The Popular Science Monthly 1885-11: Vol 28

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THE POPULAR.SOCIENCE MONTHLY. NOVEMBER, 1885. FLYING-MACHINES. Br T. W. MATHER. HE subject of my paper—flying-machines—in a general way, is of interest to everybody. But, to those who have given it more particular attention, it is not only interesting but fascinating, and a little dangerous. The pathway has been strewed with wrecks ; ; and I fear there is a feeling prevalent that, after all, it leads nowhere in par- ticular, unless it be to the almshouse or lunatic asylum. Still, there are times when we heartily envy the birds their wonder- ful power. I remember in reading, I think, Mr. Wallace’s book on the Amazons, that he was once standing on the shore of the mighty river, confronted by an impenetrable wall of green, concealing within itself doubtless no end of new plants and beetles ; and when a gayly painted macaw came sailing lazily along and disappeared behind the tree-tops without any sort of trouble, he gave vent emphatically to the general wish to fly, and to a feeling of surprise that apparently so simple a problem should have remained so long unsolved. I propose here to give an account of some of the attempts to fly that have been made in the past, and are now being made ;. and to try to explain. the principles involved, and. why success has not. been achieved. The old Greeks and orion very sensibly appear to have been content to give the gods and birds and butterflies a monopoly of the air ; for, excepting the story of Dedalus and Icarus, little mention has been made by classical writers of attempts to fly, or of fiying- machines. Deedalus, it seems, had killed a man in Athens, and with his un- fortunate son fied to Crete, where King Minos very properly detained VOL, XXVIIL—1l

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2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. him ; but, determined to escape, he made wings of feathers cemented with wax, and, instructing Icarus to fly neither too high nor too low, but to closely follow him, launched himself into the air, and took a bee-line for Greece. The young man, however, was ambitious, and, fly- ing too near the sun, the wax melted, and he perished in the sea—a warning to future generations. After Dedalus, we next hear of Archytas of Tarentum in Sicily, a famous geometrician who lived about 400 years B.c. He is credited with a dove made of wood, so contrived, we are told, “as by certain mechanical art and power to fly ; so nicely was it balanced by weights and put in motion by hidden and inclosed air.” One is surprised at the amount of talk and speculation that these few words have caused. If the dove were put in motion by inclosed air, then probably it was constructed on the principle of a balloon. If so, then of course the air must have been heated ; or, better, since wood will crack and warp from heat, not unlikely a light gas was used ; and since hydrogen is light, possibly hydrogen ; and if so, how did Archytas prepare it? Others seriously try to throw ridicule on the whole affair, saying that a wooden dove could not possibly get support in such a way—that neces- sarily it would be too large and heavy, and that the material would not stand the strain, and so on. For my own part, however, I think that old Lauretus Laurus had the true theory and explanation. He says that “the shells of hen’s eggs, if properly filled, and well secured against the penetration of the air, and exposed to the solar rays, will ascend to the sky, and some- times suffer a natural change ; and if the eggs of the larger description of swans, or leather balls, stitched with fine thongs, be filled with niter, the purest sulphur, quicksilver, or kindred materials, which rarefy by their caloric energy ; and if they externally resemble doves they will easily be mistaken for flying animals. “If we should desire to give aérial motion to a wooden and pon- derous machine, we must apply fire. Should there be any apprehen- sion of the dove being burned, it can be covered over with some in- combustible coating, and tubes of tin introduced, so that the fire may be kept alight in its bosom without injury to it. . . . To prevent the crackling of flames, and the emission of sparks, the powder may be deprived of force by the mixture of ochre and butter. . . . An artificial throat may be formed to change the crackling of the flames into an imitation of the cooing of adove. Tubes could have been easily ” (and probably were) “constructed to ascend one after the other at conven- ient intervals, so that the bird would apparently be endued with life.” After Archytas, we hear little or nothing of flying-machines until the middle ages. Then the astrologers and alchemists and witches, in league with the evil-one on the one hand, and the friars and monks helped by good spirits on the other, did many wonderful things. The competition was strong. To simply fly was a mere bagatelle, a ready me pre cee ant day do wit hui the eC. the suc wit vok and spit sm¢ eve pra: ad the: colc hok afte surf mor witl the and tati: the mon keer call; vent Indi of a the : barb hold

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FLYING-MACHINES. 3 means to the sinful or good end in view. The broomstick took a pre-eminent position as a flying-machine, What a pity it is that our ancestors should have so persistently fought against and finally suc- ceeded in surpressing the broomstick! What could be more simple and effective ? Perhaps by proper treatment the witches might have been persuaded to instruct the rest of the world in its use. In those days, dragons and magicians and good and evil spirits made out-of- doors at night rather dangerous, and good people remained at home, with holy water on hand for an emergency. Here is an example from Remigius. Says he: “There is no doubt the following will be consid- ered incredible by all and ridiculous by many ; yet I can aver that two hundred persons testified to its truth. On regular and stated days these people assembled in a crowd on the banks of some lake or river, secluded from the observation of passers-by ; and there they were in the habit of lashing the water with wands received from demons, until such time as vapors and mists were produced in large quantities, and with these they were wont to soar on high. The exhalations thus pro- voked condensed themselves into thick and darkling clouds, agitated and swept the heavens, assisted in their atmospheric war by the evil spirits whom they wrapped in their folds, and at length in a hail-storm smote the earth in their fury. . . . Salome and Dominica Zabella, how- ever, add that, before they thus agitated the water, they were in the practice of throwing into it an earthen pot, in which a little previous a demon had been inclosed, together with some stones of such size as they wished the hail to be. . . . Decker Maygeth states that he and his confederates in crime used to receive candles from a demon of an azure color, and sail with them some distance from the margin of the lake, hold the light downward and let it drop freely into the water ; that after that they scattered and spread some medicinal powder over the surface ; that they then, with black rods, bestowed on them by de- mons, most vehemently lashed the waters, accompanying the action with a repetition of incantations to produce the desired results. Then the sky became overcast with clouds, and discharged torrents of rain and hail on those localities which they had pointed out.” This incan- tation, Remigius says, “is not an invention of modern ages. It is not the invention of old hags whose mental powers were depraved by de- mons, or perverted by visions or dreams. It was practiced by men of keen intellects and acute investigation, who minutely observed, criti- cally examined, and deliberately adopted their convictions.” Here is a description, according to Kircher, of a flying-machine in- vented by one of the fathers of the Church : Some of the fathers in India had been “cast into prison, and while they continued ignorant of any means of effecting their liberation, some one, more cunning than the rest, invented an extraordinary machine, and then threatened the barbarians, unless they liberated his companions, that they would be- hold in a short time some wonderful portents and experience the visible

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4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. anger of the gods. The barbarians laughed at the threat. He then constructed a dragon of the most volatile paper, and in this inclosed a mixture of sulphur, pitch, and wax, and so artistically arranged all his materials that when ignited it would illumine the machine and exhibit this legend—‘ Zhe wrath of God.’ The body being formed and the in- gredients prepared, he affixed a long tail, and committed the machine to the heavens. Favored by the wind, it soared aloft toward the clouds. The spectacle was terrific. The barbarians beholding it were smitten with the greatest astonishment and fear. . . . Thereupon with- out delay,” says Kircher, “they threw open the gates and suffered the prisoners to go forth in peace.” In the middle ages, anybody at all distinguished by knowledge of science was credited with the art of flying, and indeed in many cases did not scruple to claim it. Albertus Magnus was one of these, but refused to give particulars to the world at large. He tells us, however, how to make thunder. Says he: “Take one pound of sulphur, two pounds of willow carbon, and six pounds of rock-salt, ground very fine in a marble mortar ; place where you please in a covering made of fly- ing-papyrus to produce thunder. The covering, in order to ascend and float away, should be long, graceful, and well filled with this powder ; but to produce thunder the covering should be short and thick, and half full.” Roger Bacon, an eminent philosopher of the thirteenth century, also claimed to have knowledge of the art of flying, but believed also in the wisdom of silence concerning the details. But in his writings we find flashes of real light. He speaks of the possibility of constructing en- gines of great power to traverse land and sea ; and seems to have been the first to have tolerably clear ideas of the principles involved in the construction of balloons. He describes a large hollow globe of copper or other suitable metal wrought extremely thin. It must then, he says, “be filled with ethereal air or liquid fire, and then be launched from some elevated point into the atmosphere, where it will float like a ves- sel on the water.” In his day the air was supposed to have a well-defined upper limit, like the water. Friar Bacon too has been credited with the invention of gunpow- der. He was of course accused of holding communion with the devil. Good Pope Nicholas placed his writings under a ban, and his wings were effectually clipped. Shortly after his time, the project of training up children from infancy to fly received a good deal of attention, and, if we can trust the accounts, considerable progress was made, for it is said that, by combined running and flying, individuals could skim over the ground with great rapidity. Regiomontanus, a famous mathematician, is said like Archytas to have formed an artificial dove, which flew out to meet the Emperor

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FLYING-MACHINES. 5 Charles V at his public entry into Nuremberg. But, if this is true, the dove must have survived its inventor for at least twenty years. Then we are told of a monk who attempted a flight with wings from the top of a tower in Spain. He broke his legs, and was afterward burned as asorcerer. Another similar trial was made from St. Mark’s steeple in Venice ; another in Nuremberg ; and so on—legs or arms were usu- Fic. 1.—Tue Firove-Man (Rétif de la Bretonne’s idea). (From an old number of “ Scribner's Magazine.”’) ally broken, occasionally a neck. In the sixteenth century we read of a certain Italian who went to the court of James IV of Scotland, and attempted to fly from the walls of Stirling Castle to France. His thigh was broken ; but, as a reason for the failure, he asserted that some of the feathers used in constructing his wings were from barn- yard fowls, with a natural affinity for the dung-hill ; whereas, if com-

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6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. posed solely of eagle-feathers, they would have been attracted to the air, However, he does not appear to have carried the experiment further. Many other trials have there been of the same character. The re- sults were generally discouraging, but men can always be found ready to risk life and limb in striving to attain something much less im- portant than the art of flying; without a knowledge of the principles involved, ignorant of the nature of the atmosphere, without machinery or power, fettered by a superstition that looked upon all learning out- side of the Church as coming from the prince of darkness, it was a struggle in the dark—brave but hopeless. Still, those old fellows were quite as reasonable in their attempts as many of our inventors are now. In looking through Patent-Office reports, we shall find devices only slightly different in detail from those tried five hundred years ago. One of our illustrations shows the plan proposed by Rétif de la Bretonne away back in the dark ages ; and another an apparatus pat- ented in this country in 1872, It is only one of numbers of the same sort. Rétif had an advantage, in that he carried a lunch-basket and umbrella, and did not need so many ropes and spars ; but otherwise the later arrangement seems equally good. In 1783 the Montgolfiers invented the balloon. Friar Bacon, as we have seen, had speculated upon the possibility of such a construction. In 1670 Francis Lana, a Jesuit, had described an apparatus which, al- though impracticable in so far that it could not be built, nevertheless was correct in principle. The same idea had occurred to others ; and there are even shadowy accounts of actual ascents. But to the Montgol- fiers certainly belongs the honor of first actually building and bringing the balloon before the public as an accomplished fact. ‘They used hot air only, but the substitution of hydrogen gas by Professor Charles speedily followed, and in a few years the balloon was made as perfect, excepting in a few details, as it is now. It would be difficult to describe the excitement which followed this invention. The most extravagant hopes and anticipations were enter- tained. The problem had been solved. The birds and insects would no longer have a monopoly. Every gentleman would have a balloon hitched to his gate-post, or, wafted along by summer breezes, would look down in luxurious pity upon the poor plodders. Sails and rud- ders were to be used as on ships to direct the course. Regular lines of aérial passenger and mail coaches were to be established. There seemed no limit to the possible speed. Rome, or St. Petersburg, or even America, might be reached in a few hours, and for the comfort of travelers the arrangements proposed went far ahead of our palace- cars. Floating hospitals were to be built ; methods of warfare would need to be entirely reorganized ; and England’s boasted supremacy on the sea would be of no avail, unless she also maintained supremacy in the air.

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FLYING-MACHINES. 7 Fre. 2—Tuz Mopern Fuirme-Man. (Taken from United States Patent-Office Reports.) s a» = \ : \ . , i ‘il b | 4 - Of course an invention of such importance could not escape con- demnation. Balloons were manifestly contrary to the will of Divine Providence, for, if it had been intended that man should fly, wings would have been given to him. Moreover, the barriers of virtue and

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8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. morality would be broken down by permitting aéronauts to descend into gardens and balconies ; and, above all, the boundaries of empires would be practically annulled, and nations in consequence engage in continual war. Well is it, then, for humanity that balloons have not proved a very great success. Many extensive voyages and many interesting observa- tions have been made ; but as a flying-machine the balloon has no place, It is the servant of the air, not the master. It must obey a will, piti- less, fickle, sometimes kind, but never trustworthy. The expectation that headway could be made against the wind by means of sails and rudders had no basis in sound theory or sense. A sailing-ship is im- mersed in two fluids of widely differing densities, and its sail is only effective because the water, while supporting, at the same time allows the vessel to move more readily in one direction than another. Fig. 8.—SunLivan’s Fryme-Macume. (Taken from United States Patent-Office Reports.) A balloon, on the other hand, is totally immersed in an ocean of air, and being of the same weight bulk for bulk, and subject to no exter- nal forces, must necessarily follow the slightest current. One might as well attempt to steer a boat, swept along by a great stream, without wind or oar. It forms an integral part of the current itself: It isa thistle-down blown by an autumn gale. » ee Balter

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FLYING-MACHINES. 9 Of course we may provide our balloon with wings or propeller, and fly as the birds fly. This has been and continues to be a favorite com- bination with our inventors. One patented in this country in 1880 has been chosen as an illustration. The balloon, oblong in shape and divided for safety into compartments, supports a car containing the propelling machinery, and also a gas-generator to make up such loss of hydrogen as may occur. Two immense rudders steer the machine. It is propelled by four paddle-wheels, which would act, one would think, very much as the wheels of our river-steamers would act, if totally immersed in the water, and would be about as likely to drive the balloon backward as forward. Generally, however, in machines of this class the propeller is one gigantic screw, or a number of screws, and the balloons have a variety in shape and grouping which is quite remarkable. It is strange that people have not realized that a thing necessarily so big and light asa balloon can not be made strong and durable enough to stand the pressure of the wind at comparatively low ve- locities. Floating with the current, the velocity would have no de- structive effect ; but brought into opposition to this current, or forced at any great speed through the air, the resistance would be much greater than a silk bag could safely stand. It may be well here to refer to a table giving the relation of press- ure to velocity of air, experimentally determined and verified time and again—results very important in the study of flying and flying- machines : VELOCITY OF THE WIND. Henan ep quo. cymes Character of the wind. Miles per hour. Feet per second. Pounds. 1 1°47 0°005 Hardly perceptible. 5 7°33 0°128 Gentle wind. 10 14°67 0°492 - 15 29-00 1'107 t Pleasant brisk wind. 20 29°34 1°968 25 36°67 8-075 t Very brisk. 30 4401 4°429 ; 85 51:34 6-027 t High winds. 40 58°68 7873 45 66-01 9-963 t Very high. 50 73°35 12-300 Tempest. 60 88-02 17-715 Great storm. 80 117°36 81-490 Hurricane. 100 146°70 49-200 Cyclone. I ee ee mee ee Sometimes reached. Now let us suppose that a balloon only forty feet in diameter should resist the pressure of wind blowing at the rate of twenty miles an hour, or, what is the same thing, that the balloon should be traveling through still air at this speed. The surface presented to the wind would be about twelve hundred square feet, and the pressure on each square foot, from our table, would be 1-9 pound, and the total pressure over aton. A calculation is hardly necessary to show that such a pressure,

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10 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. acting constantly upon our silk, would be likely to rupture it; and when we consider that sudden gusts might readily increase the press- ure five-fold, it will be admitted that terra firma would be decidedly safer, if less exciting. More than all this, balloons as hitherto constructed are at best but temporary affairs, quickly losing their gas and buoyancy, expensive and unwieldy, and, however valuable for certain kinds of work, must be considered as simply floating, not flying machines. If we expect to gain the respect of the birds or butterflies, we must go to work in a much less clumsy way. In the excitement following Montgolfier’s invention, simple flying- machines dropped out of sight almost entirely, and it was only after a long series of disappointing trials that the old ideas came to the sur- face again. The balloon craze, however, brought about a more care- ful study of aéronautics generally ; but at the same time there has been and is a strong current of misguided thought and invention, par- ticularly to be noticed in our Patent-Office reports. Inventors of flying-machines, as a rule, belong rather in a lower class. Just as we still find old-new arrangements for producing per- petual motion, so in the attempts to fly the old story is repeated. The perpetual-motion man is likely also to know just how to make a suc- cessful flying-machine. He only lacks the means. Still, particularly in England and on the Continent, many able men have been working intelligently, perseveringly, quietly. Before building a flying-machine they have thought best to study the examples Nature has provided, thinking that, while we need not necessarily imitate the mechanism, we may in this way get a better idea of the principles and action involved. The broad principle governing either natural or artificial flight is quite simple, but the difficulty of applying it very great. Our flying- machine, one that is much heavier than the air, and depending entirely upon its own power, in the first place, must be able by acting on the air to lift itself, and, while maintaining a position at any desired height, to propel itself forward. It must be prepared to encounter and take advantage of, and overcome currents of air sometimes hardly per- ceptible, sometimes perhaps a roaring gale—currents, too, not un- likely to suddenly change both in direction and velocity. It should be able to fly continuously for a long while, and should be tolerably safe. On the water, if the machinery gives out, we can float or swim ; but in the air any little difficulty of the sort would be likely to end unpleasantly. And even if, like a parachute, the machine could be made to drop slowly, in a brisk wind the final landing-place would for a while be a matter of uneasy conjecture. It may easily be understood, then, that the problem is not a simple one, and yet, to a person watching, for example, the flight of a flock of gulls following in the wake of a steamer, the exquisite ease and grace and apparent simplicity of the movement are very striking. Sweeping a ey ees

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FLYING-MACHINES. 11 around in circles, occasionally elevating themselves by a few flaps of the wings, they glide down and up the aérial inclines without appar- ently any effort whatever. But a close observation will show that at every turn the angle of inclination of the wings is changed to meet the new conditions. There is continual movement with power—by the bird it is done instinctively, by our machine only through mechanism obeying a mind not nearly so well instructed. The study of the flight of birds and insects has of late years re- ceived a great deal of attention, and, in a general way, the motions of the wings are fairly well understood. We could probably very closely imitate these motions, but the question at once arises, in doing so, would we be applying our power in the most effective way? While somewhat similar, the movement and construction of the wings of flying creatures vary considerably. What is best for a heavy body with short wings is by no means best for a light body with long wings; nor does a sea-bird, constantly on the wing, but perhaps not a rapid flier, flyin the same way as a pigeon or humming-bird ; and, in any particular case, it does not necessarily follow that Na- ture has provided the most efficient apparatus ; or, in other words, that the power the bird possesses could not be utilized more effect- ively. Nature can not always be trusted. We can study and under- stand her laws, but she does not pretend to apply them on economical principles. Fish and marine animals swim in a great variety of ways, they have all sorts of propelling arrangements, but there can be no doubt that a screw-propeller is vastly more efficient than any of them ; and why should we try to copy the motions of a bird’s wing any more than those of a fish’s tail? The motions are very complicated in any case, and our machine, imitating them, would be complex and liable to get out of order. And one can not help thinking that we are about as likely to make a steam road-wagon by imitating the action of a horse, as we are to make a practicable flying-machine by copying the motions of a bird. The desired results can probably be obtained in a much more simple and effective way. Still, the study of flying creatures has brought out many interest- ing and suggestive facts, and has given us, too, some encouragement. In the first place, we notice that all birds are heavy, and that the expanse of wing generally diminishes in proportion to the increase of weight. The following is a table prepared by M. Lucy, showing this very clearly : Table giving the Expanse of Wing-Surface for each Pound of Weight. Square feet. Sic cccnccnccndnntosse.ssdseanbebaneesnesbeis. doaneeel 489 SGD, cdegus ccievecenesbnseesusesesescunseenseeeel 21°65 iG Knecapdacaad cneses iateeheedstusp db sien 51 <<. nit ot otalihwihd Saba RegEinebkieaucoewbeelacawuaamnene 27 itccntnéenchecsdedle, 66d miebendawenesousadésecuneall 12 chins ctongihustieewseverie chewnrncess eéhetncdaned 0°82

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12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. We see that the gnat, one of the lightest of insects, has an expanse of wing of no less than 48-9 square feet for each pound of weight, while the heavy cockchafer has only 5°1 square feet for each pound, With birds, the sparrow has 2°7 square feet of wing-surface for each pound of weight, while the great Australian crane has only 0°41 of a square foot, and yet this bird undertakes remote journeys, and, the eagle excepted, flies higher, and keeps on the wing longest, of all the travelers. It would appear, then, that our flying-machine, while heavy, need not necessarily have a very broad expanse of flying surface. Indeed, paradoxical as it may seem, weight is really an essential feature. Set in motion by muscular effort, the weight of a bird acts somewhat like the fly-wheel of an engine : the power is stored up during the down- ward stroke of the wing, to be given out again on its upward stroke, and probably it is weight also that enables the bird to successfully combat and take advantage of the force of the wind. It is noteworthy that all sailing-birds, like the hawk or vulture, have comparatively heavy bodies. The magnificent albatross, in rising from the water, is said to beat the air with great energy, but, when fairly launched, in a brisk gale, will sweep around in broad circles for hours together, hardly ever deigning to flap a wing. Darwin, in his “ Voyage of the Beagle,” speaks of watching the condor sailing in a similar way at a great height, without, so far as he could notice, any flapping action whatever. At the same time, it is hard to understand how such a condition of affairs could exist. The condor’s wings, inclined to the wind, have been compared to a kite, and if there were a string stretching from the bird to some fixed point, the whole thing would be clear ; but every boy knows to his cost that, if the string slips or breaks, the kite quickly seeks some other point of support—probably a telegraph-wire. But Professor Pettigrew has suggested that the string is the invisible one representing the attraction of gravitation, and that “the string and the hand are to the kite what the weight of the flying creature is to the inclined planes formed by its wings.” This, however, does not make the matter much clearer, for the force of gravity acts in vertical lines, and a vertical kite-string, with the kite flying directly overhead, is a thing, it is safe to say, no boy ever saw. Why should not our bird drift with the wind unless he uses some muscular effort to over- come its force or to keep himself from falling ? Once elevated, he can utilize his weight in a number of ways. A body will naturally fall along a line of least resistance, and if the front edge of the wings be tipped slightly downward the bird will - glide forward while falling, gaining velocity and momentum ; and then, by reversing the inclination of the wings, he can again glide up an aérial incline until this stored-up energy has been expended. But the resistance of the air must be overcome, and there must be con- tinual loss from the imperfect sustaining power of the wings. \ . a wae A ~ —

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a ee ae me el FLYING-MACHINES. 13 We shall see presently that the force of the wind can be utilized to a certain extent to make up these losses, but still some muscular effort should be required. If our vulture or albatross would only occasionally deign to flap a wing, all would be well. His obstinacy is very perplexing. Leaving the birds to their own peculiar devices, let us now con- sider what principles should guide us in constructing a flying- machine. In the first place, by acting on the air, the machine should be able to lift itself from the ground ; and, leaving out of account small mod- els, this is a preliminary no one appears so far to have succeeded in. Many pictures may be seen of flying-machines booming along through the air with all sails set, passengers evidently happy, some serenely smoking, others promenading the deck in the usual way, with perhaps a couple behind the wheel-house ; but a representation of a machine just on the point of starting out is not to be met with. In order to produce an upward pressure or reaction, the wings or propeller acting on the air evidently should drive it downward. Sup- pose now that our machine weighs 600 pounds, and that it has the same propelling surface in proportion to its weight as the Australian crane, we should then need about 246 square feet, and a pressure of 2'4 pounds acting upward on each square foot would lift it from the ground. Referring again to the table giving the relation between wind ve- locity and pressure, we notice that a pressure of 2°4 pounds would be occasioned by a velocity of about twenty-two miles an hour. If, then, we should cause our propeller—be it a screw or wings, or any other form—to drive downward a current of air at this rate, the cross-section or area of the current being 246 square feet, the total upward reaction would be great enough to raise the machine. Of course, for any other proportion of wing-surface to weight, our table would give other results ; or if the air is already in motion, it will tell us what increase of velocity should be given to produce the desired pressure. The results given in the table can also be readily found in a purely theoretical way, and they seem so important that it is a wonder investigators have given them little or no attention. A machine possessing weight can fly only by doing something to the air. It must put the air in motion, and it can be shown that the amount of this motion will be a measure of the work done and reac- tion obtained. If air is already in motion, we can not utilize its force, not wishing to drift along, except by changing in some way its velocity. Granting all this, our table or formula will tell us, not only what volume of air must be used to gain the desired reaction or motion, but also the least power necessary. Knowing the weight of and ve- a a ees

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14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. locity impressed upon the air, downward or in any other direction, it becomes an easy matter to determine the power. For example, in the practical case just considered, to lift the ma- chine from the ground would require an expenditure of at least eight- een horse-power. This is the least power that would do the work —the actual power would depend entirely upon the efficiency of the propeller. Having at last succeeded in getting away from the ground, we wish to fly in any direction—to set the birds an example of how the thing ought really to be done. Here, again, we must apply the principles just announced. To go forward, the air must be driven aft. Knowing the speed proposed, our table will give us at once the resistance for each square foot ; and knowing the size or bulk of our machine, we can readily estimate the power required. The management of the wind unquestionably will be a very im- portant factor in the construction of a flying-machine ; indeed, it may be considered the most troublesome part of all. Properly handled, the wind might be made a useful servant, otherwise a dangerous master. The only plan that suggests itself is through the use of an inclined plane. Here, at any rate, we must imitate the birds. My attention was not long ago called to an article on Aéronautics, in the Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute for 1878, and in it was a table from experiments by Mr. Skye, giving the lifting power of the wind, blowing at the rate of twenty-three miles an hour upon a plane surface, one square foot in area, inclined at various angles. These figures lead to some very surprising and interesting results : oo om Lifting force, in pounds. | Drifting force, in pounds. | Ratio between the two. 5° 1°13 0°23 4°91 10° 1°43 0°67 ; 2°14 20° 1°65 0-92 18 30° 1°83 1°35 1°36 40° 2°00 1°73 1°15 50° 1:80 2°07 0°87 It will be seen from the second column that while the greatest lift- ing effect occurs at about an angle of 40°, even at so small an angle as 5° it is still considerable. The third column gives values for the corresponding horizontal pressures ; that is, the force which tends to move the plane in the direction of the wind. The fourth column gives the ratio between the two. It will be seen that the drifting force diminishes at a much faster rate than the lifting force, as the angle of inclination of the plane be- comes less. Consider again the flying-machine weighing 600 pounds, and sup-

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FLYING-MACHINES. 15 e that, in addition to the propeller, we furnish it with an inclined plane having the same area, or, perhaps after the manner of birds, make the propeller act also as an inclined plane ; and let it be inclined five degrees, with the wind blowing at the rate of twenty-three miles an hour. Then the table shows us that the total lifting force due to the wind would be 278 pounds, leaving 322 pounds to be supported in some other way. The horizontal or drifting force would be 0°23 pounds on each square foot, or only 56 pounds altogether. To counter- act this, let us make our propeller act as a kite-string by sending backward the air at an increased velocity. Our other table tells us how great this velocity should be, and makes the necessary power amount to only about half a horse-power. To support the balance of the weight, we should need also to send downward a current of air, involving an additional expenditure of about seven horse-power. Combining the two, we get this extraordinary result, that while nearly nineteen horse-power was necessary to lift our machine from the ground, it could hold its own in a breeze of twenty-three miles an hour with an expenditure of only seven and a half horse-power. No account has been taken of the wind blowing against dead sur- faces, such as the body of the bird or machine. This, of course, would depend upon the shape. A bird’s body is long and narrow, cleaving the air without great resistance, and a flying-machine should be fashioned similarly. Other losses have not been considered, but still the broad result holds that it is possible in this way to utilize part of the energy stored up in the wind. The accuracy of the results will depend upon that of Mr. Skye’s table ; but if future experiment should verify it, we can understand why it is that the albatross, and wild-duck, and heavy birds generally, while rising with great difficulty, when once up keep on the wing with so much apparent ease, However, there is still the necessity for a kite-string of some sort. There is a force tending to carry the bird along with the wind which must be overcome somehow, and I still fail to understand how the albatross can sail in the air indefinitely without some muscular effort. From Mr. Skye’s table, in connection with the other, we get this important practical result—that in a flying-machine, properly con- structed, the greatest power required will be that necessary to lift it from the ground ; and that once off, up to a certain limit, the stiffer the breeze the better. The efficiency of a propeller of any sort will depend not only upon its area, but also upon its ability to send the air away in parallel streams. If we wish to go forward, the air must be driven aft, and a forced current in any other direction will at best give us back but a fraction of its energy. Ordinary screw-propellers have not proved very effective, for the reason, probably, that revolving at great speed, they send off a large amount of air tangentially.

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16 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. What, now, should be the mechanical construction of a successful flying-machine ? How should it be built? In what way should the power be applied? I have tried to make clear what seem to me the principles involved, but the best method in which to apply them can only be found by patient and intelligent study and experiment. Many men have been and are now working at the problem, and that it will be eventually solved seems certain. A bird’s muscles, while strong, are not as strong as steel, and while his power in proportion to his weight is great, we can exceed it ; and let us not admit that we can not equal his intelligence in applying it. One of our illustrations shows the flying-machine invented by Mr. Henson in England in 1842, and deserves mention as being the first Fie. 4.—Hrnson’s Afrostar. of importance designed to fly without the aid of muscular power. The chief feature was the very great expanse of its sustaining planes, which were larger in proportion to the weight than in many birds. The machine advanced with its front edge a little raised, and the air acting ‘upon the lower surface, when the proper speed had been at- tained, was expected to lift and sustain it. This speed at the start-off was to be got by running down an inclined plane or hill, and the ob- ject of the screw-propeller was simply to keep up the motion. It is un- necessary to say that this machine did not work, and yet Henson evidently had a glimmering of what is required. He introduces the inclined plane and propeller, but does not apply them in a practical way. Such a machine, of course, would be completely at the mercy of the winds ; and while he might find a convenient hill to roll down in order to get the required velocity, in coming to earth again there might be trouble. Landell’s flying-machine, invented in 1863, was also provided with an extensive aéro-plane, but differs in having screws acting vertically to sustain the machine in addition to those for driving it forward. Capping all are two parachutes, intended to open and prevent a sudden fall in case of accident. There are four sets of blades on each ver- tical screw-shaft, on the principle, one would think, that if one set would be a good thing, four sets would be four times as good. They

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FLYING-MACHINES. 17 would be likely to act somewhat like four screw-propellers, one behind the other, on an ocean-steamer. The mechanism was to be driven by asteam-engine. The dark object suspended below may be ballast to counteract any superfluous energy of the steam. Pp Fie. 5.—LANDELL’s Fiyine-MAcHINE. et In 1868 Mr. Stringfellow built and exhibited a model of a fiying- T machine at the Crystal Palace, in London, where it took a prize. There are three aéro-planes, one above the other, with a broad tail behind. As in Henson’s machine, no provision was made for lifting it t Fie. 6.—STRINGFELLOW's FLYINe-MACHINE. Wh from the ground, the power being applied simply to produce or keep up horizontal velocity, the reaction of the air against the inclined planes serving to sustain the weight. At the exhibition the model ran down an inclined wire, but re- fused to rise into the air. It weighed only twelve pounds, including VOL, XXVIII.—2

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18 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. an engine exerting one third of a horse-power, boiler, water, and every- thing. Of course, even if the model had been a success, no large machine constructed in such a way could be of practical value. The machine designed by Mr. Moy in 1874 was somewhat similar to Henson’s and Stringfellow’s. There are two inclined planes, one behind the other, and two horizontal screws. The necessary speed to lift the machine was to be obtained by a preliminary run along the Fre. 7.—Moy’s Afrrat STEAMER. ground on the wheels underneath. In coming to earth again we should only need to look out for some favorable locality, strike tan- i gentially, and the resistance of the wheels over stones, fences, and the like would speedily bring us to rest. These are the more important inventions of this class—that is, self- raising and self-propelling machines—and it must be confessed the results are far from encouraging. M. Pénaud and others have con- ; structed flying models, but on too small a scale to be of much practi- cal importance. But still there are the birds ; they completely refute the argu- ments of those who say, “ It is impossible to build a successful flying- machine.” 464 rr ~MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT.* By 8S. LAING, M. P. LIV. On yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of Nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet ; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete ; * From Chapter VII of a work, under this title, published by Chapman & Hall, Lon- don, 1885. 19 es Y~ > se eta. ”

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ae ee a » egies eR bee - lag MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT. That not a worm is cloven in vain ; That not a moth with vain desire Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another’s gain. Behold, we know not anything. I can but trust that good shall fall At last—far off—at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night; An infant crying for the light ; And with no language but a cry. LV. The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave, Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul? Are God and Nature then at strife, That Nature lends such evi] dreams? So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life ; That I, considering everywhere Her secret meaning in her deeds, And finding that of fifty seeds She often brings but one to bear, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world’s altar-stairs That slope through darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope. LVI. “So carefal of the type?” but no. From scarpéd cliff and quarried stone She cries, ‘‘ A thousand types are gone: I care for nothing, all shall go. “Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death : The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.” And he, shall he, 19

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, Who trusted God was love indeed, t And love Oreation’s final law— Though Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed— Who loved, who suffered countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or sealed within the iron hills? No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music matched with him. O life as fatile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil. Tennyson, Jn Memoriam. (By kind permission of Lorp Tennyson.) TuesE noble and solemn lines of a great poet sum up in a few words what may be called “the Gospel of Modern Thought.” They Y describe what is the real attitude of most of the thinking and earnest minds of the present generation. On the one hand, the discoveries of science have so far established the universality of law, as to make it impossible for sincere men to retain the faith of their ancestors in dogmas and miracles. On the other, larger views of man and of his- tory have shown that religious sentiment is an essential element of human nature, and that many of our best feelings, such as love, hope, conscience, and reverence, will always seek to find reflections of them- selves in the unseen world. Hence faith has diminished and charity increased. Fewer believe old creeds, and those who do, believe more faintly ; while fewer denounce them, and are insensible to the good they have done in the past and the truth and beauty of the essential ideas that underlie them. On the Continent, and especially in Catholic countries, where relig- ion interferes more with politics and social life, there is still a large 1 amount of active hostility to it, as shown by the massacre of priests by the French Communists ; but, in this country, the old Voltairean infidelity has died out, and no one of ordinary culture thinks of de- nouncing Christianity as an invention of priestcraft. On the contrary, many of our leading minds are at the same time skeptical and religious, and exemplify the truth of another profound saying of Tennyson :

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MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 21 ‘“‘ There is more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.” The change which has come over modern thought can not be better exemplified than by taking the instance of three great writers whose works have produced a powerful influence—Carlyle, Renan, and George Eliot. They were all three born and brought up in the very heart of different phases of the old beliefs—Carlyle, in a family which might be taken as a type of the best qualities of Scottish Presbyte- rianism, bred in a west country farmhouse, under the eye of a father and mother whom he loved and revered, who might have been the originals of Burns’s “ Cotter’s Saturday Night,” or the descendants of the martyrs of Claverhouse. His own temperament strongly inclined to a stern Puritanical piety ; his favorite heroes were Cromwell and John Knox; his whole nature was antipathetic to science. As his biographer, Froude, reports of him, “ He liked ill men like Humboldt, Laplace, and the author of the ‘ Vestiges.’ He refused Darwin’s transmutation of species as unproved ; he fought against it, though I could see he dreaded that it might turn out true.” And yet the de- liberate conclusion at which he arrived was that “he did not think it possible that educated honest men could even profess much longer to believe in historical Christianity.” The case of Renan was equally remarkable. He was born in the cottage of Breton peasants of the purest type of simple, pious, Cath- olic faith. Their one idea of rising above the life of a peasant was to become a priest, and their great ambition for their boy was that he might be so far honored as one day to become a country curé. Young Renan, accordingly, from the first day he showed cleverness, and got to the top of his class in the village school, was destined for the priest- hood. He was taken in hand by priests, and found in them his kind- est friends ; they sent him to college, and in due time to the Central Seminary where young men were trained for orders. All his tradi- tions, all his affections, all his interests, led in that direction, and yet he gave up everything rather than subscribe to what he no longer believed to be true. His conversion was brought about in this way : Having been appointed assistant to a professor of Hebrew, he became a profound scholar in Oriental languages ; this led to his studying the Scriptures carefully in the original, and the conclusion forced itself upon him that the miraculous part of the narrative had no historical foundation. Like Carlyle, the turn of his mind was not scientific, and while denying miracles he remained keenly appreciative of all that was beautiful and poetical in the life and teaching of Jesus, which he has brought more vividly before the world in his writings than had ever been done by orthodox commentators. George Eliot, again, was brought up in yet another phase of ortho- dox Christianity—that of middle-class nonconformist Evangelicalism. She embraced this creed fervently, and, as we see in her “ Dinah,”

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22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. retained a keen appreciation of all its best elements. But as her intel- lect expanded and her knowledge widened, she too found it impossible to rest in the old belief, and, with a painful wrench from a revered father and loving friends, she also passed over from the ranks of ortho- doxy. She also, after a life of profound and earnest thought, came to the conclusion recorded of her by an intimate friend and admirer, Mr. Myers : “T remember how at Cambridge, I walked with her once in the Fellows’ Garden of Trinity, on an evening of rainy May ; and she, stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and taking as her text the three words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet-calls of men—the words God, Immortality, Duty—pronounced, with terrible earnestness, how inconceivable was the jirst, how unbelievable the second, and yet how peremptory and absolute the third. Never, per- haps, had sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty of impersonal and unrecompensing law. I listened, and night fell; her grave, majestic countenance turned toward me like a Sibyl’s in the gloom; it was as though she withdrew from my grasp, one by one, the two scrolls of promise, and left me the third scroll only, awful with inevitable fates.” Such instances as these can not be the result of mere accident. As long as skepticism was confined to a limited number of scientific men, it might be possible to think that it was merely the exaggeration of a particular train of thought pursued too exclusively. But when science has become the prevailing mode of thought, and has been brought home to the minds of all educated persons, it is no longer possible to represent it as an exceptional aberration. And where the bell-wethers of thought lead the way, the flock will follow. What the greatest thinkers think to-day, the mass of thinkers will think to-morrow, and the great army of non-thinkers will assume to be self-evident the day after. This is very nearly the case at the present day; the great thinkers have gone before, the mass of thinkers have followed, and the still greater mass of non-thinkers are wavering and about to fol- low. It is no longer, with those who think at all, a question of abso- lute faith against absolute disbelief, but of the more or less shade of “ faintness” with which they cling to the “larger hope.” This is nowhere more apparent than in the writings of those who attempt to stem the tide which sets so strongly against orthodoxy. They resolve themselves mainly into one long wail of “oh the pity of it, the pity of it!” if the simple faith of olden times should disappear from the world. They show eloquently and conclusively that science and philosophy can not satisfy the aspirations or afford the consola- tions of religion. They expose the hollowness of the substitutes which have been proposed, such as the worship of the unknowable, or the cult of humanity. They win an easy triumph over the exaggera- tions of those who resolve all the historical records of Christianity into

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@ — a a a Oh he ee ee «6h MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN THOUGHT. 23 myths or fabulous fulfillment of prophecies, and they wage fierce bat- tles over minor points, as whether the first quotations from the Gos- pels are met with in the first or second half of the second century. But they nowhere attempt to grapple with the real difficulties, and show that the facts and arguments which converted men like Carlyle and Renan are mistaken facts and unsound arguments. Attempts to harmonize the Gospels, and to prove the inspiration of writings which contain manifest errors and contradictions, have gone the way of Buckland’s proof of a universal deluge, and of Hugh Miller’s attempt to reconcile Noah’s ark and the Genesis account of creation with the facts of geology and astronomy. Not an inch of ground that has been conquered by science has ever been reconquered in fair fight by theology. This great scientific movement is of comparatively recent date. Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was only published in 1859, and his views as to evolution, development, natural selection, and the preva- lence of universal law, have already annexed nearly the whole world of modern thought, and become the foundation of all philosophical speculation and scientific inquiry. Not only has faith been shaken in the supernatural as a direct and immediate agent in the phenomena of the worlds of matter and of life, but the demonstration of the “struggle for life” and “survival of the fittest” has raised anew, and with vastly augmented force, those questions as to the moral constitution of the universe and the origin of evil, which have so long exercised the highest minds. Is it true that “love” is “ Creation’s final law,” when we find this enormous and apparently prodigal waste of life going on; these cruel inter- necine battles between individuals and species in the struggle for ex- istence ; this cynical indifference of Nature to suffering? There are, approximately, 3,600,000,000 of deaths of human beings in every cent- ury, of whom at least twenty per cent, or 720,000,000, die before they have attained to clear self-consciousness and conscience. What becomes of them? Why were they born? Are they Nature’s fail- ures, and “cast as rubbish to the heap ” ? To such questions there is no answer. We are obliged to admit that as the material universe is not, as we once fancied, measured by our standards and regulated at every turn by an intelligence resem- bling ours ; so neither is the moral universe to be explained by simply magnifying our own moral ideas, and explaining everything by the action of a Being who does what we should have done in his place. If we insist on this anthropomorphic conception, we are driven to this dilemma. Carlyle bases his belief in a God, “the infinite Good One,” on this argument : “ All that is good, generous, wise, right—whatever I deliberately and forever love in others and myself, who or what could by any possibility have given it to me, but One who first had it to give? This is not logic; this is axiom.”

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24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, But how of the evil? No sincere man looking into the depths of his own soul, or at the facts of the world around, can doubt that along with much that is good, generous, wise, and right, there is much that is bad, base, foolish, and wrong. If logic compels us to receive as an axiom a good author for the former, does not the same logic equally compel us to accept the axiom that the author of the latter must have been one who “first had it in himself to give”? That is, we must accept the theory of a God who is half good, half evil ; or adopt the Zoroastrian conception of a universe contested by an Ormuzd and Ahriman, a good and evil principle, whose power is, for the present at any rate, equally balanced. From this dilemma there is no escape, unless we give up altogether the idea of an anthropomorphic deity, and adopt frankly the scientific idea of a First Cause, inscrutable and past finding out ; and of a uni- verse whose laws we can trace, but of whose real essence we know nothing, and can only suspect or faintly discern a fundamental law which may make the polarity of good and evil a necessary condition of existence. This is a more sublime as well as more rational belief than the old orthodox conception ; but there is no doubt that it re- quires more strength of mind to embrace it, and that it appears cold and cheerless to those who have been accustomed to see special provi- dences in every ordinary occurrence, and to fancy themselves the spe- cial objects of supernatural supervision in all the details of daily life. Hopes and fancies, however, are powerless against facts; and the world is as surely passing from the phase of orthodox into that of scientific belief as youth is passing into manhood, and the planet which we inhabit from the fluid and fiery state into that of temperate heat, progressive cooling, and final extinction as the abode of life, In the mean time, what can we do but possess our souls in patience, follow truth wherever it leads us, and trust, as Tennyson advises, that in the long run everything will be for the best, and “every winter turn to &pring ” ? TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. By J. M. KEATING. HE negro is no longer a problem. He is part of the body politic and the body social of the republic. He is firmly rooted and can not be moved. He is here to stay ; and any attempt to disturb him, or to excite his fears as to his right to life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness, is nothing less than a crime. A question touching the negro, like any other, must be considered from this common-sense stand-point, and every suggestion for its solu- tion must be subjected to the probing and searching “ What good ?”

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TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 25 Prejudice must not be allowed a voice in its solution, and passion must be excluded from counsel. The negro will not consent to his own deportation. The Southern planters, too, would not, if they could, consent to it, nor to any agitation of it, because it unsettles and un- hinges the labor that is more profitable free than it ever was or could be in the days of slavery. The negro is more intelligent now than then, and therefore more valuable because a better, a closer, and more skillful worker. Deportation is not, for these reasons, to be con- sidered. We must, therefore, deal with the negro and treat of him with the full understanding that we can not get rid of him. His com- mercial value, supplementing his rights under the Federal and State Constitutions, says we can not. What, then, is to be done with the negro? Nothing but increase \ the number of schools and schoolmasters, make education compulsory, and make technical education easily available to him in all parts of the South. The negro must be taught the virtue of self-reliance, and the yalue of the courts as his safeguard and defense under the Constitu- tion and laws of the nation and of the States. Agitation exalts the negro to a degree of imaginary importance that people at the North can not understand. He is a sensible man within his limits of mind and comprehension, so long as he feels that he is not the center of a pet anxiety. Agitation has retarded and interfered with his growth in the past ; it has proved exceedingly mischievous, and is not to be thought of in the future. It breeds dissatisfaction, raises hopes that can never be fulfilled, and tends to widen the breach between the races. For these reasons Mr. Cable’s suggestion of opening the schools of the South in common to blacks and whites is not to be entertained.* The race-feeling and race-prejudice that everywhere, wherever the Anglo-Saxons come in contact with the negro, keep them apart, will not brook it, nor will it permit the acceptance of the opening of concert halls, theatres, or lecture halls indiscriminately to both races. The same may be said of hotels and steamboats. It will not do to} arouse prejudices—we must allay them. But evenif the race-instinct theory be wrong, and it is found that there is nothing more serious) than a prejudice that may disappear before the sun of truth, of jus- tice, and of right, it is not policy to arouse it by fixed or a purposed antagonism. It will disappear in time ; it will be swept away by the uplifting of the negro to a plane whence he can prove his title to ~ high consideration in all respects as his white brother. The education of the negro has uplifted and will uplift him, and will prove the solid and enduring cause for the effect desired, if anything can. A soft an- * The evil effect of an attempt at mixed schools was felt in Louisiana; the superin- tendent of which State, in 1871, complained that the act forbidding the establishment of public schools from which colored children should be rejected excited determined opposi- tion on the part of many who would otherwise co-operate in the opening of schools, and in the raising of funds for their support.

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26 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ] swer turneth away wrath. What is most needed, then, is not an aggres- /sive agitation for social recognition in public places and conveyances, and in schools and churches, but education. Educate the negro, that he may be really free. The whole power of public opinion should be brought to the enlargement of the means of educating the negro, giy- ing him a practical training that will fit him for daily practical life, and enable him to compete successfully with his white brother in use- ful vocations. Elevation of character comes with education, pride ‘with elevation of character, and uprightness, integrity, thrift, and de- cency are the sure products of pride. The homes of the educated and skilled labor of our country tell the whole story of the difference be- tween that and unskilled and ignorant labor. Let us look at what has been accomplished by education. Let us review the past, year by year, as we find the figures and facts in Commissioner Eaton’s reports, and see what has been done—see if we are justified in thus insisting that education is the sure hope of the negro; and while we look, let us keep constantly in view all the difficulties through which so much has been accomplished—the civil war; the period of po- litical reconstruction, during which all passions and prejudices were allowed the freest play ; the utter dejection and poverty of the white people ; the extraordinary social upheaval, unequaled in any period of the world’s history save during the French Revolution ; the mas- tery of the negro in the political misrule of the Southern States, and the fears of utter ruin beyond recovery by the white people as a t result of that mastery in misrule. Let us keep all this steadily in view, and the work of breaking so great a block of black ignorance will seem like a miracle indeed. In 1860 there were 244,492 adult free colored people in the whole / Union, and of that number 95,265 were illiterate, a fact to be accounted for by the laws in force in the Southern States against the education of the negro. In the same year there were out of 4,000,000 of slaves 1,- 734,000 adults, all of them of course illiterates. The average increase of this 4,000,000 is given by the census of 1860 as 80,000 per year, so that in 1867, when colored school reports became accessible, the total colored population would be, for the eight years including 1860, 4,640,- 000. Of this number in 1867, according to the Freedman’s Bureau statistics, 111,442 were enrolled in the day and night schools through- out the South, and in 1869 this number had increased to 114,522. Very slow progress, in part due to the indifference and opposition of the whites, who about that time were the victims of the reconstruction system, and in greater part to the reckless indifference of a major- ity of the negroes, who had been plunged in the excesses of political Saturnalias, and were helping the carpet-baggers to rob the States and burden posterity with bonded debts. Chaos and confusion, disap- , , Pointment and despair prevailed in all the Southern States, and all \ classes were unsettled. It was no wonder, then, that with this at-

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+FFTRE lat Pr —-oo™, , i * ee ee | TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 27 tendance of 114,522 and an additional number of from 30,000 to 35,000 not regularly reported, together with 100,000 more attending Sunday-schools, the gain on the whole body of colored illiteracy was but a fraction of the annual gain of the negro population, not more than 20,000 successfully accomplishing the task of learning to read. But in eleven years all this had changed. The white people of the Southern States had resumed the control of their governments, had brought order out of chaos, diminished the burden of illegally made debt, and reduced taxation, and had thus given relief to all classes, and had established a public-school system for black as well as white children, which has ever since been steadily growing in public favor and increasing in efficiency and power. The result of this may be seen at a glance by the contrast of the statistics of 1869 with those of 1883. In the former year there was a total of 249,522 colored pupils enrolled at the South of all ages and grades, in day and night and Sun- day schools ; in the latter year there were 16,086 colored schools, col- leges, and universities, etc., with an enrollment of 821,380 pupils, the average percentage of illiteracy being about seventy, except in Mis- souri, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia, where it was about fifty-six, a fact largely if not altogether due to the geographical situa- tion of those States, and to their advantages as border States during the war, and to their freedom from the turmoil, dissensions, and diffi- culties of reconstruction. Nothing can be more instructive as to the position the negro is taking as a citizen and to his appreciation of his responsibilities. In twenty years of freedom he had blotted out thirty\ per cent of the illiteracy that was the heirloom of the slave, and he had done that under conditions for some years of a menacingly adf verse and repressive character. The white people opposed his educa- tion because the expense of maintaining public schools would fall upon them, and most of them had a conviction that ever so little education would unsettle the brain of the freedman and elevate him “above his business ” as field-hand, house-servant, or mechanic. They were just- ly incensed, too, at the hostile attitude of the negro and the readiness and eagerness in some instances with which he allied himself with the carpet-baggers and helped that class to postpone the restoration of peace, order, and law. In 1870 Memphis, Nashville, and New Orleans furnished free schools for the education of negroes, but elsewhere throughout the South there was manifest indisposition and indifference to supporting them. In that year, signalized above all others by the establishment of the Bureau of Education at Washington, and the first of those in- structive and exhaustive reports by Commissioner Eaton, which have been continued every year since, and from which all the data of this article are taken, the scholastic colored population between the ages of five and eighteen was, in the whole country, 814,576 boys and 806,402 girls, and the attendance was 88,594 boys and 91,778 girls, but little

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28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. less than eleven per cent of the whole number, and only 70,000 more than was reported by the Freedman’s Bureau in 1867, and 66,000 more than the number it reported the previous year, 1869. Prejudice was very stubborn, and the ignorance of 250 years of imbruting servitude was still an impervious crust. The brave men and women who op- posed to this dreadful array the light of their love of humanity, the strength of a keen and alert intelligence, and their hope, looked about them, many of them with breaking hearts. No missionaries to China or Africa ever suffered as did these pioneers in the cause now fostered, encouraged, and supported by the States that at first rejected them. They were looked upon as part of the machinery by which negro rule was to be perpetuated, and they were shunned as intelligent aiders and abettors of mischief andruin. Besides this, the Freedman’s Bureau was regarded as obnoxious in its workings and its tendencies. Under these circumstances it was to be expected that very discouraging re- ports would be made, and we are not surprised, therefore, to learn that Delaware had in 1870 made no provision for the education of negro children ; that in Maryland the negro children were utterly ignored, save in Baltimore ; Kentucky practically ignored the colored children ; West Virginia seemed to be contemplating the destruction of its com- mon-school system; Virginia was struggling through ignorance of what free schools should be to the establishment of a system ; North Carolina was still in a hopeless condition; and Tennessee, save in Memphis and Nashville, and the counties of Davidson, Greene, and Montgomery, had no schools for whites or blacks. This is a very black picture, but it was not without its relief. Missouri had a free-school system firmly established ; Arkansas, encountering the obstacles com- mon to the regions where slavery had been abolished, had secured a greater success than a majority of the Southern States ; South Carolina, with the largest percentage of illiteracy, was confident of final success ; Florida, in spite of some drawbacks, presented more reasons for antici- pating the general prevalence of free schools; but Alabama, after giving the most flattering promises, was debating the question of advancing or retreating ; Mississippi, although commencing late, was progressing steadily and efficiently in the establishment of a system of free schools, notwithstanding the great and bitter opposition, appoint- ing county superintendents, collecting the school-tax, and building school-houses ; Louisiana’s report was most unsatisfactory; Georgia had just passed a school law, but must wait a year for funds before commencing operations ; in Texas things looked hopeless, there was no school legislation, and the entire population was left to grow up in ignorance, save as private enterprise threw a ray of light upon the general darkness. The District of Columbia alone made an exhibit that was encouraging, and that was relatively as good as that made by the white children. In public and private schools there were 4,613 colored children out of a total school population of 10,494. This was

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, ewer? Fa = We @ —— _- we TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 29 the one ray of positive light in all that darkness. Elsewhere and farther South there were only glimmers to encourage the mere “handful of men and women ” who were laboring for the advancement of the negro. Governor “Joe” Brown, of Georgia, furnished one of these. As a result of the examination of the pupils of Atlanta University, he re- rted that “many of the pupils exhibited a degree of mental culture which, considering the length of time their minds have been in train- ing, would do credit to members of any race.” This was valuable and timely testimony from a high and reliable quarter. In the same year Dr. J. L. M. Curry, now of the Peabody Fund, in a speech in Brooklyn, admitting the defects in the public-school system at the South, declared that the people were awakening to the necessity of education, and “the colored people as citizens and wards of the nation need to be qualified for their exalted responsibilities. Especially do they need trained and educated teachers of their own race. If prac- ticable, a degraded race should be elevated and delivered by their own class, as the patronage of the superior has a tendency to degrade character.” This was as the voice of the awakened South, rising out of the ashes of despair and once more asserting her place in the Union and her responsibilities in helping to advance the work of American civilization. It found an echo here and there. A planter, witnessing the school examination at Athens, Alabama, in that year, said he had “no prejudices against the education of the colored race,” and hoped “the children would improve their time.” ‘These were the breaks in the dense mass of opposition to the education of the negro. Few as they were, these echoes were encouraging to the noble and ever- to-be-revered band of men and women engaged in the work, the servants of Northern institutions or churches whose voluntary con- tributions to sustain the work had by the beginning of 1871 reached, with the expenditures of the Freedman’s Bureau, the grand total of $7,317,311. Of this sum, expended in from six to eight years, the American Missionary Association paid out $1,663,756 ; the Freedman’s Bureau, $3,711,235 ; and in other things than cash, $1,551,276, mak- ing a total of $5,262,511 ; the Presbyterian Church (North), $220,704 ; the Freedman’s Aid Society, $134,340; and the Baptists of the Dis- trict of Columbia, $36,000. A noble return, surely, for the scorn, contumely, hate, and malevolent opposition with which the teachers of negro schools were met by communities stung to the quick by the outrages put upon them by disfranchisement and political subordina- tion to an ignorant race, the ready tools of designing knaves. In 1871 but little improvement had been made. The general public was still indifferent, and there was much opposition to colored schools. A convention of Southern Baptists at Marion, Alabama, denounced the common-school system as fostering infidelity, and declared that the “only hope was in Christian education in our own schools.” In Louisi- ana persons were deterred from accepting the position of school direct-

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30 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, ors, dreading social ostracism and persecution. In the third district the teachers submitted to social and personal discomfort, ostracism, and op- probrium, and were compelled to wait for months for their pay. Yet progress was made. At one of the institutes a division superintendent stated that last year (1870) he could report but seventy-one schools, 97 teachers, and 3,600 pupils in fourteen parishes, whereas now he reported one hundred and thirty-three schools, 150 teachers, and 7,500 pupils, and the number constantly increasing. The difficulties as stated by the State Superintendent were “ indifference and incompetency of the teach- ers ; extreme poverty of the people, and the embarrassed condition of the State’s finances ; yet, notwithstanding this, they were laying the foun- dation of a thorough, practical, and liberal system of common schools,” In Georgia there was great activity in wise ways to promote the free education of the whites, but the “colored people have hardly been per- mitted to do what they would for themselves freely.” They had but ninety-seven public schools and only 5,208 pupils. Florida had little or no progress to note, but there were negro schools in nearly every county. Kentucky apparently refused to recognize “the desirableness or necessity of the education of the colored children.” In Tennessee there was much agitation, but it was not attended with success, and the colored people were emphatic in the statement of the difficulties encountered by them in their efforts to educate their children. In Alabama the opposition to the free schools was discouraging, and while the colored people had the advantage of the Swayne School at Mont- gomery and the Emerson Institute at Mobile, they complained in many of the counties of great difficulty, or of the impossibility of “securing any school privileges.” In Mississippi the enforcement of the free school law, especially as to negro schools, was opposed, even to “the whipping of teachers and burning of school-houses.” Yet there were not less than three thousand schools in operation, and the system was gaining friends. Texas was the darkest field educationally in the United States, though the Governor, supported by a strong array of friends, was supporting and doing all he could for public instruction. Arkansas, though in some respects leading all the other ex-slave States, was yet far from the line of approximate perfection. The public schools were open to negroes, but only one fourth of the number of scholars were enrolled. In Missouri the public schools had passed beyond a period of peril, and only one county was especially opposed to negro education. In Delaware no provision had yet been made for the education of the negro. Of Maryland the same report was made. Virginia and West Virginia had both made progress, North Carolina had lost ground educationally, and the severe proscrip- tion of colored people had greatly discouraged their efforts for them- selves. Of the schools in South Carolina very little favorable could be said. The friends of education struggled against overwhelming odds. In the District of Columbia there were sixty-nine colored

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in- r- ut ‘le 4 F @2®OD ee hee Se eel TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 32 schools ; 4,986 children enrolled out of 9,323; average attendance, 2,990. More than sixty per cent failed to attend, a proof of the in- difference of the negro to education at that time, a greater barrier to ss than the opposition of the whites. In 1872 the reaction had fairly set in. There was much in the reports to encourage the friends of negro education. Delaware and Kentucky were the only States that had not made provision for the instruction of colored children. In 1873 the improvement was most marked. Kentucky reported an educational revival, and steps had been taken toward a general edu- cation of the colored children. Delaware had not yet made any pro- vision for the education of this class, and that work was still carried on by an association supported by the voluntary subscriptions of philanthropic people. Missouri had one school for training colored teachers. In 1874 improvement could be observed in almost all the Southern States. Maryland increased her schools by 60, her teachers by 134, and her expenditures by $108,824.70. Virginia increased her expend- itures by $58,651.21, her schools by 205, school-buildings by 263, and the number of pupils by 13,016. Two schools for training colored teachers had 300 pupils. In North Carolina, 50,000 colored pupils attended the public schools. South Carolina reported an increase of 162 teachers, 196 schools, 192 new school-houses, and 56,249 colored pupils enrolled. Georgia reported 669 schools for colored children, 3 with an enrollment of 37,267. Florida reported an increase in the number of schools 46, and of pupils 1,586. Louisiana reported a gain in the receipts for schools of $110,595.43, in attendance of 16,866 pupils, in the number of schools 175, and of teachers 18, Delaware, Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama were at a stand-still. In Mississippi the free schools were receiving very general support, and one third of the whole number of children of school age were in attendance upon the public schools, on which $900,000 had been expended, the value of school property being $505,790.56. Tennessee reported more than half her school population enrolled, and more than one third in attendance. Missouri showed some elements of progress, such as an increase of 2,537 in school population, $72,198.41 in receipts, and $714,548.83 in permanent school funds. The normal schools—State, collegiate, city, and independent—had 1,887 pupils. In Kentucky public sentiment was more in favor of public schools, and one hundred and forty-one ¢ new school-houses were built. West Virginia reported an increase of school-buildings 218, and of attendance 27,256. Besides the general improvement in public schools, all the private schools were flourish- ing, and the same was to be said of the colleges and universities, the normal schools for both sexes and both colors reporting a greatly increased attendance, the result of a rapidly increasing demand for teachers. The American Missionary Association was rivaling the

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32 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. public efforts in furnishing educational facilities for the colored peo- ple, especially in preparing pupils for the field that was now widen- ing every day as a result of its early missionary efforts. The Pea- body fund was also being distributed in a discriminating and effect- ive way, and the friends of education were greatly encouraged. The tide had turned. Public sentiment had at last come up almost unto the strength of unanimity for public education, and it was being gen- erally conceded that the most pressing duty was the breaking up of the great mass of illiteracy, and that the negro must be educated to be fitted for the duties of citizenship. The outlook in 1875 was still more encouraging, Delaware had organized a thorough school system under a new law, the colored chil- dren being provided for by a special tax levied on the colored popula- tion. West Virginia reported five normal schools, having 557 students and 85 graduates ; North Carolina, 600 teachers in training in teachers’ institutes and normal schools “for a demand that could not be sup- plied” ; South Carolina, 39 pupils in the State Normal School ; Ala- bama, three State Normal Schools and five similiar institutions sup- ported by societies, all having 659 students, of whom 533 were believed to be colored ; Mississippi, two State Normal Schools for colored pupils, with 351 students. Arkansas had taken a fresh start under the provisions of its newly adopted constitution. In the State Industrial University 58 white students were being trained as teachers, and in another institution sustained by a society, 156 were in training for colored schools. In Tennessee, a normal school had been estab- lished. Kentucky for the first time included the colored children in the enrollment of school-children. There was no State Normal School as yet, but 140 normal pupils were reported in two institutions, and 29 graduates from the Louisville Normal School. Missouri returned three State Normal Schools, with 644 pupils. The year 1876 was a presidential year, and was not favorable, on the whole, to the interests of education. Nevertheless, Commis- sioner Eaton, in summing up the results of all the reports from the South, was able to say that “after a careful review of these facts, and an attentive consideration of them in their several relations, and with full recognition of the same backward tendency in certain other locali- ties, I am increasingly convinced that their local public sentiment will not tolerate any further retrogression in these States; and that the friends of education may, on the whole, anticipate for their efforts increasing public favor.” In 1877 the reports from the South were gratifying and encour- aging. The reconstruction period was ended, and we found ourselves getting on rising ground. The total number of negro children of school age in the late slave States was 1,513,065, and those enrolled, 571,506. There were for these 10,792 schools ; besides which there were twenty-seven normal schools, with 3,785 pupils ; twenty-three

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en- » of | to iad hil- ila- nts rs ip- Ja- ip- ore for TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 33 institutions for secondary instruction, with 2,807 pupils; thirteen universities and colleges, with 1,270 pupils ; seventeen schools of theology, with 462 pupils ; two schools of law, with 14 pupils; three schools of medicine, with 74 pupils ; and two schools for the deaf and dumb and the blind, with 99 pupils; making a grand total of 10,879 schools, colleges, etc., and 580,017 pupils enrolled. The reports for 1878, notwithstanding the yellow-fever epi- demic that prevailed throughout the whole of the lower valley of the Mississippi, were extremely encouraging. All the States did well. The years 1879, 1880, and 1881 were years of general progress. The former year witnessed the fair inauguration of normal instruction in Texas for both white and colored. In Kentucky nine private nor- mal schools and institutes held in fourteen counties, and a summer normal school, were doing good work for teachers. The report for 1880 was, taking in the whole field, more encouraging than any of the preceding ones. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Mis- sissipi was opened with two hundred students. In 1881, Dela- ware for the first time recognized its obligations to the colored chil- dren and appropriated $2,400 from the State Treasury for these schools, West Virginia made provision for the free education of eighteen colored pupils at Storer College. In 1882~’83 the white- school population of the sixteen once slave States and the District of Columbia was 4,046,956, and the enrollment in public schools 2,249,263. The colored-school population was 1,944,572 ; enrollment, 802,982. Compared with the figures of 1877 there was clear evidence of the remarkable work that had been accomplished in the Southern States. The white-school population showed an increase of 13 per cent ; enrollment, 23 per cent ; the colored-school population showed an increase of 28 per cent ; enrollment increase, 40 per cent. The ex- penditures during that time had steadily increased as follows : In 1878 they were $11,760,251 ; in 1879, $12,181,602 ; in 1880, $12,475,044 ; in 1881, $13,359,784 ; and in 1882, $14,820,972. And this, notwithstand- ing there had been a decrease in the value of the taxable wealth of ten of the Southern States amounting to $411,475,000. Notwith- standing which, these States now appropriated 20°1 per cent of their total levy of taxes for school purposes, New England at the same time paying 20°2 ; the Middle States, 19°5 ; the Western States, 26°2 ; and the Territories, 22-4 ; the average of the whole country being 22°6 per cent. This increase in funds corresponded with a radical change in public sentiment. Louisiana was the only State in which the prospect was in the main discouraging. Both races shared alike in the school . fund in all the States except in Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, in which special provision was made for the colored race, and in South Carolina, where the basis of apportionment was the same for each race, but the amounts realized depended upon the extent to VOL. XXVIII.—3

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34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. which the people availed themselves of the provision by attendance upon the schools. The total number of colored children of school age in the late slave States was in 1882, 1,944,572, an increase of 15,385 ; and of those enrolled, 802,982, an increase of 610, There were for these 15,972 schools a decrease of 1,681. Besides which there were fifty-six normal schools, an increase of nine, with 8,509 pupils, an increase of 888 ; forty-three institutions for secondary instruction, an increase of nine, with 6,632 pupils, an increase of 1,348 ; eighteen universities and col- leges, an increase of one, with 2,298 pupils, an increase of 95 ; twenty- four schools of theology, an increase of two, with 665 pupils, an in- crease of 61 ; four schools of law, an increase of one, with 53 pupils, an increase of 8 ; three schools of medicine, an increase of one, with 125 pupils, an increase of 9; six schools for the deaf and dumb and the blind, an increase of four, with 116 pupils, a decrease of 4; mak- ing a grand total of 16,086 schools, colleges, etc., a decrease of 1,289, with 821,380 pupils, an increase of 3,015 over those reported in 1881, Nothing in the progress of the South since the close of the civil war is so gratifying as these exhibits of growth in educational facili- ties and this steady increase in the number of scholars of both races, The people of the Northern States will never be able to understand or comprehend all that it is to us of the South. All the expenses and money losses of these States during the war were represented in bonds and other forms of Government indebtedness, which were so much of addition to the property values of that section. But the Southern States lost everything—their slaves, their crops, and all the profits of their industrial efforts for five years, their public (Confederate) debt, nearly all of their railroad and steamboat property, fifty per cent of their homesteads, their farm-fences, mills, and gins, the whole repre- senting a total value variously estimated at from $9,000,000,000 to $11,000,000,000. It was a clean sweep—so clean that both Generals Grant and Sherman found it necessary to permit the officers and pri- vates of the Confederate armies to retain their horses and mules to make crops ; and Governor Brownlow’s Legislature in Tennessee passed an act making the stealing of a mule or a horse punishable by death, on the expressed ground that the mule and the horse were essential to the life of the people—without them bread could not be made. Following upon the heels of this utter destitution and the consequent prestration and despondency, came the period of reconstruction, which increased the confusion that prevailed, re-excited the passions of the war, and added to it all a race-feeling that for a time was at a white heat—a feeling that was a new experience to the people of the South. Out of this extreme of general poverty, out of this race-feeling and political passion and prejudice, order was slowly evoked, and with it came the steady growth of a healthy public sentiment favorable first to public education and then to the education of the negro.

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ith vil or ind nds ich ern | of bt, of to rals pri- 3 to th, tial de. ent ich the rite ith. and rith ble TWENTY YEARS OF NEGRO EDUCATION. 35 As fast as they have been able, the Southern States have increased their taxes for school purposes and their facilities for the education of teachers until they have reached a point as high as that of New England—that is, they appropriate twenty per cent of the whole amount of taxes levied and collected for school purposes, just as Massachusetts does. Beyond this they can not go any faster than their growth in taxable wealth will permit, and unless they have an even greater amount of help than has been given by the American Missionary Association, the Sears and the Peabody Funds, educational progress must be very slow—too slow to meet the demands of the ple. It would take three times the amount now annually appro- priated by the Southern States ($15,000,000) to satisfy the demands of the six million black and white children for education. With any- thing like an adequate sum, and compulsory laws to overcome the leth- argy and indifference of the negroes, an inroad so broad might be made in a few years in the illiteracy that is now a positive menace and danger to these States as to encourage the friends of education in the belief of a possible millennium, when every human being would be able to stand an examination in at least the three R’s. And this, however chimerical it may seem, contrasted with existing facts, is what must be kept steadily in view. The State owes it to every child to make it intellectually strong enough to understand the necessity for law, to submit to the restraints of law, and obey law. This can only be done by education. Looking back through the years the educational work of which has thus been traced in the foregoing pages, we find that several good results have been accomplished: 1. The prejudices of the Southern people against the education of the negro have been utterly and en- tirely dispelled ; 2. The people of the South have become willing, in most cases enthusiastic supporters and helpers in the education of the negro ; 3. Thirty per cent of the illiteracy of the negro has been wiped out ; and, 4. The negro has steadily, though gradually, been brought to realize that in education he is to find perfect freedom, the soul and heart freedom of which no man may rob him ; that by edu- cation he is to be elevated, lifted up above the chaos and confusion of ignorance, and prepared for whatever of destiny lies before him in the United States. With these results before us, to raise any side or out- side issues that would tend to re-excite the prejudices of the whites against the blacks, to raise the social question, even in the least degree, is to be at enmity with the peace and prosperity of the negro, to hurt and injure the cause of his education, to retard his growth mentally and morally, and postpone the time when he might claim equality in both senses, In the face of such progress, to advocate the deportation of such arace, or any scheme of separate colonization, is nothing less than a crime. It has the effect to disturb and check the flow of this steady

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36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. tendency toward the average of civilization reached by the white race ; it has the tendency to excite fear and to paralyze the race that still looks to the white man to continue to guarantee to it its political rights, and for the recognition of the full equality before the law that assures him the peaceful pursuit of happiness and the possession of property. By education a great gap has been made in the mountain of illiteracy that was first assailed in 1862 with many forebodings and much doubt. The philanthropic men and women who first undertook the task have many of them passed to their reward ; but their works do follow them. The better outlook that enabled them to see away beyond the stormy years to come and predict this better day has been fully justified, and none more eagerly bear testimony, and willing testimony, to the benefi- cence and blessings of that work than the white men and women who were born again to their better natures out of and away beyond the prejudices of centuries, and to-day rejoice in the living light that shines from books on the negro’s intellect and heart, enabling him to grasp hitherto hidden meanings and comprehend some of the treas- ures of our literature and make himself strong for the battle of life. The man who survives by his own strength and will excites admira- tion ; the man who has to be helped becomes a burden, and a weari- some burden, to all about him. Educate, educate the negro. Make the ways of light broader ; make the avenues to better life and living plainer. Illuminate him with the intelligence of the ages and the light of reason, and the negro will see his own way and walk without help. He will become a stronger, a more self-reliant man, and by that strength and self-reliance will beat down all the barriers and shake off all the make-weights that impede his progress and stand in his way. He will be a citizen, indeed, and not a halting, wailing child. He will be a man full of man’s ways and purposes, with a comprehensive grasp of his duties and a sound, sensibly guided determination to be in every case a citizen equal to the maintenance of his own rights under the law, a strength and not a weakness to the republic. Education, and not agitation, is what the negro needs. He needs repose and rest, time to think of himself and for himself, to realize what he has accom- plished in a few years, how closely he stands to his white neighbors, and how intimately his destiny is linked with theirs. Hitherto he has been constantly in a very sea of turmoil, tossed about, anxious, and confused. Under these circumstances, his own natural disinclination, the poverty of the Southern States, and the political bedevilments that made at the South confusion worse confounded until 1876, the ad- vance he has made in education and in the acquisition of property is like the work of magic. In peace, in freedom from political agitation, with increased facilities for education, sustained by the good-will and the voluntary taxation of the white people, what may he not be ex- pected to accomplish in the future? When seventy per cent of his illiteracy has been swept away, what a self-respecting man he will

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.e 5 till its, res ty. cy bt. ive m. ny nd efi- ho the at as- fe. ri- ike ng ut iat off Ay. rill sp ry he nd TS, 1as nd on, d- on, nd ex- bis RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL, 37 have become! But when ninety per cent has gone, he will be able to hold his head as high as the best ; and the accomplishment of this percentage is not half so difficult now as the task encountered by the pioneers who first blazed a path in the wilderness of ignorance and superstition in which they found him in 1862. Educate the negro, and he becomes free indeed in “ mind, body, and estate.” RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL.* By SIR LYON PLAYFAIR, K.C.B., M. P., F.B.8. PART FIRST, VISIT TO CANADA.—Lapizs anp GENTLEMEN: Our last « meeting at Montreal was a notable event in the life of the Brit- ish Association, and even marked a distinct epoch in the history of civilization. It was by no mere accident that the constitution of the Association enabled it to embrace all parts of the British Empire. Science is truly catholic, and is bounded only by the universe. In re- lation to our vast empire, science as well as literature and art are the common possession of all its varying people. The United Kingdom is limited to 120,800 square miles, inhabited by thirty-five million peo- ple; but the empire as a whole has eight and one half million square miles, with a population of three hundred and five millions. To fed- erate such vast possessions and so teeming a population into a political unit is a work only to be accomplished by the labors and persistent efforts of perhaps several generations of statesmen. The federation of its science is a subject of less dimensions well within the range of experiment. No part of the British Empire was more suited than Canada to try whether her science could be federated with our sci- ence. Canada has lately federated distinct provinces, with conflicting interests arising from difference of races, nationalities, and religions. Political federation is not new in the history of the world, though it generally arises as a consequence of war. It was war that taught the Netherlands to federate in 1619. It was war which united the States in America ; federated Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and unified Italy. But Canada formed a great national life out of petty provin- cial existences in a time of profound peace. This evolution gave an immense impulse to her national resources. The Dominion still re- quires consolidation in its vast extent, and applied science is rapidly effecting it. Canada, with its great expanse of territory, nearly as large as the United States, is being knit together by the iron bands of * Inaugural address of the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Aberdeen meeting, September 9, 1885.

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38 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. railways from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean, so that the fertile lands of Ontario, Manitoba, Columbia, and the Northwest- ern Territories will soon be available to the world. Still, practical science has much to accomplish. England and France, with only one fifth the fertile area of Canada, support eighty. million people, while Canada has a population not exceeding five million. A less far-seeing people than the Canadians might have invited the applied science which they so much require. But they knew that without science there are no applications. They no doubt felt with Emerson— “ And what if Trade sow cities Like shells along the shore, And thatch with towns the prairie broad With railways ironed o’er; They are but sailing foam-bells Along Thought’s causing stream, And take their shape and sun-color From him that sends the dream.” So it was with a far-reaching foresight that the Canadian Government invited the British Association for the Advancement of Science to meet in Montreal. The inhabitants of Canada received us with open arms, and the science of the Dominion and that of the United King- dom were welded. We found in Canada, as we had every reason to expect, men of manly and self-reliant character, who loved not less than we did the old home from which they had come. Among them is the same healthiness of political and moral life, with the same love of truth which distinguishes the English people. Our great men are their great men ; our Shakespease, Milton, and Burns belong to them as much as to ourselves ; our Newton, Dalton, Faraday, and Darwin are their men of science as much as they are ours. Thus a common possession and mutual sympathy made the meeting in Canada a suc- cessful effort to stimulate the progress of science, while it established, at the same time, the principle that all people of British origin—and I would fain include our cousins in the United States—possess a com- mon interest in the intellectual glories of their race, and ought, in science at least, to constitute part and parcel of a common empire, whose heart may beat in the small islands of the Northern seas, but whose blood circulates in all her limbs, carrying warmth to them, and bringing back vigor to us. Nothing can be more cheering to our as- sociation than to know that many of the young communities of Eng- lish-speaking people all over the globe—in India, China, Japan, the Straits, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape—have founded sci- entific societies in order to promote the growth of scientific research. No doubt science, which is only a form of truth, is one in all lands, but still its unity of purpose and fulfillment received an important practical expression by our visit to Canada. This community of sci-

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1at st- cal ne ile he at th RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 39 ence will be continued by the fact that we have invited Sir William Dawson, of Montreal, to be our next president at Birmingham. Il. Science anp THE StaTz.—I can not address you in Aberdeen without recollecting that when we last met in this city our president was a great prince. The just verdict of time is that, high as was his royal rank, he has a far nobler claim to our regard as a lover of humanity in its widest sense, and especially as a lover of those arts and sciences which do so much to adorn it. On September 14, 1859, I sat on this platform and listened to the eloquent address and wise counsel of the Prince Consort. At one time a member of his household, it was my privilege to co-operate with this illustrious prince in many questions relating to the advancement of science. I naturally, therefore, turn to his presidential address to see whether I might not now continue those counsels which he then gave with all the breadth and comprehensive- ness of his masterly speeches. I found, as I expected, a text for my own discourse in some pregnant remarks which he made upon the re- lation of science to the state. They are as follows: “We may be justified in hoping . . . that the Legislature and the state will more and more recognize the claims of science to their attention ; so that it may no longer require the begging-box, but speak to the state like a favored child to its parent, sure of his paternal solicitude for its wel- fare; that the state will recognize in science one of its elements of strength and prosperity, to foster which the clearest dictates of self- interest demand.” This opinion, in its broadest sense, means that the relations of sci- ence to the state should be made more intimate because the advance of science is needful to the public weal. The importance of promoting science as a duty of statecraft was well enough known to the ancients, especially to the Greeks and Arabs, but it ceased to be recognized in the dark ages, and was lost to sight during the revival of letters in the fifteenth and sixteenth cent- uries. Germany and France, which are now in such active competi- tion in promoting science, have only publicly acknowledged its na- tional importance in recent times. Even in the last century, though France had its Lavoisier and Germany its Leibnitz, their Governments did not know the value of science. When the former was condemned to death in the Reign of Terror, a petition was presented to the rulers that his life might be spared for a few weeks, in order that be might complete some important experiments, but the reply was, “The re- public has no need of savants.” Earlier in the century the much- praised Frederick William of Prussia shouted with a loud voice, dur- ing a graduation ceremony in the University of Frankfort, “An ounce of mother-wit is worth a ton of university wisdom!” Both France and Germany are now ashamed of these utterances of their rulers, and make energetic efforts to advance science with the aid of their national resources. More remarkable is it to see a young nation like

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 40 the United States reserving 150,000,000 acres of national lands for the promotion of scientific education. In some respects this young coun- try is in advance of all European nations in joining science to its ad- ministrative offices. Its scientific publications, like the great paleon- tological work embodying the researches of Professor Marsh and his associates in the Geological Survey, are an example to other Govern- ments. The Minister of Agriculture is surrounded with a staff of botanists and chemists. The Home Secretary is aided by a special Scientific Commission to investigate the habits, migrations, and food of fishes, and the latter has at its disposal two specially constructed steamers of large tonnage. The United States and Great Britain pro- mote fisheries on distinct systems. In this country we are perpetually issuing expensive commissions to visit the coasts, in order to ascertain the experiences of fishermen. I have acted as chairman of one of these Royal Commissions, and found that the fishermen, having only a knowledge of a small area, gave the most contradictory and unsat- isfactory evidence. In America the questions are put to Nature, and not to fishermen. Exact and searching investigations are made into the life-history of the fishes, into the temperature of the sea in which they live and spawn, into the nature of their food, and into the habits of their natural enemies. For this purpose the Government gave the co-operation of the navy, and provided the Commission with a special corps of skilled naturalists, some of whom go out with the steamships, and others work in the biological laboratories at Wood’s Holl, Massa- chusetts, or at Washington. The different universities send their best naturalists to aid in these investigations, which are under the direction of Mr. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution. The annual cost of the Federal Commission is about forty thousand pounds, while the sepa- rate States spend about twenty thousand pounds in local efforts. The practical results flowing from these scientific investigations have been important. The inland waters and rivers have been stocked with fish of the best and most suitable kinds. Even the great ocean which washes the coasts of the United States is beginning to be affected by the knowledge thus acquired, and a sensible result is already produced upon.the most important of its fisheries. The United Kingdom largely depends upon its fisheries, but as yet our Government have scarcely realized the value of such scientific investigations as those pursued with success by the United States. Less systematically, but with great benefit to science, our own Government has used the surveying expeditions, and sometimes has equipped special expeditions to pro- mote natural history and solar physics. Some of the latter, like the voyage of the Challenger, have added largely to the store of knowl- edge ; while the former, though not primarily intended for scientific research, have had an indirect result of infinite value by becoming training-schools for such investigators as Edward Forbes, Darwin, Hooker, Huxley, Wyville Thomson, and others.

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the un- 1d- on- his el. iil eal, Mi ME ee ee baal ll RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL, 41 In the United Kingdom we are just beginning to understand the wisdom of Washington’s farewell address to his countrymen, when he said: “Promote as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” It was only in 1870 that our Parlia- ment established a system of national primary education. Secondary education is chaotic, and remains unconnected with the state, while the higher education of the universities is only brought at distant in- tervals under the view of the state. All great countries except Eng- land have Ministers of Education, but this country has only ministers who are the managers of primary schools. We are inferior even to smaller countries in the absence of organized state supervision of edu- cation. Greece, Portugal, Egypt, and Japan have distinct Ministers of Education, and so also among our colonies have Victoria and New Zealand. Gradually England is gathering materials for the establish- ment of an efficient education minister. The Department of Science and Art is doing excellent work in diffusing a taste for elementary science among the working-classes. There are now about seventy- eight thousand persons who annually come under the influence of its science classes, while a small number of about two hundred, many of them teachers, receive thorough instruction in science at the excellent school in South Kensington, of which Professor Huxley is the dean. I do not dwell on the work of this Government department, because my object is chiefly to point out how it is that science lags in its prog- ress in the United Kingdom owing to the deficient interest taken in it by the middle and upper classes, The working-classes are being roused from their indifference. They show this by their selection of scien- tific men as candidates at the next election. Among these are Pro- fessors Stuart, Roscoe, Maskelyne, and Ricker. It has its signifi- cance that such a humble representative of science as myself received invitations from working-class constituencies in more than a dozen of the leading manufacturing towns. In the next Parliament I do not doubt that a Minister of Education will be created as a nucleus round which the various educational materials may crystallize in a definite form. III. Screncr anp SEeconpary Epvucation.—Various Royal Com- missions have made inquiries and issued recommendations in regard to our public and endowed schools. The commissions of 1861, 1864, 1868, and 1873 have expressed the strongest disapproval of the condi- tion of our schools, and, 8o far as science is concerned, their state is much the same as when the Duke of Devonshire’s commission in 1873 reported in the following words : “ Considering the increasing impor- tance of science to the material interests of the country, we can not but regard its almost total exclusion from the training of the upper and middle classes as little less than a national misfortune.” No doubt

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42 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. there are exceptional cases and some brilliant examples of improve- ment since these words were written, but generally throughout the country teaching in science is a name rather than a reality. The Technical Commission which reported last year can only point to three schools in Great Britain in which science is fully and adequately taught. While the commission gives us the consolation that England is still in advance as an industrial nation, it warns us that foreign nations, which were not long ago far behind, are now making more rapid progress than this country, and will soon pass it in the race of competition unless we give increased attention to science in public education. A few of the large towns, notably Manchester, Bradford, Huddersfield, and Birmingham, are doing so. The working-classes are now. receiving better instruction in science than the middle classes, The competition of actual life asserts its own conditions, for the chil- dren of the latter find increasing difficulty in obtaining employment. The cause of this lies in the fact that the schools for the middle classes have not yet adapted themselves to the needs of modern life. It is true that many of the endowed schools have been put under new schemes, but, as there is no public supervision or inspection of them, we have no knowledge as to whether they have prospered or slipped back. Many corporate schools have arisen, some of them, like Clifton, Cheltenbam, and Marlborough Colleges, doing excellent educational work, though as regards all of them the public have no rights, and can not enforce guarantees for efficiency. A return just issued, on the motion of Sir John Lubbock, shows a lamentable deficiency in science- teaching in a great proportion of the endowed schools. While twelve to sixteen hours per week are devoted to classics, two to three hours are considered ample for science in a large proportion of the schools, In Scotland there are only six schools in the return which give more than two hours to science weekly, while in many schools its teaching is wholly omitted. Every other part of the kingdom stands in a bet- ter position than Scotland in relation to the science of its endowed schools. The old traditions of education stick as firmly to schools as a limpet does to a rock ; though I do the limpet injustice, for it does make excursions to seek pastures new. Are we to give wp in despair because an exclusive system of classical education has resisted the as- saults of such cultivated authors as Milton, Montaigne, Cowley, and Locke? There was once an enlightened Emperor of China, Chi Hwangti, who knew that his country was kept back by its exclusive devotion to the classics of Confucius and Mencius. He invited five hundred of the teachers to bring their copies of these authors to Pe- king, and, after giving a great banquet in their honor, he buried alive the professors along with their manuscripts in a deep pit. But Con- fucius and Mencius still reign supreme. I advocate milder measures, and depend for their adoption on the force of public opinion. The needs of modern life will force schools to adapt themselves to a scien-

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Ve- the rs 8. re g t- d iS Ss r - 1 i B B 3 RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 43 tific age. Grammar-schools believe themselves to be immortal. ‘Those curious immortals—the Struldbrugs—described by Swift, ultimately regretted their immortality, because they found themselves out of touch, sympathy, and fitness with the centuries in which they lived. As there is nouse clamoring for an instrument of more compass and power until we have made up our mind as to the tune, Professor Huxley, in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1884, has given a time-table for grammar-schools. He demands that out of their forty hours for public and private study ten should be given to modern languages and history, eight to arithmetic and mathemat- ics, six to science, and two to geography, thus leaving fourteen hours to the dead languages. No time-table would, however, be suitable to all schools. The great public schools of England will continue to be the gymnasia for the upper classes, and should devote much of their time to classical and literary culture. Even now they introduce into their curriculum subjects unknown to them when the Royal Com- mission of 1868 reported, though they still accept science with timid- ity. Unfortunately, the other grammar-schools which educate the middle classes look to the higher public schools as a type to which they should conform, although their functions are so different. It is in the interest of the higher public schools that this difference should be recognized, so that, while they give an all-round education and ex- pand their curriculum by a freer recognition of the value of science as an educational power in developing the faculties of the upper classes, the schools for the middle classes should adapt themselves to the needs of their existence, and not keep up a slavish imitation of schools with a different function. The old classical grammar-schools may view these remarks as a direct attack upon them, and so it is in one sense, but it is like the stroke of Ithuriel’s spear, which heals while it wounds. The stock argument against the introduction of modern subjects into grammar-schools is that it is better to teach Latin and Greek thoroughly rather than various subjects less completely. But is it true that thoroughness in teaching dead languages is the result of an exclusive system? In 1868 the Royal Commission stated that even in the few great public schools thoroughness was only given to thirty per cent of the scholars, at the sacrifice of seventy per cent who got little benefit from the system. Since then the curriculum has been widened and the teaching has improved. I question the soundness of the principle that it is better to limit the attention of the pupils mainly to Latin and Greek, highly as I value their educational power to a certain order of minds. As in biology the bodily development of animals is from the general to the special, so is it in the mental devel- opment of man. In the school a boy should be aided to discover the class of knowledge that is best suited for his mental capacities, so that, in the upper forms of the school and in the university, knowledge

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44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. may be specialized in order to cultivate the powers of the man to their fullest extent. Shakespeare’s educational formula may not be alto- gether true, but it contains a broad basis of truth : “ No profit goes, where is no pleasure ta’en ; In brief, sir, study what you most affect.” The comparative failure of the modern side of school education arises from constituting it out of the boys who are looked upon as classical asses. Milton pointed out that in all schools there are boys to whom the dead languages are “like thorns and thistles,” which form @ poor nourishment even for asses. If teachers looked upon these classical asses as beings who might receive mental nurture according to their nature, much higher results would follow the bifurcation of our schools. Saul went out to look for asses, and he found a kingdom, Surely this fact is more encouraging than the example of Gideon, who “took thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with these he taught the men of Succoth.” * The adaptation of public schools to a scientific age does not involve a contest as to whether science or classics shall prevail, for both are indispensable to true education. The real ques- tion is whether schools will undertake the duty of molding the minds of boys according to their mental varieties. Classics, from their structural perfection and power of awakening dormant faculties, have claims to precedence in education, but they have none to a practical monopoly. It is by claiming the latter that teachers sacrifice mental receptivity to a Procrustean uniformity. The universities are changing their traditions more rapidly than the schools. The via antigua which leads to them is still broad, though a via moderna, with branching avenues, is also open to their honors and emoluments. Physical science, which was once neglected, is now encouraged at the universities. As tothe seventy per cent of boys who leave schools for life-work without going through the uni- versities, are there no growing signs of discontent which must force achange? The civil service, the learned professions, as well as the army and navy, are now barred by examinations, Do the boys of our public schools easily leap over the bars, although some of them have lately been lowered so as to suit the schools? So difficult are these bars to scholars that crammers take them in hand before they attempt the leap ; and this occurs in spite of the large value attached to the dead languages and the small value placed on modern subjects. Thus, in the Indian Civil-Service examinations, 800 marks as a maximum are assigned to Latin, 600 to Greek, 500 to chemistry, and 300 to each of the other physical sciences. But, if we take the average working of the system for the last four years, we find that, while sixty-eight per cent of the maximum were given to candidates in Greek and Latin, only forty-five per cent were accorded to candidates in chemistry, * Judges viii, 16.

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their alto- tion 1 as 0yB orm ese ling | of om, vo ght ‘ific all 1eR- nds eir ive cal tal RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 45 and but thirty per cent to the other physical sciences. Schools send- ing up boys for competition naturally shun subjects which are dealt with so hardly and so heavily handicapped by the state. Passing from learned or public professions to commerce, how is it that in our great commercial centers, foreigners—German, Swiss, Dutch, and even Greeks—push aside our English youth and take the places of profit which belong to them by national inheritance? How is it that in our colonies, like those in South Africa, German enter- prise is pushing aside English incapacity? How is it that we find whole branches of manufactures, when they depend on scientific knowledge, passing away from this country, in which they originated, in order to ingraft themselves abroad, although their decaying roots remain at home?* The answer to these questions is that our systems of education are still too narrow for the increasing struggle of life. Faraday, who had no narrow views in regard to education, de- plored the future of our youth in the competition of the world, be- cause, as he said with sadness, “our school-boys, when they come out of school, are ignorant of their ignorance at the end of all that edu- cation.” The opponents of science education allege that it is not adapted for mental development, because scientific facts are often disjointed and exercise only the memory. Those who argue thus do not know what science is. No doubt an ignorant or half-informed teacher may pre- sent science as an accumulation of unconnected facts. At all times and in all subjects there are teachers without esthetical or philosophi- cal capacity—men who can only see carbonate of lime in a statue by Phidias or Praxiteles ; who can not survey zodlogy on account of its millions of species, or botany because of its 130,000 distinct plants ; men who can look at trees without getting a conception of a forest, and can not distinguish a stately edifice from its bricks. To teach in that fashion is like going to the tree of science with its glorious fruit in order to pick up a handful of the dry fallen leaves from the ground. It is, however, true that, as science-teaching has had less lengthened experience than that of literature, its methods of instruction are not so matured. Scientific and literary teaching have different methods ; for, while the teacher of literature rests on authority and on books for his guidance, the teacher of science discards authority and depends on facts at first hand, and on the book of Nature for their interpre- tation. Natural science more and more resolves itself into the teach- ing of the laboratory. In this way it can be used asa powerful means of quickening observation, and of creating a faculty of induction after the manner of Zadig, the Babylonian described by Voltaire. Thus facts become surrounded by scientific conceptions, and are subordi- nated to order and law. * See Dr. Perkins’s Address to the Society of Chemical Industry.— Nature,” August 6, 1855, p. 383.

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46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. It is not those who desire to unite literature with science who de. grade education ; the degradation is the consequence of the refusal, A violent reaction—too violent to be wise—has lately taken place against classical education in France, where their own vernacular occu- pies the position of dead languages, while Latin and science are given the same time in the curriculum. In England manufacturers cry out for technical education, in which classical culture shall be excluded, In the schools of the middle classes science rather than technics igs needed, because, when the seeds of science are sown, technics as its fruit will appear at the appointed time. Epictetus was wise when he told us to observe that, though sheep eat grass, it is not grass but wool that grows on their backs. Should, however, our grammar. schools persist in their refusal to adapt themselves to the needs of a scientific age, England must follow the example of other European nations and found new modern schools in competition with them. For, as Huxley has put it, we can not continue in this age “of full modern artillery to turn out our boys to do battle in it, equipped only with the sword and shield of an ancient gladiator.” In a scientific and keenly competitive age, an exclusive education in the dead languages isa perplexing anomaly. The flowers of literature should be culti- vated and gathered, though it is not wise to send men into our fields of industry to gather the harvest when they have been taught only to cull the poppies and to push aside the wheat. IV. Science anp THE UniversitiEs.—The state has always felt bound to alter and improve universities, even when their endowments are so large as to render it unnecessary to support them by public funds. When universities are poor, Parliament gives aid to them from imperial taxation. In this country that aid has been given with avery sparing hand. Thus the universities and colleges of Ireland have received about £30,000 annually, and the same sum has been granted to the four universities of Scotland. Compared with imperial aid to foreign universities such sums are small. A single German university like Strasburg or Leipsic receives above £40,000 annually, or £10,000 more than the whole colleges of Ireland or of Scotland. Strasburg, for instance, has had her university and its library rebuilt at a cost of £711,000, and receives an annual subscription of £43,000, In rebuilding the University of Strasburg eight laboratories have been provided, so as to equip it fully with the modern requirements for teaching and research.* Prussia, the most economical nation in the world, spends £391,000 yearly out of taxation on her universities. The recent action of France is still more remarkable. After the Franco-German War the Institute of France discussed the important * The cost of these laboratories has been as follows: Chemical Institute, £35,000; Physical Institute, £28,000; Botanical Institute, £26,000; Observatory, £25,000; Anat- omy, £42,000; Clinical Surgery, £26,000; Physiological Chemistry, £16,000 ; Physiologi- cal Institute, £13,900.

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RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 47 question, “ Pourquoi la France n’a pas trouvé d’hommes supérieurs au moment du péril?” The general answer was because France had al- lowed university education to sink to a lowebb. Before the great Revolution France had twenty-three autonomous universities in the provinces. Napoleon desired to found one great university at Paris, and he crushed out the others with the hand of a despot, and remodelled the last with the instincts of a drill-sergeant. The central university sank so low that in 1868 it is said that only £8,000 were spent for true academic purposes. Startled by the intellectual sterility shown in the war, France has made gigantic efforts to retrieve her position, and has rebuilt the provincial colleges at a cost of £3,280,000, while her an- nual budget for their support now reaches half a million pounds. In order to open these provincial colleges to the best talent of France, more than five hundred scholarships have been founded, of an annual cost of £30,000. France now recognizes that it is not by the number of men under arms that she can compete with her great neighbor Ger- many, 80 she has determined to equal her in intellect. You will un- derstand why it is that Germany was obliged, even if she had not been willing, to spend such large sums in order to equip the university of her conquered province, Alsace-Lorraine. France and Germany are fully aware that science is the source of wealth and power, and that the only way of advancing it is to encourage universities to make researches and to spread existing knowledge through the community. Other European nations are advancing on the same lines, Switzer- land is a remarkable illustration of how a country can compensate itself for its natural disadvantages by a scientific education of its peo- ple. Switzerland contains neither coal nor the ordinary raw mate- rials of industry, and is separated from other countries which might supply them by mountain-barriers. Yet, by a singularly good system of graded schools, and by the great technical college of Zirich, she has become a prosperous manufacturing country. In Great Britain we have nothing comparable to this technical college, either in magni- tude or efficiency. Belgium is reorganizing its universities, and the state has freed the localities from the charge of buildings, and will in future equip the universities with efficient teaching resources out of public taxation. Holland, with a population of four million, and a small revenue of £9,000,000, spends £136,000 on her four universities. Con- trast this liberality of foreign countries in the promotion of higher instruction with the action of our own country. Scotland, like Hol- land, has four universities, and is not very different from it in popu- lation, but it only receives £30,000 from the state. By a special clause in the Scotch Universities Bill the Government asked Parlia- ment to declare that under no circumstances should the parliament- ary grant be ever increased above £40,000. According to the views of the British Treasury, there is a finality in science and in expanding knowledge.

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48 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The wealthy Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are gradually constructing laboratories for science. The merchant princes of Man. chester have equipped their new Victoria University with similar labo. ratories. Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities have also done 40, partly at the cost of Government and largely by private subscriptions, The poorer Universities of Aberdeen and St. Andrews are still ineffi- ciently provided with the modern appliances for teaching science. London has one small Government college and two chartered col- leges, but is wholly destitute of a teaching university. It would excite great astonishment at the Treasury if we were to make the modest request that the great metropolis, with a population of four million, should be put into as efficient academical position as the town of Strasburg, with 104,000 inhabitants, by receiving, as that town does, £43,000 annually for academic instruction and £700,000 for university buildings. Still, the amazing anomaly that London has no teaching university must ere long cease. It is a comforting fact that, in spite of the indifference of Parlia- ment, the large towns of the kingdom are showing their sense of the need of higher education. Manchester has already its university, Nottingham, Birmingham, Leeds, and Bristol have colleges more or less complete. Liverpool converts a disused lunatic asylum into a college for sane people. Cardiff rents an infirmary for a collegiate building, Dundee, by private benefaction, rears a Baxter College with larger ambitions. All these are healthy signs that the public are determined to have advanced science-teaching, but the resources of the institutions are altogether inadequate to the end in view. Even in the few cases where the laboratories are efficient for teaching purposes, they are in- efficient as laboratories for research. Under these circumstances the Royal Commission on Science advocates special Government labora- tories for research. Such laboratories, supported by public money, are as legitimate subjects for expenditure as galleries for pictures or sculpture ; but I think that they would not be successful, and would injure science if they failed. It would be safer in the mean time if the state assisted universities or well-established colleges to found laboratories of research under their own care. Even such a proposal shocks our Chancellor of the Exchequer, who tells us that this country is burdened with public debt, and has ironclads to build and arsenals to provide. Nevertheless our wealth is proportionally much greater than that of foreign states which are competing with sc much vigor in the promotion of higher education. They deem such expenditure to be true economy, and do not allow their huge standing armies to be an apology for keeping their people backward in the march of knowl- edge. France, which in the last ten years has been spending a million annually on university education, had a war indemnity to pay, and com- petes successfully with this country in ironclads. Either all foreign states are strangely deceived in their belief that the competition of

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RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL. 49 the world has become a competition of intellect, or we are marvelously unobservant of the change which is passing over Europe in the higher education of the people. Preparations for war will not insure to us the blessings and security of an enlightened peace. Protective expen- diture may be wise, though productive expenditure is wiser. “‘ Were half the powers which fill the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error— There were no need of arsenals and forts.” Universities are not mere storehouses of knowledge ; they are also conservatories for its cultivation. In Mexico there is a species of ant which sets apart some of its individuals to act as honey-jars by mon- strously extending their abdomens to store the precious fluid till it is wanted by the community. Professors in a university have a higher function, because they ought to make new honey as well as to store it. The widening of the bounds of knowledge, literary or scientific, is the crowning glory of university life. Germany unites the functions of teaching and research in the universities, while France keeps them in separate institutions. The former system is best adapted to our hab- its, but its condition for success is that our science-chairs should be greatly increased, so that teachers should not be wholly absorbed in the duties of instruction. Germany subdivides the sciences into va- rious chairs, and gives to the professors special laboratories. It also makes it a condition for the higher honors of a university that the can- didates shall give proofs of their ability to make original researches. Under such a system, teaching and investigation are not incompatible. In the evidence before the Science Commission many opinions were given that scientific men engaged in research should not be burdened with the duties of education, and there is much to be said in support of this view when a single professor for the whole range of physical science is its only representative in a university. But I hope that such a system will not long continue, for if it do we must occupy a very inferior position as a nation in the intellectual competition of Europe. Research and education in limited branches of higher knowledge are not incompatible. It is true that Galileo complained of the burden imposed upon him by his numerous astronomical pupils, though few other philosophers have echoed this complaint. Newton, who pro- duced order in worlds, and Dalton, who brought atoms under the reign of order and number, rejoiced in their pupils. Lalande spread astronomers as Liebig spread chemists, and Johannes Miller biologists, \ all over the world. Laplace, La Grange, Dulong, Gay-Lussac, Ber- thollet, and Dumas, were professors as well as discoverers in France. In England our discoverers have generally been teachers. In fact, I recol- lect only three notable examples of men who were not—Boyle, Cav- endish, and Joule. It was so in ancient as well as in modern times, VOL. XXVIII.—4

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5° THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. for Plato and Aristotle taught and philosophized. If you do not make the investigator a schoolmaster, as Dalton was, and as practically our professors are at the present time, with the duty of teaching all branches of their sciences, the mere elementary truths as well as the highest generalizations being compressed into a course, it is well that they should be brought into contact with the world in which they live, so as to know its wants and aspirations. They could then quicken the pregnant minds around them, and extend to others their own power and love of research. Goethe had a fine perception of this when he wrote : “ Wer in der Weltgeschichte lebt, Wer in die Zeiten schaut, und strebt, Nur der ist werth, zu sprechen und zu dichten.” Our universities are still far from the attainment of a proper com- bination of their resources between teaching and research. Even Ox- ford and Cambridge, which have done so much in recent years in the equipment of laboratories and in adding to their scientific staff, are still far behind a second-class German university. The professional faculties of the English universities are growing, and will diffuse a greater taste for science among their students, though they may absorb the time of the limited professoriate so as to prevent it advancing the boundaries of knowledge. Professional faculties are absolutely essen- tial to the existence of universities in poor countries like Scotland and Ireland. This has been the case from the early days of the Bologna University up to the present time. Originally universities arose not by mere bulls of popes, but as a response to the strong desire of the professional classes to dignify their crafts by real knowledge. If their education had been limited to mere technical schools, like the Medical School of Salerno, which flourished in the eleventh century, length but not breadth would have been given to education. So the univer- sities wisely joined culture to the professional sciences. Poor countries like Scotland and Ireland must have their academic systems based on the professional faculties, although wealthy universities like Oxford and Cambridge may continue to have them as mere supplements to a more general education. A greater liberality of support on the part of the state in the establishment of chairs of science, for the sake of science and not merely for the teaching of the professions, would enable the poorer universities to take their part in the advancement of knowl- edge. I have already alluded to the foundation of new colleges in differ- ent parts of the kingdom. Owens College has worthily developed into the Victoria University. Formerly she depended for degrees on the University of London. No longer will she be like a moon reflecting cold and sickly rays from a distant luminary, for in future she will be a sun, a center of intelligence, warming and illuminating the regions around her. The other colleges which have formed themselves in = _—

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—— > TWO WONDERFUL INSTRUMENTS. 51 large manufacturing districts are remarkable expressions from them that science must be promoted. Including the colleges of a high class, such as University College and King’s College in London, and the three Queen’s Colleges in Ireland, the aggregate attendance of stu- dents in colleges without university rank is between nine and ten thou- sand, while that of the universities is fifteen thousand. No doubt some of the provincial colleges require considerable improvement in their teaching methods ; sometimes they unwisely aim at a full university curriculum when it would be better for them to act as faculties. Still they are all growing in the spirit of self-help, and some of them are destined, like Owens College, to develop into universities. This is not a subject of alarm to lovers of education, while it is one of hope and encouragement to the great centers of industry. There are too few autonomous universities in England in proportion to its population. While Scotland, with a population of 3,750,000, has four universities with 6,500 students, England, with twenty-six million people, has only the same number of teaching universities with six thousand students. Unless English colleges have such ambition, they may be turned into mere mills to grind out material for examinations and competitions. Higher colleges should always hold before their students that knowl- edge, for its own sake, is the only object worthy of reverence. Beyond college-life there is a land of research flowing with milk and honey for those who know how to cultivate it. Colleges should at least show a Pisgah view of this land of promise, which stretches far beyond the Jordan of examinations and competitions. TWO WONDERFUL INSTRUMENTS. By ALBERT LEFFINGWELL, M. D. 7 eye is the most wonderful organ existing in the higher forms of animal life. It is the window of the brain ; through it, the creature obtains knowledge of that which lies beyond the reach of its other senses. But there is really nothing very mysterious about the structure of the eye when considered as an optical instrument. It is simply a tiny chamber, with one little window through which light passes, making a reversed picture upon the wall beyond. The same effect may be obtained by a lens so fixed in the window of a darkened room that the only light from without must pass through it. As in the illustration we present herewith, the picture of the scene without, the peasant-girl afoot, the rustic laborer, the thatched cottage—all appear pn the screen in the dark chamber, but reversed in position. The same effect is produced by the eye. The eyeball is a little

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52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. globular room. The window is so contrived that it can be made small or large, as the light is strong or feeble. From the wall in the rear upon which the picture is made, a nerve carries the impression back- Se. Sa er = =i, ore ward to the brain, and by means of that impression we perceive. This is the mystery, how the brain gets its impression ; not how the eye gets its image. In the present article I shall not describe the structure and func- tions of the eye, except to show how human ingenuity has contrived an instrument almost exactly resembling it, and capable in some re- spects of doing far more wonderful work. Man has invented in reality an artificial eye which sees farther, with infinitely greater distinctness, and in a very much shorter space of time, nearly everything which lies before it. Almost every particular in the structure of the human eye must be imitated by this instrument. When in its most perfect con- dition its work is quite as wonderful as the eye of an animal. In the first place, we must have a perfectly dark box, say about a foot high, a foot wide, and about eighteen inches long. This is the dark chamber, and corresponds to the eyeball. In one end is an open- ing in which is inserted a peculiar arrangement of optical glasses. These will correspond to that part of the human eye which is called the crystalline lens. What is this? Just in front of the main body of the eyeball, behind the curtain which we see, is a transparent, circular and flattened body, thicker in the middle and thinner at its edges, the exact shape of a —

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TWO WONDERFUL INSTRUMENTS. 53 burning-glass. It is held in its position by a very delicate membrane which suspends it in its place in front and behind. If it were not for this crystalline lens of the eye, we should be able only to have an in- distinct impression of light. This lens enables us to see the forms of things ; defining them in the same manner as the lens of spectacles, or the lenses of the telescope or opera-glass. Now, in the artificial eye which we are considering, we must place, in the front part, glass lenses through which the picture or view can pass into its interior. Fic. 2—A VERTICAL SECTION OF THE EyE.—A, the cornea; Z, the crystalline lens; J, the choroid; K, the retina; M, the optic nerve leading to the brain. In the human eye the entire inner surface of the eyeball is covered with a brownish-black membrane called the choroid coat. Its use is to absorb light which reaches it and to prevent reflections. Now, in our artificial imitation, we must cover the entire interior of the box with black paint, so as to absorb every ray of light, except that for which we have a use. In the back part of the human eye is the termination of the optic nerve called the retina. It is that part of the eye which is especially sensitive to light; it receives the rays entering through the front window, forms a picture of the scene, and communicates the impres- sion through the fibers of the optic nerve to the brain behind it. How it does this we do not know. It is certain, however, that an exact picture of anything we see is created upon this membrane in the back part of the eyeball. Doubtless the reader has already guessed the name of the artificial invention I have been describing—the photographic camera, But what shall take the place of the nerve or retina of the eye? What shall stand in place of the mysterious cells of gray matter in the brain, which receive and retain the visual impressions? After all, this is the only really wonderful part of either instrument.

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54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. In modern photography that which answers to the retina of the eye is called a “sensitive plate.” It is a small plate of glass, coated with a chemical solution, so sensitive to light that it darkens the mo- ment it is exposed to the faintest ray of sunlight. Let us take one of these plates and, with due precautions, carefully put it in the camera exactly where in the human eye the retina is situated. The camera, or dark chamber, is covered in front exactly as though the eye were closed ; not a ray of light under any circumstances is yet permitted to enter it. Now comes the mysterious part of its execution. Let us suppose that a man blindfolded, and this artificial eye, a photographic camera, are set down in the open air in the bright sunshine before the scene of some great ceremony—a procession of a thousand persons, the moving panorama of a city street, or a wide extent of landscape. Suppose that, the bandage being removed, the man were instructed instantane- ously to open and shut his eyes as quickly as possible, and then to describe what he had seen in that twinkling of an eye. What would be the result ? Try the experiment yourself. Go to the window, with your eyes closed. Open and shut them just as quickly as possible, and then try to describe what you have seen in that time. It will be very little, besides that which you remember from previous familiarity with the scene. For the most part there will be nothing beyond a confused idea of light and shade. The time of this momentary vision will be too short to enable the human retina to perceive or the human brain to register any definite impression of anything. How is it with the photographic camera and lens, our artificial eye? We will suppose that everything is in readiness, that its retina or sensitive plate is in perfect condition, and that not a ray of light has yet entered within the darkened chamber. Instead of being “the twinkling of an eye,” we sliall arrange so that the time elapsing be- tween the opening and closing of the artificial eyelid shall be less than one tenth of a second, or far less than the time necessary for our eyes to open and shut. It shall be as nearly “instantaneous” as possible. Everything is ready. Click/ It has opened and shut. What has it seen in that little instant of time ? If anything is in motion, it has been perceived in that fragment of a second as if motionless. Men walking along the street are pictured with uplifted feet. A trotting-horse may be caught with all of its four legs in the air, viewed just at the moment when he was clear of the ground. A man leaping with a high pole may be pictured in mid-air, precisely in the position in which he appears at the highest altitude. Motion seems rest. me But this is not the most wonderful of its powers. Far beyond the keenest of human vision is its range of sight. If the light is good, this sensitive plate of glass will have recorded and discerned a thou- ="

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TWO WONDERFUL INSTRUMENTS. 55 sand uplifted faces as perfectly as the human eye perceives the feat- ures of a single countenance. Every expression of joy or sorrow, every peculiarity of dress or attitude, the leaves of a forest or the grass by the wayside, will have been seen and delineated and retained perfectly in far less than the briefest possible twinkling of a human eye. Before me as I write is an instantaneous photograph upon glass of one of the principal boulevards of Paris, taken about noon-time. I seem to be looking down a broad avenue of lofty houses, each six stories high. I can see seven street crossings or blocks. The avenue is lined with shade-trees on either side. The street is filled with a moving panorama. So exquisitely fine are all the details that, to bring them out, I must use a small hand-microscope. Nearly fifty vehicles of every kind are in sight, all in position of arrested motion. A block distant an omnibus is approaching ; the very foot-board slats upon which a passenger rests his feet I can count with my microscope. The sidewalks are crowded with every variety of Parisian costumes. Near me is a soldier touching his hat to his superior officer as he passes him, and three blocks away I can see a man sweeping the street. School- boys and clerks, shop-girls and mechanics, soldiers and street-sweepers, gentlemen of leisure and rambling travelers, representing every type of Parisian life, are all here. It is a picture of a Moment of Exist- ence. Ten minutes later, and it may be not a single person here rep- resented will be walking or riding along this street, yet the scene it- self will be unchanged. The crowd continues ; the atoms change. Here is another Paris view, of a spot infinitely interesting to the historian, the Place de la Concorde. Almost in exact range we see the two fountains on either side of the Obelisk of Luxor ; a quarter of a mile beyond is the Church of the Madeleine. The same ever- moving crowd of human activities is here again unconsciously arrested on this plate of glass! There rises the Egyptian Obelisk, every hiero- glyph as clear as when first raised in Egypt two thousand years ago. Ah! if human invention could have caused this eye to preserve for us but one glance of the awful tragedies which have been enacted on this spot! In place of those romping school-boys or laughing sight- seers, once gathered on this place an eager, hungry, and bloodthirsty crowd of men and women ; where that obelisk points to heaven once stood a platform, and thereon the guillotine. And one day this arrest- ing eye might have seen Louis XVI, bending his head to the axe ; and another day caught Marie Antoinette’s look, as she glanced back- ward toward the Tuileries; or Madame Roland apostrophizing the Statue of Liberty ; or Charlotte Corday murmuring, “The crime, and not the scaffold, makes the shame!” And imagine the upturned faces of that crowd! But not only is the range of vision vastly more comprehensive by the photographic camera ; it is far keener. The sensitive plate of the photographer is to-day of special use in the observatory of the astrono-

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56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. mer. Far out in infinite space are stars which the human eye, looking through the most powerful telescope, fails to see ; they are beyond its range. Yet this simple plate of glass can see them. It has a power beyond that of any human retina! Dark spaces, once considered blank, are to-day known to be full of suns, each perhaps with its reti- nue of planets, filled it may be with beings like ourselves. The future possibilities of this wonderful invention are beyond con- ception. It may be that for centuries hence, before war ends, and civilization triumphs in peace, the instantaneous photographic appara- tus will be a part of every army equipment. There is no reason why a great battle could not be taken—aside, perhaps, from smoke-obscu- rity—as well as any great concourse of people. To-day the photo- graphic artist is content to catch the movements of a race-horse or an athlete, or the panorama of a city crowd ; then, perhaps, our distant posterity will be only satisfied with the instantaneous record of more important events. To-day, history is made up of confused and dis- puted statements ; then, it may be read in the living pictures of the deeds themselves. A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. By HENRY DE VARIGNY. HE celebrated Belgian colony of the insane at Gheel has nothing in its external appearance suggestive of the ordinary lunatic asy- lum ; its inhabitants give no superficial indications that a large propor- tion of them are madmen. If one would conceive what Gheel is, he must imagine a town of five or six thousand souls, in no way different from other towns of like importance, surrounded by a number of hamlets containing altogether, perhaps, about as many more inhabitants. These people have been, from a very remote period, in the habit of taking insane persons to board in their houses. The lunatics live in constant contact with the family of their host. They share in their labors and their pleasures if so inclined and their means permit it. They come and go, in the enjoyment of an almost absolute liberty. It has, however, been found necessary for the good of the patients and of the settled population to organize administrative and medical services, in order to prevent dangerous and improper persons from being sent to the colony, and for the care of the mental and physical affections of the patients, and for securing to them proper accommodation and treatment ; and an infirmary has been established for those who need medical care. But the administration makes very little show. The whole of the Gheel district is an asylum ; and the streets and the surrounding country are the promenade of the lunatics. a

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A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 57 The origin of this unique institution is derived, according to the legend, from the daughter of an Irish king, named Dymphne, who, about the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century, took refuge at Gheel, with her confessor, to escape the incestuous solicitations of her father. The king pursued his daughter and found her, by keeping track of the coins the fugitives had paid out. The confessor was assassinated by the soldiers, and Dymphne was decapi- tated by her father himself. Dymphne in time became a saint, but how her chastity made her the patron of lunatics is not explained. Her memory has been preserved at Gheel through all the centuries that have elapsed. The well is shown where she went to draw water, and the house whose mistress gave the king the clews by which he found his daughter; a chapel was erected in honor of this virgin, and as a memorial of the circumstances under which she perished ; and a large church consecrated to St. Dymphne was built some cent- uries ago. These circumstances have made Gheel a center of pil- grimages, and the resort of the insane from a period very far back. The unfortunates were lodged on their arrival in a building appertain- ing to the church, called the invalid-chamber, which still exists. They stayed there nine days, attending the religious services and prayers for their cure through the intercession of the murdered virgin. Some- times they stayed another nine days. It was hard to send them away uncured ; but other unfortunates would be there waiting for their turn, and there was not room for all. Rather than dismiss them sum- marily, they were put in the care of some family who would undertake to bring them to the special services every day. At first the patients were kept in the immediate neighborhood of the church, or within its parish jurisdiction ; but they became in time too many for that, and were scattered over the neighboring villages. A service of public administration was gradually organized, the history of which, and of ‘the modifications it has undergone, would be interesting if we had room to give it. The earliest recorded regulation is of 1676, and directs that the proper officers shall order all persons having charge of the insane to bind them hand and foot, so that they can not harm any one, and that they shall prevent their going into the parish church of St. Armand, under penalty of a fine of six florins. In 1747 ordinances were passed that no insane person in fetters should go into the church of St. Armand or St. Dymphne unless accompanied by his nourricier ; that no lunatic should be bound without the previous knowledge and permission of the reverend collegiate dean or of the bailiff ; and that Catholic nour- riciers should invite the clergy to examine into the mental condition of their patients, to ascertain whether they were fit to receive the sacraments. In 1754 a new ordinance, declaring that the lunatics had too much liberty and could not be distinguished from rational persons, directed the nourriciers to keep them secure, by fetters, or by shutting

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58 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. them up, or in some other way ; that they should pay for all damage caused by their patients ; and that lunatics should not go out before a fixed hour in the morning, and should return by a fixed hour in the evening. They were also prohibited from using fire, even to light their pipes, outside the house of their mourricier. An ordinance of 1790 directed the police to take precautions against damages by luna- tics and by mischievous and dangerous animals. The medical service was instituted in 1838. The control and administration of the colony passed from the communal organization to the state under the law of June, 1850; and in the next year they were placed under the special direction of a commission whose composition and functions were strictly defined. In 1874 the communal authority was deprived of what little part in the nomination of members of the commission had been left it under the law of 1851. The present system dates from 1882. It confides the inspection and surveillance of the patients to a superior commission, consisting of the governor of the province or his delegate, and a number of re- sponsible local officers. To this commission—all of whom except one, a physician appointed by the Government, are ex-officio members—is added a “secretary receiver,” appointed by the Minister of Justice, who is the real executive officer or director. The superior commission is charged with the general care of all that concerns the patients. It reports yearly on the reforms which seem to it to be needed ; watches that all the regulations are enforced ; and keeps the list of persons authorized to receive patients. It is supplemented by a permanent committee, at the head of which is the burgomaster, whose business it is to care for the interests of the lunatics, to look after the expense of boarding and taking care of them, to inspect their boarding-places, and to attend generally to the execution of the regulations. There is also a lodging committee, whose business it is to secure places for pa- tients whose families, or the local boards by whom they are sent, have not already provided homes for them. Furthermore, the administra- tion includes the very modest but very important guards of sections, appointed by the Minister of Justice, who are brought into more im- mediate contact with the patients than any other of the officers. They bear the administrative and medical orders wherever they are to go: they constantly go over the section to which they are attached, visit- ing the patient’s lodgings at any time, and insisting on his room being shown to them at a moment’s notice, and on seeing the patient himself if he is at home. They see that the patient is properly clothed, that he does not work too much, that his room is well kept, that he has suitable food ; they report cases of sickness, help take the sick to the infirmary, and see that the medical prescriptions are respected. They also see that the patients are at home at the appointed hours, and have to put down any disorder of which a patient may be the occasion or the object.

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A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 59 Since 1882 Gheel has been divided into two distinct and entirely independent sections of medical administration. At the head of each is a doctor-in-chief, assisted by an adjunct physician. The medical service comprises treatment of the patients for their mental affections and the incidental maladies attending them, correspondence with ad- ministrations or families, concerning their moral and physical condition, the direction and observation of the guards of section in all that con- cerns the medical service, surveillance of the nourriciers in points regarding the hygiene, food, and lodging of the patients intrusted to their care, and as to their own conduct and devotion to the welfare of their wards. The curable lunatic must be visited at least once a week by the doctor-in-chief or adjunct doctor of his section. The incurables are visited once a month. The doctors meet monthly and consider what reforms and improvements may be introduced into the service. The infirmary was built in 1862. 1t is divided into two sections for the separation of the sexes. It is directed by an adjunct physician under the control of the doctors-in-chief, who have severally the con- trol of half of each section. To it are admitted patients, the precise diagnosis of whose cases has not yet been made, who remain a few days for observation before being put under the care of a nourricier ; patients already placed who show some disquieting symptom, and those who are suffering from some incidental affection. The sick are visited here twice a day. Besides the adjunct physician, two guards of section, a sister, and the necessary subordinates, are attached to the infirmary. Gheel is situated twenty-six miles east of Antwerp, and is reached from it by railroad. It is the chief town of the Campine country, and, with the territory administratively dependent upon it and also receiving insane, gives about 11,000 inhabitants, occupying some 25,000 acres. It is easy to distribute 1,600 insane over such an extent of ter- ritory without their coming into frequent contact with one another. According to the act of 1882, insane persons may be received at Gheel of all classes except those upon whom means of restraint and coercion have to be employed continuously ; those inclined to suicide, homicide, and incendiarism, and those who have made frequent escapes, or whose affections are of a character to endanger the public tranquillity or to offend public decency. After his arrival, the patient usually passes some time at the infirmary, where he is examined and studied by the physician. If his diagnosis has already been made, it is confirmed or modified ; if not, he is kept till an exact idea is gained of the nature of his affection, and it is decided whether he belongs to the class of those who can be allowed to remain there. His words and movements are carefully noted, and his case soon becomes understood. If he is found to be inoffensive, the next business is to place him in some family. The register, on which are inscribed the names of all the Adtes

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SR 60 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. and nourriciers of the commune, is then consulted. The Adtes (hosts) are those who take lunatics as boarders ; the nourriciers (fosterers) those who take indigent insane. As a rule, each Adte or nourricier is expected to take only one patient; but many exceptions are allowed, and a liberal construction is indulged in. The food is usually about the same as that of the family with which the patient lives ; conse- quently, the comfort of the latter is to a large extent dependent on the pecuniary condition of his host, though the price he pays for main- tenance may be the same. In this point the close asylums, where the table-provision is uniform, or is varied according to a system, may have some advantage over Gheel; but this advantage is probably more than offset by the freedom of the open air and exercise, and the country life which the sojourner at Gheel enjoys. The air capacity, the furnishing, the cleanliness, and hygienic con- dition of the patient’s lodgings are carefully provided for in the regu- lations and secured by the inspections-at-will of the sectional guards. Patients able to pay a larger than the usual price can secure quarters to suit them ; then the administration, being informed of the stipula- tions of the bargain that has been made for them, see that they are carried out. The board, whether of the self-paying or of the indigent patients, is paid through the permanent committee. The price of board is fixed anew at the beginning of each year. It is not absolutely uniform for any class of patients, but is subject to variation, according to the particular circumstances that may exist. A considerable responsibility is incurred by those among whom a lunatic is put to board, and in many instances the position of his guardians is no sinecure. They are at once furnished by the adminis- tration with a register, in which are recorded his name, age, sex, civil state, and profession ; and in this register the physician, inspector, and guard of the section have to enter their names every time they visit the patient, with such notes as will constitute a kind of history of the case and a financial account-current. The nourricier has to answer for all the waste and damage his patient may commit, and, together with the guard of the section, is held responsible if he escapes ; and he is liable to punishment in case he allows himself to commit any act of violence or hardship against his ward. Only in case of extreme danger from a raving lunatic is he permitted, in self-defense, to exercise restraint upon him. The physician has the sole right to prescribe coercive measures. Like all other institutions of the kind, Gheel has passed through a period when measures and instruments of coercion were freely employed ; but they are disused now, here as elsewhere. Instances occasionally occur where the attendants use force toward the insane, but they are made cases for discipline. It is to be ob- served, with reference to this question, that each patient at Gheel has not one or two only, but several thousand persons observing him. In

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A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 61 a close asylum, a very small number of guards are sufficient, with the aid of the high walls and gratings, to watch a relatively large number of insane ; but there the patient is not watched by any except the guards. While cases of maltreatment are rare, they nevertheless occur, and have to be brought into the courts. But this is hardly possible at Gheel ; here is a whole population directly or remotely interested in seeing that the patients are well treated. The nourricier always has rivals who would be eager to take advantage of any case of vio- lence or brutality to denounce the culprit and have his license with- drawn. Every inhabitant of Gheel is or can become acquainted with all the members of the colony ; he knows where they live, and under- stands the phases of their various affections, and has a sympathy for them. Where else could be found so many guards and so well trained ? But the number of guards of section is not in proportion to the im- portance and multiplicity of their duties, and it should be increased. Four men are not enough to attend to all the details that fall under their supervision ; and cases may occur, as has sometimes happened, when they are all at once occupied, or absent, on special duty. Once placed with his nourricier, the patient enjoys considerable liberty. If he is wealthy, or in easy circumstances, he does what he pleases ; he may read, write, smoke, and work, according to his inclina- tion ; the poorer patient, also, if he does not care to work, may pass his time in his own way. But, except when an indigent patient is too old to labor, or when physical infirmities forbid his exercising any manual profession, the large majority of the patients at Gheel are em- ployed in some way or another. Work, especially field-work, agrees well with the insane. It gives them a salutary diversion. Ina purely physical view, it has always the advantage of strengthening their muscles and promoting an energetic circulation of the blood ; but the benefit in this case is perhaps more moral than physical. The propor- tion of patients employed at Gheel varies according to the categories of their affections, but may be averaged at about seventy-two per cent, and is nearly equally made up of men and women. According to an estimate furnished by Dr. Peeters, in a group of 390 maniacs are 178 _ men, only 30 of whom are idle ; the rest are at work as follow: 25 at housekeeping, 110 in agriculture, and the rest as masons, fishermen, brick-makers, draughtsmen, carriers, shoe-makers, joiners, or tailors. Among the idiots, we find 182 employed, 84 unemployed ; among 62 melancholics, 44 engaged in some kind of work, and 18 not so engaged. A considerable number of professions are represented among the insane men, and those who desire to work at their regular business can do so. With the women, while the number of professions is smaller, the num- ber who are occupied in one way or another is more considerable than among the men ; the majority of them assist in the housekeeping or in taking care of the children ; many work in the fields ; a few carry on a trade, lace-making, for instance.

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62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The capacity to do profitable work varies among the different classes of patients. Idiots, according to Dr. Peeters, make efficient laborers, unless their disease is too far advanced. To prevent abuse, it is stipulated that the nowrricier shall not decide on his own responsi- bility whether his patient shall work or not; that is determined by medical permission or prescription. The patients are apt to work too much. They become interested in the occupations of the family and follow them to the fields, unless they are prohibited by the physician, and are in this way often tempted to do the full day’s work of a strong man—sometimes, possibly, to their harm. The compensation they re- ceive depends, of course, upon the work they do. Sometimes they receive a small sum at the end of the week ; sometimes they are paid in tobacco, eggs, beer, or articles of clothing. But the administration takes care that they get something, either in the form of a present or as regular pay. The regulations of internal discipline imposed on the patients are very simple. They can go out between eight o’clock in the morning and four o’clock in the afternoon in the winter, and between six and six in the summer, and at other hours by special permission. Only quiet patients can resort to the inns, and it is forbidden to give spiritu- ous liquors to any of them. If the patient does not desire to work, he can indulge his taste for reading or art ; in pleasant weather he can go to Gheel or walk in the country, alone or with a friend ; but he is not allowed to travel on the railroad or to go away. The question is in order of the effect of this liberty upon the per- sonal security and the health and morality of the population of Gheel. Suicides are very rare ; there has been only one since 1879 ; there were three between 1875 and 1879, and others in 1850 and 1851. No act of violence has been recorded since 1878. But such things have occurred, as when, in 1844, the burgomaster, who was also a druggist, was assassinated by an insane herbalist, who imagined him his rival in trade. Dr. Peeters can recall only three cases of crime in a very long time. The personal security of the lunatics is sometimes com- promised by the dealers selling them liquors. The fact is always a grave one, for it implies a deficiency in the surveillance. We have already said that four guards of section are not enough. More are needed, to watch those who have their senses, as well as those who have lost them. In this way only can some of the objectionable feat- ures inherent in the mode of life carried out at Gheel be eliminated. Escapes are by no means rare. Sixty-six cases occurred in the six years, 1876-1881, or an average of about nine a year. Whenevera patient betrays an inclination to run away, instead of being subjected to measures of coercion, he is usually sent to a close asylum. It isa fact worthy of remark that, in nine cases out of ten, attempts at escape take place on Sunday. This is usually because the nourriciers go off and amuse themselves on that day, and leave their patient to take care

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A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 63 of himself ; when, with nothing to do, or with which to occupy his mind, and in his timidity and strangeness, the idea of escape is apt to take possession of him. The remedy for this is simple: the patient has shared the occupations of the family during the week, now let him share their diversions. Although Gheel is not a place of dissipation, there is no lack of diversions there ; and there is no reason why the lunatic, being invited to participate in them along with the others, should not be made to feel at home in the colony, and become attached to it. A doctor of laws, who had had several attacks of insanity, and had passed sixteen months in a close asylum, came to Gheel in 1871. His host took pains to procure diversions for him, and frequently engaged him to assist in the concerts of the musical circle of the town. He took great pleasure in this recreation, so that, in 1872, when he was cured and at liberty to go away, he chose to stay in Gheel with his musical circle ; and nothing but an official appointment in another city could induce him to leave the place where he had had so much enjoy- ment. ‘The Harmonic Society was founded near the beginning of this century by a lunatic named Colbert, a musical artist, with another in- sane musician and a friendly amateur, and has Colbert’s portrait in its hall. A few unpleasant features, from the moral point of view, are pro- duced through the constant intermingling of the insane with the normal-minded population. There have been half a dozen cases of pregnancy among the insane within fifty years; two of them since 1880. Some of the patients also will occasionally manifest their pas- sions in an obscene manner ; but, whenever they do so, they are sent to a close establishment as soon as possible, and are in the mean time confined in the infirmary. Generally, however, so careful discrimina- tion is exercised in sending patients to Gheel, that it is rare to find among them any who are dangerous to public morality. It has long been usual for persons to come to Gheel for a temporary sojourn ; and these are mostly deranged. They are not under the control of the administration, which has no right to interfere with them, except in case of scandal or danger ; and they come and go without surveillance. Many of them, according to Dr. Peeters, may be regarded as danger- ous, and likely to abuse their liberty ; and the doctor cites some par- ticular instances to prove his position. These are the persons who commit most of the immoral acts, and it would be wrong to hold the colony responsible for their misdeeds. The value of the system pur- sued at Gheel can not be justly estimated by the proportion of cures obtained. The colony makes no pretense to be a substitute for the close asylums. The administration, agreeing with alienist experts, recognizes that there are some forms of insanity for which the close asylum is the only possible resort. Therefore, only certain classes can be sent to Gheel, and among these the number regarded as curable

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64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. is very limited. In fact, the Belgian asylums send their incurables here so far as they can ; and of the whole number of patients cared for, seventy-eight per cent are classed as incurable. The system works unfavorably for the colony relatively in a double way—by diminish- ing the number of failures to cure in the close asylums, and by corre- spondingly increasing the number at Gheel. Undoubtedly, the régime at Gheel is favorable even to incurables, but it is more so to curable cases, and it is to be regretted that the colony is not put in a position to make a more obvious proof of it. The proportion of deaths is raised in appearance by the same cause. From 1860 to 1875, the pro- portion of deaths varied from five to ten per cent, rising to the latter figure .only twice. Such proportions are not, however, exaggerated, and, if we consider the hopeless character of the disease of the majority of the patients, we shall find that Gheel, if it can not heal incurables, keeps them in life and health for many years. The insane population has recently increased very fast. In 1840 there were 717 patients ; in 1855, 778 ; in 1866, 1,035 ; in 1872, 1,118; in 1879, 1,383 ; in 1883, 1,663. The increase is partly owing to the growing willingness of the people to receive patients, and partly to the improved administrative and medical service, which makes it more obvious that, with their liberty, persons sent there will not be uncared for. As to nationality, most of the patients are Belgians ; after whom come Dutch, a few French, and fewer Germans and English. Among the cases are some who have passed most of their lives at Gheel. One is recorded as having died after a residence of fifty years; another stayed there fifty-two years; and residences of from forty to fifty years are not rare. In what does this family treatment consist? The lunatic is taken from his habitual environment, from the society of those among whom he fell ill. They exist for him only in memory; they are not there to remind him continually of a melancholy subject, and to keep up the current of ideas in which he is involved. A new life is opened before him, with new faces, in a new country ; everything is a subject of distraction to him ; and, on the other hand, he has not the continual feeling that he is in a close asylum, with a door he can not pass through, and a wall over which he can not look. He is not in perpetual con- tact with lunatics, and is not subjected to a depressing influence. He enjoys the privilege of physical activity, and of life in the open air with sound-minded people, who are all the time diverting him from his preoccupations. He has even little children asking him to amuse them, and winning his attention, in spite of himself, perhaps, from himself. He is part of the family ; they become attached to him, and he becomes attached to them. No one laughs at him, no one mocks him, he is never the object of any kind of demonstration, but all take him for what he is, an innocent. That is the family treatment at Gheel—isolation without solitude.

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= Se Le we iw | al — ——- o w vs bal — wy yy ww? a oe ae ee a lr lUlLrh:h lcLL”lh Uh C.lUClU A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 65 We add a few notes of our own visit to Gheel, which we made on two days in the spring of 1883. We arrived there, by railway, in the same train with a mother who was bringing her idiot son—a lusty youth, twenty years old—to leave him there. We found a town with wide streets, not entirely regular, and poorly paved, with few people out. The houses, two or three stories high, appeared well kept, with glistening window-panes and brightly polished door-knobs. Passing the grand square, near the church, we met a man about sixty years old, walking slowly along, with a baby in his arms which he was try- ing to entertain with a most discordant song. He was a patient, taking care for an hour or two of his host’s child. He performed his duty faithfully and diligently, bidding good-morning to such persons as he knew, and exchanging a few words with them. A few steps more brought us to the wide, tree-bordered avenue on which the infirmary is situated. The building is a handsome structure of brick and stone. We sought out Dr. Peeters, and after a few mo- ments of conversation were authorized to visit the institution, and then, in company with a guard of section, to inspect the city and some of the houses where insane are entertained. The infirmary was throughout a model of Flemish neatness, with well-scoured floors and flagging, bright kitchens, and abundance of air and light. The sick-wards are in front. We paid a rapid visit to the women’s quarter. Some were in the dormitory, some walking in the halls. Among the former, some of the more seriously affected ones were plaintively muttering words that we could not catch, others were grieving over the persecutions of which they imagined themselves the objects; another, of pleasant appearance, and fluent in conversation, answered all of our questions — with suavity. She was delighted to receive our visit ; the only thing about it that troubled her was to see our head some sixty feet above our body, and she could not but be surprised at it. She was well treated, and desired nothing better than her present condition. Thence we went into the garden, where we found two sisters, both hysteric, waiting their transfer to a close asylum. One had a dangerous pro- pensity to homicide, and the other was subject to a depravity of man- ners that made it improper for her to be at large. Our first visit, in company with a guard, to the boarding-houses, was at the comfortable dwelling of a well-bred lady, who was enter- taining an Englishman and a Pole. We found the Englishman in his room, a bright and spacious apartment, sitting on a sofa, with his head between his hands. Our efforts to engage him in conversation, even in his own language, were vain. He answered sulkily, and ended by muttering that he was tired of us. Just as we were going out, the other patient came in, returning from a visit to afriend. He wasa Polish prince, bearing a great historical name, but suffering from weak- ness of mind and occasional delirious fancies that he was an object of persecution. He was a man of excellent education, with the experi- VOL, XXVILI.—5 :

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66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ence and manners of a man of the world, of fine build and well dressed. He paid the honors of the house to us with the greatest politeness, and declared that he was well satisfied to be at Gheel, saying, “I ama little deranged, and the quiet of the place does me a great deal of good.” He had not the least desire in the world to go away. His wife had been there a short time before to take him to the sea-shore for a little while, but he would not go. It was not still enough there, and the life of the world would worry him. On the road we met another lunatic, whose monomania was to go every day to the railway-station for a case of wine that he was expect- ing. It had never come, but the porter would always answer his ques- tions hopefully, and he would go away satisfied, to repeat his errand the next day. Walking is one of the man’s principal diversions. We next visited the home of a peasant who had the care of two indigent insane women. One of them was sitting near the stove, much depressed, and silently weeping. The children of her hostess were playing at her feet, while the mother was attending to her house- hold duties. The other woman was assisting the mistress of the house. Going out, we met a portly, dignified gentleman, who imagined him- self to be a general. He entered into conversation with us. “ Don’t you know, Gheel is a very pleasant place? There is plenty of society here, and very enjoyable. Yes, it is good to be here. The air is pure and the life is quiet. I love it!” This man was sent here, several years ago, alone and unattended. The story goes that on reaching some city on the way, the police asked to see his papers. The “ gen- eral ” showed the certificate of insanity, which the physician who sent him to Gheel had given him, and the order for his admission to the colony. The gend’arme was not satisfied with these papers, which did not correspond with his routine, and asked for others. The “gen- eral” answered, with dignity : ““I am mad; you see that from my papers. They have sent me to Gheel ; let me alone, and I will goon!” He was at last allowed to proceed. He looks upon Gheel as a town where numbers of people come to take board to calm their nerves, and declares that the idea is an excellent one. Farther on we met two French lunatics. One, from Saint-Brieuc, had found things so com- fortable at Gheel, that, having been restored to his family after get- ting better, he became discontented, and came back all alone, to join the colony again. The other one was a musical amateur who regu- larly attended all the concerts. The next case was a little woman about forty years old, a fluent and proper conversationist, who lived in constant expectation of her lover, who was to marry her as soon as he came, but that would not be till a railroad was built direct from his village to Gheel. She seemed to bear herself very cheerfully in her waiting. She had been discarded by her lover. We next saw an English architect and water-color painter, who had been ruined by American whisky. He complained of being

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A FREE COLONY OF LUNATICS. 67 watched, domineered over, persecuted, and shut up, and asked me for a consultation respecting a host of imaginary ills with which he be- lieved he was afflicted, and which the medical inspector could not cure. When we asked him how he passed his time, he showed us a portfolio of exceedingly well-executed water-color views of landscapes of the region, of wonderful perspective and remarkably good shading, and which he held at a very high price. He would often go many leagues to find a new view or to draw one, in odd contradiction to the com- plaints he made about restrictions to which he was subjected. He was also writing a great book, “a work of real genius” he called it, against monarchical government and in favor of the republic. A lady from Antwerp, deranged in consequence of some domestic troubles, who was domiciled in a commodious, cheerful, and well-kept house, talked on the afflictions of women, the thousand ways men had of tormenting them, the troubles of life, and the blessing of death, and repeated continually, “ We must be resigned, we must live in hope.” She nevertheless had a cheerful air and a pleasant and smiling face. Most of our second day at the colony was spent at Oosterloo, one of the most distant of the villages at which patients are taken. Our first call was upon a former “utility-man” of some theatre. We found him alone, in one of the back rooms, churning. He stopped when he saw us, greeted us, and performed the honors of the house. He had a plainly accentuated fancy that he was an object of persecution, and was under restraint, Yet nothing was easier than for him to go out and try to escape. There was nobody else in the house, and no one in the country would be surprised to see him walking around Gheel., His talk turned on the wonderful successes he had enjoyed in the theatre, and the malicious rivalries of his comrades who had put him down. At other houses we found a young man whose disease took the form of frequent explosions of laughter ; one who was expecting to rejoin his sweetheart who had jilted him; old men in the kitchen sorting potatoes; and an old man who had a stock of wonderful stories, and boasted much of the marvelous cures he had performed of various diseases. Our last call was at Gheel again, on a captain of artillery, who in answer to our greeting replied : “I am not here—only my body is on the earth ; my soul has been in heaven, in the company of the blessed, for twenty-nine months and three days.” Then, turning to my wife, “You appear, madam, in the likeness of the corpse of an aunt whom I lost a long time ago, but whose soul I meet in heaven ; her earthly body was like yours.” We remained for some time with this man, who spoke on other subjects with a fluency that reminded us of a well- oiled steam-engine going under high pressure. He had curious theo- ries about death, prayer, and many analogous subjects. He declared that the Protestants and the Jews were sure of eternal flames, and con- demned to the same punishment numerous other persons, beginning

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68 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. with his hostess, whom he accused of the most abominable outrages, among them of pouring melted lead into his head ; while the woman listened to his vagaries with a smiling and motherly calmness. The poor man had become deranged after losing his wife, about ten years before. The houses in which these patients were domiciled were all, even the most humble ones, of comfortable capacity, light, airy, cheerful, and well kept. Our general impression was that in some cases larger or better-ventilated rooms might be desired for the indigent patients, but that there was a general tendency toward improvement ; and that this will come in time, by the force of circumstances, without its be- ing necessary to make special new regulations. The clothing of the patients appeared sufficient and suitable ; and their food was evidently nothing else than the food of the family. It would be exaggeration to say that perfection has been reached at Gheel, or that the medical organization and surveillance are all that they should be. Criticism is not out of place there, and there is room for reform. That very great improvements have been made during the last thirty years may be attested by reviewing the debates that have taken place in the Belgian Chambers, since 1850, concerning the condition of the colony. In one of the later discussions, M. Vieminckx said—and his remarks apply to the present condition : “Can any one mention an establish- ment that combines all the advantages to be found at Gheel? There is none such, and there can not be, for it is not enough to say, we will go somewhere and get so many acres and establish a new colony. No, no, more is needed than that. To make a colony like that of Gheel, we must have inhabitants like those of that place, who will not object to living a family life with lunatics, and who have accus- tomed themselves to such a life from generation to generation for hundreds of years.” Dr. Peeters, who is thoroughly acquainted with the colony and its needs, decslare that no fundamental modifications are required. The system has worked for several centuries without trouble; and only minute improvements are wanted here and there in the machine as a whole. The most important matter is to increase the number of guards, who would now be wholly insufficient in case of any emer- gency. The medical service also should be assured a sufficient com- pensation to justify the doctors in giving up everything else, to devote themselves wholly to their duties here. The principle that rules at Gheel is certainly more humane than any that prevails in close asylums, but it is applicable only to particu- lar forms of mental alienation. Provided the patients to be sent there are judiciously selected, the possible inconveniences and abuses of the family régime are a small matter compared with the advantages which the lunatics may derive from it. Possibly some of the existing little abuses will never wholly disappear ; but do not and will not such

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THE ART OF INVESTING. 69 abuses exist everywhere? What great wrongs can exist there, in a colony exposed to all eyes, where ten thousand inhabitants are directly or indirectly interested in its good reputation? The colony has been developing for centuries. Let the modifications in detail suggested by science, by experience, by the desire to increase the safety and comfort of the patients, be applied to it. Nothing can be better or more humane than that ; but such improvements need not touch the principle of family treatment.—TZtranslated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes. THE ART OF INVESTING. By JOHN F. HUME. «“ OW can I invest my money to make it pay a fair interest, and at the same time insure its safety ?” is a question daily asked by thousands. With the multiplication, consequent upon the growth of wealth among us, of that class of persons who want to live by their means, without care or labor, the number of anxious inquirers on that point is constantly increasing. It would seem, when reference is had to the many securities, both bonds and shares, that are offered, often at temptingly low prices, to be a question very easily answered. The truth is, there is none more difficult. The ordinary investor who goes about the work of converting his cash into paper combining the two elements of value spoken of, finding himself hopelessly embarrassed by the seeming richness of the market, soon gives up in despair, and turns the job over to some banker or broker who works for a com- mission. Experience shows that even then he is too often the victim of defective judgment or misplaced confidence. A history of investment securities would furnish a most interesting study. In no other department of business have there been greater changes. The time has been, within the memory of many now living, when the man who had money to put at usury, generally loaned on personal indorsement, the borrower relying on his neighbor or other good friend to “back” his paper for him. The mortgage on real estate, of course, was known ; but, owing to the short intervals for which loans were usually made, was not often resorted to. The shares of banking, turnpike, canal, railway and other incorporated companies after a while began to absorb the money of people who wanted to realize more than current rates of interest, and were willing to take corresponding risks. The war of the rebellion popularized the coupon bond, in conse- quence of its adoption by the Government, and made it the favorite form of investment paper. Railroad and other corporations lost no

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70 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. time in availing themselves of the confidence which that species of de- benture inspired, and States, cities, counties, etc., were soon flooding the country with obligations carrying long coupon attachments. Except for government and municipal uses, there never was a more disastrous invention. It has been the means of numberless deceptions, and has inflicted heavier losses upon the investing public than all other devices combined. Being supplemental to stock certificates, it has duplicated representatives of the same values and led to excessive issues of paper ; it has separated capitalists from the management of properties into which their moneys have gone ; and, being based upon mortgages promising absolute security, it has too often accomplished the grossest deception. Many a man has purchased and paid a good price for a mortgage coupon bond, giving him no control over his security, who would have rejected a share-certificate standing for an equal interest in the property pledged, and giving him the right to participate in its management, with the possibility of a greater return for his money. Under the careless legislation of many of the States, which has permitted corporations to decide for themselves the amounts of obli- gations they might put out, it is no wonder that the privilege has been abused, and the making of shares and bonds, the latter represented to be amply secured by mortgage liens, has been carried to criminal ex- cess. One illustration will suffice. The Arkansas Central Railroad Company (the name indicates the locality) built only forty-eight miles of its projected line. The road was of narrow gauge, with very light iron, and in every way cheaply constructed. It cost less than ten thousand dollars per mile, including equipment. As with most companies building railways in new countries, help in its behalf was asked from the communities to be benefited, and bonds amounting to nearly half a million dollars were given it by counties, cities, etc. Under a statute providing for aid to railroads when their beds could be utilized for levee purposes, the company got $160,000 of State bonds. Under another statute, it got, as a loan from the State, its bonds to the amount of $1,350,000, which were to be a first lien upon the property. After such abundant assistance, it would have seemed hardly necessary for the company to put out obligations of its own. However, it proceeded to issue and market its own bonds to the amount of $2,500,000, of which $1,200,000 purported to be secured by first mortgage, which was not the case. In addition, a considerable amount of stock certificates was issued. Altogether, nearly $5,000,000 of paper were put out and negotiated on the basis of forty-eight miles of narrow-gauge road. But this proved to be insufficient. The road, for non-payment of interest, soon passed into the hands of a receiver, who found it in such an unfinished state that, with the court’s permis- sion, he issued a considerable amount of his own certificates to provide for necessary repairs and betterments. Then the road—the product of so much outlay—was sold at public auction, and brought the mag-

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THE ART OF INVESTING. 71 nificent sum of $40,000, which was paid, not in cash, but in receiver’s certificates that had been purchased at a large discount ! That the foregoing case was not a solitary one, nor so exceptionally bad, might be inferred from the fact that the president of the railroad company, who managed its business, and was understood to be its principal beneficiary, was afterward elevated to the United States Sen- ate, and is said to have been offered a seat in the Cabinet of one of our Presidents. The business referred to has not been confined to railroads. We now have stocks and bonds upon the market representing nearly all conceivable kinds of property—telegraphs, telephones, mines, cattle- ranches, grain and grass farms, water-works, electric lights, factories and mills of every description, steamboat lines, and apartment-houses. There seems to be no limit to their production. There never was a time when it was so easy to invest money—and to lose it. Of the securities that are offered with first-class recommendations, it is prob- able that about one third are actually good, one third have some value, and one third are practically worthless. For the condition of things described, the laws of our States, in giving corporations almost limitless power to issue negotiable paper, are, undoubtedly, very largely to blame. Our banks are closely watched and restrained from taking people’s money on false pretenses ; but how much better is it for railway and other corporations to take it by means of legalized fictitious evidences of value? Banks are by no means the only corporate institutions that need watching. One of the reforms that would seem to be very much demanded is legis- lation that will prevent companies existing by authority of law from putting out debentures or scrip not represented by money actually paid into their treasuries, or by proprietory interests whose value is to be determined by disinterested parties. Pennsylvania has incorporated substantially such a provision into her Constitution. Her example’ should be followed by all other States. For the losses they have sustained, investors, as a rule, have them- selves chiefly to blame. The mistake made, in nine cases out of ten, has been the purchase of cheap securities. The hope of realizing a little more than ordinary interest, by buying paper at a discount, has proved to be the rock on which unnumbered capitalists have split. In addition to their money’s worth, they have endeavored to get some- thing for nothing, with the result, most generally, of getting nothing for something. It is remarkable how blind are people, ordinarily saga- cious enough to make money, to the fact that property can not pay a revenue beyond its producing capacity. For instance, how can a rail- road company, whose line is wholly or mainly built from the proceeds of mortgage bonds, sell them at a heavy discount, besides allowing large commissions for selling them, and then pay a high rate of interest on their face ?

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72 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. But for the losses referred to is there not too often somebody else to blame? The seller of investment securities is usually not the maker of them, but a professional middle-man known as a broker. The extent of his responsibility is a very interesting question. Is he justified in assuming that caveat emptor is the rule that is to govern ; or is it in- cumbent upon him to inform himself as to the true character of the paper he offers, and give his customer the benefit of the knowledge he acquires? In other words, does he not, by virtue of the relation he bears to the purchaser, which is ordinarily one of confidence, become, morally at least, a sponsor for what he sells? In view of the millions of trash that have been unloaded upon the public as solid investments, of the true character of which it would not have been difficult for any one making a business of handling paper to inform himself, it is hard to reach any other conclusion than that there has been very great laxity on the part of many who, under the plausible titles of banker and broker, have made the selling of securities an occupation. It will hardly suffice for them to say in defense that they sold the paper at market prices. They should have known that the value of what they sold bore a reasonable approximation to the price that was paid. If they did not know it, and could not ascertain the fact, they had no business to dispose of the property. Manifestly, a higher standard in such matters should prevail, and the way to secure it is to hold those who professionally market investment securities to a far more rigid accountability than has heretofore been insisted on. By what rule or rules is the investor now to govern himself? No formula can guarantee him absolute safety. One thing, however, he can properly count upon, viz., that he must expect to pay a fair price for a good security—one that will return him no more than a mod- erate interest on his money. If he wants to speculate, and is willing to take risks, that is another thing. He can then look for bargains. But there is such a thing as going too far in the matter of prudence. The investor may pay too dearly for safety. There are securities which, compared with others that are to be had, sell at prices much above their real value. The reason is that they are universally known to be good both as to principal and interest ; but there are plenty of others, that may be had at lower figures, which are just as good. There is no reason in the world why the investor should not get at par all the paper he wants, that will yield him six per cent interest, and be as safe as any property can be under human supervision. In making the selection no more judgment is demanded than in purchasing lands and cattle. Two very common and often fatal mistakes should be avoided. One is in relying solely upon the advice of a broker. By far the greatest number of losses to investors has been in securi- ties purchased exclusively on the recommendations of interested com- mission-men. While it is well to get the opinion of a reputable broker, the purchaser should investigate and decide for himself. The other

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CONCERNING CLOVER. 73 is in giving a preference to “listed” securities. Many persons seem to think stocks and bonds must have a value if they are quoted at some stock exchange. On the contrary, such a position is likely to expose them to manipulation for purely speculative purposes. Stock- exchange quotations, as a rule, are unsafe guides to buyers. Every security must stand on its own merits, and purchasers have merely to follow business principles as taught by the canons of common sense. CONCERNING CLOVER. By GRANT ALLEN, pei group of organisms, every genus and every species of plant or animal, has certain strong points which enable it to hold its own in the struggle for existence against its competitors of every kind. Most groups have also their weak points, which lay them open to attack or extinction at the hands of their various enemies. And these weak points are exactly the ones which give rise most of all to further modifications. A species may be regarded in its normal state as an equilibrium between structure and environing conditions, But the equilibrium is never quite complete ; and the points of incompleteness are just those where natural selection has a fair chance of establishing still higher equilibrations. These are somewhat abstract statements in their naked form: let us see how far definiteness and concreteness can be given to them by applying them in detail to the case of a famil- iar group of agricultural plants—the clovers. To most people clover is the name of a single thing, or, at most, of two things, purple clover and Dutch clover; but to the botanist it is the name of a vast group of little flowering plants, all closely resem- bling one another in their main essentials, yet all differing infinitely from one another in two or three strongly marked peculiarities of minor importance, which nevertheless give them great distinctness of habit and appearance. In England alone we have no less than twenty- one recognized species of clover, of which at least seventeen are really distinguished among themselves by true and unmistakable differences, though the other four appear to me to be mere botanist’s species, of no genuine structural value. If we were to take in the whole world, instead of England alone, the number of clovers must be increased to several hundreds. The question for our present consideration, then, is twofold : first, what gives the clovers, as a class, their great success in the struggle for existence, as evidenced by their numerous species and individuals ; and, secondly, what has caused them to break up into so large a number of closely allied but divergent groups, each possessing

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74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. some special peculiarity of its own, which has insured for it an advan- tage in certain situations over all its nearest congeners ? Clover is, of course, by family, a pea-flower, one of the great group of the Papilionacee, a tribe of the vast leguminous race. Now, every- body knows the general appearance of the pea-blossom, a form of flower which reappears throughout the whole group, in such different plants as gorse, laburnum, peas, beans, vetches, wistaria, lupine, and acacia ; and it is clearly this form of flower which gave the original ancestor of the papilionaceous plants its main advantage in the strug- gle for existence over almost all its compeers. In other respects, the various members of the pea-flower tribe differ widely from one an- other. Some of them are tall, woody trees, like the laburnum ; some are bushy shrubs, like the broom ; some are low, creeping herbs, like the clover ; and some are lithe, trailing climbers, like the pea and the scarlet-runner. So again with their foliage: some have hard, spiky leaves, like furze ; some have regular trefoils, like medic ; some have long sprays of many leaflets, like the sainfoin ; and some have clinging tendrils, like the peas and vetches. Once more, in the pod and seed there are infinite varieties of shape, size, and arrangement, as one may see by comparing peas with horse-beans, or the short, hairy pod of gorse with the long, smooth capsule of the vetch, the inflated globe of the bladder senna, and the twisted, snail-like spiral of the medic. In fact, there is hardly a single particular in which the papilionaceous plants do not differ from one another immensely, except only their pe- culiar flower. Clearly, then, it is the flower almost alone which has given them their fair start in the struggle for life. I say almost—not quite—alone, because, as we shall see hereafter, they owe much also to their relatively large and richly stored seeds. In this one point they early reached a state of equilibrium; in other points, they went on varying and adapting themselves to an infinite variety of external cir- cumstances, Though it is not my intention to deal at any length here with any of the papilionaceous tribe except the clovers, a few words must first be premised about this peculiar and successful type of flower. It con- sists, like most other blossoms of the dicotyledonous race, of five petals, inclosing ten stamens, and with a single ovary, or embryo pod, in its very center. But anybody who has ever looked at a pea-blossom knows very well that it is not regular and radially symmetrical like a dog-rose ; it has its parts bilaterally arranged, so that an insect light- ing upon the flower in search of honey necessarily brushes his breast against the stamens and pistil, and therefore cross-fertilizes the em- bryo pods by carrying pollen from one blossom to the sensitive sur- face of the next. The five petals have undergone special modification so as to suit this special mode of impregnation. The upper petal, known as the standard, is usually broad and expanded, serving as an advertisement to attract insects; and in many advanced species it is

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CONCERNING CLOVER. 75 variegated with convergent lines of different colors, which guide the bee toward the exact spot where the nectaries are engaged in elabo- rating honey for his benefit. The two next in order, called the wings, are generally shorter and smaller, and in most advanced types they possess two little indentations, one on each side, specially adapted to afford a foothold for the legs of the visiting bee, in the exact position that will enable him at once to reach the honey and to brush off the pollen against the sensitive surface. The two lowest petals of all are usually united by their under edge, so as to form a single organ, known as the keel, and closely inclosing the stamens and pistil. Asa rule, too, all ten stamens are united into a single tube or sheath ; or else the nine lower ones are so united, while the upper one is free. In spite of the general uniformity of floral type, however, many special modes of insect fertilization prevail among the various pea-flowers. Sometimes the blossom bursts open elastically when the bee lights upon it, dusting him all over with the ripe pollen ; sometimes a small quantity is pumped out from the sharpened point of the keel by the weight of the insect’s body ; sometimes the pollen is deposited from his breast on the spirally curled summit of the pistil ; sometimes it is swept off by a little brush of hairs, situated close beside the sensitive surface of the embryo pod. All that it is here necessary to bear in mind, however, is the general fact that the papilionaceous type of flower has gained its present high position as a dominant floral pattern by its beautiful and varied adaptation to insect fertilization. Such being the general nature of the pea-flowers as a whole, we have next to inquire what are the special peculiarities which have en- abled the clovers in particular to fill their peculiar niche in the exist- ing economy of Nature. Clearly, the positions which clovers are adapted to adorn are not the high places in the hierarchy of vegetal life. They are not tall forest-trees or bushy shrubs ; they are not long, creeping trailers or climbers ; they are herbs of low and procumbent character, best fitted for filling up the interspaces of taller vegetation, and for vying with the grasses as elements of the close, tender, deli- cate greensward. The points which have enabled them to survive, therefore, are just those which allow a plant to thrive under such spe- cial conditions ; and we must ask briefly what those points may be be- fore we proceed to consider the specific characteristics of the various individual clovers. In foliage the clovers are distinguished by their graceful trefoil leaves which are an adaptation of the typical papilionaceous pattern to the special necessities of their humble situation. For the common form of pea-leaf consists of a long leaf-stalk, with one terminal leaflet, and with several pairs of lateral leaflets, arranged opposite each other along a central line. In the clovers, however, and in most other small field forms of papilionaceous plants, only one pair of lateral leaflets is developed ; and this arrangement allows the leaf-stalk to be elevated

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76 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. among the surrounding grasses in such a way as to get freely at the sun and air, which are necessary for the nutrition of the plant. But the chief peculiarity of the clovers is the arrangement of their flowers in dense heads. Instead of the blossoms growing separately or in pairs, as with most peas and vetches, or in long, loose bunches, as with laburnum and sainfoin, the flowers of the clovers, much reduced in size, are crowded into compact little bundles, for the most part at the end of a long stalk. What we ordinarily call the flower of a pur- ple clover is, in fact, such a head of clustered flowers. This dense clustering of the flowers makes them, though individually small, very conspicuous in the mass to bees and other insects, and so largely in- creases their chance of cross-fertilization. For the same purpose they usually secrete abundant honey, and they possess in many cases the familiar fragrant clover perfume. Moreover, in most though not in all species the bases of the five petals have grown together into a narrow tube, inclosing the honey ; and in the common purple clover this tube is so deep that no British insect except the humble-bee has a proboscis long enough to reach the nectaries. Such peculiarities are quite sufficient to give the clovers an immense advantage in the struggle for existence ; and it is not surprising that they should have become exceptionally numerous in species and individuals, even among the richly endowed and dominant papilionaceous family. Every race, however, has its weak as well as its strong points; and the weak point of the highly successful clovers lies in the unpro- tected position of their seeds and pods. Hence, in accordance with the general principles above laid down, it is in these particulars that we might expect to find the various species differ most from one another, since this is just the part on which natural selection of favor- able varieties is most likely to be exerted. As in the papilionaceous family as a whole, the flower is the organ which remains almost identi- cal throughout, because it is the organ which gives the family its true importance ; so in the restricted clover group the trefoil leaflets and the clustered heads of flowers remain almost identical throughout, and for the like reason. But in any classification of the various species of clover, it will be seen by anybody who looks into the matter that all the distinctive characters are drawn from differences in the pod and calyx after flowering, because this is the weak point of the genus, and the one in which alone diversities of habit have been likely to arise and to be perpetuated by survival of the fittest. The other organs have long since reached their equilibrium ; these organs alone remain in need of further equilibration. And why is the pod a weak point? For this reason. The seeds of clover, though small, are very richly stored with starches and other food-stuffs for the growth of the young plant. Such richness is, of course, in itself an advantage to the race, because it allows the seed- lings to start well equipped on the path of life, with some accumulated

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CONCERNING CLOVER. 77 capital handed on to them by the mother-plant. But what will feed a seedling will feed an animal as well ; and it is just these rich little beans in the clover-pod which give it all its dangerous value as a fodder for cattle. Hence, in the wild state those clovers which have their seeds least protected are most likely to be eaten off and killed down by birds or animals, while those which have them most protected are most likely to survive and become the parents of future generations. Here, then, we have the basis upon which natural selection can act in differentiating the primitive ancestral clover into various divergent species. Whatever accidental variation happens to give any particu- lar clover protection for its seeds in any special habitat will certainly be preserved and increased, while all opposite variations will be cut off and demolished at once. So far as their foliage and their flowers are concerned, the clovers as a body are practically in a state of stable equilibrium ; so far as their fruit and seeds are concerned, they are still undergoing modification by natural selection. Clearly to illustrate this fundamental point, let us first look at some neighboring and closely ‘allied plants, which are not exactly clovers, but which resemble them in almost all important particulars. These also show the same devices for specially protecting their seeds and pods from birds or animals. Take, for example, the genus of the medics. These are mostly small greensward plants, with trefoil leaf- lets like the clovers, but with the flowers in rather tall, one-sided spikes or loose bunches. Their pods are usually long and many-seeded, but they have this curious peculiarity, that instead of growing straight like that of a pea or bean, they coil up spirally like a snail-shell. When ripe they fall off the plant entire, and thus defeat the hopes of birds and other creatures which wait patiently for the opening of the pods. | The simpler medics, such as the agricultural lucern, have smooth, spiral pods alone, and therefore they can be employed successfully as fodder for cattle. But this, which proves an advantage from the point of view of the farmer, is naturally a disadvantage from the point of view of the plant in a wild state, because it insures the seeds being eaten; and hence the more developed and weedy medics have ac- quired stout protective prickles, fringing their globular spirals, and making them very distasteful morsels to cows or horses. We have two such prickly medics in England, one closely coiled and rolled round like a ball, and thickly set with curved hooks ; the other loose like a corkscrew, with two rows of sharp bristles at the adjacent edges ; and both these, as I learn from farmers, are extremely objectionable weeds in meadows, rendering the hay almost uneatable. Indeed, I am assured that cattle will never touch even fresh meadow-grass contain- ing them except when absolutely driven by hunger. It is noteworthy that our two doubtfully native smooth medics (lucern and nonesuch) both grow naturally in rough, dry places, and are only largely found as “artificial grasses ”—that is to say, were introduced and maintained

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 78 by human agency ; while our two more truly wild species are meadow and pasture weeds, and are therefore amply protected by prickles against herbivorous animals. Again, bird’s-foot trefoil, whose pretty yellow flowers form such ornaments to our sunny banks in summer, has a long, hard, dry pod, too stringy to be edible, and filled with pith between the beans ; while lady’s-fingers, a somewhat similar type, has an inflated hairy calyx completely inclosing the short pod in its pro- tective and inedible capsule. . Strangest of all, however, is the small, matted bird’s-foot, whose pod never opens to shed the seeds, but di- vides between them into little joints or “articles,” each inclosing a single bean, and so cheating the expectant birds of their promised food. These examples, which might be multiplied indefinitely, will sufficiently serve to show the importance of protection for the seeds as a basis of differentiation among the papilionaceous flowers. With the restricted tribe of clovers the need for such protection has almost alone produced all the species into which the genus has long since split up. Originally, of course, we must suppose that there existed one united type of ancestral clover, differing from the other papilionaceous plants in the points which now distinguish the whole clover genus, but possessing none of the special distinctive marks which specifically divide one kind of clover from another. This hypothetical ancestor had probably rather large, purplish flowers, collected in compact heads on a common foot-stalk, with the five petals separate, and with a small three or four-seeded pod completely inclosed within the faded brown petals. From some such form the existing clovers have sprung by differentiations almost entirely affecting the pods and seeds, though they have also varied a little in color, according to the individual tastes of their particular insect visitors, as well as in the degree of union effected between their petals. Without going beyond the limits of our own native clovers, we will look first at those types in which the arrangement of the pod is simplest, and then pass on gradually to those in which it is more and more complex, till we arrive at last at that most marvelous Eng- lish species which actually buries its own pods entire in the ground by a wonderful series of apparently purposive movements and gyra- tions. Our common English purple clover (for convenience’ sake I adopt throughout Mr. Bentham’s vernacular names) may be taken as a good specimen of the simpler and less-protected kinds. The mere fact that it is grown extensively for fodder shows that it has no deter- rent prickles or bristles to ward off the attacks of herbivorous ani- mals ; and indeed, throughout the clover group, it may be noted that birds and insects, rather than large mammals, seem to be the enemies especially guarded against by the majority of plants. Purple clover is a perennial, with long, hairy stems, the hairs serving to prevent ants from creeping up to the blossoms and uselessly rifling the honey

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CONCERNING CLOVER. 79 intended to attract the fertilizing bees. The young flower-heads are also inclosed in two papery wings or stipules, which effectually pro- tect them from injury before they open. The petals are united into a very long tube, accessible only (as before noted) to the humble-bee ; and in New Zealand, where our European humble-bee is unknown, it has been found necessary to import several nestfuls, in order to make the acclimatized clover set its seed for agricultural purposes. But the devices for the protection of the pod are here comparatively slight. Each pod contains, as a rule, only a single seed, and it is externally guarded simply by the wire-like calyx-teeth, which are long, thin, and awl-shaped, and fringed on either side by a row of thick-set hairs. The two lowest are longer than the others, apparently as a protection against crawling insects. After flowering, the petals remain upon the heads, turn brown, and inclose the ripening pod. These brown heads of overblown flowers have such a dead, withered appearance that they seem sufficiently to deceive all intending depredators. As a whole, the species seems to survive mainly because of its protected young flower-heads, its special attractions for fertilization, and its habit of inclosing the pods in the dry petal-tube. It should be noticed, how- ever, that, though artificially propagated in meadows and pastures, it would not probably be a very successful plant if left entirely to its own devices. Man has intervened to give it his powerful aid by sow- ing its seed, and by fencing it off from cattle, so that it has now be- come, in spite of itself, one of our most abundant and ubiquitous clovers. Next in order we may take a series of small, wild, purplish clovers, closely allied to this cultivated type, but more specially adapted for protection against animal foes. Of these the little knotted clover, which grows in our dry pastures and banks, is an excellent simple example. It is a small, tufted annual, often growing in very closely cropped, sheep-eaten crofts, and therefore with an acquired habit of creeping close to the ground, and spreading its foliage flat against the earth. Its calyx-teeth are short and almost prickly, and its little knot- ted heads grow so close in the angles of the leaves that even a sheep has hard work to bite them off with his nipping front teeth. The rough clover is another of these dwarf creepers, much like knotted clover in general appearance, but even more prostrate, and with its flower-heads still more closely wrapped up in the angles of the leaves, whose wings or stipules almost completely inclose them. The great- est difference, however, resides in the calyx, whose teeth here, after flowering, become broader and stiffer, curve backward, and give the whole plant a stringy, dry, innutritious look. This species or variety also grows mostly on sheep-bitten banks, and manages wonderfully to set its seed in spite of the manifold dangers to which it is exposed. Boccone’s clover, confined in Britain to the Lizard Promontory in Cornwall, is a larger southern form of the same central type, closely

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allied to the knotted clover. It grows much taller, but has an equally forbidding type of pods ; and I notice in Southern France, where it is very abundant, that the dry stalks and oblong heads of fruit are always left uncropped on bare banks and road-sides where goats and sheep have been browsing—a fact which clearly shows that even those omnivorous grazers consider it an unpalatable morsel. To the same group, I think, but in a more developed degree, be- long three or four other British species, whose protections are some- what less easy to understand. Of these, clustered clover appears like a still higher type of rough clover. It is a slender, creeping annual, with very small, globular flower-heads, almost buried in the angles of the stem and leaves ; and it has short, broad calyx-teeth, rigidly curved backward after flowering, and with hard, sharp points. This, I take it, is a protection against browsing animals. The sea clover, on the other hand, seems rather to guard against birds or insects. In the flowering state, it looks almost exactly like a small purple clover; but as the seeds ripen it assumes a very different aspect. First of all, the calyx-teeth grow out into rather broad green leaves, so that the whole head looks more like a mass of foliage than a bunch of ripening fruit. The lower tooth, especially, becomes very long and leaf-like ; and it may be remarked that, as a rule, the two lower teeth in clovers differ more or less conspicuously from the upper ones, pointing appar- ently to some special danger of attack from below. <As the pod slowly ripens, two lips grow out on either side of the calyx, and finally meet on the top of the pod, so as to hermetically seal it, leaving only a tightly closed aperture in the very middle. Thus the calyx has, as it were, a false bottom, appearing to be empty when it is not really so, and by this means deceiving would-be intruders. It must be noticed, however, that such a deceptive device would be useless against a her- bivorous animal, which could crop off the entire head ; it would only serve against birds or insects, which might pick out the seeds one by one. That it does effectually protect the tiny beans is certain, for in no case will you find a calyx without a pod inside it. At the same time, so thoroughly has the calyx with its outgrowth of lips usurped the place of the primitive pod-covering that the real pod is reduced to @ mere papery envelope, and can only be detected as inclosing the seed by a somewhat careful dissection. In this sea clover, too, the entire head, when ripe and dry, has a very forbidding aspect, the mass look- ing decidedly prickly and stringy, like a teazle ; and I observe that it generally remains uncropped until the calyx and seeds fall of them- selves, especially in Southern Europe, where it grows very tall. Why it should be confined to the neighborhood of the sea and of a few tidal rivers, more especially to salt-marshes, it would be hard to say ; prob- ably the special danger against which it defends itself is one found only under these circumstances, in which case it would there alone have any advantage over its competitors. Indeed, it must not be sup-

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wwe 6M CUT] all tl i i, srl werrrlC TlCTOOOOoOr'Trlh—hrTh—h—(—CcrrTCUTrOOUOUTC OCT NLhlC ' Del i ee Fae. hLUm->.. hc hee oe ee Ue. Lm. Ue. Le, 2, 2. VONCERNING CLOVER, 81 posed that all these questions are yet by any means finally solved. The sole object of the present paper is to point out the common prin- ciple running through the variations of the clover pattern, and to suggest such partial explanations of their causes as have yet occurred to a single observer. Suffocated clover is another of the tiny creeping types, apparently protected for the most part against browsing quadrupeds. It is a wee tufted form, with minute flowers stuck close in small dense heads, as if gummed to the short stems, and very crowded along their course. We may regard it as the last effort of a very degraded race to keep up its existence in the most closely gnawed pastures, on sand or gravel, where only very dwarfed and scrubby plants can escape de- struction. The reader will notice that under such circumstances two types of clover succeed, each in its own way. If the heads become very small, close, and inconspicuous, or tightly pressed against the wiry trailing stems, they escape the observation of browsing animals. If, on the other hand, though tall and noticeable, they develop prickly or stiffened teeth, they are rejected. as unfit for food by the creatures which devour the surrounding herbage. Reversed clover takes its name from a peculiarity which seems to _be connected with its mode of fertilization, for it has its standard petal turned outward, instead of inward as in all other clovers. The mean- ing and object of this change I do not know; but its most marked feature is still one bearing upon preservation of the seed, for, after flowering, the upper part of the calyx becomes much inflated, and is traversed by large membranous veins. At the same time it arches over the lower half, leaving three small teeth below, and two swollen ones at the top, so as to form a sort of bladder-like capsule over the concealed pod. In this case, again, the protection is obviously de- signed against birds or insects. In the curious strawberry clover, common among dry meadows and road-sides in Southern Britain, the same device has been carried a step further. Each flower in the head is here surrounded by a long involucre of lobed bracts, and, after flow- ering, the calyx swells immensely, so as to transform the entire head into a compact globular ball of little bladders, each inclosing a single pod. This arrangement has been popularly compared to a strawberry, but it is much more like a raspberry, being a delicate pink in hue, and composed of twenty or thirty small round capsules, The upper half of the bladder is likewise thickly covered with fine down, doubtless very objectionable to the skin of the tongue, and the whole is netted and veined in the most delicate and beautiful fashion. Hardly any other clover possesses so advanced a plan for protecting its little pod. Another type is presented to us by the large crimson clover, not truly indigenous in Britain, but commonly cultivated for fodder in the south of England. It is a soft, hairy plant, and, like other fodder- clovers, it does not possess any very advanced protective device. Still, VOL, XxXvi11.—6

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82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. even here, the calyx has extremely long, narrow teeth, thickly covered with smooth hairs, which serve to keep its beans safe. The analogy of a prickly pear or a rose-hip will show how very unpleasant such hairs feel in the mouth. The beautiful, small harefoot clover derives its expressive name from a further development of the same principle. The long teeth of the calyx project beyond the flowers, and are envel- oped in soft, downy hair, which gives the whole head a very dainty, feathery appearance. As soon as the flowers are faded, the head looks like a mere mass of soft fluff, unenticing to herbivorous animals, and effectually concealing the seeds from birds or insects. The starry clover of Southern Europe, naturalized in England at Shoreham and a few other spots, starts from much the same point, but has specialized itself both against large and small depredators. On the one hand, its smooth, woolly calyx, much like that of crimson clover during the flow- ering stage, spreads out after blossoming into a star-shaped pattern, and forms with its neighbors a dry, bristly, interlacing head, thickly studded with sharp hairs; and this suffices to protect it from cattle and goats. On the other hand, the mouth of the calyx, being thus exposed by the spreading of the teeth, is closed by a perfect cheval- de-frise of convergent tufted hairs, all meeting in the center of the throat ; and this barrier answers the same purpose as that.of the sea clover, though in a different manner, by forming a false bottom to ex- clude insects. I notice on the dry Mediterranean hills that these bristly heads are rejected by the goats and sheep, like those of Boccone’s clo- ver, and even donkeys refuse to eat them. Turning to a somewhat different class, there are some clovers which protect their seeds in a quite distinct manner, by merely turning them out of sight. Common Dutch clover does this in a simple yet very noticeable fashion. It bears its pretty white flowers in tall globular heads on a lengthened footstalk, which renders them extremely con- spicuous objects to the fertilizing bees. But each flower is stalked within the head, and, as soon as it has been fertilized, it turns down- ward, and fades brown against the common footstalk. Every head of Dutch clover thus habitually consists of two parts—an upper part, containing erect open flowers or flower-buds, not yet fertilized ; and a lower part, containing overblown flowers, already fertilized, and now engaged in setting their seed. This plan combines two distinct ad- vantages at once. In the first place, the bees lose no time in discrimi- nating between the mature honey-bearing blossoms and those already rifled, which insures more frequent visits and a larger general average of seed-setting. In the second place, the fruiting pedicels and pods, being turned down and concealed, are less likely to be visited by small animal foes, such as flying insects, which might lay their eggs within, and let the grub feed (as often happens) on the growing seed. Dutch clover is a fodder-plant, and therefore, probably, in its native state does not grow much in places exposed to the ravages of large herbi-

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1 y 1 ee, A BO ee _. es ae CONCERNING CLOVER. 83 vores. At the same time, the pod is many-seeded, and the plant spreads largely as well by creeping and rooting at the joints. That the object of the turning down after flowering is distinctly to protect the pod, as well as to save time for the bees, may be seen, I think, from the analogous instance of the pretty little yellow hop clover. This common and graceful English plant has primrose-colored flowers, and (as usual with yellow blossoms) depends mainly for fer- tilization upon a smaller class of insects than Dutch or purple clover. But after the blossoms are fertilized, they turn down in the same man- ner as in Dutch clover, only far more markedly, giving the head a con- siderable resemblance to the hop-cones from which the species takes its name. After being thus reflexed, the faded but persistent petals close over the pod, and the standard becomes furrowed with deep marks, which seem to me intended to give a crumpled, withered ap- pearance to the head. Simple as is this device, it nevertheless effectu- ally conceals the pod within a closely imbricated set of scales or shields, each one folding over the next like tiles on a house, and entirely pre- venting the access of birds or insects to the seeds. The lesser clover and slender clover seem to me to be successively dwarfed and degraded states of the same plant, due apparently in part to bad soil, and in part to diminished need for special protection. Last of all we come to the most advanced and developed type of any, the subterranean clover. In general appearance this plant closely resembles Dutch clover, from which, in all probability, it is a remote descendant. But, growing, as a rule, on dry, sandy, or gravelly past- ures closely nipped by sheep or other herbivores, it has acquired a very remarkable and ingenious mode of escaping their depredations. Like the other species similarly circumstanced, it grows close to the ground, in small tufts; and it bears a few rather large white flowers, two or three together in a starved-looking head. Looked at closely in this stage, a number of small central knobs may be distinguished at the end of the common flower-stalk. These knobs are really the cal- yxes of undeveloped blossoms, completing the head. After flowering, the stalks lengthen and bend down to the ground, carrying the fertil- . ized pods with them. Then the minor pod-stalks bend back, and the undeveloped central flowers grow out into short, thick awls or gimlets, with five finger-like lobes at their extremity, representing the five spreading teeth of the original calyx. These awls next begin digging their way into the earth by a slow, gyrating motion, and at last wear out a hole in which they bury the pod and bean entire. Thus the plant actually sows and manures its own seed, and so escapes all danger from the grazing animals. This extraordinary action may be consid- ered as the high-water mark of ingenuity and foresight in the uncon- scious outcomes of natural selection among the clover kind. In conclusion, it may be added that many of these clovers are very difficult to discriminate from one another in the flowering stage ; it is

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 84 only when the fruit begins to ripen and the calyx to assume its charac- teristic shape, that they can be readily identified by safe specific marks, Throughout, in short, all the clover traits remain almost the same, ex- cept in the matter of the fruiting pods. This is the one weak point of the genus, and this is therefore the place where natural selection has been able to produce fresh differentiating effects. Such a brief con- sideration of one small group of plants may serve to bring the general principle with which we started into the definite relief of concrete ap- plication ; and it may also serve to show the vast variety of detail with which Nature effects the self-same object, even within the narrow limits of a single family or genus.— Gentleman’s Magazine. THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. By C. A. EGGERT, PROFESSOR OF MODERN LANGUAGES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. _ subjects have of late engaged the attention of the most thoughtful people of this country in a higher degree than the question prominently brought before the public by the recent attempt of the Harvard faculty to open the doors of that famous institution to applicants who might come prepared in all the branches hitherto re- quired for admission, except Greek, for which study they would have had to offer an equivalent in scientific and mathematical work. It has been generally admitted that this work would have been more severe than that required for the Greek, but the opponents of the measure have, nevertheless, assured the public that to omit the Greek would be detrimental to American scholarship, and equivalent to building the educational structure on an unstable foundation. Some of these oppo- nents have gone so far as to assert that the customary college degree, Bachelor of Arts, stands as definitely for Latin and Greek as the degree M. D. stands for the study of medicine. Now, inasmuch as the col- lege is the school in which, according to the best authorities, our young , people are expected to gain a higher degree of education than the lower schools, academies, and high-schools can give them, the question, What constitutes the basis of higher education? is answered by the opponents of the Harvard measure in favor of the traditional Latin and Greek course, and that only. But the very fact that men of such high standing in the domain of education as President Eliot and his associates hold a different view should be sufficient to entitle this view to respectful attention. It is, of course, easier to fall back on well- known authorities, and the usage of the past, than to examine care- fully into a subject that evidently has at least two very characteristic sides ; but if the subject is one that so greatly affects the rising gen-

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a me Te ee SS —_— | — ~~ wT VTS FF eee lO SrlUlUUDOChCUCCCTUC COCUCUlCUC mLhOlUhDhTDUhUC - THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 85 eration, it may be expected to prove of interest at least to those who, as parents, desire for their children such an education as will make them efficient and happy members of the nation into which they were born. The highest possible intellectual efficiency and individual hap- iness, based on a harmonious development of the various faculties of mind and body, are the two principal aims of all education. There is a strong and intelligent party who sincerely believe that these aims are best attained by the college training such as it has been, and who, therefore, wish that this training shall continue for all time. There is another party, not a whit less intelligent, and probably far more numerous, who maintain that the highest and best education is not necessarily of one type ; that it may differ as individuals differ ; that the college itself has changed in the past, is changing now, and is quite certain to change in the future in accordance with a well- known law of human life, and that, therefore, it is neither logical nor fair to require every young person of the present time to follow the example of older persons, in the kind and manner of education which passed as the best when these older persons were young. This party further insist on its being unfair to shut the doors of the only schools in which, according to the view of their opponents themselves, the best education should be given, against those who honestly enter- tain different views of education, and they ask : Why should you who control these schools deny to us and our children a right which we, on our part, are willing to grant to you? Who isto be the judge be- tween us? Is the college to be forever the school only of one set of believers ? Questions like these, coming as they do from people who are neither superficial nor ultra-radical, can not be turned off by generalities and commonplaces. To argue as though Greek and thoroughness are ¢on- vertible terms is begging the question. No one denies that Greek studies may be thorough, and that those who are engaged in them may, if they choose, regard them as superior to any other. It is only when they wish to force their own conviction on those who differ with them that their claims will meet with opposition. There is a super- stitious belief in the efficacy and superiority of Greek that makes one think of the fabled tanner, who, when asked what material he con- sidered best for fortifying a city, unhesitatingly answered : “ Leather ! there is nothing like leather!” Arguments of this kind are difficult to answer, mainly for the reason that one can not and will not deny that leather is a superior article. There is much that can be said in favor of the study of Greek, and if it could be shown that it is neces- sarily the business of the college to teach Latin and Greek as spe- cialties, in the same sense that medical schools teach medicine, noth- ing would be more absurd than a course of college education with one of these languages entirely omitted. It can not be denied that for a long time the idea of college educa-

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86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. tion necessarily presupposed a knowledge of Latin, Greek, and even Hebrew, because these languages were the keys to the knowledge the student desired to obtain. But this had not always been so. At first Latin alone was used. The introduction of Greek often met with in- tense opposition, for instance, at Oxford. Greek stood then for new ideas, it was the treasure-house of the most valuable knowledge, and the professors of the old school thought then, as some of their colleagues seem to think even now, that the old education had been good enough for them, and therefore must be the best for every one else. But the rising tide of the Reformation soon settled the question of Greek. The demands of the times were of a religious nature, and the New Testa- ment was written in Greek. And, besides, whatever there was to be found out about science, political, mental, and even physical, had to be searched for in Greek books. To be ignorant of Greek was then as serious a drawback for a scholar as to be ignorant of German and French is to-day. Latin was the native language, so to speak, of every scholar. It was the common medium of social and learned in- tercourse ; the speech in which the professor lectured and the student answered when examined ; the language used in public disputations, on the rostrum, in the courts, and even in the theatre. There were, of course, also the specialties of Latin and Greek grammar and literature, as there are the specialties of English gram- mar and literature in our colleges, but the general purpose and aim of the college was to impart knowledge of facts, or what was taken for facts, in matters historical, physical, philosophical, theological, and, naturally enough, also philological and literary. In the discussion of this subject frequent reference has been made to the higher schools of Germany. Now, it is a fact that the German universities have continued the idea of the old university more faith- fully than any others. The most successful old university, that of Paris, had contained the four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and the “arts.” The terms of admission, as far as scholarship is con- cerned, are the same forall. They are still the same for all in the modern German university, with one notable exception, of which we will speak further on. The American college ought to correspond to the faculty “of arts”; it may at least be compared to it, though, as a matter of fact, the preparation for the German school is more severe and extensive than the preparation for the American college. As the latter gives to its successful graduates the degree of bachelor “ of arts,” the former used to confer on all who passed the proper exami- nation the degree of master “of arts.” What were these “arts” originally ? They are enumerated in the following line: “ Lingua, tropus, ratio, numerus, tenor, angulus, astra ”—i. e. -gramanaty rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy.* ; That is, the degree “ of arts” meant proficiency in these branches, * Raumer, “ Geschichte der deutschen Universititen.”

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THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 87 and it was merely an historical accident that these branches were taught in Latin, and, to a large extent, learned from Greek text-books. The same was true of the other faculties. It would be just as logical to demand that our candidates for the degree “M. D.” shall be exam- ined in Latin on the contents of Greek texts on medicine as it is to say that the degree of Bachelor or Master “of Arts” stands for the languages in which the studies were taught and studied, instead of standing for the subjects themselves. At the German universities the teaching was done in Latin as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, in one or two branches, through the entire century, and, in one or two instances, even into part of the nineteenth. It was then a necessity for the higher school to require of its students familiarity with this language, and it was the special business of the preparatory schools to give them this familiarity. This is the original and true reason why Latin even now occupies such a large place in German secondary instruction. It is the force of tradition, to which has since been added the convic- tion that the study is the best possible for all on account of its intrin- sic value. This, however, was an after-thought of those whose busi- ness it was to teach it, and the same is true of Greek. The example of Latin naturally suggested the same reasoning for the study of Greek, and the preparatory school did what it could to send to the uni- versity students who should be able to use both these languages in actual study, and for the purpose of gaining information from books printed in them. But gradually and steadily the subjects taught at the university took a wider range. What had been the very best preparation for the few subjects originally taught at the university became soon of special value only for a few subjects. The prepara- tory schools were called on to meet the increasing demand. They had to add many other branches, French among them, to their course, and thus it happened that the German student who wished to prepare for the university had to spend from eight to ten years in studies that required his presence at the school for thirty-two hours per week, about one half of which was devoted to the two specialties, Latin and Greek. We say “specialties,” for such they were, and still are, although the strange claim is made that this preparatory school, the “ gymnasium,” does not intend to teach specialties, but tries to guard against the danger of the one-sidedness of special pursuits by the introduction of the two ancient languagea Those who make this claim fail to see that, were it not for the sixteen or seventeen hours of other instruction that the school now imparts, the German student would still be the same unpracticable pedant, distinguished only for his absolutely dead learning, and all but total ignorance of everything else, that he was a hundred years ago. It is only in a comparatively small part that the occupation with Latin and Greek liberalized his intellect and opened to him visions of intellectual growth. To a far greater

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88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. extent this was due to the attention he began to give to his mother- tongue and to the great authors of his own and of neighboring lands, Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Horace, did something for him ; but what was that compared to the intellectual wealth of the new world of science and the vivid inspiration that came to him from the pages of modern thought? To deny this is to refuse to see the light of the noonday sun. Poets like Dante, Shakespeare, Moliére, Schiller, Goethe, took a powerful hold of his imagination, refined his moral nature as no ancient poet could, and filled his soul with ideals of the modern world. Voltaire and Hume, Rousseau and Diderot, Carlyle and Kant, Herder and Lessing, taught him how to reason, and to deal with the problems of modern life. And to-day can it be truly said that the inspiration the German student draws from Plato and Aris- totle can be compared to the powerful impulse and the incomparable intellectual help he receives from contemporary writers like Hum- boldt, Ritter, Peschel, Schleiden, Haeckel, and a host of others in various fields of science and philosophy in his own land, and, among neighboring nations, from the pages of a Charles Darwin, a Huxley, Tyndall, Claude Bernard, and entire galaxies of others ? We may repeat, therefore, that the German gymnasium teaches Latin and Greek as specialties, and that if this special training has not shown in its students the bad effects that are usually attributed to such training, the merit of having prevented these effects lies with those other studies which, as we have seen, occupy the student for the other half of his time. If, now, we compare the courses of the corresponding American schools with those of the Prussian (or Ger- man) gymnasium, we find that, while the American school has the same studies, it does not succeed in doing the same work. Hence, in order to make up for the deficiency of time, the preparatory training is continued in the college proper. But if the object were to give the American student as thorough a training in the Greek and Latin, without neglecting the other studies taught in the German gymnasi- um, the entire time of the college would be taken up by these so-called preparatory studies, so that the college would have no time, or but very little, left for other work. This is a very serious objection to the adoption of the German system, and the only alternative would be to establish our preparatory schools exactly on the same basis as the German gymnasium. But would this be desirable, even if it were feasible ? Unquestionably the habit of constant application for so many years, during which his study-hours are twice as numerous as those of his American colleague, while his vacations are briefer and his days of recreation fewer, makes the German student unusually capable to profit by further instruction after having passed through the gymna- sium. He is very accurate in some knowledge, and mehr the very fact that he has specially emphasized a few branches so that now he >. -

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THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 89 knows at least something very well, gives him an advantage over other students who know something of many things without being perfectly at home in any. At the same time he will be found to have suffered in health. Very likely his eye-sight has been injured. Asa rule, he is deficient in vitality. Fortunately for him, the university system is extremely lax. At the university he can do pretty much as he likes. He makes up for the time lost, sometimes in such a manner as to procure him from the authorities the consilium abeundi, the in- vitation to pursue his studies at some other institution. Then comes his year of military service, during which he passes the greater part of the day in admirable out-door exercise. It has been frequently remarked by educated Germans, and especially Prussians, that this year of military duty is the salvation of the manhood of the nation, at least for that portion of the young men that spent the best years of their youth in the close confinement of the learned schools, Let those who insist so strongly on the necessity of imitating the German usage carefully reflect on this side of the question. But there is still another side. We have all along spoken of the Latin and Greek preparation as though it were absolutely true that the stu- dents who arrived at the university from the gymnasium have actu- ally mastered these languages to which they have sacrificed so much of their time. They are expected to read Greek books understand- ingly. The medical faculty of Berlin expressly stated it as one reason why those who wish to enter the university should know Greek, that they must be able to read Galen in the original. If such a proficiency in Greek is expected of them in the department of medicine, it is, of course, also considered necessary in the department “of arts,” and so in the other two departments of the university. The facts tell a different story. Numerous proofs could be fur- nished to show how little even the gymnasium succeeds in making its students get such a hold of two ancient languages as will make it all but impossible for them to lose the knowledge so gained before they are through their university course. We will confine ourselves to the testimony of one of the most competent scholars of Germany, the late Eduard Lasker, who recently died in this country while on a visit, and who is considered by Julius Rodenburg, the distinguished author, and editor of the “Deutsche Rundschau,” as no less pre-eminent a philologist in the domain of Latin and Greek studies in Germany than Gladstone is reputed to be in Great Britain. According to Mr. Lasker’s most positive experience, it is impos- sible for the gymnasium to keep up the teaching of the two ancient languages, because, in attempting to teach both, they succeed in giv- ing the student a good knowledge of neither. He recommended that the attention now divided between the two be concentrated on the Latin alone, as there was, of course, no use trying to curtail the other branches. This view of so distinguished a scholar and thinker is of

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go THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. very great importance. It proves at least this, that there are in Ger- many men of acknowledged ability, undoubted honesty, and sincere love of education, and able to judge of the system from personal ex- perience, who desire such a change in the preparatory schooling as would permit a student to go to the university without having studied Greek at all. Is it a sign of a shallow mind to discountenance in America, under circumstances that make the experiment far less likely to succeed, what is thus proved to be partially a failure even in Ger- many? Is it true that those who hold such views are justly charge- able with a wanton desire to destroy a well-tried system of “thor- ough ” education, in order to introduce new-fangled notions of their own? But the gymnasium is not the only school that prepares for the university. At present another school in which less Latin and no Greek are taught, called “ Realschule,” has also the right to give its graduates a certificate of “maturity ” which entitles them to member- ship in the university, at least in some of the courses of the “ Arts” department. This fact should, therefore, be borne in mind: that the German universities do admit students who, instead of Greek, offer other studies, very much as Harvard would have done if the proposi- tion of its faculty had not been overruled by the superior board. The professors of the German universities mostly favor the “ gymnasium,” from which almost every one of them was graduated, but they are not so unreasonable as to set up their own individual preferences against the intelligent views of a considerable number of highly educated peo- ple who are not professors. Hence, whatever the example of German universities may teach us, the lesson of intolerance is not taught by it ; at least not of intolerance in the sense that the views of an intelli- gent minority must be absolutely disregarded by the majority. The German “ Realschule” teaches science and mathematics, Lat- in, French, English in connection with the other branches, German language and literature, etc., common also to the gymnasium. It is claimed that this course is not so beneficial to the student as that of the gymnasium, and a ten years’ trial of the Berlin philosophical faculty seems to have proved this. We will not here enter upon a discussion as to the probable causes of this failure of the Realschule beyond stating the well-known fact that hitherto the Realschule has not been generally patronized by those who aspired to the higher education of the university. The prejudice in favor of the old, well- tried, and splendidly equipped gymnasium was so great that this school naturally attracted the majority of those who wished to go to the university later. The course of the Realschule (i. e., that of the first order or class, there being also a lower order or class) is just as long as that of the gymnasium, but the graduates of the Realschule are few in number, and it is the exception, and not the rule, when one of them finally attends the university. Hence it is manifestly unfair i

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THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. gl to base a definite opinion of the possibilities of this school on the work hitherto done under circumstances so very discouraging. Even now the gymnasium is favored with privileges which are as yet denied to the Realschule, as no graduate of the latter is admitted to the depart- ments of law and medicine, at least not in Prussia. That the com- paratively few graduates of the Realschule have, nevertheless, made a fine and honorable record for themselves is an undeniable fact. It is unnecessary, however, to enter into a defense of that school, as it has not been in existence long enough, at least as a school that aimed to prepare for the university, to show what it will be able to do when once the prejudices now raised against it shall have disappeared. The German university requires of its candidates for the degree of M.D. such a familiarity with Greek as will enable the students to read Galen in the original ; but do the medical students really consult Galen in the original, either at the university or in after-life? I have been at the pains to gain some proofs of this laudable practice, but thus far in vain. The all but unanimous testimony is that the medi- cal student’s greatest desire, next to knowing the practical details of his profession, is to be able to read the works of the best English and French authorities, and especially the periodicals that bear on medical ,and kindred subjects. But English is not, as a rule, taught in the university, nor is it one of the required studies of the gymnasium, and the immense amount of labor the student has to perform makes it im- possible for him to do enough for the study by private effort. And, then, the prejudice against so “easy” a language! This prejudice, the result of the peculiar training of the college, is one that college-men entertain like a dogma, and which they never tire of impressing on the student.* The acutest critic of France, Sainte-Beuve, incident- ally alluded to this prejudice in his defense of Racine’s masterpiece, “ Athalie.” He said: “Great lovers and judges of antiquity, but who are not, perhaps, as great judges of the French beauties of ‘ Athalie,’ maintain that Sophocles (in his ‘ Antigone’) is superior. . . . I listen, and let them talk (J’écoute, et je laisse dire). I envy those who are possibly capable of judging with equal correctness (au méme degré) of the two kinds of beauties,” etc. The modesty of the remark, com- ing from one who was himself no mean judge of antiquity, ought to inspire other critics with a reasonable diffidence when about to pass judgment on the difficulties of other languages. One may learn a dozen languages moderately well in less time than it takes to learn a single one well. On the Continent of Europe one may meet with many illustrations * If the difficulties of a language are its chief recommendations as a study for “ disci- pline,” the introduction of improved methods of teaching, by enabling the student to master these difficulties by an “easy grade,” would in so far destroy their value. For a curious illustration of this prejudice, see a recent article on “ Ancient Languages” in the “ Bibliotheca Sacra.”

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g2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. of this fact. The “Cologne Gazette,” for instance, used to publish the periodical advertisement of a German who undoubtedly prided himself on his English. Desiring to obtain some English boarders, he wound up with this remark, “The diet is notorious and unlimited.” What he really meant was that he set a good table, and there was plenty to eat. It is this kind of modern language which some writers evidently mean when they speak of the facility with which transla- tions from modern languages can be made. Let us suppose there were no prejudice against the modern languages, and none in favor of Greek, what would happen? The medical faculties would, no doubt, advise their students to avail themselves of every opportunity to ob- tain a good knowledge of the three languages in which the chief re- sults of modern civilization are recorded. But to do this with a rea- sonable chance of success, such students must be allowed the necessary time. They can not find this time for the modern languages as long as the college compels them to devote it to the ancient. To measure fairly the disciplinary value of such a language as English is not an easy matter. Take, for instance, the choice of synonyms. Soup and broth seem to mean the same thing, at least in poetry, and yet the poet may want to use the one in a place where he could not use the other. An English gentleman spent an evening in Venice at the the- atre. The piece represented was an Italian version of “ Macbeth.” In the course of the play our Englishman heard the expression, “ Po- lenta infernale,” which he mentally translated into “infernal soup,” without being able to recall the original passage. Having returned to the hotel, his first care was to examine the English work, when he was delighted to find that the immortal bard, far from using the shocking “infernal soup,”’ mentioned only the comparatively harmless “ hell-broth.” Whoever has consulted a dictionary of synonyms in the English, German, or French language, will receive with some doubt the asser- tion that the ancient languages are richer in this respect than the modern. The celebrated historian, Guizot, devoted many years to a dic- tionary of French synonyms, which contains over eight hundred pages. The astonishing wealth of the German vocabulary is well known, and the philosophical spirit of the nation has introduced such a great number of the nicest shades of expression that a translation from the German, in order to be good, requires an extraordinary effort. “ Traduttore traditore,” say the Italians. “ A translator, a trai- tor.” Not necessarily. There are translations and translations, but, after all, to translate fluently from one language into another is not the real object of language-study. Unless a student reads a foreign language as he does his own, he has not mastered it, but to gain this ability is a far more serious undertaking than is commonly believed. Be this as it may, it is at least certain that a doctor of medicine, or a candidate for the degree, should have an ordinary knowledge of =——

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——“ THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 93 botany, at least of so much of it as will enable him to recognize cam- omile when he sees it, and to tell the difference between hemlock and parsley. Now, this remarkable charge is laid against many of the candidates for this degree in Germany, that they have not obtained this knowledge.* They may be able to read a quotation of Galen in Greek (although they would understand it infinitely better in the elegant German version they have in their library), but as for camo- mile and hemlock !—pshaw! That is the apothecary’s business. Without wishing to sit in judgment over such facts and views, this, at least, we may do: we may affirm that there are many per- sons, who are neither shallow nor uneducated, who yet prefer in their physician a thorough knowledge of botany to any degree of skill in reading Galen in Greek. The American college crowns the educational structure of the state. To increase its power for good, it ought to be accessible to any student who has passed through the preliminary training of the common, grammar, and high schools. It is not at all true that those who oppose the present college preparation desire to make education less efficient ; rather ought it to be said that many intelligent friends of education wish to make a more efficient collegiate education available for a larger number. The college should not be a school for one specialty, but rather a school in which many specialties are taught by the very best specialists. In such a school ancient languages and literatures would hold a place alongside of modern languages and literatures ; the sci- ences of astronomy and physics would stand on the same level as the sciences of botany and geology ; moral and mental, political and social science would be equally well represented. There is no reason to fear that ancient learning would suffer, but some to hope that it would be carried on by those who are drawn to it by natural taste and ability, and not simply because it is the fashion. What can be more unpracti- cal to the common mind than the study of the stars? What imme- diate profit does “ star-gazing” hold out? And yet Nature produces the requisite number of born astronomers, who, at one time or another, recognize their vocation, and reach it with the directness of the ball shot from a well-aimed rifle. The essential thing is, that the young student must not be allowed too soon to make his choice of studies. For this reason a preparatory course, which may extend through the first two years of college, seems to be a necessity. There is nothing to prevent an American college from allowing this preparatory course to be of such a nature as will enable the student to elect between two studies of similar value. This limited election would still be of the nature of a prescribed course. It would be very nearly what the Har- vard faculty have tried to introduce. It will remain an open question for a long time to come, what study should be offset against the Greek, * Report of the Prussian Minister of Education, July 11, 1868, “ Paedagogisches Ar- chiv ” (Langbein), 1872, pp. 22, 23,

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94 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. if once the principle should be recognized. But this would be a mat- ter of detail, which the different faculties would eventually settle, and there is no reason to fear that any faculty would long continue an elective system which experience should prove to disqualify students from choosing their subsequent studies intelligently. What is needed, first of all, is the frank acknowledgment on the part of those who now control our colleges that these institutions are intended to furnish the means of higher education for all who are by nature fitted for it, and that, as long as there are divergent views held by men equally eminent, as to the proper preparation for the higher col- lege studies, it behooves no one, who happens to be in power, to use his authority for the purpose of monopolizing the college for the applica- tion of his own theories. It is not from a wish to lessen Latin and Greek learning that the plea is made to treat other studies with equal liberality. There is no onslaught made on Latin and Greek, but, on the contrary, those who favor the monopoly of Latin and Greek are often guilty of making an unwarrantable onslaught on modern studies. The tendency of our colleges, in spite of the conservative element in them, is toward the breaking down of this monopoly. The increase of slective courses in all the prominent colleges is a most significant sign. ORIGIN OF COLOR IN ANIMALS. By M. PAUL MARCHAL. F all the characteristics of organized bodies, color is one of the most fugitive. Trifling variations in the individual constitu- tion, apparently slight changes in the biological conditions to which it is subject, are often sufficient to induce considerable modifications in the exterior coloration. Color in animals may, therefore, be re- garded as having a variety of origins. Sometimes it is due to the fact that the tissues are formed from colored material ; more frequently to their having imbibed a colored fluid. This is generally the case with the formations of the epidermis, the hairs of animals, the feath- ers of birds, and the scales of reptiles. The translucid nature of the teguments may also be the cause of external coloration, as in men of the white race, whose delicate skin exhibits the vessels of the under- lying tissues. Many invertebrates are so transparent that their in- ternal organs may be seen. In the majority of cases, animals owe their external hues to colored granulations or pigments, which, diffused through the tissues, give tints varying with their abundance or dis- tribution. This substance may be black, or brown, or yellow in the vertebrates, while red, yellow, blue, and green predominate among the invertebrates. The phenomena of interference presented by their lami- - — a

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_~_ —_ ORIGIN OF COLOR IN ANIMALS. 95 nw, dependent upon the reciprocal action of parallel waves of light of different velocities, and capable in their different combinations of pro- ducing all the colors of the rainbow, or the absence of color, furnish that dazzling chromatic gamut which Nature empioys to paint the humming-bird and the butterfly, those two jewels of the organic world. Another class of phenomena has been called cerulescence by M.G. Pouchet. It is a property which he regards as analogous to fluo- rescence, and as due, in the majority of cases, to stick-shaped bodies inclosed in special cells called iridocytes, The blue reflections pre- sented by the scales of most fishes, the blue color of the caruncles of many birds, and the naked parts of some monkeys, the azure tint of the veins of individuals of the white race, the blue of the iris of some persons’ eyes, are examples of cerulescence. These phenomena, how- ever, differ but little from those which give to water having drops of milk suspended in it a bluish color by reflection, or from those which make smoke appear blue when seen upon a black ground. It seems to me that it may be going too far to compare such phenomena with fluorescence. These causes of coloration may be superposed and combined in a thousand ways. When birds are under the influence of physiological excitations like those of rage or love, the flow of blood contributes to enliven the color of the bare parts to the point of greatly modifying it. The bright, metallic tints of the peacock and the humming-bird are due to phenomena of interference and to the presence of a dark pig- ment combined ; the green tint of the lizard to the association of a yellow pigment and blue-reflecting iridocytes. The Annelids and the Nemertes, of the invertebrates, exhibit the combined effects of three causes of coloration: iridization, produced by the thin cuticle; the rich pigmentation of the dermis, and frequently, also, in case the in- teguments are transparent, the variable coloration of the sanguineous fluid and of the internal organs. The intensity of coloration is generally proportioned to the vital activity. As life begins to decline, the pigment retires from the for- mations of the epidermis ; and the hairs on regions which have passed maturity often exhibit a lighter coloring than on the neighboring regions. According to Pruner-Bey, the intensity of the color of the negro is an indication of his health; old negroes grow pale as they age. It is well known that pain and depressing moral trials, which are negative facts in life, provoke the retraction of the pigment. On the contrary, everything that tends to accentuate life occasions an enlivening of the intensity of colors, a fact of which Darwin gives many examples in his “ Variation of Animals and Plants.” Coloration is strongest in adult animals. Breeders prefer animals rich in pig- ment-matter, because they will best resist disease, and most easily accommodate themselves to special systems of feeding. The ancients regarded animals having white hair on a black skin as the most vigor-

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 96 ous. White parts of animals are often attacked with disease, while the other parts remain healthy ; and light-skinned animals are most troubled by flies and parasites. Albinoism, which is simply a total inaptitude for the production of pigment, is a sure sign of degeneracy. Vigor of the genital organs is one of the most manifest signs of vital activity. The relation between the reproductive function and pigmentation is so striking that Heusinger has expressed it as a law, Troubles brought upon the sexual functions under the influence of any particular causes, as of domestication, often coincide with the most singular modifications of color. The coloring-matter is also intimately connected with the nervous system. Thus, it is at the extremity of a nerve, the optic nerve, that is localized, in all species of animals, the maximum of aptitude for the production of pigment. In the lowest types of the series, when the eye begins to become differentiated, and while it can hardly yet be considered an organ of vision, a pigment-spot may be observed to make its appearance. At the same time other parts of the optical apparatus that have a much greater functional importance, the refract- ing media, for example, may not yet be existing even in a rudiment- ary state. These considerations lead me to believe that the optical pigment-spot owes its existence not solely to the advantages which the individual may derive from it, but chiefly to the proximity of a nerve, the elements of which are disturbed by a continuous vibrating movement, or by light. This kind of election of pigment exists, more- over, not only in reference to the organ of sight, but frequently also in other special sensitive terminations—at the ends of the auditory nerves with some invertebrates, at the end of the proboscis in the Nemertes. Inthe chameleon, the turbot, the cuttle-fish, and some other animals, the connection of the pigmentary system with the nerves is so close that a simple nervous excitation is enough to modify the dis- tribution of the colored granulations in the integuments. On the other hand, certain constitutional defects induce a diminu- tion or absence of coloring-matter, of which I can give no better illus- tration than to cite Darwin’s curious observation that white cats gen- erally have blue eyes and are deaf. What we have said tends to prove that the positive facts of life, or the complete development of the organs of the individual—health, strength, fullness of functions, display of activity and accentuation of animal vigor in the nervous system and the organs of relation—cor- respond closely with an abundant production of coloring-matter ; while the negative facts of life—age, constitutional weakness, disease, apa- thy, and degeneration generally—lead to a more or less complete dis- appearance of the same substance. Nevertheless, we notice in some eases the contrary fact, or a deposition of coloring-matter, or an in- crease of its production in connection with some pathological condition ef the organism. But these cases, which seem opposed to our theory, > 4

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ORIGIN OF COLOR IN ANIMALS. 97 are generally susceptible of special explanations, and their contradic- tion of the other facts is only apparent. In consideration of the influence of external agencies on coloration, we distinguish between two classes : those forces which can be re- solved into a rapid vibration—light, heat, and electricity—the action of which is very marked ; and other more complex agencies, among which we include food, captivity, moisture, and the colorizing and de- colorizing action of some secretions. Light is the principal excitant capable of provoking the development of coloring-matter. Very sig- nificant on this point is M. Paul Bert’s account of his experiments with the larve of the axolotl: “ Pale on issuing from the egg, they become colored by the deposition of pigment under the influence of light. In the dark, or in red light, the pigment is not developed.” From this we learn that the less refrangible rays have no influence on the production of pigment ; it is therefore by the rapidity, and not by the amplitude of its vibrations, that light acts upon the formation of coloring-matter. An analogous example is furnished by the Proteus, which, having been drawn out from its dark hole, becomes gradually colored by light. We may compare with these observations that the negro baby is, when first born, of only slightly different color from the white ; and the fact that certain parts of his body may already show the negro tinge does not contradict our theory of the dependence of the color on the action of light, but is only the mark of a hereditary tendency to become black. I do not intend to assert that light is the sole cause of pigment-coloration, for that would be contrary to the . facts ; but it is generally the exciting and sometimes the necessary means for the development of the coloring-matter. It plays a part like that of the spark in combustion, which has no effect upon an incombustible body, in the same way that light produces no colorizing effect upon an albino. There is, then, an aptitude to become colored, which varies according to races, and may not always exist. The ques- tion, however, of the ultimate cause of coloration is not solved, but only pushed beck ; for we are ignorant of the cause of this aptitude, and are obliged, to explain it, to have recourse to the laws of heredity and natural selection. The rich coloration of deep-sea animals apparently contradicts the facts we have cited, but does not really do so. For it is principally the red, or less refrangible, neutral rays, the passage of which is inter- rupted by the water, while the blue, violet, and ultra-violet rays, which are the active ones in coloration, pass through it to a considerable depth. Furthermore, we know that the molecules composing the tissues of these animals are subject to vibratory movements analogous to those of light, which are represented to us by phosphorescence ; and we may conceive those vibrations to be intense enough to produce @ coloration like that which is the effect of sunlight. As a rule, the parts of animals most exposed to rays of light are, VOL, XXVIIL.—7

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98 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. other things being equal, richest in coloring-matter. The backs of wild animals are usually and with few exceptions (as among noc- turnal and burrowing animals) more strongly colored than their bel- lies. Another class of exceptions may be seen among fishes of certain families which lie on their sides instead of on their bellies, and expose, not their backs, but one of their sides to the light. In these fishes the upper side is colored, while the under side, next to the ground and the darkness, is not. Articulates also have their upper sides most strongly colored, although what in them answers most nearly to the dorsal column is next to the ground. The parts of the shells of mollusks which are in contact with the ground are uncolored, while the parts exposed to the light shine with varied tints ; and this, whatever may be the peculiar positions assumed by particular shells. For individuals of the same race, the abundance of the coloring- matter is generally proportioned to the intensity of the light to which they are exposed. This fact is generally understood, though exact observations bearing upon it are not as numerous as it is desirable they should be. It is well known that the skin is tanned by light, that people from the north are browned by living in the south, and that ruddiness and freckles appear under the action of the sunlight. Some peoples of the white race, like the Hindoos and the Moors, that live in southern climates, are frequently darker-skinned than the ne- groes themselves. Still, we can not affirm that light is the only cause of these changes. Mr. Gould has observed that birds are more strongly colored when they live in countries having a clear sky than on islands or the sea- shore. Berchstein says that the colors of the plumage of cage-birds are affected by the shade in which they are kept. Mr. Allen has shown that the color of several species in the United States changes as we go from north to south. On account of their close relations with one another, it is hard to distinguish the effects of heat on color from those of light. External temperature can not have much effect upon the skin of warm-blooded animals whose bodies are kept by the internal heat at a uniform de- gree ; but with the fur it is different, and it is possible that cold may induce an abstraction of coloring-matter from the hairs, and that the white color of animals of the polar zone may be partly owing to this fact. According to Pallas, the horse and the cow in Siberia become paler during the winter. The ermine seldom becomes as white during winter in England as in Norway. Its summer color persists till late in the season, when the extreme cold comes on, and then changes in a few days. The isatis fox, which in the polar regions becomes white in winter from brownish-gray, changes but little when taken to Eu- rope. The Alpine hare does not put on its white dress at a fixed period, but at a time that depends on the greater or less earliness of the beginning of winter.

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ORIGIN OF COLOR IN ANIMALS. 99 Mr. Nicholas Wagner, using an exceedingly sensitive galvanometer, has discovered fixed currents in the wings of butterflies; and, with the aid of electric currents, has succeeded in producing changes in the color and disposition of their pigments, What part electricity may play in this matter is still, however, unsettled. In regard to the effects of feeding, Darwin cites cases of complete changes in the color of birds brought about by modifications of their alimentation. Bullfinches, fed with hemp-seed, turned black. The common green paroquet, fed with the fat of certain fishes, became striped with red and yellow. Volumes have been written on the influence of natural selection upon color, and have elucidated the subject so fully that we need not dwell on it at length. The principal aspect in which the influence asserts itself is that in which the prevailing color among animals gives them a kind of resemblance to the ground on which or the medium in which they live, or to the objects by which they are surrounded, so that they are more readily hidden from their enemies. In other cases they are made conspicuous in color or to resemble disagreeable objects, so that their enemies, mistaking them for something else, shall avoid them. Such cases belong to the classes of phenomena which Mr. Wallace has grouped under the designation of protective mimicry. In other cases, certain colors may be associated with peculiarities that render the animal more capable of resisting peculiar conditions to which it may be exposed ; when natural selection, aided by selection by the breeder, may contribute to preserve this color to the exclusion of others. Thus, according to Darwin, in Virginia, black hogs alone can endure a course of feeding consisting largely of the roots of Lachnantes tinctoria ; so a race of black hogs became established in that country. Much more might be said on this subject. We might consider the phenomena of sexual selection to which male birds largely owe their bright plumage ; the heredity of colors, correlative variations, and the complex and obscure action of domestication ; the action of moisture and of some secreted principles; and the distribution of colors as related to geographical regions. What I have said has been really only introductory to the subject, and for the purpose of reminding investigators what a full field of work they might find in exhaustively following it up.— Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL.* By VICTOR HORSLEY, F.R.C.S8. Y subject being the mechanism of the will, it might be asked, “What has a surgeon to do with psychology?” To which I would answer, “Everything.” For, without sheltering myself behind Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson’s trite saying that “a surgeon should be a physician who knows how to use his hands,” I would remind you that pure science has proved so good a foster-mother to surgery, that dis- eases of the brain which were formerly considered to be hopeless, are now brought within a measurable distance of the knife, and therefore a step nearer toward cure. Again, I would remind you that surgeons rather than physicians see the experiments which so-called Nature is always providing for us—experiments which, though horribly clumsy, do on rare occasions, as I shall presently show you to-night, lend us powerful aid in attempting to solve the most obscure problems ever presented to the scientist. The title I have chosen may possibly be objected to as too com- prehensive ; but until we are ready to admit a new terminology, we must employ the old in erder to convey our meaning intelligibly, al- though there may be coupled therewith the risk of expressing more than we desire. Thus, when I speak of the mechanism of the will and the motor centers of the brain, I do not intend (as indeed must be ob- vious) to discuss the existence of the so-called freedom of the will, or the source of our consciousness of voluntary power. I shall rather describe to you first the general plan of the mechan- ism which conveys information to our brain, the thinking organ ; next the arrangement of those parts in it which are concerned with volun- tary phenomena ; and, finally, I shall seek to show by means of experi- ment that the consciousness of our existing as single beings, the con- sciousness of our possessing but one will, as people say, while at the same time we know that we possess a double nervous system, is due to the fact that pure volition is dependent entirely on the exercise of the attention which connotes the idea of singleness ; consequently, that it is impossible to carry out two totally distinct ideas at one and the same moment of time, when the attention must, of course, be fully engaged upon each. I fear that, in making my argument consecutive, I shall have to pass over very well-beaten paths, and so I must ask your patience for a few moments while I make good my premises. The nervous sys- tem, which in man is composed of brain, spinal cord, nerves, and nerve- endings, is arranged upon the simplest plan, although the details of * Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

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THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL, 101 the same become highly complex when we arrive at the top of the brain. At the same time, while we have this simple plan of structure, we find that there is also a fundamental mode of action of the same—a mode which is a simple exposition of the principle, no effect without a cause—a mode of action which is known as the phenomenon of simple reflex action. The general plan of the whole nervous system is illustrated by this model. Imbedded in the tissues all over the body, or highly special- ized and grouped together in separate organs, such as the eye or ear, we find large numbers of nerve-endings—that is, small lumps of proto- plasm from which a nerve-fiber leads away to the spinal cord and so up to the brain. These nerve-endings are designed for the reception of the different kinds of vibration by which energy presents itself to us. As the largest example of these nerve-endings, let me here show you one of the so-called Pacinian bodies, or, more correctly, Marshall’s corpuscles, for Mr. John Marshall discovered these bodies in England before Pacini published his observations in Italy. Here you see one of these small oval bodies arranged on the ends of one of the nerves of the fingers, and here you see the nerve-fiber ending in the little protoplasmic bulb which is protected by a number of concentric sheaths. Pressure or any form of irritation of this body at the end of the nerve-fiber causes a stream of nerve-energy to travel through the spinal cord to the brain, and so we become conscious that some- thing is happening to the finger. Here in this section of the sensitive membrane of the back of the eye, the retina, you see a similar arrangement, only more complicated —namely, nerve-fibers leading away from small protoplasmic masses which possess the property of absorbing light and transforming it into nerve-energy. It is this transformation of nerve-energy into heat, light, pressure, etc., which it seems to me should alone be called a sen- sation, irrespective of consciousness. And, in fact, we habitually say we feel a sensation. The terms “feeling” and “sensation,” however, are frequently used as interchangeable expressions, although, as I shall show you directly, “feeling ” is the conscious disturbance of a sensory center in the surface of the brain, and in fact feeling is the conscious perception of sensations. This distinction between feeling and sensa- tion, if dogmatic, will save us from dispute as to the meaning of the word “sensation” ; and, further, the distinction is one, as I have just shown, which is justified by custom. Now, the nerve-fiber which conveys the energy of the sensation is a round thread of protoplasm which in all probability connects the nerve-ending with a sensory corpuscle in the spinal cord. These nerve- fibers running in nerves are white, whereas, as you know, protoplasm is gray. They are white because each is insulated from its fellow by a white sheath of fatty substance, just as we protect telegraph-wires

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102 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. with coatings. It is not stretching analogy too far to say that nerve- force may probably escape unless properly insulated. In consequence of the fibers being covered with these white sheaths, they form what is called the white matter of the brain; while the nerve-centers are grayish, and therefore form what is called the gray matter of the brain, so that the gray matter receives and records the messages conveyed to it by the white insulated fibers. From the sensory corpuscle, which is a small mass of protoplasm provided with branches connecting it to neighboring corpuscles, the nerve-energy, if adequate, passes along a junction thread of protoplasm to a much larger corpuscle, which is called a motor corpuscle, and the energy of which, when liberated by the nerve impulse from the sen- sory corpuscle, is capable of exciting muscles into active contraction. These two corpuscles form what is called a nerve-center. Not only are the motor corpuscles fewer as well as much larger than the sensory ones, but also the nerve-fibers which go out from them are larger too. In fact, it would seem as if we had another close analogy to electrical phenomena ; for here, where we want a sudden discharge of a considerable intensity of nerve-force, we find to hand a large accumulator mechanism and a large conductor, the resistance of which may justly be supposed to be low. Finally, the motor nerve- fiber terminates in a protoplasmic mass which is firmly united to a muscle-fiber, and which enables the muscle-fiber to contract and so cause movement of one or more muscles. Now, with this idea of the general plan on which the whole nervous system is constructed, you will understand that muscular action—i. e., movement—will occur in proportion to (1) the intensity of the stimulation of the sensory cor- puscle ; and (2) the resistance in the different channels. When a sim- ple flow through the whole apparatus occurs, it is called a simple reflex action, and this was discovered in England by Dr. Marshall Hall. To recapitulate : A nerve-center, theoretically speaking, we find to consist of a sensory corpuscle on the one hand and a motor corpuscle on the other, both these being united by junction threads or commis- sures. To such a center come sensations or impressions from the nerve-endings, and from such a center go out impulses which set the muscles in action. I have dwelt thus at length on this most elementary point, because it appears to me that, in consequence of the rapidity with which func- tion is being demonstrated to be definitely localized in various portions of the cerebral hemispheres, we are in danger of losing sight of Dr. Hughlings-Jackson’s grand generalizations on nerve-function, and that we are gradually inclining to the belief that the function of each part is very distinct, and therefore can most readily act without disturbing another part. In fact, we are perhaps drifting toward the quicksands of spontaneity, and disregarding entirely the facts of every-day life

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THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. 103 which show that every cycle of nerve-action includes a disturbance of the sensory side as well as the active motor agency. Did we, in fact, admit the possibility of the motor corpuscle acting per se, and in the absence of any sensory stimulation, we should again be placed in the position of believing that an effect could be produced in the absence of a cause. For these reasons such a center has been termed kinesthetic or sensori motor, and such centers exist in large numbers in the spi- nal cord, and they perform for us the lower functions of our lives without arousing our consciousness or only the substrata of the same. But now, turning to the brain, although I am extremely anxious to maintain the idea just enunciated that, when discussing the abstract side of its functions we should remember the sensori-motor arrange- ment of the ideal center, I shall have to show you directly that the two sides—namely, the sensory and motor—in the brain are separated by a wide interval, and that in consequence we have fallen into the habit of referring to the groups of sensory and motor corpuscles in the brain as distinct centers. I trust you will not confuse these expressions, this unfortunately feeble terminology, and that you will understand, although parts may be anatomically separated and only connected by commissural threads, that functionally they are closely correlated. In consequence of the bilateral symmetry of our bodies we possess a double brain—a practically symmetrical arrangement of two intimate- ly connected halves or hemispheres which, as you know, are concerned with opposite sides of the body, for the right hemisphere moves the left limbs, and vice versa. For my purpose it will be sufficient if we regard the brain as com- posed of two great collections of gray matter or nerve-corpuscles which are connected with sensory nerve-endings, with muscles, and intimately with one another. In this transverse section of a monkey’s brain, which is stained dark-blue to show up its component parts, you will see all over the surface a quantity of dark-gray matter, which is simply the richly convoluted surface of the brain cut across. Observe, it is about a quarter of an inch deep, and from it lead downward numerous white fibers toward the spinal cord. The surface of the brain, the highest and most complicated part of the thinking organ, is called the cortex, bark, or rind, and in it are arranged the motor centers I am about to describe. These white fibers coming away from it to the cord, not only are channels conveying messages down to the muscles, but also carrying messages from the innumerable sense-corpuscles all over the body. So much for one gray mass of centers. Now, down here at the base of the brain you see two lumps or masses of the same nature, and these are called, therefore, the basal ganglia or gray masses. Since they are placed at the side of the paths from the cortex, and undoubt-

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104 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. edly do not interfere with the passage of impulses along those paths, we may put them aside, remembering that they probably are con- cerned with low actions of the nervous system, such as eating, etc., which are popularly termed automatic functions. In this photograph of a model made by Professor Aeby, of Berne, you see represented from the front the two cerebral hemispheres with the centers in the cortex as little masses on the surface, and the basal ganglia as darker ones at the bottom, while leading from them down into the spinal cord are wires to indicate the channels of communica- tion. Note, in passing, that both hemispheres are connected by a thick band of fibers called the “corpus callosum.” It is, I believe, the close union thus produced between the two halves that leads in a great measure (though not wholly) to consonance of ideas. The arrangement of the fibers will be rendered still clearer by this scheme, in which the cortex is represented by this concave mass, and the fibers issuing from the same by these threads. The basal ganglia would occupy this position, and they have their own system of fibers, I will now leave these generalizations, and explain at once the great advance in our knowledge of the brain that has been made during the last decade. The remarkable discovery that the cortex or surface of the brain contained centers which governed definite groups of muscles, was first made by the German observers Hitzig and Fritsch ; their results were, however, very incomplete, and it was reserved for Pro- fessor Ferrier to produce a masterly demonstration of the existence and exact position of these centers, and to found an entirely new scheme of cerebral physiology. The cortex of the brain, although it is convoluted in this exceed- ingly complex manner, fortunately shows great constancy in the ar- rangement of its convolutions, and we may therefore readily grasp the main features of the same without much trouble. From this photo- graph of the left side of an adult human brain you will see that its outer surface or cortex is deeply fissured by a groove running back- ward just below its middle, which groove is called the “ fissure of Syl- vius,” after a distinguished medieval anatomist. This fissure, if car- ried upward, would almost divide the brain into a motor half in front and a sensory half behind. Of equal practical importance is another deep fissure which runs at an open angle to the last, and which is called the “ fissure of Rolando,” Rolando being another pioneer of cerebral topography. Now, it is around this fissure of Rolando that the motor side of the centers for voluntary movement is situated ; and when this portion of the cortex is irritated by gentle electric currents, a constant movement follows according to the part stimulated. Because of their upward direction, the convolutions bounding the fissure of Rolando are called respectively the “ascending frontal” and

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THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. 105 “ascending parietal” convolutions. Now here, at the lowest end of the fissure of Rolando, we find motor areas for the movement of both sides of the face : that is to say that, as regards this particular piece of the cortex, it has the power of moving not only its regular side of the face, the right, but also the left—that, in fact, both sides of the face move by impulse from it. Higher up we find an area for movement of the opposite side of the face only. I reserve for a moment the description of this portion of the brain, and pass on to say that above these centers for the face we find the next is for the upper limb, and most especially the com- mon movement of the upper limb—viz., grasping, indeed the only for- ward movement which the elbow is capable of, namely, flexion. The grasping and bringing of an object near to us is the commonest move- ment by far, and we find here that this center is mainly concerned in it. Behind the fissure of Rolando, Dr. Ferrier placed the centers for the fingers. Next above the arm area is a portion of the cortex which moves the lower limb only, and in front of this again is an area for consonant action of the opposite arm and leg. Let me here remind you that this being the left hemisphere, these are the centers for move- ment of the opposite, that is, the right limbs, and that in the other hemisphere there are corresponding areas for the left limbs. Thus here we have mapped out those portions of the cortex which regulate the voluntary movement of the limbs. So far I have omitted mention of the muscles of the trunk, namely, those which move the shoulders, the hips, and bend and straighten the back. Dr. Ferrier had shown that there existed on the outer surface of the cortex, here, a small area for the movement of the head from side to side. Professor Schiffer and myself have found that the large trunk- muscles have special areas for their movement, ranged along the margin of the hemisphere, and dipping over into the longitudinal fissure. Thus all the muscles of the body are now accounted for, and I will first draw special attention to the fact that they are arranged in the order, from below upward, of face, arm, leg, and trunk. The consideration of this very definite arrangement led Dr. Lauder Brunton to make the ingenious suggestion that it followed as a neces- sary result of the progressive evolution of our faculties. For, premis- ing, in the first place, from well-ascertained broad generalizations, that the highest center, physically speaking, is also the highest functionally and most recent in acquiremeat, we find that the lowest is the face, and then we remember that the lowest an’ mals simply grasp their food with their mouth. I imagine it is scarcely necessary for me to repeat the notorious confession that our faculties are arranged for the pur- pose of obtaining food as the primary object of what is called bare existence. Proceeding upward in the scale of evolution, we next find animals which can grasp their prey and convey it to the mouth, and so we find

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 106 next to the face area evolved that for the arm. And so on, the next step would be the development of the legs to run after the prey, and here is the leg-center ; while, finally, the trunk-muscles are dragged in to help the limbs more effectually. To my mind this idea receives overwhelming support from the consideration of the fact that, the higher our centers are, the more they require education ; the infant, for instance, in a few days shapes its face quite correctly to produce the food-inspiring yell, yet takes months or years to educate its upper limbs to aid it in the same laudable enterprise. Finally, what terrible probation some people pass through at the hands of dancing-masters before their trunk-muscles will bend into the bow of politeness ! Now to return to the lower end of the fissure of Rolando, to the areas for movements of the face: it was long ago pointed out by the two Daxes and Professor Broca that when this portion of the brain immediately in front of the face area was destroyed, the person lost the power of articulate speech, or was only capable of uttering injec- tions and customary “strange oaths.” In fact, this small portion of the left side of our brains (about one and a half square inch) is the only apparatus for expressing our thoughts by articulating sounds, and note particularly that it is on the left side. The corresponding piece on the right side can not talk, as it were. This remarkable state of things is reversed in left-handed people. In these the right hemi- sphere predominates ; and so we find that, when this portion was dis- eased, there followed aphasia, as it is called. While, however, the right side customarily says nothing, it can be taught to do so in young people, though not in the aged. Before leaving these motor areas, let me repeat, by way of recapit- ulation, that the only truly bilaterally acting areas are those for the lower facial and throat muscles. This is a most important fact, for the idea has recently been propounded that both sides of the body are represented in each motor region of each hemisphere. That is to say, each motor area has to do with the movements of both upper limbs, for example. In support of my contention that this is net in accord- ance with clinical facts, let me here show you photographs of the brain of a man who was unfortunate enough to suffer destruction of the fibers leading from one motor area. Here you see a puncture in the brain which has caused hemorrhage beneath the fissure of Ro- lando and the motor convolutions in front and behind it. In this transverse section of the same spot you see that the hemor- rhage has plowed up the interior of the brain. Here is the cortical gray matter, but its fibers leading down to the muscles are all de- stroyed. Now, in examining this patient I asked him to move his left arm or leg ; he was perfectly conscious, and, understanding the ques- tion, made the effort, as we say, but no movement occurred. Now, if both sides of the body are represented in each hemisphere, it seems to me that such a case would be impossible, or at least that a little prac-

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THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. 107 tice would enable the other hemisphere to do the work ; but all clini- cal facts say that, once destroyed, the loss is never recovered. If we examine this motor region of the cortex with the microscope, we of course find these large corpuscles, which we have learned are those which alone give energy tothe muscles. But you must not imagine that the motor region consists solely of these corpuscles. On the contrary, as you see in this diagram, we have several layers of cor- puscles. I shall return to this arrangement of the corpuscles directly. Looking back at the surface of the brain, you notice that I have only accounted for but a small portion of the cortex. Dr. Ferrier was the first to show that the portion of cortex which perceived (and I use the word in its strictest sense) the sensation of light was this part, and it is therefore called the “visual center or area.” From recent re- searches it would appear that we must give it the limits drawn on this diagram ; below it we find the center for hearing. Thus we know where two sense perceptive centers are situated. Microscopical investigation shows that this sensorial portion of the cortex is very deficient in large corpuscles, and is correspondingly rich in small cells. Here in this diagram you see these two kinds of struct- ure in the cortex cerebri. Note the greater number and complication of the small corpuscles in the sensory part of the cortex, and the com- paratively fewer though much larger corpuscles in the motor region. It seems to me that several beliefs are justified by these facts: In the first place, the movements produced by the action of these motor centers are always the same for the same center ; consequently, it has only one thing to do, one idea, as it were. Thus, for instance, bend- ing of the arm: this action can only vary in degree, for the elbow will not permit of other movements. Hence we may look upon it as one idea. Now, observe that where one idea is involved we have but few corpuscles. Next, consider the multitude of ideas that crowd into our mind when we receive a sensation. One idea, then, rapidly calls up another, and so we find anatomically that there are a corresponding much greater number and complication of nerve-corpuscles. To sum up, I believe we are justified in asserting that where in the nervous system a considerable intensity of nerve-energy is required—e. g., for the contraction of muscles—you find a few large corpuscles and fibers provided ; and that where numerous ideas have to be functionalized, there numerous small corpuscles are arranged for the purpose. But, now, the special interest attaching to the sensory perceptive areas is that they, unlike the motor areas, tend to be related to both sides of the body. With our habit of constantly focusing the two eyes on one object, it will strike you at once that habitually we can only be attentively conscious of one object at a time, since both eyes are engaged in looking at it, and, as you know, we can not as a mat- ter of fact look at two things at once. Hence, I take it, both sensory perceptive centers are always fully LOE LL LT a LT SRR ne

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 108 occupied with the same object at the same moment, and that therefore we have complete bilateral representation of both sides of the body in each hemisphere. As a further consequence, each sensory perceptive area will register the idea that engaged it ; in other words, both cen- ters will remember the same thing. Thus it happens that each sensory area can perform the duty of the other, and therefore it is a matter of comparative indifference whether one is destroyed or not, and as a mat- ter of fact when this happens we find that the person or animal recog- nizes objects as they actually are, and in fact has no doubt as to their nature. Here you see anatomically the reason of this peculiarity is found to be that the optic or seeing nerves cross ohne another incom- pletely in going to each hemisphere, and thus each sensory center rep- resents half of each eyeball. I must pass rapidly to the description of the rest of the surface of the brain—the hinder and front ends. At the outset I must admit that all our knowledge concerning them is very hypothetical in the absence of positive experimental results. This much we can say, that they are probably the seats of intel- lectual thought, for many reasons which I have not time to detail. Further, we know that these intellectual areas are dependent for their activity entirely on the sensory perceptive centers, for the dictum that there is no consciousness in the absence of sensory stimulation is very well established, as I shall now show you, however astounding it may appear. In the first place, you will remember that when we wish to encourage that natural loss of consciousness which we call sleep, we do all we can to deprive our sense-organs and areas of stimulation, Thus we keep ourselves at a constant temperature, we shut off the light, and abolish all noises if we can. But a most valuable observa- tion was made a few years ago by Dr. Striimpell, of Leipsic, who had under his care a youth, the subject of a disease of the brain, etc., which, while destroying the function of one eye and ear, besides the sensibility to touch over the whole body, still left him when awake quite conscious and able to understand, etc., using his remaining eye and ear for social intercourse. Now, when these were carefully closed he became unconscious immediately, in fact slept, and slept until he was aroused again, or awoke naturally, as we say, after some hours. Hence the higher functions of the brain exercised when that organ is energizing the reasoning of the mind are absolutely dependent upon the reception of energy from the sense perceptive areas. But my. only point with reference to this part of the brain is to attempt to determine how far they are connected with the motor cen- ters in the performance of a voluntary act. With the mechanism of choice and deliberate action I have nothing to do; but there can be no doubt that the part of the brain concerned in that process of the mind is directly connected with the motor region, as indicated on this diagram, to which I would now return. From what I have here writ-

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al — . . w ~ ? “—_— THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. 109 ten you read, arranged schematically, the psychical processes, which, for the sake of argument, we may assume are carried on by the mind in these portions of the cortex. I wish to point out that we have structurally and physiologically demonstrated with great probability the paths and centers of these psychical actions. There is no break: the mere sight of an object causes a stream of energy to travel through our sense areas, expand- ing as it goes by following the widening sensory paths here repre- sented, and at the same time we feel our intellect learns that new ideas are rising up and finally expand into the process of deliberate thought, concerning which all we know is from that treacherous support, name- ly, introspection. Then come impulses to action, and these follow a converse path to the receptive one just described ; the nerve-energy is concentrated more and more until it culminates in the discharge of the motor cor- puscles. We might represent the whole process of the voluntary act by two fans side by side, and the illimitable space above their arcs would serve very well to signify the darkness in which we sit con- cerning the process of intellectual thought. What I have hastily sketched is the outline of the process of an attentive or voluntary act. I say attentive advisedly, for I wish now to put forward the view that the proper criterion of the voluntary nature of an act is not the mere effort that is required to perform it, but is the degree to which the attention is involved. The popular view of the volitional character of an act being decided by the effort to keep the action sustained is surely incomplete, for in the first place we are not seeking to explain our consciousness of an effort ; we endeavor to discover the causation of the effort. Our sense of effort only comes when the will has acted, and that same sense is no doubt largely due to the information which the struggling muscle sends to the brain, and possibly is a conscious appreciation of how much energy this motor corpuscle is giving out. Now, to give you an example. I see this tambour, and decide to squeeze it, and do so. Now, this was a distinctly voluntary act ; but the volitionary part of it was not the effort made, it was the deliber- ate decision to cause the movement. I may now point out that in this whole process we say, and say rightly, that our attention is in- volved so long as we are deliberating over the object ; that as soon as another object is brought to us our attention is distracted, that is to say, turned aside. All writers are agreed that the attention can not be divided, that we really only attend to one thing at once. It seems to me that this is so obvious as not to require experimental demonstration ; but I have led up to this point because I now wish to refer to the third part of my subject, namely, the question as to whether we have a really double nervous system or not. But, by way of preface, let me re-

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110 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. peat that, although we may have a sub-consciousness of objects and acts, that sub-conscious state is true automatism, and that such auto- matic acts are in no sense voluntary until the attention has been con- centrated upon them. For example, again I press this tambour, be- cause I desire to raise the flag, and I keep that raised while I attend to what I am saying to you. My action of keeping the flag raised ig only present to my consciousness in a slight or subordinate degree, and does not require my attention, deliberate thought, or choice, and therefore, I repeat, is not a voluntary action ; in fact, it could be carried on perfectly well by this lower sensori-motor center, which only now and then sends up a message to say it is doing its duty, in the same way as a sentry calls out “ All is well ” at intervals. But to return. In consequence of the obvious fact that we have two nerve-organs, each more or less complete, some writers have im- agined that we have two minds; and to the Rev. Mr. Barlow, a former secretary of this Institution, is due the credit of recognizing the circumstances which seem to favor that view. It was keenly taken up, and the furore culminated in a German writer (whose name, I am ashamed to say, has escaped me) postulating that we pos- sess two souls. Now, the evidence upon which this notion rests, that the two halves of the brain might occasionally work independently of one another at the same moment, was of two kinds. In the first place it was asserted that we could do two different things at once, and in the second place evidence was produced of people acting and thinking as if they had two minds. Now, while of course admitting that habitually one motor center usually acts at one moment by itself, I am prepared to deny in toto that two yoluntary acts can be performed at the same time, and I have already shown what is necessary for the fulfillment of all the condi- tions of volition, and that these conditions are summed up in the word attention. Further, I have already shown that, when an idea comes into the mind owing to some object catching the eye, both sensory ‘areas are engaged in considering it. It seems to me I might stop here, and say that here was an a priori reason why two simultaneous voluntary acts are impossible ; but as my statements have met with some oppo- sition, I prefer to demonstrate the fact by some experiments. The problem, stated in physiological terms, is as follows : Can this right motor region act in the process of volition, while at the same time this other motor area is also engaged in a different act of voli- tion ? Some say this is possible ; but in all cases quoted I have found that sub-conscious or automatic actions are confused with truly volun- tary acts. I mean that such automatic acts as playing bass and treble are not instances of pure volition, as the attention is not engaged on both notes at once. .* -

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TN, | vv ee THE MOTOR CENTERS AND THE WILL. 111 Consider for a moment the passage of the nerve impulses through the brain that would have to occur. At the outset we find that the sensory perceptive centers would have to be engaged with two differ- ent ideas at once ; but Lewes showed long ago that introspection tells us this is impossible, that “ consciousness is a seriated change of feel- ings”: he might equally well have said ideas. And, again, we know that when two streams of energy of like character meet, they mutually arrest each other’s progress by reason of interfering with the vibration- waves. I will show directly that this is actually the case in the action of the cortex when the above-mentioned dilemma is presented to it. The experiment I have devised for this purpose is extremely simple. A person who is more or less ambidextrous, and who has been accus- tomed for a long time to draw with both hands, attempts to describe on a flat surface a triangle and circle at the same moment. I chose these figures, after numerous trials, as being the most opposite, seeing that in a triangle there are only three changes of movement, while in a circle the movement is changing direction every moment. To insure the attempt to draw these figures simultaneously succeeding, it is ab- solutely necessary that the experimenter should be started by a signal. When the effort is made, there is a very definite sensation in the mind of the conflict that is going on in the cortex of the brain. The idea of the circle alternates with that of the triangle, and the result of this confusion in the intellectual and sensorial portions of the brain is that both motor areas, though remembering, as it were, the determi- nation of the experimenter to draw distinct figures, produce a like confused effect, namely, a circular triangle and a triangular circle. If the drawing is commenced immediately at the sound of the signal, it will be found that the triangle predominates ; thus, if I determine to draw a triangle with my left hand and a circle with my right, the tri- angle (though with all its angles rounded off) will be fairly drawn, while the circle will be relatively more altered, of course made trian- gular. On the other hand, if the two figures are not commenced simultaneously, it will be found that usually the one begun last will appear most distinct in the fused result, in fact, will very markedly predominate. Now, the course of events in such an experiment appears to be clear. The idea of a triangle and circle having been presented to the intellect by the sensory centers, the voluntary effort to reproduce these is determined upon. Now, if we had a dual mind, and if each hemi- sphere was capable of acting per se, then we should have each intel- lectual area sending a message to its own motor area, with the result that the two figures would be distinct and correct, not fused. The other evidence that I referred to above, which is adduced in favor of the synchronously independent action of the two hemispheres is from the account of such cases as the following : Professor Ball, of

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112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Paris, records the instance of a young man who one morning heard himself addressed by name, and yet he could not see his interlocutor, He replied, however, and a conversation followed, in the course of which his ghostly visitant informed him that his name was M. Gab- bage. After this occurrence he frequently heard M. Gabbage speaking to him. Unfortunately, M. Gabbage was always recommending him to perform very outrageous acts, such as to give an overdose of chloro- dyne to a friend’s child, and to jump out of a second-floor window, This led to the patient being kept under observation, and it was found that he was suffering from a one-sided hallucination. Similar cases have been recorded in which disease of one sensory perceptive area has produced unilateral hallucination. I can not see that these cases in any way support the notion of the duality of the mind. On the contrary, they go to show that while as arule the sensory perceptive areas are simultaneously engaged upon one object, it is still possible for one only to be stimulated, and for the mind to conclude that the information it receives in this unusual way must be supernatural, and at any rate proceeding from one side of the body. To conclude, I have endeavored to show that as a rule both cere- bral hemispheres are engaged at once in the receiving and considering one idea; that under no circumstances can two ideas either be con- sidered or acted upon attentively at the same moment; that there- fore the brain is a single instrument. It now appears to me that one is justified in suggesting that our idea of our being single individuals is due entirely to this single action of the brain. Laycock showed that the Ego was the sum of our experience, and every writer since confirms him. But our experience means (1) our perception of ideas transmitted and elaborated by the sensory paths of the brain ; and (2) our consciousness of the acts we perform. If, now, these things are always single, the idea of the Ego surely must also be single.— Nature. HOME-LIFE OF THE THIBETANS.* By CHARLES H. LEPPER. HIBET ! how little does the name of that unexplored and jeal- ously exclusive country convey to the average European! To the scientific it is known as the most extensive and highest table-land in the world, the water-parting from whence the majority of the largest and longest rivers in the world derive their sources. It is also * From an article on Thibet in the “ Nineteenth Century.” lr - —

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—_—_— = HOME-LIFE OF THE THIBETANS. 113 the Rome of the Buddhist religion of the present day, and upon the miscalled “ Lama” priesthood is bestowed the undeserved reputation of much learning and the possession of the secrets of ancient mystical and occult science. While tempted to consider the Thibetans from a European stand-point as, if not effete, at all events a semi-barbarous people, it only requires 2 moment’s consideration of the striking fact that, notwithstanding its thousands of miles of frontier, no European can now evade their frontier-guards at any point along those thousands of miles, for it to become apparent that a country with a government which can organize and maintain such a marvelous and efficient system can hardly in reason be called effete. Effete it certainly is not ; and yet, strange to say, notwithstanding this apparent evidence of its power, there is probably no country in the world of equal size which contains within itself such real weakness from a political point of view, and which could be so easily made a prey of by a designing neighbor. To arrive at that conclusion it is necessary to thoroughly understand the internal economy of that strange country, and so little is known concerning its people that no apology is necessary for entering into such minute details as space will admit of in this glance at its people and their habits, customs, government, and religious system. To begin, and in order to familiarize the reader with the surround- ings and conditions of life of the people under description, let us pict- ure a typical Thibetan house. The outside walls are generally of stone, set in a very inferior kind of mortar, but oftener in a bedding of puddled mud. When clay is available the builders much prefer to have only the foundations of stone and the walls above-ground of well-prepared clay, which latter they build up between plank molds. These are removed as each layer is finished, and then raised to act as molds for the next layer. ? The houses have two stories, and frequently there is a shed along one side of the roof, in which the inhabitants work when the sun is oppressive. A great part of their work is done on the flat roof, such as thrashing grain, etc. The ground-floor is devoted to the cattle— horses and pigs, etc. The fowls usually roost with the family on the first floor. The construction of the floor of the upper story is suffi- ciently curious. Its main supports are cross-beams ; on these smaller beams are placed at right angles, on which are laid slabs of wood ; on these again are laid small twigs like broom, and then a coating of mud plaster is spread, on which the planks are finally placed. A hole is left in this floor for their primitive ladder (a piece of wood with notches cut in it), up through which hole ascend all the effluvia from the animals below ! There is only one door for the whole house. In front of this door there is generally a court-yard surrounded by walls. All the manure and refuse is allowed to remain in situ under the house, and in the court, all the year through, till shortly before the season for manuring VOL, XXVIUI.—8

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114 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. the fields, when it is all collected into a big heap and left to ferment there from a fortnight to three weeks, after which it is spread over the land. The larger houses have one or more wings and a veranda. The floor forming the roof is made in the same way as the other, only there is an addition of cow-dung to the mud instead of planks, and the plas- ter thus made is beaten for days with sticks to make it amalgamate, as in India. All cracks, as the plaster dries, are carefully filled up with fresh plaster till the whole is a good solid roof and floor combined, and very well adapted for thrashing. The common-room is the kitchen on the first floor in which they all sleep, with their heads toward the fireplace, never with their feet toward the fire, as that is considered an insult or affront in their eti- quette. In summer they sleep on the roof. The Thibetans who live in the valleys are not as a rule fine men physically, but the highlanders, or hill-men, such as the shepherds, etc., up in the high Thibetan mountains, are massive beaux hommes, having somewhat the appearance of having been hewed out of solid blocks. The people of the valleys are more or less idle gossips, disliking work intensely. The men do no work in the fields except plowing, and few who can afford to pay another to do it for them will do even that much. When not in repose—i. e., when not absolutely doing nothing—the men occupy themselves by sewing, spinning, looking after the mules, horses, and cattle, but above all in attending to the petty business of the family. The women sow, irrigate, weed, cut the harvest, thrash, winnow, carry the grain to the granary, and do all the housework as well. If there are loads to be carried, the women carry them. If a man be asked to carry a big case or heavy load, he is cer- tain, on seeing it, to say at once, “That! that’s a woman’s load,” and of the baggage he will select the smallest parcel he can find as his burden. In the pasturages, the women milk, make the butter, and look after the flocks when these are grazing near the tents or encampment. The men herd the flocks when grazing at a distance. The women ride as well as the men, and in the same fashion. From constantly throw- ing stones at the cattle the women are adepts at this, and can and do make it very unpleasant for any person who may have irritated them into putting their science into practice. Dirt is the ruling feature everywhere in Thibetan households. It pervades their houses and their persons, prevails in their customs, and gives a tone to and bears fruit in their speech. A European, an English official in India, once desiring to see the real color of the Thibetan skin, paid the parents of a child to have it washed in hot water, several waters, and with an unlimited supply of soap. Every effort was made in vain, the skin could not be reached through such an armor-plating of dirt. It is said with every show of —_ . > eae a

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es memenaeae, aRETRs r HOME-LIFE OF THE THIBETANS. 115 truth that it would be quite impossible to wash an adult Thibetan down to the skin. The beauty of a woman in Thibet consists in her being stout, broad, thick-set, and heavily membered, and the accom- plishments to be desired are that she should be above all things auda- cious, a good hand at a bargain and at repartee ; in fact, a typical Bil- lingsgate virago, if massive enough, would pass as a Venus in Thibet. The ordinary food of the country is barley that, having been parched, is afterward ground and called Zsam pa, or Tsang pa. This meal they moisten with tea made in the Thibetan manner—i. e., of boiled “ brick-tea ” buttered and salted—or else, if too poor to use tea, moistened with soup, by mixing it in a cup and working the paste round with the fingers against the side of the cup. They eat this paste soft and moist. Tea made of the filthy “ brick-tea,” boiled with but- ter, salt being added to taste, and the mixture well churned, is the ordinary drink of the country, soup taking its place among the poorer classes. There are, of course, other kinds of food, but the above is the staple. They have a kind of chupatti, or scone, a common food. They eat flesh, chiefly of pigs, and fowls, but all depends upon their locality and means. They have no established rules, customs, or fixed hours for eating, the nearest approach to a rule being to take what they can get on the spot when hungry. Tea, as stated above, is the chief drink, so much so that it has become the custom to ask people to come and “ drink tea,” when to come and eat dinner is really intended, and this even in cases where the family is too poor to provide tea, and no tea in such cases is expected. After tea, as favorite beverage, comes a kind of barley-beer called Khiong in the east, Zchong in the west, and then a kind of distilled barley-whisky called A ra. In the past- urages buttermilk is the ordinary drink, and curds and whey, called Ta ra, are in favor. On the days on which they boil their meat they prepare no tea, but use the broth as a drink instead, on economical grounds ; and on broth-days they mix the Zsam pa with broth instead of tea. Coming to the Thibetan costume. The men wear the Zchrwu ba, a long and thick woolen robe, sheepskin in winter, descending down till it would drag considerably on the ground if let loose. It is doubled well across the chest and front till the ends or edges almost meet the shoulders, where one edge is fastened under the right arm with a tape or string bow. In dressing, the man, having on his 7chru ba hanging loose about him, holds his sash or belt about on a level with the knees, or a little above them, and this he draws in to make a gather, and then the belt, with all of the robe above it, is drawn up and the belt fastened round the waist. This leaves a large pouch of course, falling over the belt all round, and leaves the foot of the robe about half-way between the knee and the calf. Into the pouch so formed they put anything they have to carry, such as their Zsam pa cup, and even little dogs, and sometimes little pigs.

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116 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. At night, before lying down to rest, they take off their boots and belt, and with these make a pillow. They then judge their distance from the “pillow,” and kick that part of their robe (now trailing on the ground after removing the belt) which they intend to lie on toward the “pillow” ; thus by a kick converting one side of their Tchru ba into a mattress, and by this arrangement leaving themselves still the other side of the robe to act as a complete bed-covering on lying down ; and all without undressing. Only the rich indulge in a carpet to sleep on, and rich people sometimes use a Chinese carpet. The above sys- tim of bed-making is almost universally practiced throughout Thibet, or at all events throughout Eastern Thibet. Women often wear the above costume, but it is not their proper dress, which is as follows: a kilted petticoat of woolen stuff, some- times considerably decorated in colors with flowers, is so worn as to fall to about the ankles. In putting it on they commence on the left hip, pass it round the body once, and again across the front, thus hav- ing a double thickness in front ; they fasten it on the right hip. This petticoat is made up of many narrow strips each a few inches wide, these being sewed together and kilted in such a manner as to have the pleats only down the sides, being quite plain both front and back. For a waist-band it has a strong strip of long-cloth sewed to its inner side. Attached to this waist-band is a sleeveless bodice, generally of cotton cloth, which is supported by bands over the shoulders, and this garment carries the weight of the petticoat. The bodice is doubled across the chest and tied on the right side at the neck, under the right arm and again lower down. They also wear a sash or cwmmerband some six inches in width and about ten feet long, with the ends falling loose from under the belt on the right side. This is the ordinary fe- male attire, but, when they wish to dress better, they wear a sleeved chemise under the bodice ; this, however, is very rarely worn at home in their houses or at work. On state occasions they wear a jacket with longer sleeves and longer body than the Chinese ma quoi, or guen shen tze, but something like it. This jacket is of silk or cotton or woolen cloth, etc., and falls to about half-way down the thighs. The sleeves descend some seven inches lower than the tips of the fingers, and are very full, though not so much so as the ma quoi. From the wrist to the ends of the sleeves the color is always different and of a more vivid and striking nature (sometimes red, green, etc.) than the stuff or material of the main portion. The collar is nearly always of red broadcloth, and is fastened by a large silver and coral brooch on the chest. The jacket is closed down the right side with galloons or braids of mixed and pronounced colors. They wear boots like those of the men, the tops being of woolen or colored cotton material, and the soles of leather. They very seldom wear any kind of hat. The coiffure varies much. Their ornaments are generally of silver (very rarely of gold) and precious stones, but chiefly of coral. The stones —~ ae ee tetas r

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a ee SKETCH OF SIR LYON PLAYFAIR. 117 used are turquoise, lapis-lazuli, agate, aqua-marina, and amber, if the latter may be classed with the stones. They also wear ornaments made of a colored porcelain, etc. The very great people, such as gov- ernors, have large ornaments in gold. Most of their precious stones come from the neutral ground, or Singpho country, north of Upper Burmah, between the British province of Assam and China, also from India via Cashmere. When a woman prepares for sleep she simply wraps a man’s 7chru ba round her head, and lets the skirts fall about her, rolling herself up in these, and, with her boots and belt for a pil- low, she requires to seek no couch. On the subject of trade very little can be said. Not that the trade is insignificant by any means, but the system can be summed up in the one word “peddling.” Every family trades ; the Lamasseries trade ; the officials trade ; but it is in every case conducted on the peddler system. Members of a family attend to the trade of the family, and travel immense distances with their laden mule and yaks, exchanging their goods at different places as they go along. Shops are almost un- known on any scale. SKETCH OF SIR LYON PLAYFAIR. i Sir Lyon Playfair the British Association has for its president this year a gentleman who, to a thorough scientific training and a wide fame as a scientific man, unites a versatile adaptability to public affairs, and who has done many unquestionable services to the state in the lines of administration and of the advancement of great public questions. “He is eminent,” says the writer of a sketch of him in an English paper, “as a scientific and practical chemist, a sanitary reformer, an educational reformer, a man of public business, an ex- minister, and late chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Commons.” Dr. Piayrair is a son of Mr. George Playfair, Chief Inspector- General of Hospitals of Bengal, and was born at Meerut, Bengal, May 21, 1819. He was taught at St. Andrews and afterward at Glas- gow, where he studied chemistry under Sir Thomas Graham, till 1837, when he went to India for his health. Upon his return to England, with restored vigor, he rejoined Professor Graham, who was then in the London University, but soon after went to Giessen, where he con- tinued his chemical studies, in the “organic” branch of the science, under Liebig, and translated some of that author’s works into Eng- lish. Upon his return to Scotland he became manager of the Messrs. Thompson’s Calico-Printing Works at Clitheroe. In 1848 he was ap- pointed Professor of Chemistry, succeeding Dalton, in the Royal In- stitution at Manchester. In the next year he was appointed, upon the

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118 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. recommendation of Sir Robert Peel, on the commission to examine into the sanitary condition of large towns and populous districts, on which subject he made reports which are described as characterized by great ability. This work done, he was appointed chemical pro- fessor in the Museum of Practical Geology in London. He was given an important part in the preparations for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in visiting the manufacturing districts, in the performance of which duty he drew up a classification of the objects of industry, and en- tered into personal communication with the manufacturers, whereby he exercised an important and beneficial influence, and contributed much to the completeness of the Exhibition. He was appointed, in connection with this undertaking, Special Commissioner in charge of the Department of the Juries, and at its close was made a Companion of the Bath and appointed to a position in the household of the Prince Consort. He was again given the Department of Juries in connection with the Exhibition of 1862, and had the appointment of the six hun- dred jurors ; and in 1878 he was appointed chairman of the Finance Committee of the English Commission in the French Exhibition, un- der the presidency of the commission of the Prince of Wales. When the Department of Science and Art was established in 1853, he was appointed joint secretary with Mr. Henry Cole. Mr. Cole became secretary in 1856, and Dr. Playfair was made Inspector-General of Government Museums and Schools of Science. In 1857 he was elect- ed President of the Chemical Society of London, and in 1858 was appointed Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, where the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred (now Duke of Edin- burgh) enjoyed the privilege of his instructions. He has served his country under official commissions, both in mat- ters of scientific inquiry and in matters directly connected with politi- cal administration and legislation. Of the former classes of service may be mentioned his work in examining, in conjunction with Sir Henry de la Beche, into the suitableness of the coals of the United Kingdom for the purposes of the navy, his investigations into the causes of accidents in mines, and his services in the Royal Commis- sions on the Cattle Plague and on the Fisheries of the Scottish Coasts. The final outcome of the work of the last-named commission was the withdrawal of legislative restrictions on sea-fisheries. More intimately connected with politics, but still positions in which science has a part to perform, are or have been his positions as a member of Parliament, to which he was elected as a Liberal, in 1868, to represent the Univer- sities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews ; as Postmaster-General, to which he was appointed by Mr. Gladstone in 1873, and into which department “Nature” at the time expressed the hope that he would “endeavor to introduce something like scientific method ” ; as Privy- Councilor ; and as chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means and Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. Of a character partly _——J ——

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+ ’ ? — =e SKETCH OF SIR LYON PLAYFAIR. 119 allied to scientific or, at least, educational work and partly with poli- tics, and pre-eminently tributary to the public good and to scientific methods of administration was his work as President of the Civil- Service Inquiry Commission of 1874, which resulted in the production of the elaborate scheme for the reorganization of the civil service, under the operation of which the British departmental administration has attained its present condition of high integrity and efficiency. Pertinently to Sir Lyon Playfair’s work in these lines, Lord Ray- leigh, ex-president, said, in presenting him as its presiding officer to the Association at Aberdeen : “ As a general rule, I should think that the desertion of active scientific work for politics was a step in the wrong direction ; but, when one considers the valuable work done by Sir Lyon Playfair, the lucid manner in which he teaches our rather uninstructive legislators, the great influence he commands, and the valuable services he has rendered on many occasions, I feel that there are exceptions to the rule.” Professor Playfair’s efforts have been unceasingly directed to pro- moting the improvement of the standards of education, and the adop- tion of more thorough and practical methods and objects in the teach- ing of the elementary and higher schools. Presiding at a meeting of a school-teachers’ association in 1875, he referred to the subject of compulsory education, which was gradually becoming universal in the country, but which, he said, would be pure tyranny unless the educa- tion in the schools was increased and its quality raised. Quantity was all very good, but, unless quality accompanied it, there was not much gained. “If it was to be said that children of thirteen or fourteen years of age were merely to receive the same education as children of eight years of age, compulsory education would be but tyranny. Therefore, compulsory education involved higher education.” Of the direction toward which that increased and higher educa- tion should be pointed he made a clear and forcible statement in his address before the Educational Section of the Social Science Congress at Newcastle in 1870, when, having remarked that, “under our present system of elementary teaching, no knowledge whatever bearing on the life-work of the people reaches them by our system of state educa- tion,” and that “the mere tools of education are put into the hands of children during their school-time without any effort being made to teach them to use the tools for any profitable purpose whatever, so they get rusty or are thrown away altogether,” he unfolded his own views of the methods that should be pursued. “Books,” he said, “ought only to be accessories, not principals. The pupil must be brought in face of the facts through experiment and demonstration. He should pull the plant to pieces and see how it is constructed. He must vex the electric cylinder till it yields him its sparks. He must apply with his own hand the magnet to the needle. He must see water broken up into its constituent parts, and witness the violence

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120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. with which its elements unite. Unless he is brought into actual con- tact with the facts, and taught to observe and bring them into relation with the science evolved from them, it were better that instruction in science should be left alone, for one of the first lessons he must learn from science is not to trust in authority, but to demand proof for each asseveration. . . . Such education,” he added, “cannot be begun too early. The whole yearnings of a child are for the natural phenomena around, until they are smothered by the ignorance of the parent, He is a young Linnzus, roaming over the fields in search of flowers, He is a young conchologist or mineralogist, gathering shells or pebbles on the sea-shore. He is an ornithologist, and goes bird-nesting ; an ichthyologist, and catches fish. Glorious education in nature all this, if the teacher knew how to direct and utilize it. . . . Do not suppose that I wish the primary school to be a lecture-theatre for all or any of the ‘ologies.’ All the science which would be necessary to give a boy a taste of the principles involved in his calling, and an incitement to pursue them in his future life, might be given in illustration of other subjects. . . . I deny that the utilitarian view of primary edu- cation is ignoble. The present system is truly ignoble, for it sends the working-man into the world in gross ignorance of everything he is to do in it. The utilitarian system is noble, in so far as it treats him as an intelligent being, who ought to understand the nature of his occupation and the principles involved in it. The great advantage of directing education toward the pursuits and occupations of the people, instead of wasting it on dismal verbalism, is that, while it elevates the individual, it at the same time gives security for the future pros- perity of the nation.” In another address, delivered a few days afterward, he spoke of the “ Tnosculation of the Arts and Sciences,” or how they mutually grow out of and build up one another, and of the intimate union between science and labor. “It is not science,” he said, “ which creates labor or the industries flowing from it. On the contrary, science is the progeny of the industrial arts on the one side, and on the other of the experiences and perceptions which gradually attach themselves to these arts, so that the evolution of science from the arts is the first circumstance of human progress, which, however, quickly receives de- velopment and impulse from the science thus evolved. Industrial Labor, then, is one of the parents, and Science the child ; but, as often happens in the world, the son becomes richer than the father, and raises his position. . . . Science does not depend upon facts alone, but upon the increase of mental conceptions which can be brought to bear upon them ; these conceptions increase as slowly as the common knowl- edge derived from experience—they both descend by inheritance from one generation to another, until science in its progress becomes a pre- vision of new knowledge by light reflected from the accumulated com- mon knowledge of the past. In the progress of time common knowl- = —\- —

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—_, — SKETCH OF SIR LYON PLAYFAIR. 121 edge passes into scientific knowledge.” An indication of one of the ways in which he would have this system put into operation is given in a letter he wrote to the officers of a London school suggesting the devotion of a certain property to the formation of chemical and sci- entific museums in relation tocommerce. No boy enjoying the advan- tages of such a museum “need leave the upper classes of the school without being able to examine the various kinds of merchandise which he will meet with in his occupations, so far, at least, as would enable him to test chemically their relative excellences, or detect their adulter- ations. No boy need then leave the school without having had his physical and political geography copiously illustrated by objects of natural history, in their relation to the imports and exports, upon which the prosperity of the country so largely depends.” Professor Playfair is a member of numerous scientific and other societies, British and foreign, and of several foreign orders. Of his literary work, Lord Rayleigh remarked in introducing him to the British Association : “The other day, engaged in some work of my own, I happened to look up the catalogue of science papers issued by the Royal Society, and I came across the list of Sir Lyon Playfair’s early contributions to science, most of them made before I was born or thought of. One was on the new fatty acid in the butter of nut- meg. Another was ‘ Lectures on the Application of Physiology. to the Rearing and Feeding of Cattle.’ A third was on nitro-prussids, a new class of salts ; and a fourth on ‘ The Study of Abstract Science essential to the Progress of Industry.’” He edited, conjointly with W. Gregory, Baron Liebig’s “ Chemistry in its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology.” Besides numerous scientific memoirs, he has pub- lished, on general subjects, “Science in its Relations to Labor,” a speech delivered on the anniversary of the People’s College at Sheffield,'in 1853 ; “ The Food of Man in Relation to his Useful Work,” a lecture, 1865 ; “On Primary and Technical Education,” two lectures, 1870 ; “On Teaching Universities and Examining Boards,” an address to the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, 1872 ; “ Universities in their Relation to Professional Education,” an address to the St. Andrews Graduates’ Association, 1873 ; and “The Progress of Sanitary Re- form,” an address delivered at the annual meeting of the Social Sci- ence Association at Glasgow, 1874.

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122 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. EDITOR’S TABLE. MENTAL PROGRESS AND CULTURE. E have frequently maintained in these columns that a new type of culture is arising in modern times, which is not only strongly contrasted with the old ideal, but is, in essential respects, superior to it. This superi- ority is an inevitable result of the gen- eral laws of mental development by which successive ages become familiar with new orders of ideas. The prog- ress of science is undoubtedly too much looked upon as having to do with the physical world only, as affecting useful arts, inventions, industrial processes, and the accumulation of wealth, but as leaving all the higher and nobler inter- ests of mankind untouched. This isa narrow and erroneous view—the view of those who really do not know what science is accomplishing, nor how far- reaching and all-pervasive its results are destined to be. For it is one of the transcendent victories of science to have shown that the universe is bound together in all its parts by the most vital connections and a supreme unity, which make it impossible that there should be any great revelation respect- ing its fundamental order that does not throw light through all its departments. It may seem to certain minds a matter of no great moment that the physical and material sciences have come into existence, as they are assumed by such minds to belong to a lower sphere or grade of being, “the mere material,” and to leave unaffected the loftier sphere of human nature, represented by the spiritual life. But this partial and partisan view must disappear when it is thoroughly realized that science itself belongs to this higher sphere, and that man is exalted by it through the acquisition of new truth and of grander ideas than he had before science ap- peared. The progress of science is a progress of thought, and the new and greater ideas thus acquired are certain to become the new instruments of a new culture. This view was pointedly presented by Professor Cooke, of Harvard Ool- lege, in his recent book on “Scien- tific Culture,” in the following words: “What is it that ennobles literary culture but the great minds which, through this culture, have honored the nations to which they belong? The culture we have chosen is capable ot even greater things; not because sci- ence is nobler than art, for both are equally noble—it is the thought, the conception, which ennobles, and I care not whether it be attained through one kind of exercise or another—but we are capable of grander and nobler thoughts than Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare, or Newton, because we live in a later period of the world’s history, when through science the world has become richer in great ideas. It is, I repeat, the great thought which ennobles, and it ennobles because it raises to a higher plane that which is immortal in our manhood.” It is no longer possible to deny that science as the latest is also the highest and most perfect product of the mind of man. We can no more ignore or dis- credit the mental growth of the race than the mental growth of the individ- ual, and in neither case can childhood or youth yield the results of maturity. The literary ideal of culture, which em- bodies itself chiefly in the various arts of expression, was realized early and in the immaturity of human thought. Rude science, of course, also began early, but it did not become a meth- od of cultivating the mind until thou- sands of years bad passed. The work er

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EDITOR’S TABLE. 123 of science, as we now know it, is far too difficult and too grand to have been accomplished in the early or mid- die stages of human development. It now represents profounder study, more intense intellectual exertion, and a high- er discipline of the mental faculties than was possible until mankind had had a long and painful experience in the difficult task of explaining the mys- teries of Nature. By the necessities of the law of unfolding, therefore, the higher exploits of modern thought are not to be limited and measured by an- cient standards. The ideal of literary culture belongs to an older and, con- sequently, to a lower stage of progress, and it can not continue to hold in this age the unrivaled ascendency which has been accorded to it in the past. Science represents an independent movement of the human mind, and creates standards of its own. It can not be judged, and is not to be ranked, by those who have been cultivated in a totally different order of ideas. To the linguists, as such, and to the cultivators of liter- ature, as such, the understanding of the course of Nature is nothing. They could go on forever with their elegant arts in utter ignorance of it, and without missing it. The study of Nature, in a methodical way, was a new mental dis- pensation. The quest of truth by the methods that yield the truth, and be- cause of the value of truth, was a new ideal, and the preparation for it a new education. Under the old ideal of cult- ure truth was, in fact, disavowed as a supreme intellectual aim. The philoso- phers loved to seek it, but proclaimed that they did not care to find it; and there are still an emptiness, a hollow- ness, and a conventionality in the ideal of literary and scholastic culture, which betray its medisval origin. With the coming of science as a method of thought, there came a profounder se- riousness in the purposes of study, which could never have been origi- nated in the purely literary sphere. With the coming of science, the think- er was forced to take a new relation to the world in which he lived. He be- came a devotee of truth in a sense not before known, and subjected him- self to a moral as well as to an intel- lectual discipline, of which little could be understood in the earlier stages of mental cultivation. The literary ideal of culture is still practically supreme. It is historic, it is fortified by institutions, it reigns in education, it is a social passport, it is suited for display, and makes a mini- mum requisition of intellectual effort. For these reasons it is popular, and we need not wonder at the arrogance and exclusiveness of its pretensions. But it belongs to the past, is losing its hold upon the present; and, while it may never be superseded, it is yet bound to be subordinated in future to that ideal of mental culture which is the highest intellectual attainment of the latest time, and which is to be perfected through the light of that scientific knowledge into which the human mind has emerged in this wonderful period. The triumphs of intellect in the conquest of Nature and the acquisition of great ideas in the understanding of the universe are not to be without powerful influence in de- termining the cultivation of the edu- cated classes. The emancipation from narrow and groveling traditions may take place slowly, but the change is going on, and must go on, by the law of progress, until the newer and nobler knowledges become the highest instru- ments of mental cultivation. A CATHOLIC ON CATHOLIC BLUNDERS. Mr. St. Grorcz Mrvarr, the emi- nent naturalist, who is well known as an earnest member of the Roman Catho- lic Church, discusses in a recent number of the “ Nineteenth Century ” the ques- tion as to the degree of liberty which modern Oatholics may claim in the treatment of scientific subjects. His

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124 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. conclusion is that their liberty in the matter is practically unbounded. The reason he gives will seem to some a little singular, and may possibly cause more or less wincing in certain quar- ters; but Mr. Mivart urges it with great confidence and apparently with great sincerity. Briefly stated, it is this: that the highest authorities of the Church were so egregiously, so os- tentatiously, and so gratuitously wrong in the matter of Galileo and the earth’s motion round the sun, that no abso. lute authority can ever attach to simi- lar denunciations of scientific doctrines in future. Mr. Mivart brushes aside the reasonings by which it has been attempted to show that Galileo’s con- demnation was not formal. He in- “sists that it was as formal and em- phatic as it was in the power of the spiritual authorities of that day to make it; and yet, for all that, the persecuted man of science was in the right and his ecclesiastical judges were in the wrong. He says that it was a most fortunate blunder that they committed, seeing that it sets Catholics free for evermore to think for themselves upon all scien- tific matters, without exception or re- serve of any kind. As we remarked above, some may not quite like the manner in which Mr. Mivart sets about proving his thesis; but his argument would be a difficult one to controvert. Authorities who have once blundered about as badly as it has ever been given to human beings to blunder, can hardly come forward again as supreme arbiters in a question of science; and, should they so come forward, even loyal sons of the Church might decline to submit to their decisions. Mr. Mivart refers to an article con- tributed by an eminent Catholic theo- logian, Dr. Barry, about a year ago, to the “Dublin Review.” On turn- ing to it, we find the reverend doctor, to our great satisfaction, recognizing in the amplest manner the pre-eminent position occupied by science in the modern world, and claiming the largest degree of liberty for the scientific inveg- tigator. ‘ Facts,” he observes, “are ag unassailable in their way as first prin- ciples; nor can the exigencies of re- ality be set aside, unless we would give the men of physical science leave to disown the necessities of thought?” He quotes “a metaphysician of high an- thority at Rome, Father Palmieri,” as remarking that “one of the greatest calamities of the last three centuries has been the neglect of the study of physical science by orthodox Chris- tians.” It is needless to say that we find ourselves heartily in accord with the reverend father in this declaration, Had there been more study of physical science among orthodox Christians during the last three centuries, the cholera would not have carried off eighty thousand persons in Spain this year, nor would the comparatively small city of Montreal in Canada have had to bury small-pox victims this summer at the rate of two hundred a week. The reverend father holds that the Church is now reaping the reward of its dis- dain of science, in its loss of influence over large classes that once were em- braced in its obedience. All this, Dr, Barry says, must be remedied. ‘“Sci- ence is the common ground” on which the Church can meet its adversaries, and there it must meet them. “It is our duty to proclaim that we are not afraid of any argument or any assemblage of facts; but that we insist on giving its weight to every part of the evidence.” Of course, the learned doctor, like the valiant fighter that he seems to be, hopes to overcome his adversaries, With that we are not concerned: what we note with pleasure is, that such strong ground should be taken up by eminent theologians of the most con- servative communion in Christendom, in favor of a bold and thorough explo- ration of the scientific field. In so far as they approach modern scientific theories in a critical spirit, they will ree

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re LITERARY NOTICES. 125 do only good, and may, if they come with the requisite preparation, do a t deal of good. Neither Science nor Philosophy has yet spoken its last word; and all true men of science will be thankful for any help they may get toward throwing aside their errors and rising to fuller and clearer perceptions of the truth. DR. PLAYFAIR ON STATE SCIENCE. We print the first portion of Sir Lyon Playfair’s recent inaugural address as President of the British Association. It is unconscionably long, so that we must postpone to next month his con- cluding sections on “‘Science and In- dustry,” and “ Abstract Science the Condition of Progress.” Sir Lyon fol- lows the precedents of his predeces- sors in discussing what he knows most about, for he is probably the most promi- nent and experienced scientific office- holder and engineer of state science gen- erally that is to be found in the British Empire. He was early taken into the royal family, and has ever since been on intimate relations with those upper classes which constitute the governing power of England, and this fact is not without its bearing on his discussion of “Science and Secondary Education.” Of course, he is driven upon the question of science and the classics, and must recognize, as does all the world, that science is scandalously neglected in leading British schools, while excessive attention is given to classical studies, This educational issue in England is in- tricately involved with the English social system. Olassics and science is a ques- tion of classes: science is for the lower classes, classics for the higher classes. A succession of parliamentary commis- sions has deplored the neglect of sci- ence in the great endowed schools, but with very little effect. The Duke of Devonshire was compelled to report, in 1878, “considering the increasing importance of science to the mate- rial interests of the country, we can not but regard its almost total exclusion from the training of the upper and mid- dle classes as little less than a national misfortune.” But why should the mid- dle-class schools be here ranked with the upper-class schools? Because they imitate them. Dr. Playfair says, “ Un- fortunately, the other grammar-schools which educate the middle classes look to the higher public schools as a type to which they should conform.” But the upper-class schools are places where science is despised and the classics wor- shiped. Sir Lyon Playfair, although professedly representing science, is not the man to condemn a settled upper- class English policy. He virtually gives up the contest in saying, “The great public schools of England will continue to be the gymnasia for the upper class- es, and should devote much of their time to classical and literary culture.” What is this but yielding everything, and reducing the whole movement for a higher scientific education to a farce? If classics are the superior mental pabu- lum of aristocrats and gentlemen, and science only suited for plebeians, then is the English resistance to scientific education right, as it would be a degra- dation and a step backward toward bar- barism. The affiliations of classics and aristocracy are old and intimate, and still profoundly cherished in countries like England and Germany; but when eminent scientists like Hoffman and Playfair avail themselves of great occa- sions to indorse them to the damage of science, we say, deliver us from our nominal friends. LITERARY NOTICES. Mopern Scrence anp Mopern Tooveut. By 8. Larne, Esq., M. P. London: Chap- man & Hall; Philadelphia: Lippincott. Pp. 320. Price, $4. Bors the plan of this book and the man- ner of its execution will give it a strong claim upon many readers. The first six chapters, comprising more than half the vol- ume, are devoted to summing up the large

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126 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. results of modern science, in so far as they have given rise to new views of nature and the universe. The first chapter, under the title of “Space,” states the striking facts that have been disclosed in later times con- cerning the magnitude and order of celestial phenomena. It tells of the revolution of hu- man ideas, on a great scale, which has been wrought by astronomy. Chapter II takes up the conception of “ Time,” as disclosed in the revelations of modern geology, and the grand course of changes that have been brought about in vast periods, with a sum- mary of its vital bearings on man’s concep- tion of the world. In the next chapter, un- der the title “ Matter,” an account is given of the constitution of nature in its physical and chemical elements, as shown by the spectroscope and illustrated by the universal law of the conservation of energy and the views that have been arrived at concerning the birth and death of worlds. Mr. Laing then gives a chapter to the subject of “Life,” which is descriptive of the views now entertained of its course of develop- ment upon earth, and the biological laws which have been established in recent times. He next takes up the subject of the “ An- tiquity of Man,” and gives a very clear state- ment of the evidence, from which it is in- ferred that the human race is far older than was formerly supposed. This subject is pursued still further in Chapter VII, on “ Man’s Place in Nature.” The doctrine of evolution is broadly assumed, and man and civilization are treated as its products. In this first portion of his work Mr. Laing un- dertakes no more than to give a popular statement of the great facts and theories on these several subjects, which we owe to science, with no attempt to propound views of his own. His work is excellently done. The presentation is kept in due proportion, is trustworthy, and is very clearly and in- structively written. We know of no other so valuable a summary of what science has accomplished in subverting old opinions, and substituting a new and higher order of knowledge. Part II is devoted to “ Modern Thought,” and here the author takes independent ground, and, ceasing to follow authority, be- comes responsible for his own opinions. His object now is to trace the consequences of those great revolutions of ideas which we owe to science, as they affect philosophical and religious opinion and current concep. tions of common and practical life. He main. tains that the great body of traditional thought has been variously but profoundly disturbed by modern scientific enlighten. ment. Especially are old creeds and philoso. phies undermined and shattered by scientific progress, and “the endeavor to show how much of religion can be saved from the ship. wreck of theology has been the main object of the second part” of this work. Supernat- uralism is rejected without reservation, and it is elaborately argued that Christian mira. cles have no better support than the alleged miracles of other religious systems. It is the view of the author that, only as the deeply implanted errors of superstition are eradicated, will it be possible to gain the great advantages to mankind which must ultimately come from the immense modern extensions of scientific truth. Mr. Laing handles these topics with entire freedom, but with great sincerity, and closes his pref- ace by remarking, “I can only say that I have endeavored to treat these subjects in a reverential spirit, and that the conclusions arrived at are the result of a conscientious and dispassionate endeavor to arrive at ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’” PrenistToric Fishing in Evrope anp Norra America. By Cartes Rav. Washing- ton: The Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 342, In the débris left by the cave-men of Europe are found small bone implements, pointed at both ends, whose use can not be definitely stated. The Indians of Washing- ton Territory use similar implements for catching fish and birds by tying a line round the middle and baiting them, and this fact suggests that the European implements may have been used as bait-holders in like man- ner. Other relics of the paleolithic fisher- men described by Dr. Rau are barbed har- poon-heads of reindeer-horn and pieces of horn and bone, bearing scratches which, with more or less effort, can be accepted as designed to represent fish and fishing scenes. To the neolithic period belong the relics of the Swiss lake-villages. Among them are a

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fish-hooks and harpoon-heads of bone and horn, fragments of nets, and certain per- forated stone disks, which may have served as line or net sinkers. Similar implements have been found at other places in Europe. Fish-hooks of bronze also have been found on the sites of the lake-villages. Dr. Rau gives figures of about thirty bronze hooks. They vary much in form and size; a part only are barbed, but nearly all are bent over at the top to form an eye for the at- tachment of the line. The second part of the memoir treats of American aboriginal fishing, and is based on the materials contained in the archzo- logical division of the National Museum, of which division Dr. Rau has charge. Some of the hooks of aboriginal manufacture are similar in general form to ordinary modern fish-hooks, but only one regularly barbed specimen is known to the author. It was found in Madison County, New York, and is thought to have been made since 1600, and in imitation of the hooks brought to this country by Europeans. The hooks of bone and shel! found in California are pe- culiar, The curved point approaches so closely to the shank that some persons have doubted their ever being used as fishing im- plements. It would probably be impossible to hook fish with hooks of this shape, but just such hooks have been brought from Pacific islands by travelers, who report that the natives are very successful with them in taking fish that bolt the hook instead of nibbling at it. No bait is used, as the hook itself looks somewhat like a worm. Twenty- eight dart-heads of bone and horn are here figured, most of which the author believes were armatures for fishing implements. Twenty of them have barbs on one side only, while the others are barbed on both sides. Several dart-heads of copper, each of which has a single barb, are in the col- lection of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. A large number of grooved, notched, or perforated stones have been found, which must have been used as sink- ers for fish-lines and nets. Similar stones are used as sinkers by both Indian and white fishermen to-day. Two specimens of copper sinkers have come within the knowl- edge of the author. Stone carvings and pottery representing fishes have also been LITERARY NOTICES. 127 found in this country. The evidence that the American aborigines used mollusks as food is abundant; great heaps of oyster, clam, mussel, and other shells are found along our sea-coasts and river-banks, In- termingled with these shells are bones of various animals, implements, fragments of pottery, and vestiges of fireplaces. Dr. Rau appends to this memoir fifty-eight pages of extracts from various writings of the last four centuries, in which reference is made to aboriginal fishing in North Ameri- ca, and some notices of fishing implements and fish representations discovered south of Mexico. The text is illustrated by four hun- dred and five figures. Town Grotocy : Tae Lesson or rue Puina- DELPHIA Rocks. Studies of Nature along the Highways and among the Byways of a Metropolitan Town. By AnGeLo Herirrin, Professor of Inver- tebrate Paleontology at, and Curator-in- charge of, the Academy of Natural Sci- ences of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Published by the Author. Academy of Natural Sciences, 1885. Pp. 152, with Seven Plates. Nor only from the simple to the com- plex, and from the concrete to the abstract, but from the immediate to the remote, lie the true directions of mental movement in the growth of knowledge and in rational study. To begin where there is much fa- miliarity, some knowledge, and more or less curiosity and interest, and pass on to that which is remoter and deeper, is the true meth- od. But, strange to say, the reverse method is that usually pursued. Instead of start- ing with the known and building upon it, the custom is to begin with the distant and unknown, and often, indeed, stay there so long that the knowledge acquired in many cases never becomes a reality at all. Geol- ogy, particularly, is liable to be pursued in this way, general ideas being accumulated from the books, with little application to facts within the limit of common experience. The present volume is an admirable ex- emplification of the true method of geolog- ical study. The author takes up the facts with which all Philadelphians are familiar, and in which they may be therefore assumed to have a certain degree of interest, and connects them in a very simple and instruc- tive way with the great body of geological

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128 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. truths in which these facts find their ex- ; Hunt has arrived at his conclusions from planation. The rock systems in the Phila- delphia neighborhood are described, together with the changes which have led to the pres- ent condition of things, and the accompany- ing succession of life as disclosed by fossil relics. ‘“‘ White-Marble Steps and Window- facings,” “ Brown-stone Fronts and Jersey Mud,” “Philadelphia Brick and Cobble- stone,” are the familiar texts used by the author to interpret the wonderful workings of Nature in the immeasurable past, and which, through long chains of causes and effects, have given rise to the present order of things. The work is admirably done, and the studious citizens of the Quaker metropolis owe their best thanks to the young geologist who has performed the task. It would be a good thing if we could have something of the kind in New York. PRoceEDINGS AND TRANSACTIONS OF THE Royat Society or Canapa, 1884, Mont- real: Dawson Brothers. Tus second volume, issued by the Roy- al Society of Canada, comes to us with its united departments of literature and science, in French or English, as the language of the contributor may be. Of the scientific mem- oirs only need we here speak; they are va- ried and excellent. Dr. George Lawson, Professor of Botany at Dalhousie College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, gives a revision of the Canadian Ranunculaceae, in confirmation and extension of a monograph published in 1870. During fifteen years he has given direction to the observation of this import- ant order by botanists afield throughout the wide provinces and territories of the Domin- ion. Direction of this kind gives value to much of what might otherwise be but dis- connected observation. Dr. Lawson’s mem- oir, though extensive, is incomplete in cer- tain groups to which he directs the attention of Canadian botanists. Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, of Montreal, presi- dent of the society, presents a review of the much controverted Taconic question in geol- ogy, and shows ground for believing that the newest member of the great series of pre-Cambrian, crystalline, stratified rocks is what is called Lower Taconic, or Tacon- ian, and is widely distributed over North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Dr. protracted study in America and Europe. From the same eminent geologist we have a paper on the “ Origin of Crystalline Rocks.” He approaches the great problem of the origin of such rocks as granite and gneiss, and after a discussion of the Neptu. nian, igneous, and the metamorphic schools, rejects them all as untenable, in favor of what he calls the crenitic hypothesis, and claims it as a legitimate development of the Neptunism of Werner. This hypothesis supposes the existence of a primary Plutonic stratum, the outer layer of the original aque- ous globe, which, more or less modified by the subsequent penetration of water, has been the direct source of eruptive rocks like basalt and dolerite, and at the same time has furnished indirectly and by aqueous solution the elements of all granitic and gneissic rocks. This radical and far-reach- ing hypothesis will doubtless command the attention of chemists and geologists the world over. Other papers of interest, on topics chem- ical, zodlogical, and physical, evidence the activity of original research among men of science in Canada. Tue CopreR-BEARING Rocks or Lake Supr- rior. By Rotanp Durr Irvine. Wash- ington: Government Printing - Office. Pp. 464, with Twenty-nine Plates, Tuts is a paper prepared in connection with the United States Geological Survey under Mr. Clarence King. It aims at a gen- eral exposition of the nature, structure, and extent of the series of rocks in which occurs the native copper of Lake Superior ; a work which has never been attempted before, nor, it is asserted, could it have been accom- plished sooner. Much had been written on different parts of the Lake Superior basin, but gaps still existed in the surveys, and much remained to be learned concerning the nature of the crystalline rocks. These obstacles have been removed by the later surveys, and the gaps that still remained have been filled by the personal observa- tions of Mr. Irving and his aids. All the information at command has been examined and drawn upon and is used, and the views of different authors, often conflicting, are discussed in the present work. -

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LITERARY NOTICES. 129 ConTRIBUTIONS TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE Oper Mesozoic Fiora or Vircinia. By Wiuuiam Morris Fontains. Washing- ton: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 144, with Fifty-seven Plates. Tue Mesozoic beds of Virginia are all situated east of the Blue Ridge, and most of them are found within the terrain of the crystalline Azoic rocks. The beds are di- vided into two classes, which appear to have but little in common with one another. The older Mesozoic beds, which furnished the plants described in this book, are of fresh- water or brackish-water deposit, and often contain coals. The younger formations also contain plants, but of a totally different character from that of the plants of the older Mesozoic. The most important of all the beds passes about ten miles west of Richmond, and is about thirty miles long | and six broad. It contains nearly all the coal and yields nearly all the plants found in the formation. Besides the plants found in these beds, and for the sake of compari- son with them, plates and descriptions are given from Emmons’s work of plants from the older Mesozoic strata of North Caro- lina, most of which, however, coming from strata above the coal, are supposed to be of a somewhat later age than the Virginia plants. Tur Q. P. Inpex ror 1884. Fourth annual issue. Bangor: Q. P. Index. Pp. 57. Price, $1. In this issue, which forms No. 17 of the Q. P. series, the numbers for 1884 of fifty periodicals, and of the United States con- sular reports and education circulars, are indexed. The list includes all the impor- tant American literary magazines and re- views, most of the British literary maga- zines which have a circulation in this coun- try, and about a dozen German periodicals, The “Revue de Belgique” is included, but not the “ Revue des Deux Mondes.” Since the British reviews were indexed in No. 16, they do not appear in this issue. When one realizes that about seventy-five thou- sand pages are indexed in these fifty-seven pages, it becomes evident that Mr. Griswold has brought the art of abbreviating to a wouderful state of efficiency. He is also & spelling reformer who has the courage of his convictions, for he writes “ forein,” VOL, XxvilI.—9 “welth,” “tarif,” “primitiv,” “fotografy,” “iland,” ete. CommerctaL Orcanic Anatysis. By At- rrRED H., Auien, F.1.C., F.C. 8. Sec ond edition, revised and enlarged. Vol. I. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 476. Price, $4.50. Tae edition of this work now publish- ing is to appear in three volumes instead of two, as in the first edition. A new arrange- ment of the subject-matter has been adopt- ed, co that each volume may treat more especially of kindred products, The vol- ume now presented is devoted chiefly to the consideration of bodies of the fatty series and of vegetable origin, and includes chap- ters on the alcohols, ethers, and other neu- tral derivatives of the alcohols, sugars, starch and its isomers, and vegetable acids. | In revising this volume, the author has made considerable changes and additions | in order to bring the information contained up to the latest possible date, so that very few pages remain as they stood in the first edition. He promises as thorough treat- ment of the rest of the work. INsoMNIA; AND OTHER Disorpers or SiEer. By Henry M. Lyman, M.D. Chicago: W. T. Keener. Pp. 289. Price, $1.50. Tas book discusses in a clear and read- able style one of the severest afflictions to which man is liable. In the discussion the author covers an even wider ground than is indicated in his title, and considers all the phenomena of sleep, both normal and trou- bled. He begins with a full chapter on “The Nature and Cause of Sleep,” which is followed by the consideration of the imme- diate subject of the treatise—insomnia, or wakefulness, the remedies for it and the treatment of it in particular diseases; and after this are given chapters on “ Dreams,” “ Somnambulism,” and “ Artificial Somnam- bulism, or Hypnotism.” List or Tests (Reacents). By Hans M. Wiper. New York: P. W. Bedford. Pp. 88. Price, $1. Tue nine hundred and fifty-three tests are described briefly under the names of the originators, which are arranged alpha- betically, and a subject-index is added. The very common tests are not included.

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130 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Descriptive America. A Geographical and Industrial Monthly Magazine; L. P. Brockett, Editor. Pp. 32. Price, $5 a year; 50 cents a number. Eaca number of this publication is de- voted to a particular State. The number before us, which is marked Vol. I, No. 6, is given to Georgia. It includes a fine map of the State, a list of cities, towns, villages, and stations, an editorial article on interna- tional exhibitions, and chapters describing the State in general and relating to cotton and rice culture, lands, population, immi- gration, education, the representative men, the religious condition, government, finances, debt, and taxation and history of the State, with a statistical table of counties. Several of these articles are furnished by men disl tinguished or representative in the specia- fields to which the papers respectively relate. Van Nosrranp’s Scrence Serizrs. New York: D. Van Nostrand. Price, 50 cents each. No. 73. Symsotic Atcesra ; or, The Al- gebra of Algebraic Numbers. By Professor Wiuiam Carn. Pp. 131. The object of this essay is the discussion of negative quantities of algebra, with the purpose of finding a logically developed system that shall include such quantities as special cases. The volume also includes some criti- cal notes on the methods of reasoning em- ployed in geometry. No. 74, Testinc-Macnines: Their His- tory, Construction, and Use. By Arruur V. Assorr. Pp. 190. Mr. Abbott has been engaged for several years in developing and applying methods of testing the strength of materials, and in this book explains such of his most successful methods as seem likely to be generally useful and interesting. No. 75. Recent Progress 1n Dynamo- Execrric Macuines. By Professor Sirva- nus P. Tompson. Pp. 113. This is a re- print of lectures delivered before the Eng- lish Society of Arts on the subject indicated in the title, which were supplementary to a previous series of lectures on the theory of the dynamo and its functions as a mechani- cal motor. No. 77. SraptaSurverine. By Arraur Winstow. Pp. 148. This hand-book con- tains a complete exposition of the theory of stadia measurements, with directions for its application in the field. Tables for the reduction of observations are added which the author has used in the Geological Sur. vey of Pennsylvania, and with them the trigonometrical four-place tables. No. 78. Toe Sream-Encine Inprcator. By Wim Barnet Le Van. Pp. 169, In this book the indicator and its object are described; its construction and action are explained; and the method of calculating the horse-power of engines is illustrated, An endeavor has also been made to explain the most important parts of the theory and action of steam, and to show the modes of working engines that have been found to be most advantageous. No, 79. Tue Figure or tne Earrn. By Frank C. Roperts, C. E. Pp. 95. In this book the historical data in connection with the figure of the earth are presented, and the important mathematical principles for the deduction of it upon the spheroidal hy. pothesis are arranged in a compact form. No. 80. Herattuy Founpations ror Hovussgs. By Gienn Brown. Pp. 143. This is'a reprint of a serial paper published in the “Sanitary Engineer ” during 1884, with fifty-one illustrations from drawings made for the articles by the author. Maps or THE Dominton or Canapa. Tele- ph and Signal Service. Sir Hector . Lancevin, Minister of Public Works. In sheets. THESE maps are intended to be full, and are very handsomely executed. The group now under notice contains two sheets of the Eastern section, two of the West-Central section, two of the Western or Pacific coast section, with a Mercator chart of telegraphic lines and electric-cable connections through- out the world; and a map on a spherical projection showing the world’s submarine cables and principal telegraph lines. Nores From THE PrysioLocicaL LABORATORY or THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. Edited by N. A. Raxpotrn and Samugt G. Drxon. Philadelphia. Pp. 88. A cotxection of “ brief records of facts of interest brought to light in the course of physiological study.” The constant aim of the writers has been to present these facts with the greatest conciseness compatible with scientific accuracy.

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w’s AmericaN NEWSPAPER - oo sees. Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer & Son. Pp. 750. Price, $3. Tne publishers have taken great pains to make this work complete and correct up to the day of going to press. It contains a fully descriptive list of newspapers and periodicals in the United States and Canada, arranged by States in geographical sections, and by towns in alphabetical order; another list, descriptive as to distinctive features and circulation, of newspapers inserting ad- vertisements, arranged in States by coun- ties; a third list, of class and professional publications, and publications in foreign languages. From these lists may also be obtained other information about news- papers; and in connection with them there is given a description, with statistical infor- mation, accounts of manufacturing enter- prises, and political notes, respecting each county. Finally, the book contains an al- phabetical list of cities, towns, and villages in the United States having a population of five thousand and upward. How To prain A House: Practical Informa- tion for Householders. By Grorce E. Wanna, Jr., M. Inst. C. E. New York: Henry Holt &Co. Pp. 222, with Twenty Illustrations. Price, $1.25. Cotonex, Warne has given long and at- tentive study to the matter of house-drain- age, and as a result he has views of his own upon the subject which will be found stated in the present volume. Not by any means that the book has been written merely to promulgate his own notions ; it has been prepared because, in the author’s opinion, it will prove the best and safest guide in a field of practice of vital importance, and still far from settled in its methods. The au- thor holds that there has been unquestiona- bly a steady improvement in recent years in dealing with the difficult problems of, the disposal of household waste ; each step, how- ever imperfect in itself, being better than the condition of things which preceded it. Such, indeed, have been the progress made and the success achieved as greatly to strengthen the expectation that an ideally perfect sys- tem of house-drainage may soon become an accomplished and accepted fact. Meantime improvement is along various lines of trial, with a certain inevitable rivalship of views | LITERARY NOTICES. 131 and devices, Colonel Waring does not, how- ever, in the present volume attempt to give an account of the various ideas and contriv- ances, however excellent they may be, that have now come into use; but having stud- ied them all, and had large experience of the subject, he has fixed upon his own meth- ods, and devotes his work to an exposition of them. We have read the book carefully through, and have found it unusuully interesting and instructive. The preliminary remarks on house-drainage and health are impressive and decisive, and the explanation of prin- ciples and the description of plans and con- struction are full, clear, and perfectly intel- ligible. The book abounds in common-sense suggestions, and is certain to prove valuable to all house-constructors and housekeepers who are seeking correct information upon the subject. Batioontne: A Concise Sxetcn or rts His- TORY AND PrincipLes. By G. May. New York: D. Van Nostrand, Pp. 96, with One Plate. Tue author believes that, though practi- cal aérial navigation has so far been found unattainable, the pursuit of it has resulted in something, though it be little, to facili- tate art and scientific progress. In this work, besides reviewing the history of bal- looning, he seeks to ascertain and define the obstacles which interfere with its active progress, the mechanical means necessary to surmount them, and the natural power by which those means are to be put in op- eration ; and to point out certain regulations and restrictions by which they must be gov- erned in their application. Tae Locx-Jaw or Inrants (7rismus Nas- centium). Its History, Cause, Preven- tion, and Cure. By J. F. Hartigan, M.D. New York: Bermingham & Co. Pp. 123. Tue disease in question is often fatal during the first month of infantile growth, but doctors have not been able to ascertain or agree upon its cause. The author main- tains a theory which was advanced by Dr. J. Marion Sims some thirty years ago, but never received attention—that it is occa- sioned by mechanical pressure of the occip- ital or parietal bones on the brain.

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132 Matruvs axp nis Work. By James Bonar. London: Macmillan & Co. Pp, 4382. Price, $4. No author is more talked about, when questions of political economy or social sci- ence are under consideration, than Malthus ; no dogma than what is called the Malthu- sian theory. But, according to the view of the author of this book, very few of those who have so much to say about the man and his dectrines know what they really are. “Malthus,” he says, “was the best abused man of the age”; and the temper and abundance of the abuse that has been launched against him “ amount to a demon- stration” that his opponents are in the wrong, or that his logic is too sound for them. The points at issue were fully enough discussed in his own time between Malthus and his adversaries, “and no one who fairly considers the extent of the discussion, and the ability of the disputants, can fail to believe that we have, in the records of this controversy, ample materials for forming our own judgment on the whole question. .. . Such a privilege is seldom used. The world has no time to consult authorities, though it likes them to be within reach of consulta- tion. When an author becomes an authori- ty, he too often ceases to be read, and his doctrines, like current coin, are worn by use till they lose the clear image and superscrip- tion of the issuer. In this way an author’s name may come to suggest, not his own book, but the current version of his doc- trines,” and this is seldom a wholly fair one. Such, Mr. Bonar seems to think, has becn the case with Malthus; and the pur- pose of the present volume is to give an ex- act account of his life, his teachings, and the object and character of his book. Annvat Report or THE Boarp or Recents OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION FOR 1883. Washington: Government Print- ing-Office. Pp. 959. Tuts report contains much valuable in- formation concerning scientific work and progress in various departments in this and other countries. One of its excellent feat- ures is its running summaries of the prog- ress of investigations carried on by the members of Government surveys and expe- ditions, and by private persons in corre- spondence with the Institution, which cover THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, a wide ground. A full account is given of the inauguration of the statue of Professor Henry, with the memorial address of Chief. Justice Waite, the oration of President Noah Porter, and a representation of the statue. Among the special papers are the accounts of progress during the year in the several departments of science, and a num. ber of accounts of explorations of mounds and other anthropological work. Cuoxera: ITs Origin, History, Causation, Symptoms, Lesions, PREVENTION, axp TREATMENT. By ALrreD Sritzi, M.D, Philadelphia: Lea Brothers & Co, Pp, 164. Tse author has enjoyed the advantage of studying cholera in two epidemics, and has prepared this volume in view of the general newly awakened interest on the sub- ject and the agitation of Dr. Koch's germ theory. While declining to accept the doc. trine of Dr. Koch and his supporters as demonstrated, he seeks “to exhibit the spe- cific nature of cholera by evidence drawn from its origin and mode of propagation; to disabuse the medical profession of the erroneous notion that the disease ever origi- nates de novo ; to maintain the necessity of quarantine, not in the literal but in the offi- cial sense of that word; to point out the channels through which cholera may be dif- fused ; and to describe the measures which experience has sanctioned to prevent its dissemination and cure those who are at- tacked by it.” Srrver-Lzap Drrosits or EvrreKxa, Nevapa, By Josern Story Curtis. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 200. Frou the year 1869 to 1883, Eureka district produced about $60,000,000 of geld and about 225,000 tons of lead. Owing to the fact that the deposits of this district have been more completely developed than any other of a similar character on the Pa cific slope, they offer very full opportunities for the scientific investigation of formations of this class. The information on which this report is based was collected during field-work by the author in 1881 and 1883, and from the reports of Mr. George F. Beck- er’s preliminary examination of the more important mines, and of Mr. Arnold Hague’s survey of the geology of the district in 1880. \ 4 * /_

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In the present report, Mr. Curtis gives a clear and systematically ordered description of the district, its geology, and the several mining locations, with their characteristic features. Among the topics particularly considered are the surface geology, the struct- ure, and the ores of Prospect Mountain and Ruby Hill, the ore deposits, the source and manner of deposition of the ores, the occur- rence of water in the mines, the methods of mining and timbering, and of working the ores, an account of Adams Hill, and “the future of the Eureka district.” We are pleased to observe that Mr. Curtis’s work in this field has elicited warm commendation and high testimonials to its value from for- eign experts: Herr V. Groddeck, Director of the Clausthal School of Mines, Austria, hav- ing studied the report “with the greatest interest,” has expressed his appreciation of “the instruction and suggestions contained in it,” and adds; “It is always wonderfully pleasing to me to see with what intensity and with what rich results your country pursues the study of ore deposits.” Herr F. Posepny, Inspector of Mines for Austria, who has visited Eureka, and has drawn some interesting comparisons between its features and those of some of the Hunga- rian mines, characterizes this work as one which “is destined to play an important part in the technical literature of ore de- posits, When I glance over what I know from actual inspection, and what I know through the literature of the ore deposits of your country, I am more and more convinced that North America will be the coming school for the study of ore deposits.” Herr Posepny adds that he is much interested in the results of Mr. Curtis’s examination of country rock for minute quantities of met- als, as the subject has been taken up in his own country from a practical stand-point. Meworrs or rae NationaL Acapemy or Sct- ences. Vol. II, 1883. Washington : Government Printing-Office. Pp. 262. Tue present volume contains four mem- oirs, of which the most voluminous is the full account of the eclipse of the sun, of May, 1883, and of the United States Expe- dition to Caroline Island, in the South Pa- cific Ocean, to view it. Included in this memoir are several special papers of con- LITERARY NOTICES. 133 siderable general interest, among which are the narrative of the voyage to Caroline Island and return, the history and general description of the island, various scientific and technical memoranda respecting it, its botany, zodlogy, and butterflies ; and par- ticular reports of eclipse observations by eleven associates of the expedition, The whole is attractively illustrated with maps and views of the island and its peculiar scenery, and representations of various features of the eclipse. The second mem- oir is Professor S. P. Langley’s paper on the “ Experimental Determination of Wave- lengths in the Invisible Prismatic Spec- trum”; the third is by Professor William H. Brewer, “ On the Subsidence of Particles in Liquids”; and the fourth is the paper of Alexander Graham Bell “ Upon the For- mation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race,” of which we have already given a brief abstract. Drinocerata. (United States Geological Sur- vey, Vol. X.) By Oruniet C. Manrsu, in charge of the Division of Paleontology. Washington. Tus monograph contains the full record of an extinct order of mammals, of which the author has made special studies. The only locality where remains of the Dinocerata have been found is an Eocene lake-basin in Wyoming, and there his first discoveries were made by Professor Marsh in 1870. The specimens collected in this and suc- cessive expeditions are now in the museum at Yale College, and represent more than two hundred individuals of the Dinocerata, besides the remains of many other verte- brata hitherto unknown. Seventy-five of these have portions of the skull preserved, and in more than twenty it is in good con- dition. Three genera have been established in this order: Dinoceras, Marsh ; Tinoceras, Marsh; and Uintatherium, Leidy. The skull of Dinoceras mirabile is long and narrow ; it supports on the top three pairs of bony elevations or horn-cores, which form its most conspicuous feature, and suggested the name of the genus (Sewds, terrible, and xépas,a horn). There are no upper incisors; the canines in the male are enormously de- veloped, forming sharp, trenchant, decurved tusks. The brain of the Dinocerata is se-

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134 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. pecially remarkable for its diminutive size. From an extended comparison of the brain- cavities of. Tertiary mammals, Professor Marsh has found that there was a gradual increase in the higher portion of the brain during this period, and that the brain of a mammal fitted for a long survival was pre, portionately larger than the average. The remains of Zinoceras are found in the same lake-basin, but at a higher level, and the evidence is clear that it was a later and more specialized form. Tinoceras ingens, as he stood in the flesh, was about six and a half feet in height to the top of the back, and about twelve feet long. His weight was probably at least six thousand pounds. Dinoceras mirabile was about one fifth smaller, In an appendix Professor Marsh gives a synopsis of Dinocerata, in which all the known species of the order, about thirty, are recognized, and a bibliography follows the synopsis. With the aim of making the illustrations tell the main story to anato- mists, the author has incorporated in the volume fifty-six fine, large lithographic plates, and nearly two hundred original woodcuts, representing all the more im- portant specimens of the Dinocerata now known, and including at least one figure of every species. Patzonrotocy or tHe Evrexa District. By Cuarves DoouitrLe Watcorr. Wash- ington : Government Printing-Office. Pp. 298, with Twenty-four Plates. Ix this report are presented the results of a careful survey of a district with a rich fauna, through thirty thousand feet of Palw- ozoic strata, representing the Cambrian, Si- lurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks. It is regarded by Mr. Arnold Hague, geolo- gist in charge of the district survey, as “the most important contribution yet made to the invertebrate paleontology of the basin ranges, and of great value in its bearings upon the geology of the Cordilleras.” Tae Manvat or Pronocrarny. By Benn Pitman and Jerome B. Howarp. Cin- cinnati: Phonographic Institute. Pp. 144. Tuts is a revised edition of the “ Man- ual” by Benn Pitman, the first edition of which appeared in 1855. While a number of new features appear in its pages which were not in its predecessor, the plan of pre. senting the system is essentially the same. Such changes and additions to the system, and such only, as are of real importance have been adopted. CuemicaL Prosiems. By Dr. Kart Sray. mER. Translated by W. S. Hosxrysoy, Philadelphia: P. Biakiston, Son & Co, Pp. 111. Price, 75 cents. A ust of questions on the properties of the elements, chemical phenomena, and manipulation, to be answered by the stu. dent through experiment or by calculation from what he knows. The answers are given in the latter part of the book. Tae Srupents’ Manual or EXercises For TRANSLATING INTO GERMAN. By A. Lope. man. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Pp. 87. Price, 50 cents. Tue exercises in this volume have been prepared with the twofold purpose of fur. nishing to the student material for trans. lating into German, and of assisting him in the analysis and translation of the more difficult illustrations in Brandt’s “ German Grammar,” to which he is constantly re. ferred. A full vocabulary, notes, refer- ences, and general suggestions are provided. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. H en Peroxide. By William B. Clark M. ty Tadmeapeln Ind. Pp. 12 . The Evolution of Revelation. B James Morris Whiton, Ph.D: New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 84, 25 cents. Recitations and Readings. New York: J. 8. Ogilvie & Co. Pp. 126. 10 cents. Voice in Singers. By Carl H. von Klein, M. D, Dayton, Ohio. Pp. 8 OF San Pp ie By Charles Reemelin. Cin- cin Pp. Canals and Railroads; Ship-Canals and Ship- Railways. Pp. 16. The Interoceanic Problem, its Scientific Solution Pp. 40, with Six Plates. By Elmer L. Corthell. The External Therapeutics of Pulmonary Con- sumption. By Thomas J. Mays, M. D. Philadel- phia. Pp. 16. Development of Crystallization ; and Geology in the Washey Diatict” By’ Arooid Arnold Ly ~ and Jo- seph H. P. -— Government Printing-Office. Pp. 44. A Great Trap-Dike across Southeastern Penp- sylvania. By H. Carvill Lewis. Pp. 20, with Map. Quarterly Report. Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Departmen oon, Second Quarter, 1885, Washington : Government Printing-Office. Pp. 175. Massachusetts State Agricultural Experiment Station, Amherst. August Bulletin, 1875. Pp. 19. The Raising and Management of Poultry. Re port of Discussions of Breeders and Experts. Bos- ton: Cupples, Upham & Co. Pp. 125. 50 cents. \

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2 rethral Stricture treated by Electrolysis. One stieed Onses. By Robert Newman, M. D. Pp. 15. ‘oman's Medical College of the New York In- oa Beventeenth Annual Catalogue and An- nouncement, New York: G.P, Putnam's Sons. Pp. 25. North American Species of Ramularia. Pp. 10. Cereospor@ of North America. . 0. By J. B. Ellis and Benjamin M. Trarhart, Hanhettes’ Kan- sas. Parasitic Fungi of Illinois. By J. T. Burrill. Peoria, Ill. : J. W. Frank & Sons. Pp. 114. Evolution in the Vegetable Kingdom. By Les- ter F. Ward. Pp. 16. Coloration of Naked Skin-Tracts of Geovcoccyx Californicus. By Dr.B. W.Sbufeldt. Pp. 2, with Plate. The Metric System. By John Le Conte, Berke- ley, Cal. Pp. 12. Diseases of Farm Animals. Agricultural Col- lege of Michigan. Pp. 4. “Journal of the American Akadémé.” Alex- ander Wilder, Editor, Monthly. Newark, N. J. Pp. 24. $2 a year. New York Cancer Hospital. First Annual Re- port. Pp. 29. Notes on the Stratigraphy of California. By George F. Becker. Washington : Government Print- ing-Office. Pp. 28. University of Pennsylvania: Department of Bi- ology, Catalogue and Announcement. Pp. 9, Bulletin of the Sedalia (Mo.) Natural History aa F, A. Sampson, Corresponding Secretary. Pp. 30. The Shells of Pettis County, Missouri. By F. Sampson, Sedalia, Mo. Pp. 16. ineous M. : their Effect on Off- ey y -4 F. Withington, M. D. “ bury, Mass. Pp. 32. American Constitutions. By Horace Davis. Baltimore: N. Murray. Pp. 70. 50 cents. On the Sensitiveness of the Eye to Colors ofa Low of Saturation. By Edward L. Nichols, Ph, D. Pp. 5. The Teacher's Commercial Value. Pp. 20. Teaching as a Business for Men. By C. W. Bar- deen. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 20. The Relation of Annual Riags of Exogens to Age. By D. P. Penhallow. Pp. 16. Impact Friction and Faulting. 29. The Re- lations of the Mineral Belts of the Pacific Slope to the Great Upheavals. Pp.4. By George F, Becker. Washington, D. C. Bulletin of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences, 1880-1882. C. W. Hall, Secretary. Min- neapolis. Pp. 80. The Bentley-Knight Electric Railway Com q 115 Ehenduey, How York. With Plates. = Measurement of the Force of Gravity and Mag- netic Constants at oe Tokio’ Delosk By A. Tan: ‘date. Tokio, Japan: Tokio u. Pp. 32. Geo Sketches of the Precious Metal De- ts of the Western United States, etc. By 8. F. mons and G. F, Becker. Washington: Gov- ernment Printing-Office. Pp. 295. Report on the Production, Technology, and Uses of Petroleum and its Products. By 8. F. Peck- Pe ai Washington: Government Printing-Office. Saxe Holm’s Stories. New York: Charles Sutponr's Sone. Two Series. Pp. 350 and 884. 50 Diccionario Teenolégico (Technological Diction- ary), English-Spanish. By Nestor Ponce de Leon. Part 14. Socket to Tappet. Pp. 64. 50 cents. Introduction a Esthé wu - ae = 8! = By ie ue (In Henry, Paris. Pp. 31. POPULAR MISCELLANY. 135 Meteoreisen (Meteoric Iron.) Pp. 6. Die Namen der Nutzmetalle (the names of the useful metals). rp. 6. By Professor E. Reyer, of the University of Vienna. Vienna; Published by the author, Sur la Variabilité des Anneaux de Saturne (On the Variability of Saturn’s Rings). Pp. 24, with Plate. Changements observés sur les Anneaux de Saturne (Changes observed on Saturn's att Pp. 4. The Veiled Solar 8 Pp. 4. By E.L. Trou- velot, Observatory of Meudon, France. A Text-Book of Medical Chem . By Elias Bartley, M. D. + ooo 4 Son 2 ae, The wegentens the Fu ture Repu oO merica. a Capitalist. New York: The Social Science Publishing Com- pany. Pp. 498. $1.50. Fownes’s Manual of Chemistry. From the twelfth English edition, embody atts’s “ ical and Inorganic Chemistry.” P. elphia : Brothers & Co. Pp. 1056. A Testis em Betton rien, and Allied Dis- eases. By A.B. M.D. Ann Arbor, Mich. : “ Register” Publishing House. Pp. 224. $1. A Text-Book of Nursing. Compiled by Clara 8 Weeks. New York: D. Appleton &Co. Pp. 396. Analysis of Atmospheric Humidities in the United States. By Charles M.D. Chi- cago: Rand, McNally & Uo. Pp. 30, with Piates. $i. Practical and Analytic Chemistry. By Henry Trimble. Philadelphia: P. DBiakiston, Son & Co, Pp. 94. $1.50. Two Years in the Jungle. By William T. Hor. naday. New York: Charies Scribner's Suns. Pp. 512, with Maps. $4. A Wheel of Fire. By Arlo Bates. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Pp. 883. $1. Color Studies. By Thomas A. Janvier. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 227. $1. Modern mons and Pattern-Making. Jo- seph P. Mullin, M. New York: D. ven Nes. trand. Pp. 257. The H and how to take Care of it. By Ed- win M. Hale, M. D. Chicago. New York: A. L. Chatterton Publishing Company Pp. 94. Water- Meters. Ross E. Browne. New York : D. Van Nostrand. 89. 50 cents. The Preservation of Timber by the Use of Anti- septics. By Samuel er Boulton. New York : D. Van Nostrand. Pp. 50 cents. POPULAR MISCELLANY. The New Star.— Astronomers have been surprised by the fact, which was first an- nounced by Dr. Hartwig on the 29th of August, that a star of about the eighth magnitude had suddenly appeared in the middle of the great nebula of Andromeda. This nebula, the most conspicuous of all the phenomena of the kind, has long been regarded as a stellar nebula, since Mr. Hug- gins showed that its spectrum the characteristics of stellar spectra, but it has never been resolved. The appearance of the new star within it, if it belong to it, which is not yet ascertained, may mark some important movement going on within it. The star was seen, within a few days of

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136 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Dr. Hartwig’s observation, by several other observers, and has now become an object of interest and attention to every one who possesses a telescope. The first observation of it appears to have been by Mr. Isaac W. Ward, of Dunecht, on August 19th. It was not visible at Brussels at the beginning of August; and the Rev. 8. H. Saxby, care- fully observing the nebula on the 6th, 9th, and 10th of the month at Davos Platz, saw no sign of a stellar nucleus. The telescope at Dunecht on the 5th of September showed it as a star of the 7} magnitude, with a continuous spectrum. At the Greenwich Observatory, on the 4th of September, its spectrum was shown to be of precisely the same character as that of the nebula, or per- fectly continuous, with no lines, either bright or dark, visible, and the red end wanting. It therefore presents no evidence of an out- burst of heated gas, such as was the case with the “temporary” stars T. Corona in 1866 and “Nova” Cygni in 1876. The appear- ance of new or temporary stars, though an event that must always excite remark, is not really unusual. One appeared in May, 1859, in the nebula or cluster 80 Mersier, and shone with a magnitude diminishing from the 7th till the 10th of June, when it van- ished, and has never been seen since. A similar star was discovered in a nebula in the Unicorn in 1861, and is now ranked as a variable star, R. Monocerotis. The star Eta Argus, in the “key-hole nebula” in Argo, is also a variable star, whose appear- ance at its brighter stages might suggest to superficial observation the idea of a new or temporary star. It remains to be ascer- tained whether the present star really be- longs to the nebula or is an outsider pass- ing over the line of vision between us and it. Spectroscopic and photometric observa- tions, so far as they have gone, indicate a constitution identical with that of the neb- ula, but they are not complete. If it does belong to the nebula, a fact mentioned by Mr. R. A. Proctor becomes very important. Mr. Spencer has pointed out that no nebu- la which could be resolved into stars could possibly lie outside the limits of the galaxy or of the great system of which our solar system is a member; for the outer edges of that system are so far irresolvable. It was generally agreed that, if any nebula lay out- side of the system, it was this one in Andro- meda. Now, if a star is distinguished in this body, it is clear also that it too must lie within our system. Shall we raise Silk at a Loss ?—]p the discussion of a paper by Dr. Riley, in the American Association, advocating tariff “ en. couragement ” of silk-culture in the United States, Mr. Edward Atkinson remarked that the project is not desirable. There is no lack of employment for labor in the United States, as the high rate of wages shows; and the fact that the making of reeled silk has been unprofitable shows that capital can be better employed. Silk-culture is a handicraft simply, and has been carried on by the poorest and most inefficient peoples, who, as they rise in the scale, abandon it, as is now coming to be the case in Southern France. The argument that we shall save the $20,000,000 which we now pay for imported silk is fallacious. When we ex- change articles produced by labor costing one dollar per day, for the silk of China or Japan raised by labor costing five or ten cents a day we gain and not lose. We can not afford to do for ourselves what pauper laborers will do for us cheaper. Chemistry at the American Association, —The Chemical Section of the Association was opened with an address by Professor W. R. Nichols, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on “‘ Chemistry in the Serv- ice of Public Health.” The author showed that chemistry has an educational office to fill in the service of sanitary science, in teaching the public what its capabilities and limitations are, and correcting the er- roneous ideas that are entertained as to the nature of certain processes in preparing food-substances, and the effect in them of the application of particular reagents. Re- specting two subjects now much talked of in sanitary circles, Professor Nichols said: “Microbes may well be left to the biolo- gists, and possibly sewer-gas as well, since chemists have failed to discover any sub- stances in the gas which could produce the well-known ill effects. . . . It is asserted by some that the day of chemical examinations is passing away, and that the wholesomeness of water will be determined by the biologist, \ y

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not by the chemist. Without detracting from the present value of biological meth- ods, we can not believe that they can re- place chemical examination for a long time yet ; it must first become certain that all the evil effects of impure water are due to the organisms now so eagerly studied. When the biological examination of water has been placed on a firm basis, it will then be necessary to carry out the work begun by Professor Mallet, of discovering the chemi- cal characteristics which belong to waters which a biological examination condemns, and of making the characteristics the basis of future chemical analysis. In the matter of the pollution of streams by sewage, there is much chemical work to be done.” Chem- istry may be made of service to public health by investigating the actual state of existing evils ; in suggesting practical reme- dies for them; and in the examination of foods and drinks. The education of those who propose to follow these lines of work requires a thorough knowledge of general and analytical chemistry, and of physics. “There is room in the community for a class of persons knowing a little engineer- | ing, a little chemistry, a little biology, and | a little of other things, an occupation legiti- | mate and honorable, but one which does not | justify our calling a person so posted a sani- tary engineer or chemist.” Professor Prescott gave the results of experiments in fixing the limits of recovery of certain poisons when mixed with organic matter. Professor F. P, Dunnington described a method of fixing crayon-drawings, by sat- urating them with a preparation composed of one part of Damar varnish and twenty- five parts of turpentine. The drawings are made on unsized manila paper. When dried after treatment, they are ready for use. Professor Mabery, and the Messrs. Cowles, of Cleveland, Ohio, presented a paper on a new electric furnace and the reduction of aluminum and other metals rare in the metallic state, and the formation of a number of new useful alloys by its aid. Experiments were made in the inquiry for the best means of obtaining a contin- uous high temperature on an extensive scale, It was found that by introducing

coarsely pulverized carbon, mixed with the POPULAR MISCELLANY. 137 oxide to be reduced, and applying the elec- tric current, reduction was effected and the temperature was raised to such an extent that the whole interior of the retort fused completely. In other experiments lumps of lime, sand, and corundum were fused, with indications of a reduction of the correspond- ing metal; on cooling, the lime formed large, well-defined crystals, and the corun- dum beautiful red, green, and blue octahe- dral crystals. Following up these experi- ments, Professor Mabery found that the in- tense heat thus produced could be utilized for the reduction of oxides in large quan- tities ; and it has already been found that aluminum, silicon, boron, magnesium, man- ganese, sodium, and potassium, can be ob- tained from their oxides with ease, Good commercial results have been derived from the application of the process, in the man- ufacture of aluminum-bronze of various grades, and possessing superior qualities of one kind or another according to the grade ; of silicon-bronze, which promises to afford the best material for electric wires; and of boron-bronze, in which boron appears to have almost the same effect when added to copper as carbon when added to iron in the manufacture of steel. The question, “ What is the best initi- atory work for students entering upon labo- ratory practice ?” was discussed. Professor H. W. Wiley insisted on the importance of training the novitiates in habits of accuracy —that they should understand at once that chemical science is no guess-work, but a sci- ence of definite proportions. Professor R. B. Warder thought it was better to begin with metals than with gases, and Professor F. P. Dunnington suggested a course of metallurgy and assaying. Mr. Thomas An- tisell remarked that much depended on the object of instruction—whether it was given only as a part of a liberal education, or with the view of making chemistry a profession. Professor Prescott thought that students should, in analytical work, practice first on known bodies before beginning on un- known ; and that too much reliance should not be placed on laboratory work alone, which should be associated with rigid class- work in the lecture and recitation rooms. Professor Mabery would have young people begin with common phenomena, master the

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138 principles of stoichiometry, and work, as far as possible, quantitatively. Physies at the American Association.— In the Section of Physics, Professor 8. P. Langley read a paper on the sources of in- visible radiations and on the recognition of hitherto unmeasured wave-lengths. The object of the researches he described was to ascertain whether there are other wave- lengths than those found in the sun’s heat, so that we may perhaps explain how it is that the surface heat of our planet is main- tained in spite of the ready radiation of ex- treme solar heat through the atmosphere. We have in the infra-red portion of the so- lar spectrum the greater part of the heat which sustains organic life on this planet, and the questions arise, Does the planet ra- diate heat of the wave-lengths that it re- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. change of shape. In the experiments op this subject, a disk of gun-cotton was ex. ploded on a metal plate. Each of the disks had the letters “U.S. N” and the year of manufacture stamped upon it. After ex. plosion upon the iron, similar indentations were found upon the plate, as if the air in the indented letters had been driven into it, Professor E. L.: Nichols stated that from comparisons he had made of the spectrum of the unclouded sky with that of the sun. light reflected by magnesium carbonate, he had deduced the conclusion that the spec. trum of the sky is of the same character as that of white light. The blue color of the sky and of other opalescent media is, ac. cording to these and other correlative ex- periments, not due to an excess of the more | refrangible rays in the light reflected by them, | but is of a subjective character. These re- ceives from the sun? and how is its tem- | sults disagree with those obtained by Pro- perature maintained, probably several hun- fessor Langley in his experiments. Mr. H, dred degrees above the temperature of space, | Helm Clayton, of Ann Arbor, presented evi- when our observations show that the direct | dence favoring the supposition that there radiations of heat from the sun can only are at times slow progressive movements of raise it about fifty degrees above the sur- rounding temperature? Experiments at Al. | legheny show that the dark solar heat is transmitted by our atmosphere with less difficulty than the light; and, if the radia- tions of the soil are of this wave-length, our planet should actually be cooler on account of its atmosphere than if it hadnone. Pro- fessor Langley has for two years past made measurements of the radiations from bodies of the temperature of the earth, using for his experiments prisms and lenses of rock- salt. From the results of these researches, he says that we have every reason to believe that heat radiated by the soil has a wave- length twenty times that of the lowest visi- | ble line of the solar spectrum. His experi- ments thus tend to show that this heat is of a totally different quality from that received from the sun. Among the other papers read in this section were those of Professor H. 8. Carhart on surface transmission of elec- trical discharges, in revision of work by Pro- fessor Henry; of Professor E. L. Nichols, on the chemical behavior of magnetic iron; of Major H. E. Alvord, on the results of tele- metric observation at Houghton Farm; and of Commander Theodore F. Jewell, on the apparent resistance of a body of air to a | barometric change, and of temperature from west to east, and attempted to show that | the weather of the United States during the | last year had been marked by certain peri- | odicity of character. Plants growing at Strange Heights.— | Many anomalies have been observed in the | distribution of plants by altitude, which M. | ¥, Krasan has endeavored to account for, in Engler’s “ Annuaire botanique,” by suppos- ing changes to have taken place during the recent period in the height of the mount- ains on which the vegetation is found. Thus, in several valleys of the Alps, oaks are growing at unusual altitudes, and live under climatic conditions that seem to ex- clude them elsewhere. They do not, how- ever, appear to be reproducing themselves, and are probably destined to be crowded out by the beeches. On the Humberg, in Southern Styria, at a height of between 750 and 1,360 feet, are found growing in the midst of vines and associated with south- ern plants masses of purely Alpestrine spe- cies; and in the mountain-region north of Cilli, the highest altitude of which is less than 3,000 feet, are not less than fifty-one species that occur normally in the region of

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> Te ee ae ee The Humberg is more than twenty miles from the nearest Alpine summit, yet the plants appropriate to such a situation are represented, not by individuals, but by a large mass of plants that appear to be perfectly acclimated. The mystery is height- ened by the fact that in a neighboring mountain district of considerable higher altitude, which borders on a really Alpine region, only a small number of Alpine plants are found. Similar anomalies have been remarked in the Pyrenees. Many Alpine plants can and doubtless do live and thrive in lower situations than their habitual ones, and their general absence from such places is probably rather due to their being crowd- ed out, and the ground possessed by the species more peculiarly fitted to the locality than to any positive unfitness of their own. But if a mountain is suddenly raised up or depressed, the entire vegetation growing upon it is transported to a new region. It will then offer a long and sturdy resistence to the rival species that may come in to dis- pute with it for occupancy ; and this resist- ance may in the end last long enough for the species to become acclimated to the new conditions, when they will reproduce them- selves, and the phenomena under consider- ation will be manifested. Metal-working Art in Cashmere.—Herr Carl von Ujfalvy, who has been exploring in the western Himalayas, asserts that the Cashmereans must be regarded as the no- blest of the Indian races. “ At least,” he says, “it must be admitted that a people that prepares its food in handsome kettles of beaten and carved copper, adorned with tasteful engravings, drinks its tea and coffee from elegantly shaped pots, and uses showily decorated pitchers and cups, and beaten and enameled dishes, vases, pipes, candlesticks, lamps, tea-vessels, and plates, and engraved spittoons, must have a peculiar artistic gift. What is more remarkable is that objects of such character are in daily use, not only in the mansions of the rich, but also in the peasants’ huts ; and any one who takes this fact into consideration must say that we have to do with a particularly endowed race of Aryans, who, too small in numbers and too weak to contend with the barbarians, have found satisfaction in devoting them- POPULAR MISCELLANY. 139 selves to art. When we reflect,” adds Herr von Ujfalvy, “that all the household uten- sils in High Asia, Persia, and India, and the innumerable idols in the latter country are made of beaten or cast metal, we may be able to form an approximate idea of the importance and extension of this industry in all those countries.” Copper is the basis of these industries, either pure, in ham- mered, beaten, and carved forms, or alloyed or set off with gold, silver, steel, tin, lead, or zinc. In Turkistan a yellow, in Kashgar a red, in Cashmere an ornamented red metal is worked. Yellow metal is here of very an- cient origin. The metal industry is most ex- tensively developed and most flourishing in Cashmere; and there no difference is recog- nized between art- work and mechanical work, and it is therefore not strange that we should so frequently meet with real mas- terpieces of art. Blind Men’s Dreams,—How do the blind dream ? is discussed by Mr. B. G. Jones, in the (English) “ National Review.” In near- ly all ordinary dreams we imagine we see something — persons or things, or both. This can not happen with the blind, who have no conception of things that are seen ; or, if they were not born blind, of things that they had not seen before they lost their sight. The blind man may recall a person or a place, but his recollection can only be commensurate with what he has ob- tained by the senses of touch, hearing, or smell. A blind boy dreamed of his brother who was dead. He knew him by his voice, and he also knew he was in the fields with him, for he felt himself treading upon the grass and smelling the fresh air. His idea of a field could not possibly reach much be- yond this. Another person dreamed he was in his workshop; he knew this by sitting on a box, and by the tools which were in it. A blind tramp said when he dreamed it was just the same as when he was awake—he dreamed of hearing and touching. A blind man is mentioned who dreamed of a ghost, and this is the way he told his story: “I heard a voice at the door, and I said, ‘ Bless me, if that ain’t John!’ and I took him by the sleeve; it was his shirt-sleeve I felt; and I was half-afeared of him, and sur- prised he was out weeks before his time.

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140 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. balance to;weigh the tension, and a spirit-ley- el, Professor Davis exhibited a tape which Then (in my dream) I dreamt that he tried , to frighten me, and make believe he was a | ghost, by pushing me down sideways, etc. | After that I waked and heard no more.” We fancy ghosts as impalpable beings, clothed in white. Blind men can hardly have as distinct an imagination of their ap- pearance, A Workmen’s Seientifie Class, — How knowledge may be disseminated by means of local lectures to working-men is illus- trated in a story told by Mr. Roberts, of Cambridge. Two miners, at Buckworth, England, walked four or five miles and back in the evening, after work, to attend the course at Cramlington. Finding others in their village wanting to know something of chemistry, but not able to attend the course, they took to repeating to a class of seven on the next evening the lectures they had heard, and, having supplied themselves with chemicals, repeated the experiments. Mr. Roberts attended one of the meetings of this class at the end of the term, examined the members, and found that they had ac- quired a sound cnough knowledge of the ; subject to pass the regular university ex- amination. The class were this summer to carry on in the same manner a course in physiology, in aid of which they were en- deavoring to procure a microscope. Mechanical Science at the American Association.—The vice-presidential address of Professor J. Burkitt Webb, in the Sec- tion of Mechanical Science, was on “ The Second Law of Thermo-dynamics,” but was too technical for abstract in these pages. Mr. L. 8. Randolph gave an account of his experiments in seeking for an explanation of the peculiar manner in which the stay- bolts between the fire-box and the boiler- shell of steam-boilers had been found to break. He indicated a drawing and bending of the bolts occasioned by the shifting of the plates under changes of temperature as the cause, aided by the corrosive action of the water that might reach the bolts. Mr. Ste- phen 8. Haight presented a paper on the use and value of accurate standards for sur- veyors’ chains. He exhibited a specimen chain of flattened steel wire, with thermom- eter attached to record temperature, a spring- he had found accurate enough for general use in a large range of work in Michigan, Professor J. B. Webb read a paper on the lathe as an instrument of precision, in which he called attention to the desirability of greater accuracy in instruments of this class, and described some simple methods for mak. ing tests of the degree of error in any par- ticular instrument. Professor Cooley ex. plained a new smoke-burning device, A committee report was presented and a dis. cussion had on the best methods of teach. ing mechanical engineering. The object of the instruction being admitted te be thor. ough preparation in theory and principle, Professor Thurston said that the training should be adapted to the work to be done, and that he therefore favored classification into manual training-schools, schools of me- chanic arts, and schools of engineering. It was asserted by other speakers in the course of the discussion that there are no manual training-schools where a boy can learn a trade before entering the higher schools; and that the St. Louis and Chicago manual training-schools will not make workmen, and probably not five per cent of their students will ever become workmen, Seience in Common Sehools.—The com- mittee of the American Association on meth- ods of science-teaching in the schools stated that much had been accomplished in the investigation, in which many associations, schools, and persons had interested them- selves, The committee of conference with foreign associations in reference to an in- ternational convention of science associations had conducted an extensive correspondence, and the subject was to be brought before the British Association at Aberdeen. An endowment fund of twenty-five thousand dollars had been given to the scheme by Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, of Stamford, Con- necticut. The committee was continued as the “Committee on International Scientific Congress.” The committee on the encour- agement of researches upon the health and diseases of plants reported that at its sug- gestion the Commissioner of Agriculture had appointed Mr. F. L. Scribner, of Girard College, Philadelphia, to take charge of

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kn ae section in his department, devoted to work of that character. The British Assoelation.—The British Association met at Aberdeen, Scotland, Sep- tember 9th, and was opened by the presi- dent for the year, Sir Lyon Playfair, with an address which we publish in the present number of the Monthly. Among the more noteworthy papers presented were the vice- presidential addresses of Professor H. E. Armstrong, on more efficient methods of teaching chemistry ; of Professor Judd, in the Geological Section, on some unsolved problems of Highland geology; of Mr. B. Baker, of the Mechanical Section, calling attention to deficiencies in bridge construc- tion ; of Mr. Galton, in the Anthropological Section, on “ Types and their Inheritance” ; and of Professor Sidgwick, of the Section of Economical Science and .Statistics. In the last section Professor Leone Levi read an elaborate paper on “The Alleged De- pression of Trade; its Causes and Reme- dies.” New Problems in Chemistry.—In his address as Vice-President of the Chemical Section of the British Association, Pro- fessor H. B. Armstrong criticised the way in which the science is taught in the schools, and insisted upon the importance of giving more prominence to research by the stu- dents, and of cultivating in them the spirit of original investigation. They must not merely be taught the principles and main facts of the science, but must be shown how the knowledge of those facts and prin- ciples has been gained, and must be so drilled as to have complete command of their knowledge. Chemistry was no longer a purely descriptive science. The study of carbon compounds and Mendelejeff’s gener- alization had produced a complete revolu- tion. The faults in the present system of teaching were precisely those which had characterized the teaching of geography and history, and which were now becoming so generally recognized and condemned. Both in teaching and examining two im- portant changes ought to be made. The students ought at the very beginning of their career to become familiar with the use of the balance; and the imaginary dis- POPULAR MISCELLANY, 141 tinction between so-called inorganic and or- ganic compounds should be altogether aban. doned. Touching on the progress that had been made in chemical theory, Professor Armstrong mentioned the change which had taken place in views concerning chemi- cal action. Hitherto it appeared to have been commonly assumed and almost univer- sally thought by chemists that action took place directly between A and B, producing AB, or between AB and CD, producing AC and BD. In studying the chemistry of carbon compounds, they became acquainted with a large number of instances in which a more or less minute quantity of a substance was capable of inducing change or changes in the body or bodies with which it was as- sociated without apparently itself being al- tered; but so little had been done to ascer- tain the influence of the contact-substance, or catalyst, as he would term it, that its im- portance was not duly appreciated. Recent discoveries, however, must have given a rude shock, from which it could never re- cover, to the belief in the assumed simplici- ty of chemical change. Then, after consid- ering briefly some questions of the relations of chemical and electrical action, Professor Armstrong went on: Complaints are not unfrequently made that a large proportion of published work is of little value, and that chemists are devoting themselves too exclusively to the study of carbon com- pounds, and especially of synthetic chemis- try; that investigation is running too much in a few grooves, and that we are gross worshipers of formule. But the attention paid to the study of carbon compounds may be more than justified, both by reference to the results obtained and to the nature of the work before us. “The inorganic king- dom refuses any longer to yield up her se- crets—new elements—except after severe compulsion, The organic kingdom, both animal and vegetable, stands ever ready be- fore us. Little wonder, then, if problems directly bearing upon life prove the more attractive to the living. The physiologist complains that probably ninety-five per cent of the solid matters of living structures are pure unknowns to us, and that the funda- mental chemical changes which occur dur- ing life are entirely enshrouded in mystery. It is in order that this may no longer be the

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142 case that the study of carbon compounds is being so vigorously prosecuted. ... As to the value of the work, I believe that ev- ery fact honestly recorded is of value.” No unprejudiced reader can but be struck with the improvement in quality which is mani- fest in the majority of the investigations now published. The great outcome of the labors of carbon chemists has been the es- tablishment of the doctrine of the structure. That doctrine bas received the most power- ful support from the investigation of physi- cal properties, and it may almost, without exaggeration, be said to have been rendered visible in Abney and Festing’s infra-red spectrum photographs. Limits of Stress on Iron Bridges. —Ad- dressing the Mechanical Science Section of the British Association, Mr. B. Baker spoke of the want of understanding among engi- neers regarding the admissible intensity of stress on iron and steel bridges, concerning which “ at the present time absolute chaos prevails. The variance in the strength of existing bridges is such as to be apparent to the educated eye without any calculation. . . « It is an open secret that ncarly all the large railway companies are strengthening their bridges, and necessarily so, for I could cite cases where the working stress on the iron has exceeded by two hundred and fifty per cent that considered admissible by lead- ing American and German builders in simi- lar cases. . . . In the present day engineers of all countries are in accord as to the prin- ciples of estimating the magnitude of the stresses on the different members of a structure, but not so in proportioning the members to resist those stresses. The prac- tical result is, that a bridge which would be passed by the English Board of Trade would require to be strengthened five per cent in some parts and fifty per cent in others be- fore it would be accepted by the German Government, or by any of the leading rail- way companies in America.” This unde- sirable state of affairs arises from the fact that “ many engineers still persistently ig- nore the fact that a bar of iron may be broken in two ways—namely, by the single application of a heavy stress, or by the re- peated application of a comparatively light stress. An athlete’s muscles have often THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. been likened toa bar of iron, but, if ‘ fa. tigue’ be in question, the simile is very wide of the truth. Intermittent action—the alternative pull and thrust of the rower, or of the laborer turning a winch—is what the muscle likes and the bar of iron abhors, From tests made several years ago by royal commissioners, the deduction was made that “iron bars scarcely bear the reiterated ap. plication of one third the breaking weight without injury, hence the prudence of al. ways making beams capable of bearing six times the greatest weight that could be laid upon them.” Hundreds of existing railway. bridges which carry twenty trains a day with perfect safety would break down quickly under twenty trains an hour. Although many more experiments are required before universally acceptable rules can be laid down, “I have thoroughly convinced myself that, when stresses of varying intensity oc- cur, tension and compression members should be treated on an entirely different basis,” Some Aspects of Heredity.—Mr. Francis Galton spoke, in the Anthropological Section of the British Association, from his re. searches in family histories and records, on types and their inheritance. He discussed the conditions of the stability and insta- bility of types, and urged the existence of a simple and far-reaching law governing the hereditary transmission. From experiments he had made several years before on the produce of seeds of different size but the same species, it appeared that the offspring did not tend to resemble their parent-seed in size, but to be always more mediocre than they—to be smaller than the parents if the parents were large, to be larger than the parents if the parents were very small, The special subject of this paper was hered- itary stature, where a similar law seemed to prevail. His data consisted of the heights of nine hundred and thirty adult children and their parentages, two hundred and five in number, The child inherits partly from his parents, partly from his ancestry. Speak- ing generally, the further his genealogy goes back, the more numerous and varied will his ancestry become, until they cease to differ from any equally numerous sample taken at hap-hazard from the race at large. Their mean stature will then be the same as that of

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OO the race, or mediocre. The average regres- sion of the offspring to a constant fraction of their mid-parental deviations, which was first observed on the diameters of seeds, and then confirmed by observations on hu- man stature, is now shown to be a perfectly reasonable law, which might have been de- ductively foreseen. This law tells heavily against the full hereditary transmission of any rare and valuable gift, as only a few of many children would resemble their mid- parentage. The more exceptional the gift, the more exceptional will be the good for- tune of the parent who has a son who equals, and still more if he has a son who overpasses him. This law is even-handed ; it levies the same heavy possession-tax on the transmission of badness as well as of goodness. If it discourages the extrava- gant expectations of gifted parents that their children will inherit all their powers, it no less discountenances extravagant fears that they will inherit all their weaknesses and diseases. The number of individuals in a population who differ little from me- diocrity is so preponderant that it is more frequently the case that an exceptional man is the somewhat exceptional son of rather mediocre parents than the average son of very exceptional parents. Vision of the Honey-Bee.— According to the Rev. J. L. Zabriskie’s observations, the honey-bee sees as through the woods. The ocelli are situated on the top of the head, arranged as in an equilateral triangle, so that one is directed to the front, one to the right, and one to the left. “Long, branch- ing hairs on the crown of the head stand thick, like a miniature forest, so that an ocellus is scarcely discernible except from a particular point of view”; and then the observer remarks an opening through the hairs—a cleared pathway, as it were, in such a forest—and notes that the ocellus, looking like a glittering globe half im- mersed in the substance of the head, lies at the inner end of the path. The opening connected with the front ocellus expands forward from it like a funnel with an angle of about fifteen degrees. The side ocelli have paths more narrow, but opening more vertically; so that the two together com- mand a field which, though hedged in an- NOTES. 143 teriorly and posteriorly, embraces, in a plane transverse, of course, to the axis of the insect s body, an arc of nearly one hun- dred and eighty degrees. NOTES. Dr. C. Kexxer, of Ziirich, claims that spi- ders perform an important part in the pres- ervation of forests by defending the trees against the depredations of aphides and in- sects. He has examined a great many spi- ders, both in their viscera and by feeding them in captivity, and has found them to be voracious destroyers of these pests; and he believes that the spiders in a particular for- est do more effective work of this kind than all the insect-eating birds that inhabit it. He has verified his views by observations on coniferous trees, a few broad-leaved trees, and apple-trees. An important feature of the spiders’ operations is that they prefer dark spots, and therefore work most in the places which vermin most infest, but which are likely to be passed by other destroying agents. Tue New England Meteorological Soci- ety has been making a special study of thunderstorms. A series of circulars was prepared and sent out, — the details of the work. Several classes of observa- tions were contemplated. On the 9th of June more than two hundred and fifty ob- servers had offered their services. A Women’s Anthropological Society v a1 organized in Washington, June 8th, with Mrs. Colonel James Stevenson as President, Mrs. Romeyn Hitchcock Recording Secretary, and Miss 8. A. Scull Corresponding Secre- tary. Miss Cleveland was requested to name the society, and did so. Tae “ Bulletin” of the French Geo- graphical Society gives some curious details about the system of numeration of the In- dians of Guiana. It is based upon the five fingers of the hand. The Indians have names for only four numbers, correspond- ing with the four fingers; then, when they come to five, they say, not five fingers, but “a hand.” Six is “a hand and first fin- ger”; seven, “a hand and second oe ten, “two hands” ; fifteen, “ three hands ” ; twenty, not “ four hands,” but a man. From this they proceed by the system of twenties. Forty is “two men”; forty-six, “two men, a hand, and second finger.” Tue humming of telegraph and tele- phone wires, so often heard, is generally considered to be caused by the wind. Mr. R. W. McBride, of Waterloo, Indiana, who specially studied the matter for several years on his private wire, which had a

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144 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. strong gift of humming, is satisfied that the wind is not the agent, for he found the sound more likely to be heard on a dry, clear, cool, and calm evening than at any other time. He is also convinced that the sound is not produced by electricity; for he could detect no signs of that agent when the humming was going on, while at times when the wire was evidently charged there was no sound. The humming was accom- panied by a rapid vibration of the wire. Mr. McBride considers the question a sub- ject of investigation which may lead to im- portant discoveries. Dr. Cart H. von Kuery, of Dayton, Ohio, claims to have discovered a process for converting garbage and sewage matter into an odorless and clean fuel. He treats refuse, to disinfect and deodorize it, with salt, slacked lime, and a little nitric acid to start the fumes; then, after eight days, with sal-soda. The composition will solidify in a few days, when it is pressed into bricks and dried till it is in fit condition to be used. It produces a better flame, the inventor says, and retains more heat, than Alleghany coal, and costs but little more than half as much as the cheapest other fuel in the market. LreuTenant-CoLoneL PLayrair observed, in the Geographical Section of the British Association, that his experience in Tunis had proved in the most forcible manner the im- portance of preserving forests. In Roman times the province of Africa and the terri- tory of Carthage were the granary of Eu- rope. In what was now practically a desert, the remains of magnificent Roman farms were everywhere found. The small hill-sides were now nothing but sands, This was en- tirely due to the destruction of the forests with which they used to be covered; for the vegetable soil had been washed away into the valleys, and there it was now to be found buried beneath some feet of sand and water- worn pebbles. A scuemE is on foot to establish a botan- ic garden in Montreal. tract of seventy- five acres of land near the base of the mountain is promised by the city, and sub- scriptions are solicited for means to fit it up and supply collections. Tue French Association at Grenoble was well attended, and excited much interest among the people of the city. The subject of the inaugural address of President Ver- neuil was surgery in 1885, andthe address is said to have been much more interesting than the subject promised. OBITUARY NOTES. Proressor J. J. A. Worsaak, the emi- nent Danish archeologist, died suddenly Au- gust 15th. He was born in 1821. He was made inspector over antiquarian monuments in Denmark when twenty-cight years old, Having labored for many years with Pro. fessor Thomsen, who first established the division of the stone, iron, and bronze a in arranging the Museum of Northern Ap. tiquities, he continued the work after his death in 1865, and brought the museum to its present state of perfection and richness in treasure. He was Minister of Worship and Public Instruction in 1874-75. He was the author of several works on the an. tiquities and early history of Denmark, and on the conquests achieved by the North. men. Mr. Wittiam Joun Troms, formerly editor of “ Notes and Queries,” died August 165th, in his eighty-second year. His work was partly literary, but mainly in the line of antiquarian research. As editor of “ Notes and Queries ” he had often to deal with sci- entific matters; and he was a vigorous con. testant of the claims of all persons who assumed to be centenarians, insisting that no one had ever lived to be more than a hundred years old. Commanpant Litton Bractt, of the French marine, who died at Argenteuil on the 27th of August, was a meteorologist, and author of a series of meteorological charts, for which he received gold medals at the Exposition of 1878 and from the Geographi- cal Congress of Rome. He contributed val- uable papers on his favorite science to the first ten years’ volumes of the journal “La Nature” and to the “ Revue Scientifique,” and was author of a number of monographs on subjects of meteorology. Pau Leorotp Martin, taxidermist and museologue, died in Stuttgart, March 7th, aged seventy years. He was the author of an illustrated “ Natural History of Ani- mals,” which was published in Leipsic in 1882—84 ; and of a work on the praxis of natural history, relating to taxidermy, der- moplastics, and museology, in three vol- umes. Dr. Jonannes Auaust Curist1an Roprr, Professor of Botany at Rostock, died March 17th, aged eighty-four years. He was author of papers and works on the spurges of Germany and Pannonia, the or- gans of plants, the flowers and affinities of the Balsimanee, the grasses, and the flora of Mecklenburg, and the Darwinian theory, and translated De Candolle’s “ Plant-Physi- ology.” Dr. Kart Jacos Zorprirz, Professor of phy in the University of Kénigs- berg, died a few months ago. He was born in 1838, His principal work in phy was the reduction of the barometric alti- tude-measurements of travelers. = &

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