors in their influence, fully commensurate with the continental ray- ages we attribute to them. A great variety of theories have been submitted to the world as possible explanations of the appearances we have reviewed, and, though we, cannot occupy ourselves with their discussion, it may be interesting, from their singularity and number, to enumerate such as have arisen. * First is the theory of Deluc, who supposed the erratics to have been thrown upward in the air by the same force that elevated the moun- tains, and that in their promiscuous descent they rolled and tumbled everywhere. Second in order is the hypothesis of De Buch and Escher, who imagined that an immense deluge swept the bowlders along its surg- ing course, and landed these blocks upon the acclivities of mountains, through the stupendous impetus they had acquired in its midst. 1 No. I. was published in Tat Porutar Scrence Montuty for January, 1878.

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> THE ICE AGE. gt Third is the presumption of many that they are the wreck of a mantle of rocks of similar kinds which once covered the surface, and by different agencies have been tossed into alignments, heaped into hills, or left undisturbed upon the mountains. Fourth, Dolomieu supposed that the summits of the Alps, and those of the Jura Mountains, were formerly connected by a regular incline, down which the masses of rock rolled, so that bowlders from the Alps got perched upon the Jura, and that during subsequent con- vulsions the ground sunk and assumed its present form. Fifth, Venturi suggested very early the aid of ice, as glaciers and floating ice, to explain their transportation. Sixth, a view, received by several, regarded the Jura range to have been once a level plain at the feet of the Alps, and that, when it had become strewed with bowlders, torn by frost and torrents from the latter, it was elevated into a line of hills carrying up its old accumulations, Seventh, M. de Buch, developing the first theory, thought that the erratics were a consequence of the elevation of the Alps posterior to the deposition of the Tertiary. Eighth, the Noachian deluge was burdened with the responsibility of their dispersion. Ninth, glacial action, as explained by Prof. Agassiz. Tenth, ancient alluvial action, identical in nature with that known at present. Eleventh, action, by its tractile strength, of the receding waters of the ocean, as mountain-chains were successively upheaved above its surface. Twelfth, elevation of the arctic seas, which caused a flow of water from the polar regions, transporting ice loaded with rocks and gravel southward. Thirteenth, icebergs. Fourteenth, an explanation of the phenomena in the United States, viz., a drainage of a vast inland sea through the valleys of the St. Law- rence, Hudson, Susquehanna, Ohio, etc., accompanied or followed by a débdcle of ice and drift from the north. Fifteenth, a change in the axis of rotation of the earth. Sixteenth, collision with a comet, which extraordinary jolt loosened the rocks, and rattled them from the mountain-peaks to the adjacent plains. Seventeenth, shrinkage of the earth, increased velocity of rotation, and consequent rush of arctic waters to the equator, earrying bowlders. In the above enumeration some theories will be observed to have only a local application, and were originated at a time when the disper- sion of bowlders was not known to have so universal a character. Of these seventeen hypotheses we believe it would be impossible to insist seriously upon more than two classes: those which attribute the phe- nomena to the action of water, and those which enlist the agency of

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sa g2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ice either as glaciers or icebergs, or both. A slight inquiry into the nature of aqueous erosion must instantly discredit those views which rely upon its efficacy, and relegate them with the rest to unqualified rejection. . Water, though supplied in torrents so tremendous as to transport the enormous bowlders which are now found scattered so far from their origin, would toss and tumble these masses over the subjacent rock, breaking, fracturing, and denting the latter, but never impressing it with deep, straight furrows for miles, or scoring it with delicate and reticulating striz. Again, the numerous pebbles and stones which are found upon and through the topmost soils, in gravel-beds and sand-heaps, would have been smoothly rounded like beach-worn agates, and not, as they really are, tattooed and etched with fine lines running the length of the stone, In the grooves of the rock, and in the fine lines of the pebbles, we have evidence of a body firmly held upon the engraved surface, and passed along with undeviating directness and irresistible power. Prof. Agas- siz has traced these flutings upon the rocks of Maine for miles, up hill and down dale, across rivers disappearing upon one side, and reappearing upon the other; and it is beyond possibility to have a plunging torrent of water, charged with stones and rocks, pursue such continuous and definite traces over the hardest rock. More than that, the action of water has been recorded alongside of these very grooves, both in this country and the Alps, as if to invite attention to the opposite character of the two inscriptions. The original traces are firm, direct rulings, and the water-marks beneath them, as in rocky troughs, are waving lines and cracks of denudation following the relative softness of the rock. Untenable as this theory is, after such considerations, it seems more inadequate when we remember that this element was to transport for leagues masses weighing hundreds and thousands of tons, and to raise them to almost inaccessible altitudes, to arrange them in long succession across intervening slopes. We find, on the contrary, that moderate- sized bowlders have sunk to the bottoms of streams, which have re- moved the soil and lighter material upon which they rested, allowing them, otherwise undisturbed, to sink almost vertically to their beds. Lastly, the high mounds and “horsebacks” associated with this era, composed of unassorted gravel, pebbles, bowlders, and clay, would have been arranged in superimposed layers. Their present composition is almost irrefragable evidence that water had no part in their construc- tion. On the other hand, the demonstration of the adequacy of the glacial theory to account for these phenomena is found only in a study of those glacial effects which are contemporaneous, or have been witnessed within the memory of man. By establishing an exact accordance be- tween these latter, wherever examined, and the indications of erosion and transportation wide-spread over the continents, we prove the iden-

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THE ICE AGE. 93 tity of both, and legitimately conclude that the agency in each case was the same. And let us select the Alps, as the first field for our explorations, renowned for the phalanx of illustrious minds who have studied this _ subject there, and famous as embracing those districts where the pres- ence of traveled blocks first aroused inquiry, and their significance gave birth to the theory we are testing. The Alps cover with their various arms, encircling ranges and sub- ordinate elevations, all Switzerland ; her lakes are nestled within their valleys, her rivers spring from their frigid slopes, her cities rest upon the débris of their attrition, while the strange and romantic loveliness which surrounds their fields of ice cover it as with a garment of im- perishable beauty. The Alps are the result of gigantic upheavals, probably conducted through ages, which succeeded each other through- out the Tertiary age, and were continental in their extent. The Pyre- nees, the Julian Alps, the Balkans, the Apennines, and Corsica, were ele- vated in this series of vast perturbations, a long range of towering moun- tains whose influence upon physical and social development has been as marked as the revolution it signalized in the world’s topography. Eu- rope, which had worn the flora of America, then lost it, and the sassa- fras, liriodendron, maple, and magnolia, failing to survive the climatic changes which intervened, yielded before the gradual growth of dis- tinctively European species. The Alps, after passing up along the eastern boundary of Piedmont, irregularly in long, deep bends and winding arches, run east and west, gathering upon their flanks innumerable lesser ranges, and knots of mountains, or in places subdividing into new and splendid lines of peaks which, diverging to the north, afterward unite with the parent chain or melt into the plain of Germany, through successive steps. A great congeries of intermingling and twisting ranges communicates the original disturbance over Switzerland, and the radiate lines of agitation may be traced southward upon the plains of Piedthont, through the Apennines into Italy, and by the Illyrian Alps into Dalmatia. The Alps inclose valleys and plateaus ; their highest summits are scored by deep gulches which descend their sides ; and broad crevices, ravines, and passes, ramify along their slopes. Into these troughs, far above the snow-line, fed by confluent furrows, the snows of winter have col- lected, and heaped up layer upon layer accumulated to great depths. The water of the melted surface percolating through these subjacent films, an increasing pressure has solidified them to a semi-icy state. Slowly in these deep fields of snow, by pressure, by alternate thawing and melting, the molecular condition of the mass undergoes a change, and becomes compacted into crystalline ice. Before this change is consummated, the mass of snow, ice, and congealing water, is called the néve. Thus formed, there emerge from these upper reservoirs vast sheets of ice which pass down between cliffs and crags, winding over

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94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. rocky beds, and through the avenues of least resistance, sometimes fusing together into solid seas amid the mountains, elsewhere stealing in sinuous and gleaming currents to the plains beneath. These solid masses, fastened like inexorable wedges into the mountain-clefts, possess motion, moving like a river, faster at the top than at the bot- tom, in the centre than along the sides, and in curves fastest upon the long curve ; they, like rivers, also perform the offices of transportation and erosion. Long lines of fragments, detached by frost or avalanche, cover their surfaces in medial and lateral moraines, whose collected masses are poured over the glacier’s extremity, where in stream or river it ends its course. Immense heaps of débris thus indicate, at the mountain’s foot, the accumulated waste of its substance through the years of the glacier’s slow and perpetual advance, and also record, as they lie beyond the present wall of the glacier, the past periods of its greatest extension. They grind the beds they pass over, the walls of their stony vaults are polished and inscribed,’ and the bowlders brought in contact with their stupendous powers of attrition are rubbed into brilliant surfaces and scored with rigid lines. Thus advancing, crev- assed, convulsed, and rent into gaping chasms, loaded with blocks of stone, the glaciers are grinding down the everlasting hills and lowering the proud summits of their birthplace to the plain. Imagine half a hemisphere covered by a universal. glacier whose powers of abrasion and transportation are proportionately enlarged: will not the appear- ances we are attempting to explain be adequately accounted for by so tremendous an agent? Let us turn to contemporaneous glaciers of the Alps and elsewhere for an answer. In mentioning characteristic in- stances of glacial action the glaciers are referred to by name only, as our space does not permit their reference to appropriate groups. The Glacier des Bois, as it projects its frozen tongue like a crystal wedge within the valley of Chamouni, reveals the mass of débris it has dragged down with it from the sides of Mont Blanc, in a high and rocky moraine over whose eminence the glacier pours its broken and shattered columns. In 1820 this glacier reached its frigid finger among the cultivated fields of neighboring villages, and in its slow retreat left an enormous bowlder perched upon a slope, and tracts of fragments spread in stony desolation up to the doors of the threatened hamlets, The Glacier of Tacconay has similarly withdrawn to its re- cesses, but strewed along the path of its former progress groups of bowlders which reach beyond the Arne. The rocks about are polished and furrowed, hillocks have been moulded into roches moutonnées, and upon their summits huge blocks deposited. Seven thousand feet above the sea, upon the Col de Bellevue, erratic blocks are found, where no tidal force could ever have brought them, and these mingle with the present moraine of the Glacier de Bionassay, so that, as Forbes remarks, “ it is impossible to say where the erratic phe- nomenon ends and where the glacial phenomenon begins.” The Glacier

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THE ICE AGE. 95 de Miage, with its wild and ruffled surface breaking in cataracts of splen- dor down its steep defile, by its unceasing attrition upon the mountain- side, and its perpetua! transport of bowlders, has piled up, far out in the valley it occupies, a long and high slope of gravel and rocks, whose im- pervious sides dammed up the allée blanche and formed Lac Combal. So immense became the accumulations of débris that they consolidated into an impregnable hill, around whose base the glacier poured its divided stream. The Glacier la Brenna in 1767 was much contracted, while in 1831 new accretions caused it to reach out and attack with such vigor a promontory in its path as to shatter it with fissures, and compel the removal of a chapel upon its crest. Upon this same glacier Principal Forbes has observed the very act of glaciation, its method and effects, One side of the ice was exposed and found by him thickly set with nod- ules, pieces of granite as large as cherries, and protuberances of stone, while beneath this armed surface lay the limestone, over which it had just passed, with its face finely lined and graven in the direction of the gla- cier’s motion. This glacier, now shrunken from jts former imposing magnitude, once erected below its present terminus moraines of enormous size, while in its retreat it paved the land, predestined to sterility, with thickly-scattered fragments. On the west bank of the Mer de Glace, two hundred and forty feet above the present level of the glacial débris, traveled rocks lie in morainic alignments, and the bed-rock is scratched and abraded, indicating an ancient margin of the glacier in days when its frigid tide was swollen by greater additions and more favorable cli- mates. The distinction between aqueous action upon the rocks and mechani- cal abrasion is easily understood, and their presence readily distin- guished, Forbes observed a face of limestone marked with grooves many yards in length, and, nearly horizontal above them, he found the marks produced by flowing water charged with fragments. The latter were blunt, irregular, and blotchy, having no continuity, and strikingly contrasted with the straight rulings below them. Furthermore, the memorable flood of water which devastated the valley of Bagnes, a mass over five hundred million cubic feet in volume, which swept up bridges and houses, snapped trees asunder, and transplanted a colony of build- ings, was yet unable with all its Titanic violence to move large bowlders which it encountered even through inconsiderable distances. In our glance over the glacial fields of to-day, leaving the inferences from those facts mentioned to be drawn themselves, let us briefly inspect the frozen valleys and important ice-streams of Norway. The backbone of the Scandinavian peninsula lies in Norway, reaching from Drontheim to the North Cape in the Jong neck of the Kidlen Mountains, This chain attains in places an elevation of six thousand feet, and again stoops to less than two thousand, receding at times from the shore-line, and again pushing out upon the ocean, till, as in the Loffoden Islands, many of its conspicuous summits stand insulated among its billows.

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96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. North of latitude 68° north the range “scatters,” and finally sinks into slight and timid heights or gradually disappears. South of Drontheim this central axis unfolds and deliquesces into a series of separate lines of elevation, forming the wide expansion of Southern Norway which, thickened and braced by ridges of crystalline rock, held back the force of the North Sea, and bore the searching pressure of the northern gla- cier, when in a single and enormous surface it invaded Europe. Thig southern extension of the Norwegian highlands has less height than the narrow fork which enters the north, and is really a succession of table- lands interrupted by occasional peaks, or narrow and precipitous valleys, These level floors, barren and monotonous, constitute over forty per cent, of the surface, reducing the available land for cultivation, roughly esti- mated, to less than eleven percent. The coast of Norway along its en- tire extent is deeply penetrated by a complex system of jiords, long channels which wind in almost inextricable detail amid its highlands and at the base of its loftiest summits. Running for miles inland, and connected with the labyrinth of straits which fimbriate the shores and break the outlines with detached islands, these wonderful expanses ex- pose the most bewitching and lovely scenery which Norway boasts, Glacier, snow-capped mountain, green fields verdant under cultivation, villages, and dizzy cliffs, are exquisitely blended into a diversified pano- rama of sublimity and beauty. The glaciers of Norway are not so imposing, so numerous, or so accessible, as those of the Alps. The peaks are frequently too isolated and too steep, the valleys too shallow and too small, and the stretches of table-land too frequent, to permit the best exhibition of glacial forms; yet the accumulations of snow are very formidable. The snow-fields of Justedals Bracen, which feed several glaciers, the largest of which is only one-seventh the size of the Aletsch glacier in the Alps, stretch for fifty miles upon one range, and cover an area of four hundred square miles. Sognefield and Ymesfield form imperfect reservoirs of snow, and generate only inferior though numerous ice-streams, falling ‘off their declivities through abrupt and narrow passes. The Fondalen Mountains and the Borgefield both release glacial currents, in some instances impinging their icy barriers upon the sea, but all subordinate in interest. Sulitelma, the highest mountain within the arctic circle, occupies @ conspicuous centre of glacial activity. It dominates over an extensive region of elevated and snowy ranges, and distributes its frigid emis- sions on either side to Lapland or to Norway. The peaks of the Lof- foden Islands reach above the snow-line, but no adequate footing is afforded for the formation of glaciers, though the islands of Ringvadsd and Kraagen contain glaciers, which in the first instance have pushed their moraines to the water’s edge. If we now examine the actual evidence of glacial action, we shall find it analogous to that we have witnessed in the Alps, except that it is perhaps less emphatic. The

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THE ICE AGE. 97 slaty rock of Norway fails to retain the erosive markings of the ice- plough, and has lost frequently its graven surface through frost. Again, the more characteristic traces must be found upon the steep slopes and narrowed exits of the snow-fields, and these are not always readily approached. Along Drontheim Fiord, and in many localities over the shore and bays, the roches moutonnées appear repeatedly, and at Sognefiord the hard conglomerate, rounded into these huge knobs, is graven with channels and grooves. At Moranger Fiord the impressions increase in distinctness as we approach the glacial ridges which overhang it. The Bandhuus Glacier at one time extended to the sea, and the mingled heap of rocks it pushed before it now lies, a crescent of desolation, in its old path. One hundred years ago, by local traditions, the Suphelle Glacier, among the Justedals glaciers, extended across the entire valley into which it now debouches, and a series of recent moraines indicates its retreat. About 3,600 feet in front of the Krondal and Nygaard glaciers, terminal moraines, unmistakably modern, are seen, while the evidence of their erosive action is found in the increasing definiteness of the rocky striations as we advance over the land last scored toward the glacier, this same track being sown with howlders and pebbles, relics of their past ravages. Two hundred feet above the Ny on the face of the cliff, we can read, as legibly as we do the record of the fallen tide, the annals of its past increase ; and local tradition, stories of destruction, removal of villages and houses, corroborate this ocular examination. In short, in Norway, as in the Alps, the characteristics of glacial denudation, as seen in the forces now at work, appear to perpetuate the memory of agencies which, on a magnificent scale, operated upon continents. Turning our eyes from the picturesque surprises of the Scandinavian cliffs and streams, let us fix them upon the multitudinous slopes and the confused outlines of the Himalaya Mountains, as they rise to the plains of Thibet, and read their lesson. Here we shall encounter the same arctic currents cleaving the fissures “Of vales more wild and mountains more sublime.” Upon their surface we see the same long avenues of bowlders, fed in their tedious course from every faltering cliff or frost-riven peak, and their ancient channels indelibly indicated in the disordered débris of rocks and pebbles filched from quarries leagues away. The Himalaya Mountains mark the northern frontier of India, and form the most important section of that long axis of elevation which reaches from the Bosporus to the Pacific, and separates, as a similar girdle does in Europe, the northern plains and table-land from the low peninsulas and milder districts of the south. The Himalayas ascend to the grandest heights, and in their sublime elevation crown the con- tinental water-shed with earth’s most stupendous peaks. Their passes VOL. xIv.—7

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98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. are little lower than Mont Blanc; their roads are dizzy shelves encircling more tremendous cliffs, or swinging jhtilas spanning frightful gorges, whose depths seem lost in the bowels of the earth. ‘There, far above the habitation of man, no living thing exists, no sound is heard, the very echo of the traveler’s footsteps startles him in the awful solitude and silence that reigns in these august dwellings of everlasting snow,” Deep ravines penetrate between imposing groups of inaccessible moun. tains, torrents hew out their tortuous courses over precipitous slopes, and the gathered influx of innumerable lines of drainage gives rise to the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmapootra, great and sacred streams whose head-waters here pursue their rocky and dangerous descent to the plains of India. Between the higher ranges nestle the fertile valleys of Nepaul, Bootan, and Assam, themselves high table-lands upon the declivity of the snowy peaks; «nd to the east, beneath the alternate shadows of the Hindoo-Koosh and the Himalayas, reposes the fragrant vale of Cashmere. _ As we approach the mountains we traverse three distinct regions: the green “Tarai,” marshy and insalubrious; the middle country, a belt of wooded land, arid and with a porous soil; and lastly, at 10,000 feet, the dry and unhealthy marais, The nucleal range we find is beset with numerous branches, whose long axes stretch out in waving and complicated lines from the central ridge, lie furcating and multiplying like tree-limbs as they embank the rivers, or surround occasional basins, into whose fruitful beauty the traveler peers. Clay slate, very micace- ous, and passing into sandstone with interstratified limestone, forms the lithological basis of the mountains, and through the passes ramifying veins of quartz and granite. The tertiary formation extends up the valleys and laps over the: foot-hills. The ascent now becomes strewed with erratic blocks, and angular bowlders of granite occur far removed from their origin, while ravines and stream-beds are picturesquely strewed with transported masses. At times the accumulation of bowlders be- comes so extensive as to choke the valleys, or rise in confused piles and in unstable equilibrium for a hundred feet above the brawling streams which pass between them. The valley of the Shayuk is filled with these bowlders; and, after its waters unite with the Indus, their swollen floods pour through a narrow ch. nnel beneath enormous heaps of angular fragments. Again, about Iskardo, two banks of bowlders project upon the valley forty to fifty feet high; in fact, along the Indus immense tracts are covered with granitic masses ; they lie over the allu- vial land, intermixed indeed with it, and form natural features from their size. The valley of the Thawar is fairly blocked at one end by the collection of bowlders, and long hills are composed of such débris. For almost a day’s journey on the mountain-sides, west of Fok, lime- stone blocks occur in great aumbers, transported irom indeterminate distances, as no limestone occurs here in situ, A glacier occurs upon the Parang Pass, not of large proportions, which, wedged between the

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THE ICE AGE. mountains, ruggedly advances, carrying limestone bowlders, and termi- nating three miles from the head of the pass in a steep precipice one hundred feet high, where its final burdens are discharged down the mountain, Snow-beds or small glaciers are of constant occurrence at the heads of the ravines, and the cool water-brooks which traverse the slopes spring from their melting edges. In Butna Valley the traveler passes for two miles among huge bowlders, then crosses a moraine, and finally reaches a plain encircled by lofty mountains, some of which reveal resplendent pyramids of snow which “ bind ” into a glacier, filling the head of the valley. Its surface is obscured by masses of rock and gravel, and beyond its present limits similar proofs of its ravages lie in bewildering confusion. From the valley of Nubbra the traveler beholds the encircling peaks brilliant’ and luminous in the blaze of countless snow-fields, while icy currents, confluent in larger glaciers, stream from the distant heights. One of these, approached through avenues of bowl- ders, is half a mile wide, and black with a coverlid of stones and dirt. Neighboring ravines conceal kindred masses whose extremities retire from terminal heaps of bowlders, landmarks of their former expansion. The magnificent glaciers north of Sassar are conspicuous and famous, The large glacier passes down the mountain-side, ploughing a deep fur- row through an alluvial plain and plunging into the Shayuk River, whose waters eddy and boil from underneath it. Two moraines accompany it, one of enormous blocks and sixty feet high, outside of its present shrunken area, formed in the glacier’s former strength, and a smaller one upon it. In furrows, fifteen and twenty feet deep, upon its surface are sunk strings of rocks imbedded in the icy matrix, and released in oc- casional showers from its terminal cliffs upon a talus of fragments thus accumulated. In the Shigri Valley and at Zanskar, enormous glaciers are gathered together in companies. Some are literally buried beneath the extraordinary heaps of rocks and detached slabs which are caught upon them from shattered cliff and stony avalanche. They work their way underground, while grass and flowers decorate the desolate cover- ing which conceals them. The valleys of Thibet show unmistakably the past presence of extensive glaciers. Moraines and traveled blocks reach low down into them, often three thousand feet lower than the exis*ing termini of the glaciers. If, leaying the inhospitable terraces of Thibet and the sublime and unrivaled summits of the Himalayas, we traverse the ice-covered table- land of Greenland, we shall encounter the same phenomena as those we have examined in the Alps, in Norway, and in India, but so magni- fied in extent as to become continental, and in a measure reconstruct the picture of a world hidden beneath a universal mer de glace, Green- land stretches down from those vast and unexplored regions, whose lim- its encircle the pole, in a broad wedge-like peninsula, deeply fissured by fiords and bays, its margins abruptly rising in mural precipices, and bearing upon its bosom the oppression of an illimitable glacier. From ° 9 ge ° ®, eco oo ©

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100 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Cape Farewell, where Greenland rises amid a group of rocky islands, to more than 1,300 miles northward, and far beyond, where no human . step has trod, a rigid sea of ice sweeps its appalling and silent surface, The ice piled up upon central axes forces itself outward in vast sheets and icy currents to the shore. This universal exudation of ice makes an ice-wall many hundred feet high along the coast, an impressive feat- ure in that northern land, and a solemn token of the desolation it pro- tects. At its foot a shelf of ice projects into the water, in places a smooth table, but more frequently tossed in the wild commotion of con- fused hummocks straining and grinding together, urged by the resist- less impetus of the arctic tides. From the wide central area descend numerous glaciers upon both the eastern and western coasts, and fimbriate by slow erosion the rock- bound land. Thus carved, in the long succession of ages, deep fiords penetrate the country, walled by lofty and inaccessible precipices, and terminating at the feet of ice-tongues which protrude their burdens of rock, gravel, mud, and soil, into their waters, In places these deposits shallow the water to great distances; and far from shore, rounded rocks, transported from interior highlands, project their polished summits above the waves. Bowlders of green-stone and syenite, rounded by friction and brought from remote localities, are scattered over wide districts. Again, upon the ice-foot which fringes the base of the cliffs, bowlders, tons in weight, are found, dislodged by frosts from the rocks above, and composed of magnesian limestone and inferior sandstones, while elsewhere long backs of rocks are seen abraded and furrowed ‘by ice-floes and glaciers. The glaciers occur at the indentations of the shore-line and where the cliffs decline, affording them approach to the waters. Here break- ing into gigantic fragments, each one a towering iceberg, or slowly melting in the warmer waters of the sea, they constantly waste away, and are as constantly replenished from the inexhaustible and overflow- ing reservoirs they have left. The great conduit from the inland sea is the Humboldt Glacier, which extends its glassy wall, 300 feet high, along the deepest water for sixty miles, pouring out incalculable vol- umes of ice, laden and penetrated with bowlders, trophies of its resist- less march from hidden and unknown recesses. Kane’s Northumber- land Glacier, interesting from the apparent viscosity of the ice, reaches from the interior to the coast unbroken, even when subjected to most unequal and various descents, by any fracture, while in many places “it could be seen exuding its way over the very crest of the rocks, and hanging down in huge stalactites seventy or one hundred feet long.” This glacier carried enormous measures of earth, gravel, and rubbish. The Great Glacier is rifted in long shelves, which at a distance seem pressed together, the intermediate crevasses appearing as lines above one another. As the motion conspicuous in every part of this glacier successively brings these detached walls to’ the seas, they are floated ee ee

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vo ‘ we Te ee @ —— THE ICE AGE. os away in trains of icebergs, over whose sides pour streams of water, to be lost in cavities, while torrents gush down their faces, sculpturing the ice with the facile mimicry of towers, minarets, and spires. Bowl- ders, polished and channeled rocks, submarine moraines, abraded and excavated cliffs, are met with everywhere, and Kane counted forty-one ledges, old beaches marking the recession of the sea, which in their succession led from the granitic nucleus, formerly the coast-wall, to the present shore—all typical features of the landscape where glaciers and ice-caps are no longer found, The scenic effects in Greenland are wonderful in the extreme. Appalling cliffs rise in barren and frigid splendor from the broken floors of hummocks, and the peripheral ice- foot; their summits, corroded by frost, discharge bowlders and débris upon the ice beneath, while icebergs in towering and fantastic glory crowd the shallowing bays, or press along the coast in weird processions, marshaled by the shriek of the cracking floes, the crush of their own dismantled pinnacles, or the thunder of distant avalanches. Again, turning our eyes to warmer latitudes, let us direct our ex- plorations to New Zealand, and learn the corroborative testimony it offers for this great theory. On the South Islands of New Zealand gla- ciers rest among the high recesses of its western mountains, upon Mount Cook, Mount Tasman, and neighboring summits, while a glacier from Mount Tyndall, at an elevation of 4,000 feet, gives birth to the river Clyde, where its abrupt termination rears an icy wall 1,300 feet long and 120 feet high. The Francis Joseph Glacier from Mount Tasman de- scends to within 705 feet of the sea-level, exhibiting the characteristics of all known glaciers. These massive streams are carving with remorse- less energy the solid rocks, and transporting in their course the trophies of theirlabor. Yet, strong and magnificent as they now appear, they are but the ghosts of those former seas which swept from peak to wave, and piled upon the flanks of the mountains and the depressions of the coast the huge moraines and the transported bowlders which appear on every hand. These heaps of débris and congeries of rocky fragments lie in the direct extension of the present glaciers, and indicate most strikingly their origin. Lake-basins and narrow fiords created by the erosion of prehistoric ice are universal; and Lake Wakatipu, by the most indisputable proofs, has been thus dug out of the living rock— 1,400 feet deep—itself but the shrunken outline of a previous sheet of water that reached into the rock-worn valley below it. Even now the glaciers of Moynt Carnslaw, the brief remains of former arctic glories, now retreated beyond. the thermal influences of the lowland, emit two rattling streams, turbid with the ground powder of the rocks, which, de- positing their silt at the upper extremity of Lake Wakatipu, are ob- literating in made land the testimony of past ravages. Passing in one broad stride to the opposite, the eastern margins of the Pacific, we find amid the savage and inhospitable Cordilleras of Patagonia new glaciers, and around and beneath them memorials of a

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102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. grander reign than that they now engross. Immense bowlders of basalt, sixty-seven miles distant from the nearest mountain, pebbles of porphyry, fragments of granite and slate, border the Santa Cruz River, impede its course, and lie broadcast upon the plain which rises 1,100 feet above its bed. From the encircling shores of Beagle Channel, glaciers born upon the lofty slopes and granitic peaks 4,000 and 5,000 feet above the sea, push their frozen lengths into the sea, which is shaken into waves as successive ruptures into the ice launch mimic icebergs upon its surface, “ Almost every arm of the sea,” writes Darwin, “which penetrates to the interior higher chain, not only in Terra del Fuego but on the coast for 650 miles northward, is terminated by tremendous and astonishing glaciers.” Old channels, now dry by the elevation of the land, are diversified with groups of traveled blocks, and the bowlders, so well known, from the distant Andes, lying upon the island of Chiloe, are fur- ther indications of an action in the past identical with that exerted at present. In conclusion, without rehearsing the evidence drawn from the Pyr- enees or the Caucasus, where glaciers still exist, we see in the northern and southern hemispheres the imposing remains of primitive areas of ice which in a more congenial era projected their confluent and inter- mingling branches over vast regions of the earth, where, as they have retreated, they have left irrefragable evidence of their power. We have observed the same processes at work, the same results produced, the same methods utilized, in the world about us, and the clearest anal- ogy compels us to accept a theory which ascribes the morainic débris piled up in hills and islands, the engraved rocks, the excavated basins, and the rounded slopes, to an identical though vastly-magnified cause in times only within the ken of Geology in its retrospective glance of ages. SINGING MICE. Br HENRY LEE. A FEW days ago I was invited by a medical friend to visit him at his house, and hear two musical mice sing a duet, the perform- ance to begin punctually at 8 p.m. I had never heard a singing mouse, though I had read and been told a good deal of the vocal accomplishments the little animal occasionally displays; so I gladly availed myself of the opportunity, and duly arrived half an hour before the commencement of the concert. My friend explained to me that every evening two little mice came out from behind the skirting-board in his dining-room, and sang for their supper of cheese, biscuit, and other muscine delicacies, which he took care to place on the carpet for them always at the same hour. One of them had received the name of “ Nicodemus ”—an allusion, I suppose, to a certain furtive visit by © oe e

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— SINGING MICE. 103 night—and the other was known as “ The Chirper.” To “ make assur- ance doubly sure ” that they would fulfill their engagement, and not disappoint me, their supper had been withheld from them on the even- ing previous to my visit. True to time, just as the clock struck eight, and while we were con- versing, there came from a corner of the fireplace, “Chirp, chirp, chirp,” the same note being repeated several times at the rate of about thrice in a second, and gradually becoming louder. Presently a slight movement was visible about one end of the fender; and, after some hesitation, a little brown mouse came out upon the carpet, leisurely sniffed about for its accustomed meal, came close to my chair, looked wistfully up to my face, and I was introduced to “The Chirper.” As a critic, I am bound to say that “ The Chirper’s ” performance was of sec- ond-rate quality ; but it was merely a kind of levée de rideau, and the principal artist was yet to appear. We had not to wait long. At the conclusion of “The Chirper’s” ineffective solo, a prolonged trill was faintly heard from behind the scenes, followed by others, each more audible than its predecessor ; and ultimately ‘‘ Nicodemus,” the soprano, came forth before the audience, perfectly self-possessed, and showing no signs of “ stage-fear.” ‘The song to which the little creature gave utterance again and again in our full view was as sweet and varied as the warbling of any bird. It most resembled that of the canary, but the melody of the nightingale was occasionally introduced. Every note was clear and distinct, but withal so soft, so gentle, tender, and pianissimo, that I can only compare it to the voice of a bird muffled by being heard through a down pillow. In the room was a canary, whose cage was suspended in one of the windows. He had settled himself to roost, and his head was under his wing, but at the sound of “ Nicodemus’s” sere- nade he awoke, and listening attentively, and fantastically leaning alternately to right and left, peeped curiously down to the floor. I learned that mouse and bird were intimately acquainted with each other, and that the former frequently visited his feathered friend and staid to supper. Accordingly, while we looked on with interest and pleasure, “Nicodemus” climbed up the drawn curtains, entered the bird’s cage, and partook of the seed—the canary showing no symptom of disapprobation or disturbance, but merely from his perch peering down on his visitor in a ludicrously quaint and odd manner. During his supper-time “ Nicodemus” obliged us, from the cage, with several repetitions of his song, “The Chirper,” down below on the carpet, oc- casionally coming in with a monotonous contralto accompaniment, and sometimes emitting a sound like the squeaking of a corkscrew through acork. The two little songsters, having done their best to please us, were rewarded with all that mice could wish for as components of a feast, and, after selecting the portions they severally preferred, grace- fully retired.

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104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The singing of mice has been attributed to various causes: 1. It has been thought to proceed from disease of the lungs or vocal organs, and to be akin to the wheezing characteristic of asthma. 2. It has been propounded that the singers are always pregnant females ; but this statement has been made on very insufficient data, and may, I think, be dismissed. 3. Dr. Crisp informed Mr. Buckland that he thought. the singing was caused by a parasite in the liver; and Mr, Buckland tells me that he has at his museum at South Kensington a specimen in spirits in which this parasite is plainly visible in the liver of a singing mouse once alive in his possession, ‘ But,” he says, “I am not at all sure that other mice also who are not musical have not this parasite.” This I believe to be the case, for it is well known that mice and rats, whether singers or not, are peculiarly liable (perhaps from their promiscuous feeding) to become the hosts of parasites such as hydatids in the liver, and trichinz in the muscles. ' Of course, I can say nothing about the condition of the livers of the two mice I heard sing last week; but they did not act as if they were afflicted with disease of the liver, or any other organ. Brisk and viva- cious in all their movements, darting now and then back to their hiding- place, as if to keep open their means of retreat while foraging, they looked the impersonation of vigorous health and bright activity ; and, ' like every one else who has heard them, I feel quite sure that their song —especially that of ‘‘ Nicodemus ”—is not involuntary, nor the result of any disease of the respiratory organs, but an intentional and conscious utterance of a series of notes in musical sequence. As Mr. Buckland says (loc. cit.), “The song is a genuine song, as good and as musical as that of a lark on a fine summer morning.” Prof. Owen tells us that the anatomy of the mouse is very similar to that of birds; and all who have seen this little rodent in the act of singing have noticed that the throbbing of its throat is like that of a bird in full song, and that it then elevates its snout as a bird does its beak. Whether the singing of mice may be due to an imitative faculty which leads them to mimic the vocalization of birds, I am not prepared to say. There is great apparent probability in favor of this supposition, but there is, also, strong evidence against it; because well-authenti- cated instances have been adduced of mice bred in captivity, and apart from any caged bird, having exhibited capability of song. It is remarkable that in almost every case of a singing mouse hav-_ ing been seen as well as heard, it has been described as very small, much browner than the common gray or slate-colored mouse, and as having very large ears. This exactly applies to my little entertainers, “ Nicodemus” and “The Chirper.” They are both very tiny mice, their coats are very brown (not so much so as to be fawn-colored), and their ears are abnormally big. I should be tempted to regard the singing mouse as a peculiar variety, if this idea had not been contra-

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SKETCH OF WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE. 105 dicted by the recorded fact that one out of a litter of common mice has become a “cantatore” or “ cantatrice,” while the rest have re- mained incapable of “ favoring with a song.” The fact is that, although singing mice are not very rare, they are not common enough to have permitted any competent zodlogist to note their birth and parentage, observe their habits in life, and dissect them after death in a series so complete as to give assurance of scientific accuracy. I was amused on reading in a paragraph in Nature, of the 25th ult., that, in reply to a letter from Dr. Berdier in Za Nature, affirming that mice sing, “a distinguished herpetologist, M. Lataste, suggested that Dr. Berdier might have made confusion with the singing of a raniform batrachian, the Bombinator igneus ; but Dr. Berdier said there was no marshy ground near the room in which he had heard it, and he stuck to his assertion.” There certainly was no “ raniform ba- trachian, Bombinator igneus,” in the comfortable dining-room in Gower Street, where I was introduced to “ Nicodemus ” and “ The Chirper,” and one would suppose that the instances of mice having been seen, as well as heard, singing, have been sufficiently numerous and well attested to render unnecessary so extravagant an explanation as that of the “ distinguished herpetologist.” The subject was, however, re- garded as worthy of being brought before the Société d’Acclimatation at its last meeting, when M. Brierre confirmed the observation of Dr. Berdier, and stated that he had himself heard mice sing, though not more recently than 1851-’53.—Land and Water. SKETCH OF WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE. E in the present number of the Monruty offer to our readers @ portrait of Mr. William Spottiswoode, F. R. S., D. C. L., LL.D., President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at its late session in Dublin. Wi.tuaM Sporriswoope is the son of Andrew Spottiswoode, M. P., printer to*the Crown and the House of Lords, and prominent in the history of printing for his earnest encouragement of every invention tending to perfect that important art. The son was born in London, January 11, 1825. Having studied successively at the famous public schools of Eton and Harrow, winning high honors at the latter insti- tution, he in 1842 entered Balliol College, University of Oxford, and three years later graduated A. B. as a first-class in mathematics. He had already made considerable progress in that particular branch of knowledge, and in 1837 and the following years had printed for circu- lation among his friends.“ Meditationes Analyticw.” He has ever since

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106 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. followed with keen interest the progress of mathematical research, and is an active member of the Mathematical Society of London. In 1846 and 1847 he gained mathematical scholarships at Oxford. But the death of his father, occurring in the latter year, devolved upon Spottiswoode the active superintendence of a great printing establishment, and henceforth he could devote to his mathematica] and other studies only his leisure time ; nevertheless, in sundry de- partments of learning and science Mr. Spottiswoode has rendered emi- nent service, at the same time taking an active part in movements having for their end the promotion of popular education and the social and material improvement of working people. His favorite studies, besides the mathematics, are, in physical sci- ence, light-polarization, to the explanation of which his experimental researches have greatly contributed ; languages, both European and Oriental, but especially Sanskrit ; and certain departments of philoso- phy. Of his philosophical power and insight we have abundant evi- dence in the elaborate discourse addressed to the British Association in Dublin last August. (It is published in the Poputar Scrence Montaty Suprptement for October.) Mr. Spottiswoode is Honorary Secretary of the London Royal Institution, and charged with the duty of arranging its winter courses of lectures on science, art, literature, etc. He frequently lectures in these courses himself, taking that means of bringing before the world the results of his scientific stud- ies, His printed works are “ Meditationes Analytice ;” “A Taran- tasse Journey ” (1857), giving an account of a visit to Eastern Russia; and “ Polarization of Light” (1874). He was Treasurer of the British Association from 1861 to 1874, of the Royal Institution from 1865 to 1873, and of the Royal Society from 1871 to 1878, in all these positions happily combining the prudent economy of the man of business with the open-handedness of the lover of science. He has been nominated by the Council of the Royal Society to succeed Sir Joseph D. Hooker in the presidency of that eminent scientific body. Mr. Spottiswoode was elected Corresponding Member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1876, and honorary degrees of LL.D. and D.C. L. have been con- ferred upon him by the Universities of Oxford, Dublin, and Edinburgh. He is a member of nearly all of the great scientific societies of England —the Astronomical, Geographical, Asiatic, and Ethnological, and of the Society of Arts. He was Public Examiner in Mathematics at Ox- ford in 1857-’58, and has acted as an examiner under the Civil Service Commissioners ; also for the Society of Arts and the Middle-Class Schools, He has always been a liberal patron of makers of philosophi- cal instruments, and has thus promoted many an ingenious invention.

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CORRESPONDENCE. CORRESPONDENCE. ELEMENTARY SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION IN GERMANY. To the Editor of the Popular Science Monthly. HE following communication, signed Charles A. Duvoisin, and published in a French journal, will no doubt be welcome ‘to your readers, especially such of them as take an interest in the scientific education of the young. B. Is it not strange that teachers of natu- ral history, in most countries, have utterly overlooked the very effective practical scien- tific instruction which the pupils of Latin and commercial schools receive already at | avery earlyage? I refer to the excursions which German teachers of science make every week, into the environs of the cities where the above-mentioned institutions are located, with their classes, and to the en- couragement given to the pupils to make collections of interesting natural objects. There is a regular system followed in this respect, and I declare that its results are in every way excellent. Let me give here an account of what I saw in the city of Ros- tock, the largest city in the grand-duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and an import sea- rt on the shores of the Baltic. That city a Latin school, or, as they call it in Ger- many, a gymnasium, whose seven classes erevisited by three hundred pupils, in round numbers, and a commercial school (Real- schule), with an equally numerous attend- ance. In the fifth class of the gymnasium the boys, who, on an average, are eleven years old, are taught the rudiments of ento- mology. Why entomology? Because the teacher goes out with them every afternoon and hunts, in the woods and fields of the environs, beetles, bugs, and butterflies. Every pupil has with him a small bottle, filled with alcohol, into which he drops the insects he catches, and a butterfly-catcher, the victims of which are confined in a tin- box fastened to the pupil’s leather belt. The teacher instructs the boys where to look for beetles, and he not only gives them. the Latin names of those they find, but de- scribes to them their peculiarities, calls at- tention to their beauties, and tells his hear- ers whether they are rare or very common. When one of the boys is told that he has found a very rare specimen, he feels as hap- py and proud as a king. I accompanied the little fellows one Saturday afternoon on one of these excursions. It was a pleasant July day, sunny, but by no means sultry, The environs of the city consist of oak-for- ests and extensive meadows. The roads were rather sandy. All the boys were on the alert for those wonderful beetles, the cicindela, They were hard to catch, but about twenty of them were bagged, or rath- er bottled up. To my amazement I found that these eleven-year-old boys were able not only to give the names of every species of cicindela, but also to point out their dis- tinctive marks. For four hours we roamed over meadows and wooded hills. Every- where new specimens were hunted for in their hiding-places, and secured, At last the boys were tired. They sat down on the mossy ground of a pine grove, partook of the sandwiches they had brought with them, and sang a stirring song. And then ensued a strange sort of fair. The boys began to trade off a cicindela for a scarabeeus, ete. “ What are they doing this for?” I said to the teacher. “To complete their entomo- logical cabinets,” he replied. ‘‘ What?” I asked. “Have these little fellows regular collections of entomological specimens ?” ‘Have they?” laughed the teacher. “There is not one of them but has his cabinet, and in not a few of them the entomological fauna of this part of Germany is very creditably represented.” I could not help thinking that all this was most excellent and praise- worthy. The excursions are splendid for the health of the pupils. They learn in them practically what many students of col- leges can acquire only by the hardest of toil, and even then imperfectly, and the collec- tions of beetles and butterflies at home k the boys out of a great deal of mischief. In the fourth class of the gymnasium they teach zodlogy and mineralogy. I was as- sured that the largest menageries visited the city, and that the pupils of the gymna- sium were among their most frequent and intelligent visitors. Nearly all of them had mineralogical cabinets, and I was astonished to find not a few of the latter filled with the most valuable and scientifically arranged specimens. Botany is the special study of the third class of the gymnasium. e system of excursions for the collection of flowers and plants is most religiously p=r- sued, and the consequence is that all the pupils have herbaria well stocked and well classified. In the two highest classes of the um the remaining divisions of sci. ence are taught. Not a few of the pupils have excellent physical cabinets, and some

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108 of them have even chemical laboratories which many a professional chemist would not despise. Now, is not all this truly admirable and worthy of imitation? Is it a wonder that we find among the Germans so many scien- tific specialists, so many laymen taking the liveliest and most intelligent interest in sci- entific researches, so many journals devoted to popylar science? What do we have in France instead of all this? Only a few dry scientific lessons a week, which repel rather than interest most of the pupils of our ly- ceums. Those who achieve eminence in science afterward have to learn their rudi- ments in natural history at the colleges, and then to possess not only a natural procliv- ity, but also special gifts for that kind of THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. study. England is in this respect still worse off than we. The best proof of this is to be found in the fact that, whenever that coun- try sends out a scientific expedition, most of the branches of research have to be in- trusted to German savanis, May our goy- ernment, which I know to be animated with the earnest desire of perfecting our system of instruction in our lyceums, turn no deaf ear to my humble voice. Let us learn from our powerful neighbors in Germany. They appreciate the value of early practical and theoretical instruction in natural science, True, they have not so brilliant a galaxy of scientists as we have in Paris; but the knowledge which their youngest pupils pos- sess in natural history far surpasses that acquired in our lyceums. EDITOR’S TABLE. COFFEE-HOUSES AGAINST RUM-SHOPS. HE contrasts of the deductive and inductive habits of mind are seen in philanthropy as well as philosophy, and give rise to two schools of reform- ers. What we may call deductive re- formers start from general principles, and many of them never get much fur- ther. Reformers of this stamp are apt to be impracticable. Whether their plans can be carried out, or what the results may be, concerns them much less than the soundness of the posta- lates. If the cause be right, and the evils and wrongs attacked are undoubt- ed evils and wrongs, they hammer away at them, generation after generation, regardless of anything except that they are in the line of their duty. This school has no patience with expediency, which seeks for the best thing under the circumstances, because it abhors the philosophy of circumstances, and will never compromise high principles. Reformers of this type generally work with the tongue rather than the hand, and their crusades are for the dissemi- nation of their doctrines. They may do a great deal of good, but there is a great deal of practicable good that they certainly fail to do. There is another class of reformers whose habits of thought are more in- ductive, viz., they study the facts first, perhaps make trial or experiments with them, allow for conditions, aim at at- tainable ends, and form their conclu- sions on the basis of experience. They may have just as decisive views in re- gard to abstract rights and wrongs as the opposite school; but, as the world is constituted, they think that wisdom consists in following expedient and prac- ticable courses by which actual results can be reached. They therefore take into account many considerations which the other party ignores, and are apt to be looked upon as temporizing, make- shift, and patchwork philanthropists, These two attitudes of mind are well illustrated in the temperance re- form. A large party has been striving for half a century to eradicate the evils of intemperance by proclaiming certain great inflexible principles and insisting upon their being uncompromisingly carried out. Immense evils result from the use of alcoholic drinks as bever- ages, and it has been thought to extir- pate these evils by reprobating the use of anything alcoholic under any cir- cumstances, and by outlawing the com- merce in these beverages. The rum- shops have been denounced, and the

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politicians have been called upon to suppress them. Much good may have been done ; but drinking habits are still prevalent, and rum-shops still abound. The temperance reform, from this point of view, has been a failure, if by suc- cess we understand the eradication of the evils of intemperance. This failure has been, we think, at least partially due to the refusal of the master-minds of the movement to study the various ways in which partial advantages may be gained. Those who view the sub- ject practically maintain, for example, that much benefit to the community would result if the weaker liquors could be generally substituted for the stronger, as wine and beer for distilled spirits; but this notion has been stern- ly resisted by the great mass of ardent temperance reformers as sacrificing first principles. All alcoholic liquors, they maintain, are poisonous, baneful, and to be equally condemned, unless, indeed, the weakest are not the most danger- ous. To which the reply is, that these extreme views are self-defeating ; that they have been preached until the com- munity is wearied with it, while the liquor traffic still flourishes, and that it is the part of wisdom to check, dimin- ish, and circumscribe an evil where it cannot be wholly removed. Some- thing might, therefore, be gained, they maintain, by substituting wines and beers, containing five or ten per cent. of alcohol, for whiskey and rum con- taining forty or fifty per cent. However this may be, of one thing there can be little doubt, that to substi- tute the usg of tea, coffee, and cocoa, for spirituous liquors, would be a great gain. In the literature of teetotalism thus far there has been but one dieteti- cal alternative to alcohol, and that is water. With curses upon alcoholic drinks, the temperance lecturer has interspersed copious praises of “ clear, cold, sparkling water.” In practice the abandonment of alcoholic stimulation has been often accompanied by a resort EDITOR’S TABLE. 109 to the stimulations of opium and tobac- co—a change which has in it but few elements of reform. As an ultimate fact of man’s nature, he is so consti- tuted that he seeks stimulus of some kind—some method of breaking the monotony of the feelings and getting contrasts in the psychical life. Thismay be wrong, and water may be the drink that should be exclusively patronized by everybody; but that consummation, whether desirable or not, is undoubted- ly remote, very remote indeed. Mean- time, there would unquestionably be a great gain in substituting tea, coffee, chocolate, and cocoa, for alcoholic li- quors. Accordingly we are glad to see that & Vigorous movement has been set on foot to fight rum-shops with coffee- houses. We have received a very inter- esting tract from Mr. Charles Collins, describing the results of experiments made chiefly in Liverpool, to maintain a system of “ public coffee-houses ” and “cocoa-rooms ” for the use of English laboring men. There is a society in Liv- erpool for the promotion of this object, and the pamphlet before us is made up from its reports. It appears that twenty-nine places under the denomination of “ cocoa- rooms ” have been opened in Liverpool under the auspices of this society, by the employment of a subscribed capi- tal of $100,000. So successful has been the enterprise, not only in its favorable influence upon the habits of the peo- ple, but also pecuniarily, that ten per cent. profit on the investment was dis- tributed to the stockholders last year, and it is now proposed to increase the capital of the association to $200,000, in order to still further extend its op- erations. The following are some of the most important suggestions of the company in regard to the management of such places, as arrived at by their own experience : “1, It is necessary to provide accommo- dation for the working-classes, men and

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110 women, on the same principle as the public- house—free admission to all, a cordial wel- come, and no more restraint than is required for the orderly conducting of the house. **2. It is desirable to have the ground- | floor open on the street level, not up several | steps ; and in the front shop space for a bar, | conveniently placed for customers, within which the manager and attendants are to be found. On the counter will stand the large tins, holding from six to ten gallons, and kept hot by gas ring-burners underneath. Behind the bar there should be a sideboard with shelves for the cups, mugs, and other utensils, and also for the rolls, cakes, etc. Here also will be found convenient hot-wa- ter troughs for washing the crockery imme- diately after being used. “3, The other parts of the room should be furnished with benches and tables, ac- cording to the available space ; the benches are found -most convenient 7 feet in length with backs, the tables, when of strong plain deal, 6 feet long by 15 inches wide ; when marble top, 4 feet by 22 inches. “4, If there are other rooms to be fur- nished, tables of the same kind are recom- mended, but in some cases strong Windsor chairs are found more convenient than benches. “The premises ought, as far as possible, to be taken in a locality convenient to the largest number of workpeople. Attention should be paid to the thoroughfare, and the facility of access. Back streets or quiet neighborhoods, even where rents may be cheaper, will not answer the purpose. **¢. The houses should be as nice as pos- sible—cheerful in appearance, clean, airy, and with sufficient space for customers to approach the bar, and to sit down to eat and drink at the narrow tables. “7, The manager should be one who has the work at heart—to throw some spirit into it, and aim at success. He should be will- ing to take any trouble, and do what he can to please his customers. He should be bright, pleasant, friendly, not easily pro- voked, but able to take chaff from rough customers without offensé. Withal he must be reliable for integrity, and must try to make his influence felt by force of example rather than by law. “8. The other attendants are embryo managers, and should be trained to the same qualities. If female attendants are em- ployed, they must be especially discreet, as no familiarity should be allowed; they should also be clean and tidy in their per- son. Proper attention should be paid to THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. the hours of service, so that no undue strain be put upon willing workers. The plan of relays of servants meets the case of early and late hours. **9, As the cocoa-room movement is an effort to counteract the evil of drunkenness and the baneful influence of the public house, it is essential that those in the em- ploy be bona fide ‘abstainers.’ No spirits or alcoholic drinks of any kind are allowed to be sold or consumed on the premises, It may be added that the rooms are open to all at five in the morning, so that men may call on their way to work, as the early morning cup of hot cocoa, coffee, or tea, is found to be of immense advantage. It is said that many by this means have been saved entirely from the use of other stimu- lants. The cocoa, coffee, and tea are of good quality, and are furnished hot at the following prices: two cents per large mug and one cent per small mug of cocoa and coffee; tea, two cents per cup. The large mug contains a pint, the small mug and the cup contain each a gill. Newspapers are provided for reading, smoking is allowed for those who wish to indulge in it, and separate rooms for women are said to have been much appreciated. All the arrange- ments have been placed on a business footing, and with an eye to profit. There is an association in London for the promotion of a similar object, and in their circular, entitled “The Coffee Public-house: how to establish and manage it,” they say: “Give the workingman a public-house, where he may meet his friends, and talk and smoke, and play games with all the freedom to which he has been accustomed, and where good coffee and tea—with stimulus and nour- ishment in them—take the place of beer and gin, and you set before him for the first time, plainly, the choice between sobriety and comfort on the one hand, and dissipation and wretchedness on the other. If it is pro- posed to carry on mission-work, it is better that this should be done in adjoining prem- ises, rather than in the coffee public-house itself. ‘The rooms should be airy and pleasant, full of light and color. It is better to avoid

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s ~~ are cree EDITOR’S TABLE. 111 giving to the coffee public-house a distinc- tively class designation, or one which might appear to connect the house with any par- ticular social or philanthropic movement. ‘The plan of partitioning off portions of the ground-floor, or setting apart rooms for reading, smoking, or other purposes, though occasionally useful, does not always work well. Men like being in a crowd; isolation is not to their taste; and an arrangement of this kind is apt to lead to overcrowding of particular rooms while others may be almost unoccupied. The only other exception to the foregoing rule is where a room can be set apart for the accommodation of women and children, or for youths. Wherever a room especially for women has been opened, as in some of the Liverpool houses, the boon has been highly appreciated. It should be understood that men accompanied by their wives may use the women’s room, and ev- ery encouragement should be given to men who may be disposed to bring their wives and children to the coffee public - house. Women should be encouraged to avail them- selves of the public rooms when no other ac- commodation has been provided for them.” There is everything to commend and nothing to condemn in this mode of promoting the work of temperance. It proceeds upon the assumption that there is no use in trying to shut up dram shops until something else has been provided to take their places. Various causes lead to the formation of intemperate habits, but perhaps the most powerful are social influences. Men are gregarious, and as they are cultivated they become more social and crave companionship. They meet to- gether, and wine favors geniality and conviviality. If men are to be deliv- ered from this temptation, they must be-furnished with a substantial equiva- lent, or places where they can come together and have some social enjoy-* ment without the temptation of intoxi- cating drinks. Reform here begins at the right end. Its spirit is not ascetic, but sympathetic, and it cannot fail to be well received by large numbers who would not be influenced by bare moral inculcations. It is to be hoped that the experi- ment that has proved so successful in Liverpool will be tried in New York and other American cities, under such modifications as the changed circum- stances may call for. The desirable- ness of some systematic movement of the kind is undoubted; and if it will do positive good, and pay its expenses and yield a liberal profit, there ought to be no difficulty in getting capital for it, whatever may be the difficulty in finding competent and trustworthy man- agers, who will not steal the fonds, THE PROGRESS OF RATIONAL EDUCA- TION. Ir is often impatiently asked wheth- er the world is really making any ad- vance in more reasonable views of men- tal cultivation. The old errors live on with such a persistent vitality, after they seem to have been cut up by the roots, that the question is naturally raised whether this is a sphere in which common-sense has any chance against tradition and superstition. Yet there are many indications of a decided and healthful progress in the direction of greater liberality and the increasing control of enlightened principles. Take, for example, the matter of discipline. It has long been the pretext for con- serving whatever is old and established in the schemes of academic and colle- giate study. Greek, Latin, and classical studies must be kept in the ascendant because of their unrivaled and exclusive potency in mental discipline. The sci- ences and practical studies must be re- sisted and repressed to give scope for those venerable studies that have such a wonderful efficacy in disciplining the mind. When it is proved that this isa groundless claim—when it is shown that the discipline afforded by classical study is grossly defective, that it leaves some of the most important parts of the intellect not exercised at all, and when it is proved that modern science has high claims on still broader disciplinary ground, what does it seem to avail?

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112 Classical studies are still determinedly urged on the ground that they afford the best possible training of the mind. It must not be inferred from this that the truth fails to make headway. There are plenty of signs that this old pretense is becoming more and more rated at what it is actually worth. Books on education now treat the sub- ject very differently from what they did twenty years ago, and one of the ob- jects of-Mr. Bain in the important work he is now preparing on Education as a Science, is to bring modern psycholo- gy to bear upon this doctrine of disci- pline, to expose its fallacies, and place it upon a more rational basis. The London Times, that steady-going organ of British conservatism, which never moves forward except as it is moved by the progress of public opinion, is begin- ning to yield on this question. It turns from the English universities to the British Association for the Advance- ment of Science, and eulogizes its edu- cational influence, making, at the same time, the important concession that “ Physical science affords an admirable means of mental training in schools.” There is certainly nothing new in the proposition, and it is no more true than before because the 7imes has indorsed it; but the declaration is a significant index of the progress of educational ideas. Another pertinent illustration of the active spread of rational views upon this subject is at hand. Scribner's Monthly for September had an excel- lent article on the waste of effort in education, taking the ground of Spencer in his book, that it is still the college rule to sacrifice the useful to the orna- | mental in cultivating the minds of youth. The views of the writer are decided, but he seems to be a good deal discour- aged in regard to the hope or prospect of much amendment. He says: “ Mr. Herbert Spencer’s views of education, as contained in his book on that sub- ject, now for some years before the

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. public, ought by this time to have madé some impression, and worked out some practical result. We fear, however, that it has accomplished little beyond giving to a wise man, or woman, here or there, a shocking glimpse into the hollowness of our time-honored educa- tional systems.” This fear is hardly well grounded. The exposure of the defects of the existing systems of edu- cation is but a small part of the service to society done by Mr. Spencer in the preparation of his work. Its main and eminent value is in the principles it lays down for the shaping of better methods of culture. Its chief value is in point- ing out the way to essentially improve methods of study. This is strikingly shown by the fact that the book has been translated into the different lan- guages of Europe, in nearly all cases either by or at the instance of men who have been officially engaged in the work of forming and carrying out systems of public education. There was lately published in Lon- don an expensive, two-volume work, entitled, ‘‘ Twenty Years’ Residence among the People of Turkey: Bulga- rians, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, and Armenians. By a Consul’s Daughter.” The Messrs. Harper have republished this very instructive work at fifteen cents, and so we bought it and read it. Chapter XIX. is devoted to education among the Greeks and Bulgarians, and it is very interesting. After noticing some of the girls’ schools, she proceeds to describe an institution, the marked superiority of which so surprised and interested her that she gives a very full account of it, from which we ex- tract the following: “<I also visited another Greek school at Salonica, which was under the direction of a Greek gentleman educated in Germany, who has designed a new educational system, which, having had a fair trial, will eventu- ally be adopted in all the educational estab- lishments of the Greeks. The origin of the institution does not date further back than two years, and of all the schools I have

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r LITERARY NOTICES. visited here and elsewhere, this certainly struck me as being the best and most perfect ofits kind. The children were divided into classes, each of which was examined by the master, the result of which greatly surprised myself and some friends who were present. The director, who justly took great pride in his work, assured us that all these boys under his care (whose ages did not exceed eleven), in consequence of the quickness, facility, and ability with which they re- ceived his instructions, had learned in one year what he had been unable to teach in double that space of time to children in Germany. He added that he was con- stantly called upon to answer a shower of questions and remarks made by the pupils on the theme of the lesson, which having explained, he allows them time and liberty to discuss the difficult points, until they have quite masteredthem. On their first en- trance they appear listless and uninterested ; but, as the love of knowledge is developed and grows upon them, they often, when school-time is up, beg permission to remain an hour longer in class.”’ This was certainly a curious pheno- menon to stumble upon among the bar- barians. We recommend the troubled school-hunters, of whom there seem to be many who can find nothing satisfac- tory at home, to send their children to Salonica—the missionaries will convoy them. Deeply interested in what she saw, and being of a turn of mind to look into causes and seek explanations, she desired to inform herself further in regard to the methods of this Greek teacher, and remarks: Very much pleased with all I had seen and heard in this establishment, I begged the director to let me have one of the class- books containing the routine of teaching. He replied that he had no special work on the subject to abide by, and that the routine of lessons, left to his own judgment, had been combined by him partly from the sys- tem he had studied in Germany, and partly from ideas suggested to him by reading the philosophical works of Herbert Spencer, for which he appeared to have a great admira- tion,” The writer in Scribner's Monthly should, therefore, feel encouraged. If _ “a new educational system, which, VOL. x1v.—8 113 having had a fair trial, will eventually be adopted in all the educational estab- lishments of the Greeks,” has been specially moulded by ideas derived from Herbert Spencer, it will be no longer possible to say that his work is without practical result. LITERARY NOTICES. Screntiric Memorrs. Being Experimental Contributions to a Knowledge of Radi- ant Energy. By Joun Witt1am Draper, M.D. Harper & Bros., 1878. Pp, 473. Price $3. Tuose who read the concluding paper of Dr. Montgomery in the October Poputar Scrence Monrtaty, on the present aspects of the “ Problem of Life,” will remember the admirable terms in which he refers to a dis- covery of Dr. J. W. Draper, which seems to have a most important bearing on this sub- ject. Though made many years ago, it is only now beginning to be appreciated in its full significance. The last generation has been especially devoted to the cultivation of the sciences of radiant energy and of that plastic, protoplasmic material out of which the fabrics of all life are spun; Dr. Draper anticipated the developments that were to take place in these fields of inquiry hy first determining, thirty-four years ago, what ray of the solar spectrum takes effect upon the green parts of plants to decompose car- bonic acid—the initiative and fundamental change that maintains all life processes, He was the first to decompose carbonic acid by exposing leaves to the sun in the actual spectrum, and to prove that it is the yellow ray that produces the change. The history of science contains many interesting illustrations of the appearance of men of rare and exceptional genius, whose thoughts pierce the future, and who spend their intellectual lives far in advance of their contemporaries. They are the men who lay foundations upon which others build, who carve the great outlines of re- search which other men come to fill up with details, who open paths of inquiry which other men pursue to their maturer results. Dr. Draper is one of these broad original thinkers whose work has contributed largely

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114 to mark and to make an epoch in science. Early trained in chemistry, physics, and physiology, he pursued these subjects as an investigator, not only separately, but in their intimate and complex interactions, reading the mysteries of life by the light of chemical and physical principles. From 1836, onward for fifteen years, Dr. Draper conducted a comprehensive series of re- searches in the general field of radiant en- ergy in its chemical relations which had been at that time but little explored. His elaborate papers giving shape and direction to this subtile research were published in American and foreign periodicals, and won the cordial applause of his appreciative co- workers in the same fields. Recognizing that he was a good deal in advance of his, time, and that years must elapse before the significance of his results would be under- stood, he wisely collected his papers and had them published in a quarto volume, fully and clearly illustrated. An edition of this work was printed, but the expensive stereo- type plates were destroyed in the great con- flagration of Harper’s establishment, so that no more volumes could be produced. With the recent progress of the subjects to which it was devoted, there has been an increas- ing demand for copies of the work, which consequently arose in price, and were prized by all who possessed them. In these circum- stances Dr. Draper has thought it best to re- produce some of the most important papers, and they are now embodied in this volume of memoirs. In this he has but done an act of justice to himself and to American science, while his volume will prove of last- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ing interest as a contribution to the history | of a most interesting and important branch of scientific inquiry, which is now under- going rapid development, and will continue to be zealously cultivated in the future. As to the special subjects considered, Dr. Draper’s statement of them in his pref- ace is so much better than any we could make that it is here subjoined: “ Among many other subjects treated of in these pages, the reader will find an investiga- tion of the temperature at which bodies become red-hot, the nature of the light they emit at dif- ; ferent degrees, the connection between their condition as to vibration and their heat. It is shown that ignited solids yield a spectrum that is continuous, not interrupted. This has be- come one of the fundamental facts in astronomi- cal spectroscopy. At the time of the publica. tion of this Memoir, no one in America had given attention to the spectroscope, and, except Fraunhofer, few in Europe. I showed that the fixed lines might be photographed, doubled their number, and found other new ones at the red end of the spectrum. The facte thus discoy- ered I applied in an investigation of the nature of flame and the condition of the sun's surface. I showed that under certain circumstances rays antagonize each other in their chemical effect, and that the diffraction spectrum has great ad- vantages over the prismatic, which is necessari- ly distorted. I attempted to ascertain the dis- tribution of heat in the diffraction spectrum, and pointed out that great advantages arise if wave-lengths are used in the description of photographic phenomena. I published steel engravings of that spectrum so arranged. | made an investigation of phosphorescence, and obtained phosphorescent pictures of the moon, Up to this time it had been supposed that the great natural phenomenon of the decomposition of carbonic acid by plants was accomplished by the violet rays of light, but, by performing that decomposition in the spectrum itself, I showed that it is effected by the yellow. Under very favorable circumstances, I examined the experi- ments said to prove that light can produce mag- netism, and found that they had led to an incor- rect conclusion. The first photographic portrait from the life was made by me; the process by which it was obtained is herein described. I also obtained the firet photograph of the moon. I made many experiments on and discovered the true explanation of the crystallization of camphor toward the light. When Daguerre'’s procese was published, I gave it a critical ex- amination. and described the analogies existing between the phenomena of the chemical radia- tions and those of heat. For the purpose of obtaining more accurate results in these various inquiries, I invented the chlor-hydrogen pho- tometer, and examined the modifications that chlorine undergoes in its allotropic states, Since in such researches more delicate thermometers are required than our ordinary ones, ] entered on an investigation of the electro-motive power of heat, and described improved forms of elec- tric thermometers. In these memoirs will be found a description of the method made use of for obtaining photographs of microscopic ob- jects, together with specimens of the rerults In a physiological digression respecting inter- stitial movements of substances, J examined the passage of gases through thin films such as soap-bubbles, and the force with which these movements are accomplished, applying the facts so gathered to an explanation of the circulation of the sap in plants, and of the blood in animals. Returning to an inquiry as to the distribution of heat and of chemical force in the spectrum, I was led to conclude, in opposition to the current opinion, that all the colored spaces are equally warm ; and that, so far from one portion—the violet—being distinguished by prodacing chem- ical effects, every ray can accomplish special changes. This series of experiments on radia

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ae Se Oe aS Soe i ll cl — 1 AEP APR, NS tions is concluded in this volume by an exami- nation of the chemical action of burning-lenses and mirrors.” The volume is well printed in clear type, on good paper, and contains a fine steel portrait of Dr. Draper—much the best likeness of him that we have ever seen. It contains various woodcuts to illustrate ex- periments which the reader will find a use- ful accompaniment to the text. Hanpsoox or Mopern Cuemistry, [NorGan- 1c AND ORGANIC, FoR THE Use or Srv- pents. By Cuartes Meymorr Tipy, M. B.,F.C.S. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. Pp. 780. Price, $5. Tus seems to be a very good practical treatise on chemistry, for the use of stu- dents in colleges and laboratories. It is well condensed, and judiciously classified. The author says concerning the work: “J yenture, therefore, to plead my apology for the publication of these outlines of chemis- try. Within three months of graduating—in other words, when ‘fresh from the schools ’—I was appointed Joint-Lecturer on Chemistry with the late Dr. Letheby, at the London Hospital, consequently my first lecture-notes were pre- pared when familiar by practical experience with the wants of a student. Year by year these notes have been added to, and, to some extent, rewritten; nevertheless, except in c few in- stances, I have strictly adhered to the general plan I first adopted. I submit these lecture- notes to the profession as the joint experience of a student and a teacher.” Sounp: A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the Phenomena of Sound, for the Use of Students of Every Age. By A. M. May- gr, Professor of Physics in the Stevens Institute of Technology. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 181. With nu- merous Illustrations. Price, $1. Tus volume is the second in Prof. Mayer’s “ Experimental Science Series for Beginners,” the first volume of which, that on “Light,” appeared a few months ago. _ The “ Experimental Science Series,” as the author states, originated in the earnest and honest desire to extend a knowledge of the art of experimenting, and to create a love of that noble art which has worked so much good in our generation. All attempts, how- ever, to extend the knowledge of experi- mental science will fail unless these endeav- ors on the part of scientific men are second- LITERARY NOTICES. ed by our teachers; hence Prof. Mayet while writing these books, has been con- stantly actuated by the desire éo assist teach- ers to become experimenters. “These little books,”’ Prof. Mayer remarks in his preface, ‘will show how many really excellent ex- periments may be made with the outlay of a few dollars, a little mechanical skill, and patience, This last commodity neither I nor the school can furnish. The teacher is called on to supply this, and to give it as his share in the work of bringing the teach- ing of experimental science into our schools, When the teacher has once obtained the mastery over the experiments, he will never after be willing to teach without them ; for, as an honest teacher, he will know that he cannot teach without them. Well-made experiments, the teacher’s clear and simple language describing them, and a free use of the blackboard, on which are written the facts and laws which the experiments show —these make the best text-books for be- ginners in experimental science. Teach the pupil to read Nature in the language of experiment. Instruct him to guide with thoughtfulness the work of his hand, and with attention to receive the teachings of his eyes and ears. Youths soon become enamored of work in which their own hands cause the various actions of Nature to ap- pear before them, and they find a new de- light in a kind of study in which they re- ceive instruction through the doings of their hands instead of through the reading of books. . The object of this second book of the series is to show how to make a con- nected series of experiments in sound, These experiments (a hundred and thirty in number) are to be made with the cheapest and simplest apparatus that the author has been able to devise, and they have been ar- ranged so that one leads naturally to the making and understanding of the next.” And it must be added that much of the ap- paratus needed for making the experiments is such that the student himself may con- struct it at trifling expense. So much for the method and principle of the work—a method which compels the student con- stantly to employ his own mental faculties of comparison, generalization, etc., and to be, in fact, a discoverer of the truths of science, not a mere passive recipient of instruction.

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116 Unless the teacher is more than ordinarily stupid, and addicted to the routine of book- teaching, the pupil can hardly fail to have his mental stature increased, his reasoning powers strengthened, by going over the course of experiments here laid down. Of the author’s success in carrying out this scheme, the first volume of the series was evidence ; and our readers can see from the copious extracts which we elsewhere pub- lish in the present Monruy that the prom- ise made in the preface is more than ful- filled in the body of the work. Prof. May- er’s text leaves nothing to be desired in point of clearness, and, where the imperfec- tion of written speech might cause obscuri- ty, the illustrations, which are all new and rigorously exact, will serve to guide the reader aright. PROCEEDINGS OF THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL Meetine or THE Free Revicious Asso- craTion (1878). Boston: The Free Re- ligious Association. Pp. 90. Price, 40 cts. Besmes the financial reports and the list of officers for the ensuing year, this vol- ume contains several more or less elaborate addresses, among which may be mentioned an essay by Thaddeus B. Wakeman, en- titled “The Religion of Humanity,” in THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. which the author explains what that re- | ligion is, and shows how it may be organ- ized and cultivated upon American soil; also, an essay by William H. Spencer: “Religion of Supernaturalism; why it should be disorganized, and how it may be done.” ANNALS OF THE AsTRONOMICAL OBSERVA- Tory or ‘Harvarp CoLLeGe.—Pxoro- meTRiC Reszarcnes. By C. 8. Perrce. Made in the Years 1872-1875. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Pp. 181. With Plates. Or the five chapters into which this elaborate work is divided the first treats of the sensation of light; the second, of the numbers of stars of different degrees of brightness; the third is a record of the author’s original observations with the as- tro-photometer of Zéllner; in the fourth, the star-magnitudes given by the different Observers are compared ; and the fifth treats of the form of the galactic cluster. In tHe Witperxess. By Cnartes Drop Ley Waryer. Pp. 175. Price, 75 ets, Ir you cannot compass a trip to the Adirondacks, this inimitable little volume of forest sketches is a capital substitute, for Mr. Warner brings to his work a love of the woods and a knowledge of their varied features, rivaling that of “Old Mountain Phelps” himself. Moreover, subtile humor. ist as he is, he cannot escape being funny, and his little volume sparkles with delicate wit and keen but not unkindly satire from beginning to end. Metric WEIGHTS AND MEasurRES For Mepi- CAL AND PHarmacaL Purposes. Wash. - oe Government Printing-Office, Pp, In the Marine Hospital service, medical officers are now required to employ metric weights and measures for all medical and pharmacal purposes, and in this little pam- phlet are contained rules and tables for the conversion of quantities according to apothe- caries’ weight and measure into quantities according to the metric system. The work will interest physicians and pharmacists, and will probably be of service in hastening the general adoption of the metric system in the United States. SounD AND THE TELEPHONE. Biake, M.D. Pp. 12. In this paper, which was read before the British Society of Telegraph Engineers, the author states in part the result of ex- periments made for the purpose of measur- ing the vibrations of the disks of the Bell telephone, and determining the loss of pow- er sustained in the transmission of sound. He further compares the vibrations of the telephone-disk with those of the human tympanum membrane. By C. J. American Cottece Dmectory (1878). St. Louis: C. H. Evans & Co. Pp. lil. Price, 10 cts. Tuts volume contains a list of all the colleges, seminaries, special schools, ete., in the United States, and gives in brief much essential information concerning each ; for instance, the number of teachers and pupils, number of volumes in the library, value of scientific apparatus, value of build- ings, etc.

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LITERARY NOTICES. Report or tHe New Yore Me- i gueusseesoas } tinea (1877). By D. Draven, Director. Pp. 32. Aw important feature of this report is Mr. Draper’s remarks upon the rainfall of New York City. It has been found by ob- servation that there was an increase of rain from the date of commencing the observa- tory records till 1869, and after that year a steady decrease. The question now arises, Does the rainfall of New York still dimin- ish, will it continue to do so, and does this variation occur in the early or late por- tion of the year?” To which the author re- plies that from his study of the subject “ it appears that the rainfall of this city will most probably continue to decrease by fluctuations for several years to come, and that the variations are nearly the same in the two portions of the year.” Tus Former anp Present NuMBER OF OUR Inpians. By G. Mattery. From “ Pro- ceedings of the American Association.” Pp. 27. Some Common ERRORS RESPECTING THE Nort American Inprans. Same au- thor. From “Bulletin of the Philo- sophical Society of Washington.” Pp. 6. Tue errors here exposed and corrected by Mr. Mallery have regard first to the color of the aborigines: they are nof “red,” nor * copper-colored.” color is brown, Second error: the opinion that the Indian believes in a “ Great Spirit.” Their common religious system is “ poly- demonism.” Third error: that the abo- riginal race is rapidly becoming extinct ; the author holds that they are rather on the increase. Orrexinc or THe Lewis Brooxs Museum, at THE University or Virginia, June 27, 1878. _ Richmond: Printed by or- der of the Board of Visitors. Pp. 60. Tue University of Virginia is indebted to the late Lewis Brooks, of Rochester, New York, for the fine Natural History Museum— building and specimens—which was opened during the present year. The pamphlet before us gives a brief history of the found- ing of the institution, and contains an ad- dress on “‘Man’s Age in the World,” by -James C, Southall, author of the work en- titled “Epoch of the Mammoth.” Their real prevailing | 117 Deep-Sea Sounpines. A Lecture by Lieu- tenant-Commander T. F. Jewzu1, U. 8, N., Claremont, N. H.: Manufacturing Company print. Pp. 63. Tue first material improvement made in deep-sea sounding instruments was the em- ployment, by Lieutenant Walsh, U. 8. N., of a steel wire in place of a hempen cord; that was about thirty years ago. Since then sounding has received much attention from naval officers and scientific men, and so numerous are the devices contrived for the purpose of exploring the bottom of the sea, that the author of the above-named address finds it necessary, with a view to presenting a clear history of the subject within the ordinary limits of an evening lecture, to confine himself to the achieve- ments, in this field, of our own countrymen. From a perusal of the address, it is seen that American inventive genius has played an important part in the improvement of sounding-instruments. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. Parks and Gardens of Paris considered in Relation to the Wants of other Cities and of a ag and Private Gardens. By W. Robinson, L. 8S. With numerous Illustrations. New $7.50. American Ornithology ; or, The Natural His- | tory of the Birds of the United States. By Alex- | ander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte. go with Plates sogeves from Drawings from Nature. Philadelph — oq 3 & Coates. Three volumes in one. Pp. 1178. $7.50. Life of George as Author te The Con- stitution of Man.” y C. Gibbon. Lendon: Macmillan. 2 vols. Pa, 835 and 404. $8. A Candid Examination of Theism. ry Ae cus. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & 215. $2.50. What is the Bible? By J. 7 _ Santoro, New York: Putname. Pp. 199. Goethe : Faust—Erster Theil. y with an Introduction and Notes, by J. M. Hart. Same publishers. Pp. 257. $1.25. The Ethics of Spiritualism. By H. Tuttle. . 155. 60 cts. J. Rob- em: 8. | York: Macmillan. Pp. 572. Ferns in their Homes and Ours. inson. With Plates and Woodcuts. E. Cassino. Pp. 194. $1.50. Evolution evolved. A Part of “The Prob- lems of Homan Life here and hereafter.” By ) ees New York: Hall & Co. Pp. 13% 50. Central Ohio Scientific Association. Urbana : Soma why Brand print. Vol. 1, Parti. Pp. 100, with Geograph of Kentacky. By W. J. Davis. New an Antwerp, Bragg &Co. Pp. 16, with Map and Woodcuts. American Journal of Mathematics, Pure and Sk i — York: Sold by Van "Nostrand. Sires Annual Report of the Trastees of

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118 the Peabody Museum of American Archeology and Ethnology. Cambridge: Printed ee of the Trustees. Vol. Il., No. 2. Pp. 230, with Tilustrations. Observations and Orbits of the Satellites of Mars, with Data for Ephemerides in 1879. By A. Hall. Washington: Government Printing- Office. Pp. 46. Cie of Comets. By H. A. Newton. From A n Journal of Science. Pp. 15. Selenide of Bismuth. By J. W. Mallet. From A nm Journal of Science. Pp. 3. Produc- tion of Magnesian Nitride by Smothered Com- seeen of Magnesium in Air. Same author. Paleolithic Implements from the Glacial Drift in the Valley of the Delaware, near Trenton, New Jersey. By Dr. C. C. Abbott. From the “Report of the Peabody Museum.” Salem: Printed at the Salem Press. Pp. 32. : 2 Liquors. By Dr. A. J. Howe. Manual Education. By Prof. C. M. Wood- ward. St. Louis: G.I. Jones & Co. Pp. 31. Report on Cold-rolled Iron and Steel. By R. H. Thurston. Pittsburg: Printed by Ste- venson, Foster & Co. Pp. 109, with Plates. Rate of Earthquake-Wave Transit. By R. Mallet. From osophical Magazine. Pp. 4. A Mass of Meteoric Iron from Augusta Coun- » Rp By J. W. Mallet. From American & Science, Pp. 2. ‘ Contributions to Natural History. By R. E. C. Stearnes. San Francisco. Pp. 6. Electric Constitution of our Solar System. By J. Ennis. From “ Proceedings of the Acade- my of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.” Pp. 17. Some Seleniocyanates ; Electric Estimation of Mercury; Some Specific Gravity Determina- tions. By F. W.Clarke. From American Jour- nal of Science. Pp. 6. Illinois State Laboratory. Circular of In- 7 em Springfield: State Register print. POPULAR MISCELLANY. Effects of Oxygen inhaled at Different Temperatures.—Dr. B. W. Richardson finds great diversity in the action of oxygen on the animal economy according to the tem- perature of the gas when inhaled. Care- fully-purified oxygen may be inhaled at 55° Fah. without a consciousness of the differ- ence between it and common air. But be- fore long, even though the products of the combustion of the animal be all removed, there is a gradual decline of the animal’s temperature, followed by a tendency to sleep. At last death occurs in deep sleep. At a temperature lower than 55°, the nar- cotism produced by the oxygen is very much quickened. At 32°, in a chamber of oxy- gen, Dr. Richardson has seen deep coma induced in mice, pigeons, and Guinea-pigs, within thirty-five minutes of the commence- ment of the inhalation, death from coma THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. supervening within an hour. In a raised temperature (75°), the inhalation of oxygen may be sustained without coma, indeed with. out injury, for a considerable time. To de. termine this point, Dr. Richardson con. structed a small room that could be steadily ventilated with pure oxygen gas, In this room he kept adult warm-blooded animals on one occasion for three weeks without being able to observe any variation from the natural life that could be considered detrimental. In this instance the blood was always of the same color in the veins as in the arteries, viz., of a rich bright arte- rial crimson. Another experiment showed that, like heat, electricity modifies oxygen as a supporter of animal life. Dr. Richard. son placed three full-grown mice in jars, each containing a hundred cubic inches of pure oxygen gas. One of these animals was placed now im a temperature of 45° Fah.; another in a temperature of 75°; the third was placed in the same tempera- ture as the first, but with this difference, that into the jar containing the animal there was introduced a pointed copper wire con- nected with the positive conductor of a frictional electric machine. When the ma-* chine was set in motion, a brush was pro- duced at the point of *he copper wire. Every five minutes this electric brush was excited within the jar. The animal in the first jar would sleep to death in two or three hours; those in the second lived for many hours; in the third the animal fell into a narcotized condition, but nevertheless continued to live in sleep so long as the electrical excitation continued. Under these conditions it lived for seventeen hours in gentle sleep, and on being then set free showed no sign of injury, and lived on as before the experiment. A Torpedo Transport.—A war-vessel of an entirely novel character, the Hecla, lately arrived at Portsmouth, England, from Belfast, where she was constructed for the British naval authorities. The Hecla is de- signed to carry fast torpedo launches and to follow in the wake of a fleet as a depot, ready to dispatch her flotilla of small craft for its protection when needed. She is an iron vessel, 390 feet in length, and is fitted to carry six sixty-four-pounder rifled guns.

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POPULAR MISCELLANY. On each side is a broadside port tarough which Whitehead torpedoes may be launched. The after-part below is fitted up as a tor- pedo workshop. The hull is divided into a number of water-tight compartments, not connected, as is the usual mode, with water- tight doors, entrance being gained from the upper and main decks, The element of danger resulting from leaving the connec- tions open in certain eventualities is thus obviated, though it is calculated that the filling of one or two of the compartments with water would not materially affect the behavior of the ship. She is to carry six second-class torpedo-boats. Four of these boats will be amidships, the chocks on which they rest running on a tramway. She will also carry a 42-feet steam launch and a 37- feet steam pinnace. The Hecla will be pro- vided with booms and nets to protect her from an enemy’s torpedoes—the booms, when not in use, lying fore and aft against the side of the ship. , Women and the Study of Seience.—The medical profession in England appears to be seriously alarmed at the prospect of an in- vasion of its ranks by womankind. Scien- . tific workers need have no such fears of their peculiar field being occupied by the gentler sex, if the “ Cambridge Higher Local Examinations,” lately held, are any index of the disposition of women-students in Eng- land toward scientific studies: only about thirty out of five hundred female students, we are informed by Nature, took the science subjects ; twenty-one took botany, one failed, and three obtained distinction ; twenty-six ge- ology and physical geography, of whom two failed, and seven were distinguished ; sev- en geology, one failed, three distinguished ; nine chemistry, three failed, none distin- guished. Ten of the science candidates sat at Cambridgé, and among them they gained ten out of fourteen of the distinctions given. Miss E. M. Clarke, of Cambridge, was dis- tinguished in geology, zodélogy, and botany, ead passed in chemistry. Mathematics got only twenty-three candidates, of whom four failed ; only two, however, were placed in the first class (being Cambridge students), and two in the second. We are glad to learn that two new subjects are to be set in . the science group next year, namely, physics and physiology, the latter so much needed in all girls’ schools. Also, students will be allowed to take this group without having to pass Group A (literature and history) first, although it will be required for a full certificate. Sir Wyville Thomson on Deep-Sea Soundings.—Sir Wyville Thomson, as Pres- ident of the Geographical Section of the British Association, delivered an address, at the Dublin meeting of that body, on the re- sults of recent deep-sea sounding. He dwelt particularly on the facts of ocean circulation as developed by the Challenger Expedition, All recent observations, he said, have shown that the vast expanse of water which has its centre in the southern hemisphere is the one great ocean of the world, and the At- lantic with the Arctic Sea, and the North Pacific, are merely its northward-extending guifs : any physical phenomena affecting ob- viously one portion of its area must be re- garded as one of an interdependent system of phenomena affecting the ocean as a whole, Shallow as the stratum of water forming the ocean is—a mere film in proportion to the radius of the earth—it is very definitely split up into two layers, which, eo far as all ques- tions regarding ocean-movements are con- cerned, are under very different conditions. At a depth varying in different parts of the world, but averaging perhaps five hundred fathoms, there exists a layer of water at a temperature of 40° Fabr., which may be re- garded as a sort of neutral band separating the two layers. Above this band the tem- perature varies greatly over different areas, the isothermobathic lines being sometimes tolerably equally distributed, and at other times crowding together toward the surface, while beneath it the temperature almost universally sinks very slowly and with in- creasing slowness to a minimum at the bot- tom. With some reservation it may be af- firmed that the trade-winds and their modi- fications and counter-currents are the cause _ of all movements in the stratum of the ocean above the neutral layer. All the vast mass of water, often upward of two thousand fathoms in thickness below the neutral band, is moving slowly to the northward ; in fact, the depths of the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean, are occupied by

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120 tongues of the Antarctic Sea, preserving in the main its characteristic temperature. The explanation of this seems simple. For some cause or other as yet not fully under- stood, evaporation is greatly in excess of precipitation in the northern portion of the land-hemisphere, while in the water-hemi- sphere, and particularly in its southern por- tion, the reverse is the case: thus one part of the general circulation of the ocean is carried on through the atmosphere, the water being raised in vapor in the northern hemi- sphere, hurried by upper-wind currents to the zone of low barometric pressure in the south, where it is precipitated in the form of snow or rain, and welling thence northward in the deepest channels, on account of the high specific gravity dependent on its low temperature, it supplies the place of the water which has been removed. A New Form of Stereoscope.—It is known to many people that, by placing the axes of the eyes parallel, it is possible so to see stereoscopic pictures without any in- strument as if we were looking at them through stereoscopic lenses. To do this, we may make a small hole in the centre of each picture, and hold the paper in such a position that each eye looks through the hole at a distant object. But with ordinary stereoscopic pictures this object needs to be very far off, so that this contrivance is not a very convenient one; nor is it de- sirable to make a hole in the centre of every picture we wish to see stereoscopically with our naked eyes. Another method is to make one familiar with the muscular sensibilities of the eyes according as their axes converge or diverge, and to make him acquire such THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. control of his eyes that, without looking at any distant object, he will be able to place the axes of the eyes parallel, Though either of the above methods would answer for experimental purposes, neither would serve as a substitute for the ordinary stereo. scope; for if one requires such an incon. venient arrangement, the other requires too much trouble in explaining. But I thought that, perhaps by some happy, simple con- trivance, we could see stereoscopic pictures unaided by any lenses, yet withoul any con- scious straining of our eyes; and after re- peated experiments I found out that, if cor. responding parts of two pictures were apart from one another only one inch and a half or so, and if by means of a partition the two pictures were so separated from one another that the right eye will see only the right picture and the left eye the left pict- ure, the two pictures will combine just as easily as with an ordinary stereoscope, The following is my explanation why two pictures combine so easily when cor- responding parts of the two are apart only one inch and a half or so, while to make ordinary stereoscopic pictures combine re- quires so great effort: To combine ordinary stereoscopic pict- ures unaided by any lenses, the axes of the eyes must be placed parallel; but, since it is not an habitual position of our eyes to have their axes parallel, this can only be accomplished by a great effort. But, if to place the axes parallel requires such an effort, to make them too convergent requires equally great effort. Thus to see a single image of a finger put on the tip of our nose is very difficult, and to see a single image of the tip of the nose itself is almost an im-

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FEF SSFP SC eSESZe eee ma F oT * @fFeeovse » @ _, Of food, and the better aération of the blood, possibility. Witk the habitual positions of our eyes, the axes are neither parallel nor too convergent, and we see dimly two im- ages of our nose and objects too near our eyes. Now, when corresponding parts of two stereoscopic pictures are apart from one another only one inch and a half or so, and are distant from our eyes one foot or so, to combine the two pictures our eyes are only required to take one of their habit- ual positions; that is, the axes of the eyes need only to be so placed as if we were look- ing at an object distant from our eyes two feet or so: hence the effort required is very trifling, even when unaided by any instru- ment. But when the two pictures are so separated by a partition that the right eye can see only the right picture and the left eye the left picture, the combination of the two will take place as easily as with an or- dinary stereoscope. This is, I think, chiefly owing to the fact that as long as the two pictures are seen separate, the picture seen by each eye is covered by a dim image of the partition seen by the other eye, and it is only when they combine that we have a clear and distinct view of the pictures—M. Toyama. * Natural Seleetion.—An interesting case of the operation of the law of natural selec- tion and the survival of the fittest is re- counted in the American Naturalist, by S. F. Clarke. Having obtained a number of the gelatinous egg-masses of one of our native salamanders, he placed them in large glass jars, where they developed rapidly, After their gills and balancers had developed, they emerged from the eggs and began their ac- tive life in the water. A difficulty now ap- peared—the author could not discover the proper kind of food. Upon watching the animals closely, however, he soon found that they were eating off one another’s gills. Closer examination showed that among the many were a few individuals which, although they came from the same parents and were subjected to the same conditions while in the egg, were yet gifted with greater vigor than most of their fellows. These few stronger ones ate off the gills of many of the weaker, and at the same time were enabled to protect their own gills from mutilation. These favorable conditions, the large supply POPULAR MISCELLANY. soon began to show their influence upon the growth of the favored individuals. Withina week or ten days from the time of emergence from the egg, these favored few were fifty per cent, larger than their weaker comrades who were born upon thesame day. Theirmouths had by this time so increased in size that, no longer satisfied with nibbling off the gills of their brethren, they now began to swal- low them bodily. Soon they were ten or twelve times as great in length and bulk as their victims. Carnivorous Caterpiflars.—A striking peculiarity of the caterpillars of Patago- nian Lepidoptera, namely, their cannibalism, is noticed by Prof. Carl Berg. All cater. pillars in Patagonia, of whatever family or group, prey upon their own kind, He kept them in captivity, and found that, even with an abundance of food-plants at hand, they preferred to devour one another, “ hair and hide ;” they even tear open the cocoons and prey on the chrysalids. One was ob- served to devour in twenty-four hours six or seven individuals of its own species, This peculiarity of Patagonian caterpillars is thus explained by the author: During the summer there are extreme heat and drought in Patagonia, and these causes, together with the prevailing dry winds, parch the vegetation, scanty at best. The cat- erpillars are in consequence greatly strait- ened for food, and the struggle for life has led them to seek some other means of sub- sistence. Hence their cannibalism, which, being transmitted by heredity from genera- tion to generation, becomes a second nature, and the practices to which they were at first driven by want they now perpetuate through habit. A Battle-Royal among Ants.—F. E. Co- lenso, of Maritzburg, Natal, in a letter to Nature, gives an animated description of a fierce battle between ants, which he found engaged in mortal combat on his garden- wall. Among the ants was a considerable number of larger individuals, “the soldier- ants” of the same species, and the whole ant community seemed to be bent on de- stroying them. A group of little ones would fasten on to a big one, the latter in the mean time making desperate efforts to

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122 free itself. Or a big one would bite several little ones in two, but after a while the little ones would have severed all the legs of the big one, and finally would get on his back and cut him in two. One combat was es- pecially noticeable, and is described as fol- lows by the author: “A big ant walked along till it met another big one, and the two shook antennz. Just then a little one seized hold of a hind-leg of one of these big ones. Neither took any notice, but contin- ued a rapid conversation. Suddenly oth- er small ones came up, when the big one whose Jeg was grabbed turned furiously on the little one and seized him by the middle. This could not be done until the big one had doubled himself up ; as soon as he had hold of his small antagonist, he lifted him in the air and snipped him in two. Mean- while all the big one’s legs had been seized by little oties, and the party seemed to turn over and over, little bits tumbling down off the wall, now a leg, now half an ant, till the big one was vanquished. The way in which the big ant turned on the little one was singularly indicative of rage. The de- termined manner in which he laid hold of the little one was quite human.” How the Silk-worm Moth eseapes from its Cocoon.— Having heard a rustling, cut- ting, and tearing noise issuing from a co- coon of Actias luna, the large green swal- low-tailed silk-worm moth, Prof. A.S. Pack- ard supposed that the moth must be en- gaged in cutting its way out of the cocoon. And as the mode of escape is a subject of dispute among entomologists, Prof. Packard determined to observe the moth at its work. A sharp black point was seen moving to and fro, and then another, until both points had cut a rough, irregular slit, through which the shoulders of the moth could be seen vigorously moving from side to side. The slit was made in one or two minutes, and the moth worked its way at once out of the opening. Afterward, in examining two dry specimens of the same moth, this black point or spine was seen at the base of each fore-wing; Mr. Packard calls it sector coconis—the cocoon-cutter. A num- ber of other members of the sub-family Attaci having been examined, the sector was found in them all. In the common THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. silk-worm (Bombyx mori), the spines are not well marked, and they are quite differ. ent from those in the Aitaci, and consist of three sharp points, being acute angles of the pieces at the base of the wing. The Mask - Bison. — Ovibos moschatus (musk sheep-ox, i. e., the musk-ox), as its systematic name indicates, possesses exter- nal characters common to the sheep and the ox, and hence it has been regarded ag forming the connecting link between these two species. But, as a writer in Land and Water points out, the name given to the animal by Pennant, namely, musk-bison, more correctly defines its zodlogical posi- tion. Of this interesting animal, the writ- er just mentioned says that it measures only about five and a half feet from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail. Its average weight is usually estimated by travelers at 700 pounds, but the author thinks that 300 pounds would probably be nearer the weight of the largest individuals. The outer hair, or fleece, is long and thick, brown or black jn color, frequently decidedly grizzled, hang- ing far below the middle of the leg. Under- neath this shaggy coat, and covering all parts of the animal, though much the heaviest upon the neck and shoulders, is found a fine soft wool of exquisite texture, of a bluish-drab or cinereous hue, capable of being used in the arts and of forming the most beautiful fabrics. It is this close under-fur which enables its wearer to withstand the bitter storms and piercing cold of arctic winters, even beyond the seventieth parallel of lati- tude. The head is large, ending in a rath- er short muzzle, though remarkably broad nose, the nostrils being bordered and sepa- rated by a naked narrow space. The fore- head is convex, and both sexes are provided with horns, which are of extreme size, and not unlike those of the male of the Rocky Mountain sheep in curve and general ap- pearance, but lacking the transverse corru- gations that characterize the latter. In the male, these appendages approach so closely together in the centre of the forehead as to appear to be joined at their bases, as they undoubtedly are in old age. Leaving the point of insertion, the horns are directed outward and laterally, falling down abruptly on either side of the face, curving slightly

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POPULAR MISCELLANY. forward through their middle third, and, opposite the angle of the mouth, turning sharply upward at the tip. In the female they are placed farther apart in the skull, measure much less in circumference at the point of insertion, and, though they like- wise fall down and present the same curve as those of the bull, the points are not in the least inclined upward, but rather down, or in the same plane with the lips. They are powerful weapons, however, serving both sexes equally well either for offense or de- fense. They are very broad next to the skull, but taper swiftly toward the points, which are very sharp, and present a dull whitish-yellow color, rough at the basal ex- tremity, but smooth and shining beyond, and black at the tips. The average proportions of a pair of horns are two and a half feet across from tip to tip, and each two feet im length, measured from the median line of the fore- head, to which they are attached by a char- acteristic boss or protuberance. A pair frequently weighs upward of sixty pounds. The tail is very small, and completely hid- den by the long hair of the voluminous fleece. The legs, too, are short and greatly concealed by the long hair of the shoulders and flank. The feet are four-toed, and armed with hoofs like all ruminants, the two anterior and largest being broad and in- flexed, with sharp cutting edges, and the posterior or lateral ones, which are but slightly developed in most quadrupeds, are considerably prolonged, almost reaching to the ground; this, with the upward curve and great expansion, of which the front hoofs are capable, presents a structure which, by giving the animal a broader base to stand upon, prevents its sinking too deep into the snow, or when traversing boggy ground. Without this, the musk-ox would have been as ill-fitted to tramp over the yielding snow-fields of the north as the camel to perform long marches through the burning sands of tropical deserts without his broad, elastic sole-pad. Sagacity of the Beaver.—A Mississippi correspondent of Chambers’s Journal re- counts several interesting instances of the sagacity of the beaver, and of the readiness with which that animal grows accustomed to the presence of man. At a place near this correspondent’s residence a railroad crosses some wet, springy ground, where there used to be several beaver-dams. The line of em- bankment supplied the place of these dams, and the beavers, taking the good the gods provided, worked no more on their own dams, but enjoyed the pond of four or five acres which the embankment had made for them, A year or two since, the railway-workmen undertook to put a culvert through the em- bankment and drain the pond, which, after running freely for a few days, and nearly emptying the pond, suddenly stopped one night: the flow had been arrested by the beavers. The men opened it again, but once more it was stopped up. This went ou for some time. As the men passed that way they would open the entrance to the culvert, and at night the beavers would shut it up. At length, finding that closing at the entrance, where their work could so easily be broken down, did no good, the beavers moved their dam to the middle of the culvert, which was some forty feet long, out of the reach of the poles used to poke it down. Here was a community of beay- ers working with express-trains thundering over their heads! A Usefal Snake.—In “ Notes on the Nat- ural History of Fort Macon, North Caro- lina,” contributed to the “ Proceedings” of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- delphia, Drs. Coues and Yarrow describe the king-snake ( Ophibolus getulus), which is said by the residents frequently to destroy both rattlesnakes and moccasins, eating its victims after the conflict is over. For this reason the king-snake is in great esteem, and is carefully protected. The fight which takes place between the ophibolus and the rattlesnake has often been witnessed, and is described as follows: So soon as the rattlesnake sees his enemy, he endeavors to escape if possible, and, failing in this, he instantly throws his body into coils, The king-snake approaches swiftly, and moves around the rattlesnake in a circle, gradually drawing nearer and nearer, the rattlesnake following his motions with his head. The circular movement of his antagonist appears finally to disconcert him, for after a time it is noticed that his movements are less ener- getic, and at length, in an unguarded mo-

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124 ment, ophibolus throws himself suddenly upon him and chokes him to death, pulls his body apart, and devours him. In captivity the king-snake is very gentle, and it requires very severe provocation to induce it to bite. Several specimens which were kept in a large box could not be induced to eat either mice, frogs, or toads; but as several fine specimens of Ophiosaurus ventralis, kept in the same box, quickly disappeared, it was easy to account for the apparent want of appetite. The “Uses *? of Pain.—The question is often asked, “ What is the use of pain? It is scarcely conceivable that the infliction has no object.” There are obviously two aspects of this question : in one Science has an im- mediate interest ; with the other it has a sec- ondary but not unimportant concern. The first is essentially physical. What useful purpose does pain subserve in the animal economy? The answer is thrust upon us by daily observation and experience. There are two sentinels posted, so to say, about the organism to protect it alike from the | assaults of enemies without and exact- ing friends within. The first of these guar- dians is the sense of fatigue, When this speaks, there is needof rest for repair. If the monitor be unheeded, exhaustion may supervene ; or, before that point of injury is reached, the second guardian will perhaps interpose for the vital protection—namely, pain. The sense of pain, however, is more directly significant of injury to structure, active or threatened, than an excessive strain on function, although in the case of the vi- tal organs pain occurs whenever the press- ure is great. Speaking generally, it may be set down as an‘axiom that, whatever col- lateral uses pain may subserve, its chief and most obvious service to humanity is as a deterrent and warning sensation to ward off danger. It is worthy of note, though suffi- ciently familiar to medical observers, that the absence of this subjective symptom in cases of severe injury is too often indicative of an injury beyond repair. The extinction of pain is not the highest, although it may be a generous, impulse. If there were no guardian sensibility of this nature, it would be impossible to live long in the world with- out self-inflicting the most formidable inju- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ries. That pain, in the second place, has an educational value, as regards the mind and temper, no one can doubt. Some forms of pain would seem to be chiefly intended for this purpose ; but even in this view pain has a practical interest, because the higher development of the mind which controls the body, and of which the brain is the forma. tive organ, is a process of physico-mental in. terest governed by natural laws of which Science is perfectly competent to take cog. nizance. The subject as a whole is one with which the physician and physiologist have much concern.—Lancet. Diseovery of a New Salt-Deposit in Central New York.—Mr. James McFarlan announces the discovery of a bed of rock. salt in the Onondaga salt-group at a locality thirty-seven miles south of Rochester. The boring which resulted in this discovery passed first through 660 feet of shales, then 110 feet of hard rock—sandstone or lime- stone—then 80 feet of hard limestone, when - salt-water was found. Below this was 380 feet of limestone and shale belonging in part to the limestones and shales of the upper part of the Onondaga salt-group ; next, 1,240 feet down, soft shales, 20 or 30 feet thick, were passed through; and, finally, the bed of rock-salt was struck at the depth of 1,279 feet, It had a thickness of 70 feet, of which 40 or 50 was pure salt. The bor- ing was continued to the depth of 1,530 feet, down tothe Niagara limestone, which was met at 1,562 feet. Borings are to be made on the south side of the Syracuse Valley, in the expectation of striking the saine bed, which there would be found, if at all, at the depth of only a few hundred feet. Distribution of Spiders.—In classifying the collection of spiders in the museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- delphia, the Rev. H. C. McCook discovered specimens of Sarotes venatorius, a large spider coming from various localities— from Santa Cruz (Virgin Islands) to Cuba, to Florida; across Central America, Yuca- tan, and Mexico; across the Pacific Ocean by way of the Sandwich Islands, Japan, and the Loo-Choo Islands, and thence across the continents of Asia and Africa to Li-

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beria. He noticed that this line of dis- tribution lies within the belt of the north trade-winds, and conjectured the existence of some connection between the two facts. Probability was given to the conjecture by the migratory habits of this spider in the early stages of its growth. The young spider emits from the spinnerets fine threads in sufficient bulk to overcome the specific gravity of the body, and it is borne through the air like a balloon. We some time ago gave an account of Mr. McCook’s observa- tions on ballooning spiders. Having found this spider in localities lying in the track of the northern trades, Mr. McCook made an investigation to determine whether the species is distributed along the entire track, and also whether it is to be found in the track of the southern trades. The re- sult is exhibited by the author in a map which shows the existence of Sarotes vena- torius in both belts of the trades, from the east coast of America, across this continent, the Pacific, and the whole Eastern Conti- nent, to the west coast of Africa, thus gir- dling the globe, with the exception of 54° of longitude corresponding to the width of the Atlantic Ocean, The inference is that the distribution of this spider has been accom- plished by means of the trade-winds. The Growth of Mushrooms.—It is gen- erally supposed that mushrooms grow only in the night, but those who have watched them have observed that their growth is nearly equal day and night. A correspond- ent writes that not long since a flower-pot was filled with dirt from the street, a plant was placed therein and it grew rapidly. In ten days a small mushroom made its appear- ance, but in a few hours it toppled over and perished. On the following day a larger one of different species was discovered peep- ing through the soil, and in the morning it was just above the surface. Before nine o'clock at night it attained its full height, nearly four inches, although it was in the sun several hours, and gradually expanded its acorn-head into a hollow cone which united with the hollow stem at the interior of the apex. Its inner surface was lined and evenly shirred with a black, velvety sub- stance which made a fine contrast with the milk-white, cobweb-like substance of the ~ POPULAR MISCELLANY. 125 outer surface. During the day and night the head was transformed into an umbrella- like cap, which collapsed and died on the fourth day. Others of different species made their appearance at different times, showing that the streets of a city as well as the soil of the country are filled with spores of these seedless and flowerless plants ready to show themselves whenever the conditions of germination are favorable. They do not propagate by seeds—they have none—they propagate by spores, microscopically small, which are driven hither and thither by winds and lodged in various places, and when they receive the requisite amount of moisture and heat they germinate and grow to per- fection, whether it be day or night. Mereurial Deposit on Animal Teeth.— On the teeth of a sheep said to have been poisoned by the herbage growing in the neighborhood of a certain silver-mine in Mexico, Mr. E. Goldsmith, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, noticed a peculiar deposit of tartar, which was sup- posed to consist of silver amalgam. Upon examination this tartar was found to con- stitute a thin scale covering the teeth to the depth of about 0.2 millimetre. Viewed un- der a lens of moderate power, the deposit seemed to have been built up gradually from within. Its lustre was truly metallic, Heat- ed on platinum-foil it became black, show- ing the presence of organic matter. Heated in a tube closed on one end, at first a gray cloud arose, then water and an oily matter deposited themselves on the upper or cooler end of the tube; lower down near the now carbonized test a metallic layer was recog- nized with the aid of the lens. The pow- dered substance being mixed with carbonate of soda, and treated in the same way, the result did not differ. If melted on coal with the addition of carbonate of soda, there was obtained a white enamel, but no metal what- ever. In nitric acid the tartar was soluble as long as the solution was concentrated; if diluted with water, a turbidity, caused by the separation of an organic matter, was formed. This organic matter was soluble in caustic ammonia, and from this ammoni- acal solution it was again precipitable by nitric acid; the precipitate was flocculent, it carbonized when heated, and left no resi-

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126 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. due if the heating was prolonged for a suf- ficient time. The remaining solution from which this organic substance had been sep- arated gave no reaction with hydrochloric acid, the absence of silver being thereby proved. A stream of sulphureted hydro- gen gave a precipitation in which a very little quantity of sulphuret of mercury was discerned. Very strong reactions of phos- phoric acid and lime were observed in the nitric-acid solution with the ordinary re- agents. This singular tartar is consequent- ly not silver amalgam, but the same material of which teeth are generally made, modi- fied, however, by the influence of a small quantity of mercury. That metallic mer- cury is easily absorbed by the animal econ- omy is well known; it seems, however, not to have been noticed on the outside of the teeth before. The Grave-Digger Beetle.—In order to test the strength of the grave-digger beetle (Necrophorus Germanicus) Mr. Gleditch, an entomologist, half filled a glass vessel with earth, into which he put four of the beetles with a dead linnet. The grave-diggers im- mediately began to excavate beneath the dead body of the linnet, shoveling away the earth on each side. After laboring for near- ly two hours, one of the beetles was driven away and not allowed to work again. The others continued their labor, until one by one they ceased, leaving only one beetle at work. Five hours, more hard work was given by the remaining beetle, who at last sank exhausted on the earth and rested from his task, and finally, suddenly rousing himself, stiffened his collar, and by an ex- traordinary effort of strength lifted up the bird and arrangéd it within the spacious grave. In three days the grave was finished, and the bird safely deposited within its nar- row limits. During a space of fifty days, these busy workers interred the bodies of four frogs, three small birds, two grasshop- pers, and one mole. This singular occupa- tion, which continues from the middle of April until the end of October, proceeds from an instinctive desire for the preserva- tion of their offspring. Eggs deposited by the parent in the substances which they inter, when hatched, produce larve, which, them, grow to an inch in length. These in their turn change into yellow chrysalids, and lastly into beetles; and the latter, when emerged from the earth, begin to dig graves and inter dead animals for the benefit of another generation. A New Mineral White.—For many years chemists have been trying to find some min. eral white which might be substituted for the costly and poisonous white-lead. One of the substitutes proposed was zinc-white —oxide of zinc—but the “ body” of zine. white will not bear comparison with that of white-lead. Oxide of antimony, and the silicates of zinc, magnesia, and lime, were successively tried, but none of these sub. stances proved to be an adequate substitute, Mr. T. Griffiths, of Liverpool, has obtained a mineral white the basis of which is sulphide of zinc, and which Dr. Phipson pronounces to be “in every respect superior to carbon- ate of lead itself,” i. e., white-lead. It is obtained by precipitating either chloride or sulphate of zinc by means of a soluble sul- phide—sddium, barium, or calcium sulphide —and precautions are taken lest any iron that may be present in small quantity should be precipitated with the white sul- phide of zinc. The precipitate, being col- lected and dried, is transferred to a furnace, there calcined for some time at a cherry-red heat, and carefully stirred so as to bring all parts of it successively in contact with the air. It is then raked out while quite hot, into vats of cold water, where it is levigated, and afterward collected and dried. The re- sult is a very fine white pigment ; its cover- ing power when mixed with oil is about 25 per cent. higher than that of carbonate of lead. Phipson’s analysis of the new prod- uct shows it to be an oxysulphate of zinc. This white is not darkened by sulphureted hydrogen, and its manufacture is perfectly innocuous. A Substitute for Gutta-Percha.—We take from an English journal the following account of a substance called balata, the milky sap of the bully-tree, which grows in the region of the Amazon and the Orinoco : Balata, we are informed, possesses many of the characteristics of India-rubber and feeding on the carrion which surrounds gutta-percha ; indeed, it so closely resembles 2 RE pene

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' ' ' ae the latter substance in its general proper- ties, that much of it is shipped yearly from Guiana and sold for that article, although in some respects it is greatly superior to gutta-percha. Like gutta-percha and India-rubber, this gum is obtained by mak- ing an incision in the bark of the tree, and allowing the sap to ooze out and either co- agulate in a lump or flow slowly over a clay form so as to produce a “bottle” or any other pattern that may be desired. Balata is tasteless, gives out an agreeable odor on being warmed, is tough and leathery, is remarkably flexible, and far more elastic than gutta-percha. It can be softened and joined piece to piece indefinitely, at a tem- perature of about 120° Fahr., but requires a heat of 270° before it melts. It is com- pletely soluble in benzol and bisulphide of carbon when cold. Turpentine dissolves it with the application of heat, while it is only partially soluble in anhydrous alcohol and ether. It becomes strongly electrified by friction, and is a better isolator of heat and electricity than gutta-percha. Caustic alkalies and concentrated hydrochloric acid do not attack it, but concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids do. A sort of artificial India-rubber, cailed “ kerite,” invented by A. G. Day, of this city, has recently been brought to notice. It is prepared in the following way: Ahout twenty-seven pounds of cotton-seed oil and thirty pounds of coal- tar are mixed together in a boiler, with suf- ficient heat and for a sufficient length of time to cause them to unite thoroughly. The temperature should be about 300° Fahr., and the time is from three to five hours. The mixture is then cooled to from 200° to 240° Fahr., and then linseed- oil (twenty-seven pounds) is added, When the latter has been thoroughly mixed with the other ingredients, twelve to sixteen pounds of sulphur is added gradually, the temperature meantime being steadily raised te about 275° or 300° Fahr. The heating is continued till the mass is vulcanized. When the vulcanization is complete, the compound is finished, and it may then be poured into moulds or pans and allowed to cool for use. The inventor has lately made some considerable improvements in his pro- cess of preparing ozokerite, but it would take too much space to detail them here. NOTES. NOTES. Tue American Association will next year hold its meetings at Saratoga, beginning on the last Wednesday of August. Prof. @ F, Barker, of Philadelphia, is the president. Diep, September 6th, at Brussels, Ernest Quetelet, of the Brussels Royal Observatory, aged about fifty-three years. Deceased was the son of the late Prof. Adolphe Quetelet, the eminent statistician, who was the found- er of the Brussels Observatory, and its di- rector till his death in 1874. ALL the pterosaurian fossils hitherto dis- covered in the United States are from the Cretaceous. But in the American Journal of Science for September, Prof. 0. C. Marsh escribes a fossil specimen from the Upper Jurassic of Wyoming which proves the ex- istence of that class of saurians in the forma- tion. just named. The specimen, which is in good preservation, is the distal portion of the right wing metacarpal, and indicates a small pterodactyl, having u spread of wings of four or five feet. A very ingenious machine, invented by James H. Williams, was exhibited this fall at a Mechanics’ Fair in Boston, viz., a machine capable of indicating, six to eight times per minute, the superficial area of sur- faces, however irregular, not exceeding twen- ty-five square feet. The machine can, for instance, compute in less than ten seconds the square contents of a circle without ref- erence to mathematical rules, It is certain to find practical application in many depart- ments of trade. It is specially of use to leather dealers and manufacturers for meas- uring exactly the superficial area of hides and skins. Gustav Watts, the botanist, died at Cuenca, Bolivia, June 20th, aged forty-eight years. He first visited South America as a botanical collector in 1860, gathering new and useful species of plants, and during the ensuing eight years traversed Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica. He next visited the Philippine Islands, but in 1871 he again went to South America, never to return. He died in a hospital, in poverty, “ worn out in the cause of science,” says Nature. He introduced into European horticulture no less than 1,000 new varieties from across the Atlantic. Goop peter (kerosene), according to Prof. J. Lawrence Smith, should have the following characteristics: 1. The color should be white or light yellow, with a blue reflection; 2. The odor should be faint and not disagreeable; 3. The specific grav- ity, at 60° Fahr., ought not to be below 0.795 nor above 0,84; 4. When mixed with

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128 an equal volume of sulphuric acid of the density of 1.53, the color ought not to be- come darker, but lighter. A petroleum that satisfies all these conditions, and pos- sesses the proper flashing-point, may be re- garded as pure and safe. Tue Paris Academy of Sciences has elected Mr. Darwin a corresponding mem- ber of the Zodlogical Section, and Prof. Asa Gray a corresponding member of the Section of Botany. We have received from Dr. G. E. Black- ham, of Dunkirk, a report of what was done at the American Microscopical Congress, which met at Indianapolis in August. There were present about fifty microscopists from different parts of the United States, and Dr. R, H. Ward, of Troy, New York, was chosen president. The congress was in session for four days, August 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th, and one of its results was the organization of a permanent association, “ The Americen Society of Microscopists.” A large number of papers were read, among which may be named the following: “On the Limits of Accuracy in Measurement with the Micro- scope,” by Prof. W. A. Rogers; ‘‘ A Stand- ard Micrometer,’ by Prof. R. Hitchgock ; “ Progress of Microscopic Ruling,” by Prof. J. E. Smith; and “Construction of Ocu- lars,” by W. H. Seaman. The society will meet next year at Buffalo. Pror. Huanes entertains the hope, or rather thinks it possible, that we shall one day be able to “tap the brain of its thought” by means of the microphone! He holds that all thought is accompanied by an unconscious action of the articulating organs, and that therefore it may come to pass that by a highly-sensitive microphone the articulate vibrations of the head will be made audible. Of course, the theory that unconscious articulation always accompa- ‘ nies thought is purely hypothetical; but in these times it is best not to pronounce any- thing impossible unless it clearly implies a contradiction in terms—an absurdity. ExPErIMENts made by Messrs. Corenwin- der and Contamine show that the amount of sugar in beet-roots is in direct ratio to the superficial area of their leaves. They fur- ther show that in the leaves the sugar oc- curs mainly in the midrib, and that it there exists in the state of glucose mingled with a small quantity of crystallizable sugar. In the secondary veins and in the paren- chyma the proportion of sugar is far less considerable. Tue London Academy is authority for the statement that Mr. Grenville Murray’s recent work, “Round about France,” has been seized in France by the authorities. THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Dr. Wert points out in the Chemische Industrie the defects of the usual methods of determining the heat-value of fuels, and recommends, as preferable, decomposition of the fuel by dry distillation and analytical determination of the solid, liquid, and gase. ous products of decomposition. The water. tar, and gas that aré formed are measured and their heat of combustion ascertained with the aid of data that have been supplied by Favre and Silbermann and Deville. The final result will, of course, exceed the true combustion-value of the coal by the amount of heat equivalent to the work of decom. position into coke, tar, and gas. The decom. position of the coal should be done as quick. ly as possible, and at a high temperature. Tue French journal La Science pour Tous reckons the annual importation of ivory irito England at 650,000 kilogrammes, of which about one half is there employed in the arts, and the other half reéxported. The cutlery. works of Sheffield alone consume 200,000 kilogrammes per year. Tusks vary in weight from 450 grammes to 74 kilogrammes. To supply the ivory annually taken to England, 50,000 elephants must be killed. But though, perhaps, most of the tusks go to England, very many are exported directly to other countries and consumed at home, A process for treating hop-stems so as to produce from them textile fibres is thus described in the Polytechnic Journal: First, the stems are boiled in water with soda or soap, then washed again, and once more boiled in dilute acetic acid. They are then washed and dried, and when properly combed can be worked like other textile materials. The fibres are said very closely to resemble those of flax, and to excel in elasticity, softness, and durability. A writer in the London Times asserts that, by the practice of shoeing horses, we diminish the sureness of the animal's feet, and foster all kinds of splints and other diseases. He maintains that any horse, even one accustomed to shoes, would very soon go more easily in every way on our hardest roads, and with far less liability to slipping and disease, unshod, than he now does when shod with iron. All that is necessary is to “keep the edges of the hoof slightly rounded off with a rasp, to prevent the raveling-u of the edges.” ° Sefor Moreno, employed by the Gov- ernment of Buenos Ayres to explore Pata- gonia, has discovered a new volcano, that of Chalten, in the Patagonian Andes, in lati- tude 49° 8’ south, longitude 73° 10’ west. It is a magnificent peak, rising high above the surrounding mountains, and the natives report that it is almost always sending forth smoke and cinders.

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