Appleton's Popular Science Monthly 1898-05: Vol 53

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APPLETONS’ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. MAY, 1898. THE QUESTION OF WHEAT. By WORTHINGTON C. FORD, CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF STATISTIC8, TREASURY DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D. 0, IL—CONTINENTAL EUROPE: FRANCE. + be passing from a market where no customs duties are imposed upon foreign breadstuffs to markets where such duties play an important part in controlling competition from abroad, a political rather than a commercial question is encountered. The form of protection which seeks to encourage the home production of food, and especially of grain, is of very early origin and of very wide appli- cation. It ranges from the almost brutal disregard of the wants of a neighboring nation implied by an embargo on exports of cereals to the light and insignificant registration duty, intended to assure a good quality of imported wheat. It runs from duties on imports so high as to permit of a commerce only in the face of actual famine, to the revenue duty that has no immediate purpose in hindering purchases abroad, but regards the necessities of the treasury. History offers a remarkable collection of experience in attempts to regulate the grain trade; but it offers a record of a far larger number of failures than of successes attending these attempts. Throughout continental Europe wheat is generally subject to customs duties on importation, and the prevailing tendency in recent years has been toward higher duties. In five countries no duties are imposed; three are importers—Denmark, Belgium, and Holland— and two are exporters—Russia and Roumania. Of countries taxing wheat only one is an exporter, Austria-Hungary, where the duty is about seventy-five cents a metric quintal. Germany collects under her general tariff about one dollar and twenty cents the quintal, and VOL, Li.—l

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2 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. under her conventional tariff 84.3 cents the quintal. Norway and Sweden, although both are dependent upon foreign supplies of wheat, pursue different policies. Norway levies a merely nominal duty of sixteen cents a quintal, but Sweden, importing a much larger quan- tity, collects one dollar a quintal. Switzerland, being in the same condition of dependence on imports, has a duty of only six cents a quintal, a purely revenue duty. Spain, a large importer, has framed a tariff on agricultural imports, particularly burdensome on wheat, the duty, both general and conventional, being two dollars per quin- tal. In the last year this high duty has brought increased revenue to the Spanish treasury, because the home supplies were deficient, and heavy importations necessitated. Italy, also a large importer, and a state whose treasury is in difficulties, imposes nearly as high a duty on wheat as Spain—one dollar and forty-five cents a quintal. There are five countries in Europe producing an excess of wheat beyond their own needs: Russia, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Servia. All these countries combined, it has been estimated, have in an ordinary year a surplus product of 26,500,000 hectolitres (75,000,000 bushels) available for export, or only what would make good the needs of Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, and the Scan- dinavian countries, leaving unsatisfied the far larger wants of the great consumers of wheat—the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy—whose combined demand is placed at 152,000,- 000 hectolitres (430,700,000 bushels) beyond their own produc- tion. Even in the best of years Europe, then, is not self-sufficient in wheat. Merely to compare supply and demand will not give a proper idea of the importance of the wheat question to Europe. From the measures of two of the leading commercial nations—France and Germany—the political aspect is made clear. To be supplied as far as is possible from their own production is the aim of their states- men, and the problem of accomplishing this end has been enormously complicated by the rise of wheat-growing countries over the sea. Instead of accepting the situation as England did, and welcoming supplies of the highest grades of food produced at a very low cost, France and Germany have sought to neutralize this outside competi- tion by customs duties more or less protective in their effect. As these duties were intended to quiet political restlessness at home, the non-economic aspects are important. Indeed, agrarianism in these two countries suggests silver and prohibitive duties rather than a movement to improve the condition of the farming population. The economic position of France is peculiar. It is the land of the small proprietor, and in no neighboring country has the division of land (petit morcellement) been carried so far. It claims to be agri-

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THE QUESTION OF WHEAT. 3 culturally independent. Its population has ceased to grow in due proportion to its own need or to the surrounding peoples, and this indication of some social distemper is disquieting the economists and statesmen of the nation. The people are industrious, frugal, and on ,the whole prosperous. Yet France depends, and must depend, upon foreign supplies of coal, iron, lead, petroleum, or copper. More than fifty-six per cent of its exports are of manufactured articles, and only fifteen per cent of its imports answer that description. The imports of raw materials constitute 56.5 per cent of the total imports, and on them is based the great industries of France. While industrially dependent upon foreign supplies, France is in a better condition as to food. About one third of the value of all imports is represented by articles thus described. Of the $230,000,000 represented, almost one half is composed of coffee, wines, sugars, and tropical fruits, and only one eighth of grain, meats, and dairy products which could compete with the domestic product. While the proportion varies slightly from year to year, it is remarkable how uniform the demand for foreign wheat has been. Since 1875 in only three years have great differences from the average movement been shown. In 1879 and 1880 the effects of six bad seasons were reflected in the largest imports ever made— 22,000,000 and 20,000,000 metric quintals respectively—and in 1891 with its 19,000,000 quintals. Throughout this period the extent of territory under wheat was almost unchanged, the year 1891 alone giving a notable decrease, which was made good in the following year, but the product naturally varied with the good and bad seasons. This uniformity of area has arisen from two causes: the conservatism of the French peasant, and the liberal encourage- ment from government. Not only has this combination maintained domestic production so far as that can be measured by mere extent of land devoted to wheat, but it has also restrained foreign competi- tion in the French markets. The table on the following page shows the area, product, and imports of wheat from 1875 to 1896. In 1897 the area sown was 6,294,490 hectares, and the crop gathered was only 88,120,840 hecto- litres. If the entire period be equally divided into two periods of eleven years each, it is seen that the average area in the first eleven years was 6,920,690 hectares, and in the.second 6,879,790 hectares, a reduc- tion of only 0.6 or six tenths per cent, evidently due to the excep- tional year 1891. The production in the first period was 101,556,- 000 hectolitres on an average, and in the second 108,262,000 hecto- litres, an increase of more than six per cent. The higher average was brought about by the remarkable returns of 1894, 1895, and 1896.

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4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The fair promise thus held out was not maintained, as the country suffered heavily from the bad season of 1897. | Imports from | q n. 1 mport price van | Att, | Buugton | otal impos | “the Catted | PePea Metric quintals. - @. ee 6,946,981 | 100,684,000 | 3,493,711 6,029 25. 1876......... 6,859,458 95,439,000 | 5,281,459 1211612 27. 1877... 2.04. 6,976,785 | 100,145,000 | 3,397,462 202/636 80.5 cine 6,843,085 95,270,000 | 18,873,473 | 5,681,097 30. 1879......... 6,941,675 79,355,000 | 22,170,966 | 13,205,436 30. De isicsiseks 6.879.875 99,471,000 | 19,999,487 | 12,439,501 30.5 eee 6,959,114 96,810,000 | 12,852,054 | 6,330,307 80. SUS 2. oases 6,907,792 | 122,158,000 | 12,946,981 | 5,396,475 28.75 1883.... .... 6,803,821 | 103,753,000 | 10,117,673 | 3,627,304 24.92 | RE 7,052,221 | 114,230,000 | 10,549,219 | 2.969,077 22.24 1885......... 6,956,765 | 109,861,000 | 6,457,821 | 1,490,211 19.15 SL deen 6,956,167 | 107,287,000 | 7,097,486 | 2,508,769 21.61 alia 6,967,466 | 112,456,000 | 8,967,143 | 4.149.152 26.5 1888......... 6,978,134 98,740,000 | 11,857,128 | 1,759,084 22.4 1889......... 7,088,968 | 108,320,000 | 11,417,592 | 2:061,740 22.3 ros as 7,061,739 | 116,916,000 | 10,551,014 | 1,810,087 20.9 eee 5,754,844 71,658,000 19,601,834 8,155,505 23 .35 indians 6,986,628 | 109,538,000 | 18,842,470 | 10,062,892 22. lll 7,078,050 97,792,000 | 10,031,629 | 2,876,386 15.50 1894......... 6,991,449 | 122,469,000 | 12.496,188 | 3,233,230 14. Oe 7,001,669 | 119,968,000 | 4,507,804 282,734 13.5 ET cccce 6,867,572 | 119,742,000 | 1,584,751 779 16.4 The agriculture of France presents an interesting study because of a steady and continuous effort on the part of the Government to make it sufficiently profitable to assure adequate home supply. As the only means of giving profit to one industry is through a restriction on foreign competition, it is the Government that has intervened to ward off this competition; and as the cost of foreign wheat has tended steadily downward, the interference of the Government has become more frequent and extreme. In this policy it has been supported and encouraged by two very large elements of the agricultural, inter- est—the grain and the wine growers. At first glance the interests of these elements might seem to be opposed to one another, as the one exports and the other is facing an importation. The vineyards of France long possessed a position which fashion and prejudice almost made a monopoly. French wines constituted one of the leading items in the export trade. In 1873 more than 398,000,000 litres of wine were sent to foreign countries, ‘representing a value of 281,- 300,000 francs. This was the highest return ever made, before or since that year. The visitation of the phylloxera, which impaired the wine industry of entire provinces, and the introduction of Span- ish and Italian wines under commercial arrangements believed to be more favorable to the foreign than to the domestic producer, brought the wine growers to the aid of the farmer in demanding higher pro- tection against the encroachments of foreign grain, meat, and wine

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THE QUESTION OF WHEAT. 5 products. For nine years the joint efforts were made to effect this, resulting in the denouncement of commercial treaties and the fram- ing of a tariff in 1892. “ Accordingly, the Government constructed two tariffs, a maximum tariff for the countries with whom France should have no convention, and a minimum tariff, about twenty per cent lower, for the countries with whom France should conclude one. Duties upon agricultural produce were never to be subject of a con- vention or to be admitted into the conventional tariff. And it was laid down as a principle that the conventions of the future should be conventions for a short period, and that they should be terminable at a year’s notice. By this device the Government hoped to secure more industrial control, more stability, more elasticity. It would go, for instance, to the Government of Switzerland and say, ‘ Re- duce your duties and take our minimum tariff.’ There would be no complicated haggling; the brilliant diplomat could not sacrifice the commercial interests of the country to a political coup. Switzer- land would have to choose between either the minimum or the maxi- mum rate, and both rates were fixed by the Chambers.” * In prac- tice this scheme has not been found practicable, as under the con- stitution the President could conclude a commercial treaty on his own authority. This policy of expressly excluding agricultural products from any concessions in duty by treaty was significant of the feeling of the agricultural population of France, and a fair measure of its immense political influence. Before 1884 the “agrarians” had hardly suf- ficient strength to make themselves felt locally. The question of wheat growing in France had even then become important, for prices began to fall in 1882. The peasant had noticed that wheat had shrunk in value from twenty-two francs a hectolitre in 1881 to eighteen francs in 1883, and 17.7 francs in 1884. But it was as yet an economic problem, and not connected with political factors. A government commission was constituted, and from one of the reports presented in 1884 may be taken some bits of prophecy as gratuitous as that already quoted from the English presentation. M. Rissler, director of the National Agricultural Institute, expressed an opinion that the wheat trade of America had arrived at the ex- treme limit of its development, because the fertility of virgin soils is becoming exhausted, and more expensive farming is necessary; and because wheat is now grown in more remote districts, and could not continue to be carried at unremunerative freights. India, like America, was unable to produce wheat profitably at current prices. In Australasia he thought labor was too high priced to permit it to be turned to wheat cultivation at the prevailing price. Although * Fisher. The Protectionist Reaction in France. Economic Journal, September, 1896.

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6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. the home price of wheat had fallen below the minimum rate return- ing a profit to the farmer twenty francs the hectolitre, he did not look for a continuance of that rate. After fifteen years it is simple to test such predictions, but it is only necessary to say that in only one year since 1884 has the price of wheat in France touched twenty francs the hectolitre—in 1891— and for the other fourteen years has ruled much under that rate. Nor did the Government accept the conclusions of its commission, for it imposed a higher duty on imported wheat, raising the rate from sixty centimes the quintal, at which rate it was prior to 1884, to three francs a quintal, and in 1887 to five francs a quintal. These moves were based upon the growing restlessness of the peasant pro- prietor, on, whom fell the brunt of competition in wheat growing from Russia and the United States. He had seen the price falling, and had been subject to bad seasons as well as a loss of market from importations. He had run into debt through the failure of his crop, and he had incurred losses by entering speculative “ companies ” of one kind or another, that promised high returns and then failed dis- astrously. He found it difficult to accommodate himself to wheat selling from nineteen to seventeen francs a hectolitre, but was suc- cessful in the attempt, as was proved by his refusal to obtain a further increase of duty on wheat in 1892, when a revision of the tariff oc- curred. Secure in his own holding, and protected from any con- cession by way of reciprocity to his neighbors and rivals, he was yet slowly fomenting an agitation that was to plead now for higher duties on all agricultural products and now for a rehabilitation of silver. The year of famine (1891) led to a temporary reduction in the duty from five francs to three, but the exceptional conditions leading to this concession to the consumer of wheat soon passed. A glance at the table of production and imports given above does not betray any influence of these successive changes in the rates of duty on imported wheat. The price of wheat was controlled not by conditions in France, but by conditions acting throughout the commercial world. It was even asserted that the cost of producing a hectolitre of wheat in France had risen in recent years, and now stood at the high figure of twenty-six francs. The market price obtainable was only 17.87 francs in 1892, 16.55 francs in 1893, and 15.21 francs in 1894, and abundant crops at home and abroad threat- ened even lower prices. With such pressure of competition the agrarian party acquired strength and influence, and in February, 1894, obtained an increase in the duty on foreign wheat to seven francs the quintal. In less than fifteen years the duty had thus been raised from a nominal rate of sixty centimes to seven francs the quintal.

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THE QUESTION OF WHEAT. 7 M. Charles Lesage proves that when wheat paid an import duty of three francs, the Frenchman paid three francs seventy centimes more on his wheat than did his neighbor of England; and when the duty was raised to five francs, the price of wheat in France was again six francs ten centimes higher than in England. “Thus the thres- frane duty cost the country 300,000,000, and the five-frane duty 500,000,000, while it brought in 60,000,000 only to the treasury.” * In a country where the cost of government is advancing by leaps and bounds, and the population is stationary or nearly so, the question of additional burdens of indirect taxation is a serious one for the legis- lator. But this form of taxation is one of the simplest and readiest means of offering encouragement to agriculture through a restric- tion of foreign competition, and the remarkable stability of wheat area in France is at once proof of the conservative qualities of the peasant and the general distribution of wheat cultivation throughout the country. Of the eighty-seven departments into which France is divided only four produced more than 2,500,000 hectolitres of wheat. Reporting in 1896, the official representative of the agricul- tural districts complacently remarked that the home crop was about equal to the home consumption—a complacency rudely disturbed in 1897, when large importations became necessary. France is an excellent example of a combination of circumstances favoring the culture of wheat in the face of unfavorable conditions. Wheat is a necessity, and is grown everywhere as a usual and almost necessary crop, apart from its commercial aspect. The farmer puts down each year a certain amount of land under wheat for his own consumption, and would continue to do so even if it happened (a most unlikely supposition) that wheat should sell for one third its present price. With this personal and necessary crop the farmer obtains food, a stock for seed, and usually a small surplus for sale, even from the smallest of wheat farms. It has occurred many times that a slightly higher price for wheat has called out unexpectedly large quantities from the hands of the small farmers of France, quan- tities that have been saved through indifference to sales or through supposed necessities, now set aside by the chance of reaping a profit. And what has happened before will happen again among so thrifty a nation of land cultivators as are the French. In addition to this necessity for growing wheat the division of land must be counted as a favoring factor. Recent returns on this head show that in France the total area under cultivation is 49,561,- 861 hectares, divided into 5,672,000 plots or farms. Even on a general average this area and division will afford a small farm to each holder, one suited to intensive operations only. But nearly * Economic Journal, September, 1896.

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8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. thirty-eight per cent of the number of farms are of less than one hectare, and this thirty-eight per cent includes only 2.2 per cent of the entire area, mere dots of land, more suited for residences than farming. The holdings from one to ten hectares included 46.5 per cent of the number and 22.9 per cent of the area; those from ten to forty hectares, 12.8 per cent of the number end 29.9 per cent of the surface; and the larger farms, of more than forty hectares, only 2.5 per cent in number and forty-five per cent of the area. So that 84.7 per cent of the number of farms covers just one fourth of the total area under cultivation. When this feature of land holding is combined with very careful and intelligent agricultural methods, another proof of strength is developed. Stress is laid by observers on the continued increase of the yield per acre of wheat, due to the application of better methods and science, and, as is believed, to the use of better fertilizers, which had rendered the soil less sensitive to atmospheric variations. To this march of scientific agriculture there is no end, and with the more general use of discoveries it is possible to conceive that France in wheat will be able to hold her own. In the production of wheat the position of France is peculiar. Other countries of Europe, like Holland and Belgium, obtain a larger yield per acre, and even Germany gives a higher yield; but no country produces so many bushels in proportion to its population, or approaches the record of France—more than seven bushels per capita. The second in rank is Italy, with only five bushels, and the neighbors of France on the north, Belgium and the Netherlands, grow only 3.5 and 1.3 bushels respectively. France is therefore more independent of foreign supplies of wheat than her continental rivals in trade and industry, Russia and Hungary excepted. It has been a conviction with French statesmen that, possessing no com- mand over the sea, it would be suicidal to permit France to become dependent for food upon foreign and possibly rival powers. This conviction has influenced the commercial policy of France, for the Government has ever given a ready ear to the demands of the agricul- turist, and has now adopted protection to the farmer as a settled policy. Where duties on imports have not been granted, bounties on production are given, and only in the great raw materials of industry, like wool, have the proposals of duties, revenue or pro- tective, been set aside. It remains to be seen whether the colonial policy of France will modify this tendency of legislation. In Algeria she holds a country capable of great development in wheat, but Algeria is not tempting to the French farmer, who prefers his smaller holding at home. The more distant colonies as yet play no part in supplying France with this important grain, but are rather dependent upon the mother country for everything—a penalty in-

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THE QUESTION OF WHEAT. 9 volved in the exploiting of a country for purely commercial advan- tage. As yet in no year has so large a quantity as 1,250,000 metric quintals been obtained from Algeria, and the import shows little tendency to increase. It may be noted that even England obtains little assistance from her colonies in the supply of this one article. In 1896 only one twelfth of the wheat imported came from her pos- sessions, and, eliminating India and Canada, she could obtain hardly enough to meet her wants for a single day. Nowhere is colonial em- pire closely connected with the question of wheat raising and supply. There is no more instructive lesson in history than a government struggling with the economic inevitable. That this experience is more fraught with failure than with success is not surprising, for the social problems come slowly forward and are well under way to accomplishment before the symptoms are noticed or a diagnosis attempted. The discovery is made by those who have no proper appreciation of the true remedy. It is some interest that feels the pinch, the increasing pressure of the change that always accompanies a social movement. The wish and effort are directed to maintain the conditions as they were, conditions to which the operations of indus- try or commerce were accommodated by long usage. This inter- ested effort, ever conservative, opposes the progress of development on new lines, and too often makes a blind use of whatever instru- ment of defense is at hand. The protection of Government is invoked to stave off the inevitable, and a greater and greater exercise of that protection is invoked as the weight of the necessary change becomes greater. Industries have been wiped out, commerce destroyed, gov- ernments overturned, and peoples impoverished by this unreasonable contest with what is inevitable. Natural conditions, the product of land tenures, habits, and national character, have thus far been suf- ficient to preserve the French farmer from that intense crisis through which the English landlord has passed; but the end is not yet. France to-day holds an almost unique position in wheat among the nations of Europe, and it is only misapplied political agencies from within or more intense competition from without that can shake her in this eminence. WILLIAM PENGELLY, the Devonshire (England) geologist, who is perhaps best known by his exploration of Kent’s Hole, Torquay, while seated one day on a settle at a wayside inn, answered some questions asked him by three day laborers, and got them so much interested in a conversation on stone- breaking that the landlord took notice of the matter. The next morning he addressed the geologist: “I hope no offense, sir; but ef you'd stop ’ere for a foo days or a week, and talk to the men in the evenin’s, you shud be wel- come to meat, drink, washing, and lodging free gratis. I’m sure lots o’ men wud come and hear ’ee, and I should zell an uncommon sight o’ beer.” VOL. LIII.—2

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA. By Dr. J. W. SPENCER. bY lgemcrange or Oceans anp ContineNts.—A glance at a map of the American continent, inclosing the West Indian seas within its mass, suggests that these basins are sunken plains, sub- merged to only a moderate extent, but the soundings show depths reaching *to more than three miles. “It is not too much to say that every spot which is now dry land has been sea at some former period, and every part of space now covered by the deepest oceans has been land.” * ‘This enunciation still held place among the latest writings of the great geological teacher—Sir Charles Lyell. As the earlier geologists had not the means of measuring the amount of terrestrial movements, the doctrine of mutability of continents and seas, as taught by Lyell, was doubted by many who later substituted the hypothesis of their permanency from the most remote times, although subjected to ceaseless changes of form. The hypothesis of permanency of continents and seas -was largely based upon the littoral character of sedimentary formations, although the evidence of the abysmal or oceanic origin of the widespread chalk deposits could not be easily disposed of. Again, the develop- ment and distribution of animal and plant life have been skillfully used as evidence against certain great changes in insular and con- tinental connections, beyond limited proportions. The amount of the concession has varied greatly among the different advocates, so that even under the general hypothesis of permanency, the con- figuration of the West Indian region has undergone great changes, yet not sufficient to bridge over the seas between the two Americas. The biological evidence alone, in favor of the permanency of continents and oceans, sometimes suggesting the most startling evi- dence to the contrary, is insufficient to base theories upon, unless supported by physical indorsement. Indeed, some of the most inter- esting questions concerning the distribution of biological forms in the West Indian seas can only be explained by the recent discoveries of the physical changes of the region. Some of the smaller oscilla- tions of land and sea have often been measured, but the determina- tion of many of those of stupendous proportions, while occasionally hinted at, was not accomplished until the standard value of the great yardstick was found in the West Indian seas. The discovery of the Antillean bridge between North and South America, which is the * The last edition of Lyell’s Principles of Geology.

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THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 11 theme of this communication, is also important in establishing meth- ods for determining similar great changes of land and ocean in other regions in late geological times. GrowTH oF THE Science or GromorpHy.—The methods of in- quiry belong to geomorphy, or the study of land forms. Geomorphy is the outgrowth of topography, which was made a science fifty or sixty years ago by Prof. J. P. Lesley and his coworkers. Its birth is graphically described by the author himself: * “That the Euro- pean Jura . . . had to wait for its elucidation until the American Appalachians had been mapped may seem strange, but it admits of easy explanation. In Pennsylvania, paleontology and detailed local stratigraphy were impossible; we were untrained in both. . . . The country was no ground for mineralogy; no rare and curious minerals exist in it; it is a waste of sand, mud, iron, and limestone strata of various textures and color in endless repetition; to know one was to know all; to know it here was to know it everywhere. Nothing remained to study but dynamic forms; and these so numerous, so grand, so variously grouped that they excited our perpetual enthu- siasm, and led to infinite research; they supplied the place of fossil forms, of forms of crystals, and of variations of mineral elements; they were a world of the exhibition of the natural forces by itself, and as such we took possession of it and settled in it as our fathers did in the valleys themselves, and thus became not mineralogists, not miners, not learned in fossils, not geologists in the full sense of the term, but topographers; and topography became a science, and was returned to Europe and presented to geology there as an Ameri- can invention. The passion with which we all studied it is incon- ceivable, the details into which it led us were infinite. . . . They trained us to that fertility of fancy which precedes the ripening of the constructive or geometric faculty, made to act upon the more difficult problems of geology; while its generalizations were so vast . that customary European local research . . . seemed tedious. . . » The moment, therefore, that one of us beheld the ranges of the Jura, with their combs and offsets, their vast escarpments, and far-glittering white gaps, he was at home among friends, where geologists, born among them, felt that they were strangers. For the valleys of the Jura were filled with later formations full of fossils, which the Appalachian valleys never are. There much is hidden, here allis told. Fossils themselves in the Jura distracted study from the topography.” Geomorphy, like its antecedent, the science of topography, is * Manual of Coal and its Topography. By J. P. Lesley. 12mo, pp. 1-224. Published by J. P. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1856.

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12 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. an American innovation, and for the same reasons. We have here better opportunities for studying both the newer and older topo- graphic forms, developed over broader geographical domains, and surmounting geological formations commonly of wider extent, so that the evolution of geomorphic features from the simple to the complex form is more easily understood. The explorations of the sub- merged topography are also along more favorable lines than in the older world. The many repetitions of the middle geological forma- tions in western Europe, and the favorable opportunities they afford for studying certain fossils and minerals, have also distracted from the development of geomorphy there, while in America the investi- gations of the physical features are now occupying the most promi- nent place among geologists. Former Cuaneces or Levert 1n tHE West Inpres.—The Lesse: Antilles, or Windward Islands, have often been regarded as a chain of sunken mountains, and the Greater Antilles as having been con- nected with the mainland. But the dissimilarity of their features, compared with those of our northern continent, and the almost gen- eral absence of the higher types of animal life in the islands, caused many to question such connections in late geological times. How- ever, more analytical methods have brought about different con- clusions. The doctrine of the permanency of the ocean basins in the West Indian region received its coup de grace by the discovery of radio- larian earths upon the highest land of Barbadoes, which was eluci- dated in the classic treatise of Messrs. A. J. Jukes-Browne and J. B. Harrison.* Radiolaria are minute organisms with beautiful silicious shells, which are now forming geological ‘accumulations at only great oceanic depths. Similar deposits also occur in Trinidad, Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, and probably other islands. They furnish testi- mony of the upheaval of the floor of the ocean from depths of two miles or more. The age of the radiolarian earths in the West Indies appears to have been about the early Miocene period, which was con- siderably prior to the building and completion of the West Indian continent. These deposits are most interesting, as they show, upon biological evidence, the uplifting of the bed of the ocean, and later on we shall show that an equally great terrestrial movement occurred in the opposite direction, upon the sinking of the Antillean continent in Pleistocene times. Mopern Cuaners or Levert Merasurep.—Such great earth movements are slow pulsations extending over large continental * The Geology of Barbadoes. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. xlviii, pp. 170-226.

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THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 13 areas, but they do not belong to the phenomena of thrusts which give rise to mountain structures, nor are they the effects of volcanic forces. The land rises or sinks so gently that usually these move- ments do not disturb the courses of the drainage of the rivers, although barriers sometimes do appear across valleys. The modern changes of level illustrate these gentle oscillations. Islands and farms, which were located upon the low coast of New Jersey in the early settlement of the country, are now reduced in size, and are partly converted into salt marshes. The rate of sinking in this local- ity has been estimated by Mr. Mitchell * at only two feet in a cen- tury. The depression of land about the mouth of the Mississippi has lately been measured by Mr. E. L. Corthell, who finds that the sink- ing there is at the rate of five feet in a century.+ For these low lands this subsidence promises to become a serious economic question in the not distant future. On the other hand, certain northern regions are rising. Thus, in the district of Niagara Falls, the rise is a foot and a quarter in a century, or perhaps a little more. In the St. Law- rence Valley, upon the northwestern flanks of the Adirondack Moun- tains, the upward movement, for the last fifteen hundred years at least, has been from four to five feet per century. Such gentle changes, accelerated or retarded, and continuing sufficiently long, are capable of transposing the ocean floors and mountain heights. Recent ELevation or THE Eastern Coast or Americoa.—Nu- merous soundings, chiefly for the use of navigators, but occasionally taken for scientific purposes, have been made off the American coast and in the West Indian seas. In order to insure mariners against the occurrence of sunken rocks, the surveys have often been carried from the coast all the way to oceanic depths. ‘Upon the submarine coastal plains the extensions of some of the great rivers have long been known. From data thus collected, Lindenkohl traced the Hud- son River across the submerged banks off the New York and New Jersey coasts to a depth of nearly three thousand feet.t Later, the writer * gathered evidence from the drowned St. Lawrence, Dela- ware, Susquehanna, and other rivers as far as the Mississippi, and it became apparent that the whole of the eastern coast of America in recent times stood three thousand feet higher than now, with sug- gestions of a still greater elevation which he then hesitated to follow up on account of their startling character. The existence of the * Of the United States Coast Survey. + Geographical Development of the Lower Mississippi. Read bcfore the Toronto meeting of the British Association. ¢ Appendix XIII, Report of the United States Coast Survey for 1887 (1889), pp. 270-273. * High Continental Elevation preceding the Pleistocene Period. Bulletin of the Geo- logical Society of America, vol. i, 1889, p. 65.

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14 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. deeper submarine valleys was thus still left unexplained, as if they were either unimportant phenomena or as if they had been formed by causes not in operation at the present time. . Ouaracter or Lanp Vattrys.—Ordinarily speaking, valleys are produced by the chemical and physical action of the rains, rills, and rivers denuding the surfaces of the land, while the character of the rocks gives rise to modified fea- tures. Streams flowing through old valleys are usually insignificant, if compared with the size of the val- leys. When a stream commences Fic. 1.—Cross-section representing @ jts work, it gradually deepens its broad valley, abrba; with vase a a level lowered, the valley (bercs) Channel until it is reduced to the was produced. Another riseofthe base level of erosion—that is to say, mig apt ~o ae cae he when the slope of the floor of the the valley to become mature. The valley’ rises so gently from the -sea ger ae oo a pe“ level, or from some other barrier, that it does not permit any fur- ther deepening of the river channel. In the first stage, the stream only excavates the narrow gorge or caiion. Upon the base level being reached, the rains and rills widen the valley, while the work of the river itself is chiefly that of carrying away the mud washed off the neighboring lands by the rains, or of undermining an occasional bank. The process continuing, the valley may become dozens of miles in width. With the subsequent rise in the land, a lower base level is formed, and accordingly the process is repeated from the cafion-making stage to that of mature valleys, as illustrated in Fig. 1. With the land rising at intermittent epochs, the valley becomes a series of steps, as illustrated in Fig. 2. Each of the steps is being cut slowly backward, but, owing to the character of the rocks, the Fie. 2.—Longitudinal section of a valley dissecting a plateau (represented by broken shading along a line a g x), showing three base levels, with the front of the platforms (4 ¢ and de) characterized by waterfalls. lower platforms may be worn away faster than the upper, so that in time the steps will disappear as the valley becomes mature, when its whole floor is as low as it is possible for the stream to deepen it. If upon the completion of a portion of a valley the country subsides, the lower reaches may become submerged, as shown in

Page 15

THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 5 15 Plate I, when the newly formed bay gradually becomes filled with mud or the washes of the land. Valleys even in mountain regions are almost independent of the undulations of the strata, in that the courses of the streams fre- Beach in front of ponds formed by wave action. Lower portion occupied by shailow salt ponds, beneath which more than thirty teet of mud have already been deposited. Martin. Sr. VaLLeY AT PHILIPsBURG, Priate I. quently occupy the crests of folds, while the geological troughs are represented by features in bold relief, as is illustrated in Fig. 3. It is easily shown that valleys, even among mountains, whether parallel

Page 16

16 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. to the ridges or breaking through them, are the result of the denuda- tion of the rock surfaces of the country, and accordingly, when similar forms occur beneath the sea, they suggest the same origin. On tHE Maenitupe oF Lanp Vattrys.—Concerning the mag- nitude of land valleys, they vary from the smallest ravines to valleys such as the Mississippi, whose flood plains are from thirty to eighty miles wide for the lower five hundred miles of its length. Several comparatively short rivers, crossing the coastal plains of the south- eastern Atlantic States, have valleys from two to four miles wide, even at a hundred miles from the sea, and upon nearing the coast

* -* — ae 2” § §_stteten. Ta i ee ia se 8 8 ei —_ _. ae en Mere

eat Tale Ria cee by a tie, i, ne —— a ( gare REE Little Sand Mt. - tip — ~ <— — s SSO ~~ Let ES OK os EOS my SS BQO weEMiisit Scale 3 2 3 Miles. Verlicaje=°_'9°° Feet

Fie. 3.—Cross-section of a complex valley in the southern Appalachians, showing it to be in- dependent of the geological structure, which is represented by the shading. Dotted lines mark what was the upper limit of strata which have been denuded away. The straight lines (/’) illustrate some of the faults affecting the region. they may be from five to ten miles wide, bounded by only broken hills. All the rivers crossing the coastal plains are flowing over deeply buried channels. That of the Savannah River is buried be- neath two hundred and fifty feet or more of superficial deposits, and the old Mississippi Valley is now known to reach one thousand feet below sea level at New Orleans. These buried channels prove that in recent times the continent has sunken to a great extent. The valley of the St. Lawrence River differs from that of the Mississippi in be- ing drowned but not subsequently filled with the mud brought down by the streams. In its lower reaches it is seventy miles wide. These examples of continental valleys are greater than any of the drowned ones to be considered in this paper. The examples cited are those of valleys crossing extensive plains at no great elevation above the sea, with their lower reaches depressed even below high tide. The Colorado River of the West flows from table-lands eight thousand to ten thousand feet above the sea. Its cajion section is about two hundred and twenty miles long. This is not a simple gorge, but a broad valley from five to twelve miles wide, bounded by walls rising two thousand feet above its floor. This floor was an old base level of erosion formed at no considerable altitude, so that the streams meandered sluggishly over it, and the rains and rills widened it to broad proportions; but, owing to subsequent elevation of the region, the river has cut down its channel to a still lower base level, and in doing so it has been deepened thirty-five hundred or four

Page 17

THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 17 thousand feet more, with the production of a narrow gorge having precipitous walls, not yet widened into a mature valley. Channels like that of the Colorado also occur crossing submarine plateaus. A short, deep valley, heading iu an amphitheater and dissecting a denuded plateau. VALLey or TUE Rosseavu, Dominica. Parte II. The short tributaries of these high plateau valleys may be likened to gigantic washouts. Such short, deep valleys commonly form at their heads amphitheaters, which may be a few miles in length, as is illustrated in Plate II. These are sometimes so precipitous

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18 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. that they can not be scaled. The depths vary from a few hundred feet to a couple of thousand feet, or even more. The same features are found beneath the sea. On tHE Dectivity or Lanp Vatieys.—The declivity of the greater land valleys crossing regions of continental extent is usually very gentle—a foot per mile, more or less. Smaller valleys may have a declivity of five or ten feet per mile. In the short amphi- theaters, descending from the high plateaus, the gradients may be two hundred or even five hundred feet or more per mile. The valleys dis- secting recently elevated table-lands, such as those of Mexico, have not uniform slopes, but the descent is characterized by a great series of steps, the surface of each often appearing nearly level to the eye, but with abrupt margins. The vertical heights of such steps vary from five feet to even five hundred feet. The character of the slopes is illustrated in Fig. 4. If stretches of several miles be taken, so —__Sea Lere/ _sio _ Fie. 4.—Longitudinal section of a Mexican valley {above Atoyac), showing the descent in steps. many gradation plains occur that the mean declivity of the valley may be from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty feet per mile. Each of these represents pauses in the elevation of the region, while the streams were flowing at levels so low that they could not further deepen their channels, but were widening them out into broad val- leys or plains—that is to say, the gradation plains represent base levels of erosion. The valleys on the surface of the table-lands have usually low gradients, which may be as small as those of rivers cross- ing continental plains. Similar gradation steps are found in valleys beneath the sea. Supmarine PriatEeaus.—The low coastal plains of the South- eastern States do not terminate at the seashore, but pass beyond, forming shoals and banks, and eventually submarine plateaus, over- looking the edge of the continent, which is fifteen miles eastward of Cape Hatteras, but three hundred miles distant from the coast of Florida. (See map, Plate III.) They extend to and include the Bahamas and other islands. These submarine plateaus have various depths. An elevation of one hundred to three hundred feet would greatly enlarge the Southeastern States, and raise the Bahama banks into broad plains (in reality a continuation of the coastal plains of the Southern States), separated from Cuba and Florida by only nar- row channels. A lower broad plateau occurs in this same region, at

Page 19

Page 20

ANTILLEAN LAND by JW Spencer SCALE 200 __ 400

Page 21

8 Ws Ww Za Siig ot C3 = y / Prats III—The soundings are jon? in feet.

Page 22

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Pp Faas * tity 2 L ———~ Ss EY TSN XC eC Ml. ON YY My Ke % - eM =

t Deep

ex Y ae AV ATs CY GE// UU De sae pil = ” a C Y os ise. yw) Yf ee B UY, LG] Gy ‘MY sae

y 4 2 , 4 / 7’, v4 a 4 IlI—The soundings are given in feet.

Page 23

“a THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 19 depths from twenty-five hundred to thirty-five hundred feet. From its margin the edge of the continent drops abruptly to depths of twelve thousand feet or more. On the western side of Florida the drowned plains gradually slope down to about three hundred feet, beyond which there is an abrupt descent to the abyss of the Gulf of Mexico. The Yucatan plains extend as broad submerged banks to about three hundred feet beneath the sea, and the sea floor then falls rapidly to that of the Gulf of Mexico, at twelve thousand feet. Such slightly submerged plains of great breadth occur on the banks be- tween Honduras and Jamaica. The Windward Islands are frag- ments of a plateau which an emergence of less than three thousand feet would unite into one body of land. Both to the east and west of Jamaica there are plateaus depressed to between three thousand and four thousand feet. Still lower plateaus are indicated in the Carib- bean Sea, which reaches to a depth of fifteen thousand feet. From the existence of these submerged plateaus it becomes apparent that a change of elevation of from two thousand to four thousand feet would not merely unite Cuba and Florida, but would greatly enlarge the West Indian lands, and almost connect North and South America. Such a change of elevation would nearly bar- ricade the Antillean water into three basins—the Caribbean Sea, the Sea of Honduras, and the Gulf of Mexico. The Sea of Hon- duras, between Cuba and Jamaica, reaches to the phenomenal depth of twenty thousand feet, in the form of a long, narrow channel. The structure of these sea basins, at various depths, has been mapped by many writers, but the character of the channels which dissect the drowned plateaus had been almost entirely passed over until the appearance of the writer’s previous papers.* Tue Drownep Vatieys or Fiorps.—The greater number of the submerged valleys discovered are found to be continuations of buried channels of modern rivers. In some cases the valleys have been so completely submerged that even the divides between those trending in opposite directions have also been drowned—as, for ex- ample, the straits of Florida. These drowned valleys have been traced across the submarine plateaus and terminate in enlarged em- bayments indenting the margin of the continental mass. A few great submarine valleys are found parallel with the mountain ranges. The continuation of many land valleys beneath the sea, and others completely submerged, is shown in the accompanying map (Plate ITT), and attention may now be called to a few notable examples. * Terrestrial Submergence Southeast of the American Continent. Bulletin of the Geo- logical Society of America, vol. v, pp. 19-22, 1893. Reconstruction of the Antiliean Con- tinent. Ibid., vol. vi, pp. 103-140, 1894.

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The Savannah Valley, deeply buried on reaching the present sea- shore, crosses the submarine coastal plains at a depth of sixteen hun- dred and fifty feet lower than the floor of the plateau itself, which is already submerged at that point to nineteen hundred and fifty feet beneath the surface of the sea. The caiion becomes still deeper upon nearing the edge of the continental shelf. The Altamaha becomes a cafion with a depth of fifty-three hundred feet at the point where the continental shelf is submerged twenty-five hundred feet. Its length is about three hundred miles. It terminates in an embay- ment thirteen thousand five hundred feet below the surface of the sea. Among the Bahama Islands, and between them and Cuba, there are several similar fiords or drowned valleys, reaching to depths of from two thousand to twelve thousand feet or more. The straits of Florida, and the fiords extending from them, have afforded special opportunities for studying the submerged valleys. The shal- lowest parts of the straits of Florida are two thousand and sixty-four feet beneath the surface of the sea. From this col, or divide, the Floridian channel extends for a distance of three hundred and fifty miles to a point where it has a depth of ten thousand three hundred and fourteen feet, upon nearing the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. From the same divide the deep Bahaman valley trends in the oppo- site direction, skirting the northern side of the Bahaman group, and becomes a fiord reaching to a depth of about twelve thousand feet near the edge of the continental shelf. The Abacan channel, cross- ing the Bahama banks, may be followed to a similar depth. (See map, and Figs. 5 and 6, page 21.) The valley of the Mississippi (buried to a depth of one thou- sand feet before reaching the present mouth of the river) is well marked across the submerged plateau to near the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. The drowned valleys of many other Southern rivers are similarly traceable to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. The same is true of the submarine channels dissecting the drowned plateaus of the Honduras and Caribbean Seas, as shown on the map. Many of the submerged valleys have tributaries converging from all possible directions, as, for example, those of the Floridian chan- nel. There are also numerous short fiords, tributary to those of greater proportions, but these come from the abrupt margins of the continental shelves or islands, like the amphitheaters indenting the high table-lands. Of the numerous submarine valleys discovered, a considerable number is shown upon the map, but only a few are cited in the text; by far the larger proportion lie along directions transverse to the trend of the coast lines and mountain ranges, and consequently they

Page 25

a) < & & r=] oO a £ oS fk — o 2 \\ 5 + sme%) : a rN 5 2 3 \ a a 2 : 7 3 . 7 - “eS = s S 3 Pn = t Py q ‘ | NOES a Sih 3 ; el: ge E z E |: : a | 2 , 2 | as ke ts 43 SH] | he b | Ss | | = 6 .- sar Wil i 2 N 8 q it se JOO o~ ee g L- yaye~ =~ ~ a -4-- g | ij i 1 i, | t ; E NJ 3 : yi | | ~ ih 3 | S ‘I 4 © ri 3 ; . ee =. ST ee eee ween & i V1 2 \ = | | f 3 | | = i akeotenieianenaieee : ; : a ." + “4 re E TY * ba “3 + 19COe meee - N | + 2 _— | pT en jens SE7SPs mmo - niseoll | ‘es re il} | q : Y ; \ jo £ \ . A Y a \ LAL ‘9 x freee!

These sections, Figs. 5 and 6, illustrate gradation plains and steps between the col of the straits of Florida and the floors of the Mexican and Atlantic basins. The cafionlike character is shown by the dissection of the continental shelf, whose floor is seen in broken shading. The gradient of the Colorado Cafion is also shown in Fig. 5. The depth of submergence is given in feet ; and the mean slopes in feet for distances of a given number of miles. i were not depressed by the terrestrial movements which elevated mountain zones or depressed ocean basins. A few of the submarine valleys are parallel to the mountain ridges, and may have been

Page 26

22 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. deepened by earth movements, although such is not apparent in the many tributaries. It has been found that the greatest amount of upward warping is in the mountain regions, and the greatest de- pression is supposed to be along the margins of oceanic abysses. Such movements would have a tendency to somewhat increase ter- restrial and submarine declivities; but if transverse upward warping became exaggerated, the valleys would become barricaded so as to form basins, like that of Lake Ontario, or even greater sea basins. Such, however, is not the case with the valleys crossing the sub- merged coastal plains. Comparison oF Lanp anp Drownep Va.ttrys.—Since the sub- marine valleys, wherever traceable to the shores, are found to be continuations of the buried valleys crossing the coastal plains, they have considerable mag- nitude where first de- tected in the soundings. Parehthetically it may be stated that during Fie. 7.—Longitudinal section of the Cazonan channel the late minor oscilla- (south of Cuba), showing a similar but shorter fiord ° * dissecting the land mass, the submerged floor of which tions of the continent ~ is shown by the broken shading. the old valleys have be- come filled with sand, ete., for some distance seaward; but beyond this fringe they are = =“ always found where the Fie. 8.—Longitudinal sections of the Atozac Valley, de- soundings have been scending from the Mexican plateau (eight thousand taken sufficiently near feet above the sea), on the same scale as that of the t th Sub d drowned valleys, but which is here too small to show ogether. u — the numerous steps, except the mean declivity for valleys gradually 1n- ison Wi lopes ‘a. - comparison with that of the abrupt slopes of the sub- crease in size until they enter the oceanic em- bayments indenting the margins of the con- tinental mass. These embayments have been _ found to vary from per- Fie. 9.—Longitudinal section of a similar valley south of 7 ‘] Monterey in Mexico. haps ten to forty miles in width, or within the limit of size shown in the modern Mississippi and St. Lawrence Val- leys. Even the upper cafion of the Colorado River has a width of twelve miles. Consequently, the breadth of the drowned valleys

Page 27

THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 23 crossing the submerged coastal plains is no greater than that illus- trated by those of the land. The resemblance between the terrestrial and submarine valleys is even more striking in the case of their tributaries, which come from various directions. Where there are short tributaries descend- ing from submerged plateaus, they have also the form of amphi- theaters like those dissecting the margins of table-lands. The slopes of the submarine channels consist of a series of steps, like the gradation plains descending from high table-lands. These steps represent long pauses in the elevation of the plateaus. For comparison of the declivity of the drowned valleys with those of the land, sections are given on pages 21 and 22 in Figs. 5 to 9, all drawn to the same scale. The declivities of some of these grada- tion plains do not exceed a foot per mile—that is, these slopes are as low as those of continental valleys which are reduced to the base level of erosion. While much is yet to be learned of the detailed features between the submarine steps, we already know that their mean declivity is less abrupt than that of land valleys descend- ing from the Mexican plateaus. The submerged steps appear to _ have the same origin as those on the border of table-lands—that is to say, they were formed during the pauses in the terrestrial oscilla- tions when the now drowned continental plateaus formed table-lands. The deep channels crossing the submerged plateaus for a distance of two hundred or three hundred miles, with a depth of from two thousand to six thousand feet—and among the Bahama banks to even greater proportions—show a close resemblance to the Colorado Valley and Cajion. Tue Grotogicat Yarpstick anpD West Inpian Bripezr.—From the apparently complete analogy between the characteristics of the land and submarine valleys or channels—namely, (1) the submarine valleys being continuations of those of the continent or islands; (2) both having tributaries converging from every possible direction; (3) both classes of valleys having their magnitude of corresponding proportions, with (4) similar great cafions and amphitheaterlike tributaries; (5) both terrestrial and submarine channels with similar gradation plains and steps characterizing their slopes; (6) without obstructing barriers—the conclusion is reached that the depths of the submarine channels may be used as yardsticks to show that the land lately stood nearly as high as the valleys are deep. Applied to the West Indian region and adjacent parts of the continent, it would thus appear that these regions stood from ten thousand to twelve thousand feet, or in some localities fourteen thou- sand feet, higher than now. The West Indian bridge reached a height of from two to more than two and a half miles, while the

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| 24 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. tloors of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to which depth the drowned valleys can be traced, were continental plains, like those of the Mississippi or Amazon of the present day, with perhaps some shallow lakes or small seas. The backbone of this West Indian bridge was near the Atlantic side, and remains of it are seen in the ridge dissected during the epoch of high elevation by the rapidly descending streams, which now constitute the chain of the Wind- ward Islands. The plains now forming the floors of the Gulf of Mexico and the Honduras and Caribbean Seas were apparently drained into the Pacific Ocean across the Tehuantepec Isthmus, Honduras, Nica- ragua, Panama (see map, page 000), and other low depressions farther south. The writer’s recent explorations in the Tehuantepec Isthmus confirm this hypothesis. Plateaus of Mexico and Central America, rising to from six thousand to ten thousand feet, are there reduced in height for a distance of more than sixty miles, so that we find half a dozen passes as low as eight hundred feet above the sea. During the earlier period of the elevation of the Antillean region the Tehuan- tepec Isthmus was a strait in which a deep-water fauna was living. Later the strait was transformed into land troughs, fragments of the old base-level floor of which are still extant, and through them nar- row geological canals were formed when the low Mexican plains had again sunk beneath the gulf waters. This question of the elevation of the Mexican and Central American barriers would carry us be- yond the limits of the present paper, so that all that can now be said of them is that they were elevated at a very recent date, correspond- ing to the subsidence of the West Indian region, to heights reaching from six thousand to even more than ten thousand feet. This eleva- tion was a sort of compensation in the terrestrial balance. Tue Dare or tHe ContinentaL Briper.—Over the West In- ' dian region there are many widely distributed geological formations which were acumulated in early Miocene times. During the follow- ing late Miocene and Pliocene periods these formations were lifted above the sea and became lands of great extent. This elevated con- dition continued so long that the country became enormously de- nuded, and was reduced to valleys and low base-level plains, some of which now appear to constitute the gradation plateaus beneath the sea. On the sinking of the land, after the Mio-Pliocene period of elevation, new deposits (the Lafayette) were accumulated in the valleys, the age of which is provisionally placed at the end of the Pliocene, although some might regard it as early Pleistocene, for there is no sharp line of demarcation characterizing the limits of these formations. But these deposits immediately underlie those of the Glacial period of the north. Subsequently the land of the West

Page 29

THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 25 Indian region rose, and this time to its greatest height, so as to allow the excavation of the very deep valleys and caiions through the then existing table-lands which now form the submarine plateaus. This high elevation was characterized by such deep sculpturing as to give rise to some of the boldest physical features of the lands with which we are familiar. With the subsequent depression of the West Indian bridge, the fragmentary islands became much smaller than even now, and upper portions of the drowned valleys were again partly filled with a still newer formation (known as the Columbia of the Southern States). This last has since been elevated a few hun- dred feet, with some minor changes of level continuing to the present day. The Columbia formation belongs to a mid-Pleistocene epoch. Yonsequently, the time of greatest elevation and development of the West Indian continent was during the early Pleistocene period— more popularly called the Ice age. These great and recurring changes of level of land and sea, in later geological times, have pro- duced remarkable and startling revolutions in the physical geog- raphy of the region, which might seem incredible but for the great array of evidence which is now being accumulated on every hand. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DisrrrpuTion oF LiFE AND THE West Inp1an Contrnent.—The elevation of the Antillean bridge is a question of dynamical geology, but the consequent changes of the physical geography naturally affected the distribution of life; ac- cordingly, the biological aspect should be called upon as evidence of the physical changes. The commingling of the littoral fauna of the Pacific Ocean with that of the Antillean waters confirms the recent separation of the two seas by the elevation of the Central American region. The character of the deep-sea fauna is very important. The elevation of the West Indies to less than three thousand feet would exclude the Atlantic waters from the Antillean seas, except through two or three shallow straits, and one channel of enormous depth, be- tween the Virgin Islands and St. Croix. According to the late Dr. Brown Goode, the deep-sea fishes belong to modern forms, appar- ently overflowing through the Caribbean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico. There is no relationship whatever between the deep-sea fishes of these basins and those of the adjacent waters of the Pacific Ocean. The seemingly recent introduction of much the larger pro- portion of deep-sea fishes from the Atlantic naturally indicates the existence of barriers between the different basins—in other words, an elevation of the region by a few thousand feet. Furthermore, the general modern character of the fish fauna, with the exclusion of the Pacific forms, suggests the inundation of the floors (including possibly a few small sea basins) of the Caribbean and Honduras Seas VOL Lusi —3

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26 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. and the Gulf of Mexico in times so recent as to correspond with the great sinking of the Antillean continent. The land shells of the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, and Jamaica are generally related to each other, and are more or less connected with those of Yucatan and Florida, as was long ago pointed out by Mr. Thomas Bland, and more fully studied by Mr. Charles T. Simpson, who has shown that the land shells are poorly represented in the Windward Islands, but that they are closely allied to those of South America. The larger islands have been lately submerged so as to leave only their higher districts above the sea, but from these small remnants the land snails could be developed with local variations upon the re-elevation and enlargement of the islands. On this basis the connection of the islands is affirmed, and the remaining question is one of time, as we do not know in how short a period specific variations may be effected. The occurrence of mammals is of more importance than that of other animals, as they are less likely to be distributed by adventitious circumstances than other groups. In the West Indies there is a remarkable poverty of mammalian life. In Cuba and Haiti, six living species of Capromys or Hutia occur (three in each island). These are small rodents, similar to a Pleistocene type found in Brazilian caves. One species of insectivore, Selenodon, occurs in Cuba, and another in Haiti; these are of a Madagascar type, as well as an iguana, a reptile found in several of the islands. The little agouti occurs in the Island of Trinidad. These few forms repre- sent almost wholly the indigenous mammals of the West Indies. The monkeys of St. Kitts belong to the Old World, and appear to have been artificially introduced. The scarcity of higher life has given rise to the supposition that the islands have been separated from the mainland continuously, since a period before the appear- ance of modern mammals. But this generalization was made with- out considering the physical history of the islands. In the Southern States, including Florida, there was an assem- blage of many animals, such as the rhinoceros, mastodon, etc., which lived in the late Miocene or early Pliocene period (according to Professors Cope and Scott). This fauna became entirely exter- minated without leaving any immediate successors. Nor have any been found in the West Indies. This, however, is not strange, when we consider how few localities are known on the continent where such remains have been discovered; and, further, how the broad lands of the Mio-Pliocene times were subsequently inundated by the sea at the close of the Pliocene period, thus reducing the region to a number of very small islands. Belonging to the Pleistocene period, in the Southern States, the

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THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 27 remains of an extensive mammalian fauna have been found, includ- ing animals of the tapir, horse, elephant, bison, deer, and other families. ‘lo this period also belong the giant sloths of the Mega- lonyx type. In the West Indies, the North American sloth (Mega- lonyx) and an extinct Hutia have been found in Cuba. Three species of rodents as large as the Virginia deer were obtained in Anguilla by Mr. Wager Ray, and determined by Professor Cope. The writer lately saw in Guadeloupe, in the possession of Mr. L. Guesde, the tooth of a small elephant, which had been discovered in the island. A tooth of the late Florida elephant has also been found in the Bahamas (Lucas). While these animals named are few in number, yet they show Jand connection between what are now the islands and the continent in the Pleistocene period. The subsidence in mid- Pleistocene days submerged not merely the continental bridge be- tween North and South America, but caused all the lower land of the islands to be drowned, so that there was an almost complete ex- tinction of mammalian life. Indeed, the tombs of this Pleistocene fauna are now largely beneath the sea. Further biological testimony of the continental bridge is found among the extensive remains of mammals discovered at Port Ken- nedy, near Philadelphia, upon which Prof. E. D. Cope was engaged at the time of his recent death. These fossils belong to the old Pleistocene fauna, separated by submergence (the Columbia) from the more modern remains. Among these old Pleistocene species there occur South American types, most notably abundant remains of bears, that are not found among the fossils of the Western or Central States, but which appear to have migrated by way of the West Indian bridge. Although a few of the higher animals might survive the general extinction caused by the submergence of the Antillean continent by escaping into the higher lands of the few remaining islands, yet these migrations—as, for example, from savannas to mountain for- ests—would tend to complete their extermination. Besides the restriction of areas, the changes from elevated temperate to low trop- ical climates would further bring about the destruction of many animals. Finally, it may be said that the distribution of animal life re- quires the Pleistocene connection between North and South Amer- iea; and consequently the biological and physical evidence, so far as known, coincides in bearing joint testimony of the late West Indian bridge. Conc.usion.—The late West Indian continent is a geological feature which belongs to the period which just precedes the modern, and it was the breaking down and sinking of the bridge which

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28 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. brought the physical geography of that region into its present form. While the presence of man upon the West Indian and eastern Amer- ican plateaus is not even suggested by remains of him, yet at that time there roamed over the savannas and through the forests several animals identical with and many closely related to the existing spe- cies; and this is as near as we may hope to connect the sunken lands with human associations. The application of the deep-sea channels to the measurements of the subsidence of the land is a recent innovation. The elevation of mountain regions to great heights has long since passed beyond the bounds of doubt, but their forms have only recently been used for interpreting their history. The reason for this lies in the fact that many of the necessary topographical and geological explorations have not been made until recent years, and because geologists were chiefly engaged upon problems of greater antiquity than modern land features, especially on fossil remains which told something of the history of the sea basins; so that their interest in these questions caused them to largely overlook the history of the land. If we look at the Alpine plateau surmounted by the sublime Matterhorn, we may be told by geologists that, somewhere in the Alps, the Tertiary formations have been found at heights of ten or twelve thousand feet; in the Himalaya Mountains similar marine strata occur to an elevation of twenty thousand feet. We are still left in ignorance of the geographical history of the region, in spite of the geological youthfulness of the formations. Since the com- paratively recent Tertiary period much of the molding of the phys- ical features has been effected. If we observe the Matterhorn, as shown in Plate [V, any one may see a gently sloping plain dissected by a valley thousands of feet deep, which has almost passed the cafion stage, but is yet very immature. Now the geomorphist or scientific geographer will almost at a glance interpret the story recorded in these forms. The plateau is the remains of a base level of erosion, and bears testimony of its formation at a level of nine thousand or ten thousand feet lower, or near sea level, and the marine fossils found in the district will tell since what geological epoch the low plains were formed which have since be- come elevated into the high plateau. The Matterhorn itself, in spite of the faults, is largely a remnant of a higher mountain mass, which was worn down to a base-level floor by the insidious action of the rains and rills. The valley bears record of an elevation so recent, in spite of the hardness of the rocks and the slowness of degradation, that it has not yet entirely passed its youthful stage. The actually slow excavation of such a great valley, since the last geological period preceding the modern, certainly impresses us with the enormous

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THE WEST INDIAN BRIDGE. 29 duration of geological time. It is such magnificent land forms as these plateaus and great valleys, found submerged beneath the sea, which have furnished us with the means for measuring the terrestrial From a painting by Mr. Charles J. Way. » 4 +.) 5 » - ia 4 ay vA =x 2 4 fal E — a 6 < Pe) fo movements in the opposite direction which have reduced the West Indian region to a group of islands. As to the causes of these terrestrial movements, at present little can be said. Changes of level of land and sea, similar to those found

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30 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. in the West Indian region, have commonly occurred over perhaps most parts of the earth’s surface, only the evidence has not been so fully collected. Such oscillations have greatly affected the migra- tions of animal and plant life, and have produced changes of cli- mate. These physical changes are in themselves sufficient in a great measure to account for the glacial phenomena of the Pleistocene period. WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. By Pror. E. P. EVANS. rT HE earliest recorded instance of the infliction of the death penalty for witchcraft in Bavaria occurred on June 18, 1090, when the villagers of Volting seized three women suspected of being in league with the devil, dragged them to the neighboring town of Freising, and, after endeavoring in vain to extort from them confessions of guilt by torture, burned them alive on the banks of the Isar. Before being put to death, they were bound hand and foot and thrown into the river, and the fact that they sank and were nearly drowned ought to have been conclusive proof of their innocence, but this result of the superstitious ordeal did not accord with the wishes and fixed purpose of the fanatical mob and was therefore repudiated. In the account of this extraordinary and cruel application of lynch law, contained in the contemporary Annales St. Stephani Frising, and evidently written by a priest of Weihenstephan, the unfortunate women are spoken of as martyrs (martyrizate sunt). It is also significant of the attitude of the clergy at that time that the charred remains, after having been col- lected by relatives, were buried in consecrated ground with religious ceremonies, at which a priest and two monks‘officiated. Their con- duct in this case was perfectly consistent with the views hitherto officially promulgated by the Church. In the Canon Episcopi, adopted by the ecclesiastical council of Ancyra in 900, the belief in witchcraft is expressly declared to be a pagan delusion; and in the so-called “Corrector,” issued by Burkhard, Bishop of Worms, about a century later as a guide for confessionalists, a year’s pen- ance is imposed upon any one who believes in the nocturnal assem- blies and orgies known as the sabbat, or who holds that storms can be produced, property appropriated and destroyed, or the minds of men influenced and their dispositions changed by magic arts and conjurations. Curiously enough, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries papal inquisitors denounced and persecuted as heretics all who did not believe these things. This strange transition from

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WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 31 the repudiation and punishment of superstitions as survivals of paganism to their acceptance and enforcement as Christian and Catholic articles of faith is brought out very clearly by Dr. Sig- mund Riezler in his recent Geschichte der Hexenprozesse in Bay- ern (Stuttgart, Cotta, 1896). This work, which may be regarded as a sort of sequel to the author’s well-known Geschichte Bayerns, in three volumes, is the first complete history of witch trials in Ba- varia ever published. In using the epithet “complete” we would by no means imply that every prosecution of this kind within the limits of the duchy, and afterward electorate, of Bavaria is men- tioned. Many protocols of such proceedings have been lost and many others lie hidden in municipal and especially in ecclesiastical archives hitherto inaccessible to scientific investigation; but all the essential features of these trials are here so fully presented and portrayed that no publication of isolated acts or individual instances will add materially to our knowledge of the subject. The oldest mention of witchcraft in Bavarian law is the im- position of a fine of twelve shillings (about twenty cents) upon per- sons who injure the harvests by magic arts; in addition to this fine the sorcerer is also made pecuniarily responsible to the owner for loss of property. Penalties of a like character were also inflicted upon such as foretold future events, produced storms, or caused horses and cattle to disappear by means of diabolical machinations. In Arbeo’s Life of Corbinianus, the first Bishop of Freising, it is related that as he was one day riding up to the castle he met an old woman reputed to be a witch, accompanied by men bearing meat and one of them leading a live animal. On asking whence they came and what they were doing, he was told that the duke’s son had been vexed by demons and that she had healed him. This in- formation so excited the wrath of the bishop that he leaped from his horse and gave the old hag a sound beating; he also took away the gifts which she had received for her services and distributed them among the poor at the gate of the city. This incident occurred between 718 and 724. One of the capitularies of Charlemagne, issued more than sixty years later, soon after the final subjugation of the Saxons and designed to Christianize the conquered people, punishes with death “any one who, blinded by the devil and fol- lowing heathen devices, may believe any persons to be witches and to devour human beings, and who may burn them for this cause or give their flesh to be devoured or devour the same.” The capitu- lary also provides that practices of divination and of sortilege shall be handed over to the Church and to the priests in order that they may be turned from the error of their way and instructed in the Christian faith.

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32 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Additional examples of this kind might be cited, but those already given suffice to show that after the conversion of the Ba- varians and other German tribes to Christianity in the eighth cen- tury, the belief in witchcraft was regarded by the clergy in general as a remnant of paganism, which it was their duty to eradicate by catechetical instruction or by the imposition of ecclesiastical pen- ance, but not to punish as a crime. Indeed, the annals of Bavaria during the middle ages, so far as they have been preserved, do not furnish a single well-authenticated instance of the institution of judicial proceedings against wizards or witches either by the Church or the State. Even in the above-mentioned case of mob violence at Freising in 1090, the women, who suffered death, were objects of compassion to the clergy, who looked upon them as the unfortunate victims of popular frenzy, innocently slain by a sud- den outburst and aberration of the repressed forces of ancestral superstition; and this view of witchcraft seems to have been the prevailing one in the metropolitan and diocesan synods of Bavaria as late as the sixteenth century. From this standpoint it was per- fectly natural for the Synod of Regensburg in 1512 to treat of heresy and sortilege in the same decree, and to condemn, together with schismatics, all vain superstitions, soothsayings, sorceries, and evil arts of witches,* “who address infamous prayers to the altars of idols and, deluded by Satan, imagine that they can thereby attain good thiags and ward off evil.” In order to extirpate “ this pestilential brood ” it was enjoined that every one addicted to such practices, whether cleric or layman, should be sent to the bishop or his vicar to make confession and receive absolution; but if the said person did not, within nine days, heed the admonitions of his spiritual guardian and renounce his errors, he should be excom- municated. Similar measures were taken by the provincial synod of Salzburg in 1569, with an additional injunction calling upon all who had any knowledge of “ familiarities, conventions, pacts, or confederations with the devil” to report them to the bishop or his official. The informers were also assured that they would have nothing to fear, inasmuch as their names would be kept secret. Here we have the beginning of that system of espionage, anonymous denunciation, and private inquisition which played so prominent a part in the subsequent history of witchcraft by making every man * Artesque maleficas Phitonissarum ; evidently a slip for Pithonissarum, or more cor- rectly Pythonissarum. Another queer corruption is the allusion of tortured witches in their confessions to Filius Zabres—i. e., Virgilius Zauberer, Virgil the magician. In the middle ages the author of the Aneid acquired a popular reputation as a wizard which wholly eclipsed his fame as a poet. The first mention of him in this character is by John of Salis- bury in the Policratius in 1159; but many tales and traditions of his power as a sorcerer were current, especially in Naples, long before the twelfth century. a EE et a ABC URE ee

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oe Sere ee WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 33 a spy upon his neighbor. The bishop, however, is directed to endeavor “ with prudence, zeal, and all love” to convert the ac- cused, but, if unsuccessful, to proceed as provided by the canons of the Church. This procedure evidently involved only the infliction of canonical punishments such as penance, excommunication, and, in the case of a clergyman, degradation or suspension from the performance of sacerdotal functions. A priest who has learned through the confessional, or otherwise, that any person may believe in such things, is to teach him with fatherly affection that they are “nothing but diabolical delusions” ; but if the said person should be “ notoriously tainted with wizardry ” and should obstinately re- sist good counsel, then the priest is to apply to the bishop or his penitentiary for power to absolve the sinner. It is difficult to determine to what extent the Bavarian clergy, while officially de- claring witchcraft to be a hallucination, believed in the reality of it. Doubtless the opinions on this point were divided, the more enlightened ecclesiastics discarding all stories of satanic compacts and concupiscence as mere illusions, while the lower and more ignorant orders of priests and monks were inclined to accept them as actual occurrences. In the decrees issued by the diocesan coun- ceils of Augsburg (1452), Freising (1440), Regensburg (1377 and 1512), and Salzburg (1420, 1490, and 1569), they are either not mentioned at all or characterized as errors and delusions, terms which would imply that they have no foundation in fact. But whatever theory of these strange aberrations may have been enter- tained, it is certain that the means employed for correcting them were remarkably humane and even rational as compared with the horrible atrocities and incredible absurdities which characterized the witch trials of the following century. The first authentic cases of witch trials in Bavaria occurred under Duke Albrecht V in 1578. With the accession of Wilhelm V, surnamed the Pious, in 1579, persecutions and prosecutions of this kind increased in frequency and severity, and soon becoming epidemic, continued to rage for more than a century in every part of the country. The chief agents and instigators of this dreadful carnival of cruelty were Dominicans and Jesuits acting under in- structions from Rome, and often opposed by the Bavarian clergy so far as such opposition was possible without coming into direct collision with the Holy See. As early as the third century, Minutius Felix, in his apology fer Christianity entitled “ Octavius,” and writ- ten in the form of a dialogue, makes the pagans accuse the Christians of being worshipers of Satan, and this charge was afterward brought by the Church against gnostics, Manicheans, Cathari, Al- bigenses, Waldenses, German Protestants, Knight Templars, and VOL, Limt.—4

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34 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. other heretics and schismatics who had become obnoxious or in- convenient to the Roman hierarchy. The same policy was pursued by the inquisitors who were sent to Bavaria as the plenipotentiary emissaries of the Pope, and who found the association of heresy with sorcery the most effective weapon for the punishment and suppression of the former. In Bavaria, however, this crimination was not so available. and therefore never so strongly urged as in North Germany and in the southern provinces of France, where heretical opinions were more prevalent and had obtained a stronger foothold. There is a general tendency among recent defenders of the Romish faith to resort to all sorts of shifts and subterfuges in order to relieve their Church from any direct responsibility for witch- eraft persecutions. Goethe’s cynical remark that writing history is one way of disavowing the past and repudiating its errors, applies with peculiar pertinence to the efforts of these apologists to cleanse the official robes of his Holiness from such an ugly stain. Thus Johann Diefenbach, in his volume Der Hexenwahn (Mainz, 1886), says: “Catholics can look back on this sad historical picture with a quiet conscience; individuals were soiled by the delusion of ‘their time, but the Church remained immaculate.” Again, he declares it to be “ absurd and ridiculous to make the Church responsible for witch trials.” The ecclesiastical historian Hergenréther, of Wiirz- burg, and Professcr Kaulen, of Bonn, take the same view. The asser- tion made by these authorities that the Church “ never invoked the arm of secular justice for the bloody punishment of sorcery ”’ is a mere verbal quibble, worthy of Thomas Aquinas: the papal inquisi- tors kept themselves free from blood-guiltiness, in the literal sense of the term, by burning their victims alive or in exceptional cases by strangling them before committing them to the flames. The idea of shedding human blood was so abhorrent to these pious souls that they appeased their consciences and vindicated the claims of divine justice by roasting the witch or wizard at the stake. These falsifications of history are so palpable that it would be superfluous to expose them were it not for the brazen-faced persistence with which they are repeated. The instructions and injunctions con- tained in the bull Swmmis desiderantes affectibus, issued by Pope Innocent VIII, on December 5, 1484, should alone suffice to show the speciousness of such palliative pleas. It is also a notorious fact that the chief promoters of prosecutions for witchcraft were, with rare exceptions, members of the monastic orders directly commis- sioned by the Pope. We need only mention the Dominican friars Institoris and Sprenger, authors of the Malleus Maleficarum (Witches’ Hammer), justly characterized by Dr. Riegler as “the —-~

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~w = i. gts EPP ITT ES, Se WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA, 35 most preposterous and at the same time most pernicious book ever printed”; and the Spanish Dominican Nicholas Cymericus, who composed a systematic manual for the use of persecutors entitled Directorium Inquisitorum (first printed at Rome in 1503); and a treatise, T'ractatus contra Daemonum Invocatores, in which he maintained that sorcery is heresy and should be punished by the Court of Inquisition. Works of a like character were Flagellum Hereticorum Fascinariorum, by the Dominician Nicholas Jaquier; © De Strigiis, by the Dominican Bernard of Como; De Strigima- garum Demonumque Mirandis, by the master of the holy apos- tolical palace and general of the Dominicans, Silvester Mazzolino Prierias; Novus Malleus Maleficarum (New Witches’ Hammer), by the Dominican Bartholomew de Spina; Disquisitiones Magica, by the Spanish Jesuit Martin Delrio; and Processus Juridicus contra Sagas, by the Munich Jesuit Paul Laymann.* Equally untenable is the statement that no person was ever burned as a witch in Rome. The Roman chronicler Stefano In- fessura, in his Diartum Urbis Roma, describes the burning of a witch named Finicella, for having “in a diabolical manner killed many creatures and injured others.” The execution took place on June 8, 1424, and “all Rome went to see it.” Again, in the Chronicon Generale of Andreas von Regensburg it is recorded that during the pontificate of Martin V a cat killed several infants in their cradles. A shrewd man wounded the cat with a sword, and, following the traces of its blood, discovered that the animal was really an old woman, who lived in the house of a chiromancer and changed herself into a cat in order to suck the blood of chil- dren and thus prolong her own life. This anticipation of the modern theory of the transfusion of blood caused the old hag to be tried for witchcraft and burned at the stake. The Munich occultist and alchemist Dr. Johann Hartlieb, in the thirty-third chapter of his Buch aller verbotenen Kunst, Unglaubens und der Zauberei,+ * One of the severest charges brought by the Dominican friar Father Concinna against “Luther, Melanchthon, and their confederates” was that they did not believe in the exist- ence of witches; unfortunately, the accusation is untrue, but it proves the strong desire of Catholic writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to claim for the papacy the sole honor of being sound on the witchcraft question. In the early part of the sixteenth century the jurist Franz Ponzimibius wrote a treatise, in which he ventured to utter opinions of h's own concerning witches. Bartholomew de Spina, in the work above mentioned (page 202), takes him to task for his impudence. “That a mere lawyer,” he says, “should discuss a theological subject and set himself in opposition to profound theologians, such as the in- quisitors commonly are, betrays extreme arrogance and can excite only the scorn and deri- sion of all persons of discernment. I wonder at the effrontery of this man, and shudder.” + This book, written in 1456, has been handed down to us in three manuscripts, one in Wolfenbiittel, a second (incomplete) in Dresden, and a third in Heidelberg. This last con- sists of seventy-eight sheets in octavo, and bears the date 1558; at the end is the name of

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36 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. states that in the sixth year of the reign of the Pope Martin (i. e., in 1423) the belief that certain women and men were wont to transform themselves into cats and kill children was quite preva- lent in Rome, and relates the case of a man who, having been harmed in this manner by a woman in his neighborhood, had her arrested and brought to the Capitol, where she exclaimed aloud, “Tf I only had my salve, I would travel off.” Hartlieb, who was present, had his curiosity greatly excited by this remark, and would have gladly given her the salve to see what she could do with it. But a doctor, in whom the spirit of scientific investigation was less strongly developed, stood up and said that she ought not to have the salve, since there was no knowing what mischief the devil might devise. The woman was then condemned to be burned, and Hart- lieb witnesed the execution, although he evidently regretted that she was not permited to try the experiment of salving and saving herself with witches’ ointment. If it be true, he adds, that old women can transport a man through the air on a calf or a he-goat, there is no doubt that the devil has to do with it. In this connec- tion he raises the query why there are so many more witches than wizards. To this question, he says, the “masters” or inquisitors reply that woman being, as a rule, more frivolous and credulous, is therefore more accessible and amenable to Satan than man. How enormous and atrocious this disproportion of the sexes was may be inferred from the witchcraft prosecutions at Schéngau and Wer- denfels in Bavaria from 1589 to 1591, where, of one hundred and fourteen persons condemned to be burned or beheaded, one hun- dred and thirteen were women. The true explanation of this strange and shameful phenomenon is the false and contemptuous concep- tion of woman growing out of the ascendency of ascetic and scholas- tic ideas in the medieval Church. In the eyes of th religious celi- bate woman was the personification of seduction, and had been from the Augsburg nun, Clara Hiatzerlin, who made a business of copying manuscripts. She is chiefly known as the compiler of a Liederbuch, now in Prague, a collection of poems, some of which are decidedly indelicate, and prove that the cloistered virgins of that time were not prudes. Riezler prints in the appendix to his volume an extract from Hartlieb’s work, taken from the Heidelberg manuscript; indeed, the whole of it should be published as a valuable contribution to the witchcraft literature of the fifteenth century. Interesting is the use of Unglauben (unbelief) for Aberg/auben (superstition) in the title. The latter word was first introduced into the German language by Luther, who as a schismatic and heretic felt the need of a nicer discrimination between heresy, superstition, and sorcery, which the Catholic Church had hitherto lumped together as forms of unbelief and lapses from the true faith due to the seductions of Satan, the arch apostate. The reformer fully believed in the existence of pacts with the devil, but refused to admit dissent from the doctrines and renunciation of the authority of the papal hierarchy as proofs of a covenant with hell. The neologism Aberglaube is the memorial of this protest, so interesting historically and theologically.

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WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 37 the beginning the satellite of Satan, the arch-seducer, and his facile instrument in bringing sin into the world with all its woe. This notion often crops out where one would least expect it, as, for ex- ample, in Albrecht Diirer’s engraving of four naked women, bear- ing the date 1491 and the enigmatical letters O. G. H., which probably mean Odium Generts Humant. The female figures doubtless represent witches. Patristic and scholastic writers from Chrysostom to Thomas Aquinas vie with each other in their de- nunciations of woman, and the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum fairly overwhelm the reader with passages from these sources in proof of her flagitiousness. They also derive femina from fe and minus, signifying a creature of little faith. To this astounding etymology, which from the use of the word fe (faith) would seem to be of Spanish origin, they add an equally conclusive argument from physiology, declaring that “only an imperfect animal could have been formed out of a crooked rib.” How could a being with such an origin be straightforward or exert any other than a per- verting influence upon man, and, as Milton says, “by her charms draw him awry”? On the other hand, we are seriously assured that God’s selection of man, in distinction from woman, as the form of his earthly incarnation, has tended to preserve the male portion of the human race from satanic influences and especially from “ the scourge of sorcery.” “ Praise be to the Most High for this gracious immunity! ” exclaim these devout Dominicans. It is hardly con- ceivable that such wretched twaddle, which would have been silly enough if uttered in jest, should have been put forth by Christian metaphysicians and moralists in justification of barbarous cruelty in- flicted for centuries upon the most helpless members of society. Perhaps the queerest feature of this foolish and fanatical crusade against woman is that it should have been preached by the ardent adherents of a Mariolatrous religion, in, which the adoration of the Virgin Mother had already superseded the worship of her divine Son. Hartlieb, to whose book we have just referred, was a physician, humanist, diplomatist, a man of the world with knowledge and experience gained by travel, well versed in literature and with a scientific turn of mind, and yet this representative of the highest culture of his time firmly believed in the reality of witchcraft and attributed it to the direct agency of the devil. He seems to have been especially interested in the art by which old hags produced hailstorms and showers of rain, and took every opportunity to get at the secret of it. In 1446, while he was on a mission from the Bavarian duke to the Count Palatine at Heidelberg, a notorious sorceress had been arrested and cast into prison. As a special favor

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 38 he obtained from the sovereign permission to visit this witch and the promise that her life should be spared if she would teach how these meteorological phenomena could be effected, but the process involved such denial of God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints, repudiation of the holy sacraments and dedication of soul and body to sundry devils, that Hartlieb declined to become her pupil, and broke off the interview in horror at what he heard. The poor woman, who appears to have imagined that such things were pos- sible, was given over to the executioner and burned. It is hardly necessary to describe in detail the epidemic of witch persecution, which raged in Bavaria especially from 1589 to 1631. It ran its fatal course and was characterized by the same exhibition of credulity, cruelty, and gross perversions of justice as in other European countries. How any person possessing the least common sense or the most superficial knowledge of human nature, to say nothing of legal training, could expect to extort a confession of the truth by physical torture is to-us an insoluble psychological problem. No sooner did the zeal of the authorities begin to relax than it was stimulated anew by the religious orders and the secular clergy, and especially by the chaplains and confessors of the rulers. One of the most bigoted and brutal of these ghostly functionaries was Mathias von Kemnat, court preacher of Friedrich I of the Palati- nate. His chronicle of the reign of this monarch is an important but hitherto scareely heeded contribution to the witchcraft litera- ture of the fifteenth century, and anticipates many of the absurdi- ties and atrocities of the Malleus Maleficarum. He witnessed with extreme satisfaction the burning of many witches in Heidelberg and other places, and records the most disgusting mass of drivel con- cerning the orgies of Satan and his female worshipers in what he calls the “synagogue of the sorcerers.” Each novice, he says, as she joins this diabolical copgregation, is instructed how to invest her staff with necromantic qualities by smearing it with a salve prepared from the fat of roasted children, venomous serpents, liz- ards, toads, and spiders. The witches kill people by rubbing them with this ointment, and with a powder made from entrails they produce epidemics and cause great mortality. “This is the reason,” adds the learned divine, “ why pestilence prevails in certain villages, while the inhabitants of other villages in the neighborhood ‘remain strong and healthy.” In view of these facts he urges that many fires be kindled and kept burning. Meanwhile he advises people to “carry with them quicksilver in a tube or quill as a good pre- servative against sorcery.” * * The recently canonized Jesuit Canisius wrote in 1563 to Laynez, the friend and asso- ciate of Loyola, complaining of the increase of witches in Bavaria and accusing them of

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WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 39 Another still more fervid zealot of this work was the Jesuit Jeremias Drexel, court preacher of Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria from 1615 to 1638. He was somewhat celebrated as a pulpit orator, and waxed eloquent in describing injurie® done to crops and kine and human beings by the maleficence of witches. “Thousands of this hellish brood have been burned at the stake,” he exclaims, “and shall we accuse their judges of an unjust sentence? Never- theless there are such extremely frigid (frigidissimi) Christians, who are unworthy of this name, and who resist with might and main the extirpation of this crew, in order, as they say, that, for- sooth, the innocent may not suffer. Oh, out upon these enemies of the divine honor! Does not the Holy Writ expressly command, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live? I appeal to God’s behest and call, as loud as I can, on bishops, princes, and kings to destroy with fire and sword this worst of human pests.” Duke Maximilian I was in many respects a remarkable man, with uncommon keenness of intellect, strong sense of duty, untir- ing energy, deep religious feeling, and rare appreciation of the fine arts, but these superior qualities did not prevent him from being a fanatical witch persecutor. This perversion of so many excellent endowments was due chiefly to his early education. His preceptor, Johann Baptist Fickler, a theologian who had dabbled in law, was the author of a book entitled Judicium generale de penis malefi- carum, magorem et sortilegorum utriusque sexus, in which the combined erudition and casuistry of the jurist and the divine are used in justification of the utmost rigor in punishing sorcery and sortilege. In 1589, when the prince was only seventeen years of age, he was commissioned by his father, Duke Albrecht V, sur- named the Magnanimous, to witness and report the torture and burn- ing of alleged witches at Ingolstadt, and his letters, now preserved in the Bavarian archives, reveal an amount of crass credulity and callousness of soul in the presence of human suffering wholly in- consistent with the good sense and susceptibility for which this youth was otherwise distinguished. With such a preparation for the performance of his duties as sovereign, it is no wonder that his reign, extending from 1597 to 1651, should embrace the period of Bavarian history in which the greatest number of witch prosecu- tions occurred, and the proceedings were most systematically and relentlessly conducted by both secular and ecclesiastical tribunals. The duke pursued tliis course with greater energy and persistency devouring children. He was also held in high repute as an exorcist, and in 1569 cast ten devils out of Anna Bernhauserin, a servant in the famous Fugger family at Augsburg. The tenth devil, however, proved to be a very obstinate one, and was expelled only in the pres- ence and by the aid of the wonder-working image of the Virgin at Altétting, near Munich.

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40 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. because his personal feeling was strongly involved, inasmuch as he firmly believed that the barrenness of his first wife Elizabeth was due to magic influences. The court exorcist, a Barnabite named Marrano, tried his powefs of disenchantment, but did not succeed in breaking the satanic spell, since the duchess died childless. A tragi-comical feature of these witch trials was the prominence they gave to the hangman or headsman. Usually this public func- tionary was despised as a pariah, with whom no respectable person would associate; but in these topsy-turvy times he became one of the most conspicuous and influential members of the community. Thus Meister Jorg Abriel, the executioner of Schéngau, is described in contemporary records as driving three horses tandem through the country, like a fine gentleman, accompanied by his wife and two apparitors as attendants. Everywhere he was warmly greeted and hospitably entertained, and on one occasion on leaving Gar- misch his health was drunk in eight gallons of wine. The reason for this distinction was that the executioner as an expert in the detection of “ witch marks ” on the bodies of the accused held the fate of hundreds of persons in his hands, since it depended upon his decision whether they should be tortured or not. Once he re- marked that he had found no “ devil’s signs,” but that the woman had “ the look of a witch,” and this observation sufficed to have the woman thrown into prison and put to the rack. A new era of enlightenment began in Bavaria with the found- ing of the Academy of Sciences by the Elector Max Joseph on March 28, 1759, the aim of which, as he expressed it, was to “ purify all departments of philosophy from unprofitable pedantries and prejudices.” The motto of the institution, “ Tendit ad aquum,” would imply an endeavor to be not only just and equitable, but also level-headed generally; in other words, it was the intention to cultivate the moral and mental characteristics, in which the fore- most men of learning had hitherto shown themselves lamentably deficient. Although the character of the academy forbade the dis- cussion of matters of faith, this prohibition was fortunately so in- terpreted as not to include the question of witchcraft, which seems to have been placed by common consent in the category of “ preju- dices.” Accordingly, on October 13, 1766, one of the academicians, Don Ferdinand Sterzinger, the superior of the Theatine Cloister in Munich and an acknowledged authority in ecclesiastical history, delivered an address on the common prejudice concerning witch- craft: Von dem gemeinen Vorurtheil der wirkenden und thatigen Hexereix. “Our enlightened times,” he began, “in which the sci- ences seem to have reached the highest point, no longer tolerate any prejudices.” He confesses, however, that he himself had not Se ae

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aT WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 41 begun to doubt the reality of witchcraft until about a dozen years before. The popular prejudice which he thought it now high time to eradicate was the tendency to ascribe to the agency of witches “ all injuries, diseases, and bodily infirmities which neither the doctor, nor the smith, nor the headsman may be able to recog- nize or to cure.” * As regards the production of storms by sor- ceresses, he asks: “Can we reconcile it with the infinite goodness and wisdom of God that he should permit the course of Nature to be disturbed in order that an old woman may revenge herself on her neighbor?” ‘The tales of transportation through the air on broomsticks, tongs, forks, and other domestic utensils transformed into fiery steeds, he dismissed as “ the ridiculous gossip of old crones over their washtubs.” But if witchcraft be a delusion, why did a kind and just Providence permit thousands of persons to be, on this account, cruelly tortured and put to death? In order to escape this dilemma, Sterzinger replies: “Do not those deserve death who blaspheme God, invoke and worship the devil, kill innocent chil- dren, and exhume corpses for the purpose of injuring their neigh- bors?’ This question assumes the truth of the accusations usually brought against supposed witches, and proves that Sterzinger had not freed his mind from many of the absurdest prejudices of his time. The chief significance of his discourse consisted in the fact that it was delivered by an ecclesiastic before the Bavarian Academy of Sciences under the auspices of a sovereign whose immediate predecessors had been fanatical witch persecutors. It is a curious circumstance, showing how slight was the intellectual intercourse then between. Catholic and Protestant Germany, that Sterzinger makes no allusion to Christian Thomasius, of Halle, who had still more effectually exposed the folly of the belief in witchcraft more than sixty years before. Sterzinger’s standpoint is sufficiently char- acterized by the paragraph in his discussion of “ Apparitions ” (Ge- spenstererscheinungen), where he asserts that “to deny the devil is unbelief; to ascribe to him too little power is heresy; but to con- cede to him too great power is superstition.” But once admitting diabolical agency as an actual and efficient factor in human affairs, it is impossible to draw a line at which the influence of Satan ceases, and credulity finds no stopping place until it reaches the misty plateau of the Blocksberg, or joins in the disgusting orgies of the sabbat. Nevertheless, the discourse, with all its lack of logical force and * This mention of “ Arzt, Schmied oder Freimann ” as regular practitioners of the heal- ing art would indicate that medicine, at least, was not one of the sciences which had reached the highest point at that time. The use of the word “ Freimann” for executioner seems to have been confined to Munich.

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42 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. consistency, produced an immense sensation and led to a fierce con- troversy, in which some of his academical colleagues took part as the zealous defenders of witchcraft, appealing to Holy Writ, Thomas Aquinas, the bulls of the popes, and canon law as their principal authorities. One of them, an Augustine friar named P. Angelus Merz, admitted that storms are due to natural causes, but added that spirits have a clearer and keener insight into these causes than men, and can make them operative in much shorter time than would be the case in the ordinary course of Nature. The most char- acteristic argument, however, was used by a Benedictine of the Bavarian cloister of Scheiern, P. Angelus Mirz.* “Our cloister,” he says, “can boast of having the largest piece of the true cross, stained with the blood of Christ, in all Germany. So great is the adoration of it and so strong is the faith in it that it has been neces- sary to make little crosses of brass or silver, which are brought into contact with the sacred relic and then disposed of to the worshipers.” He states that often as many as forty thousand of these crosses are sold in a single year, and that they serve to protect their possessors, against lightning, thunder, and tempest, and especially to heal be- witched cattle. But, he concludes, “if witchcraft is an old wives’ fable, a prejudice, then are we, the father friars of Scheiern, in- famous cheats, liars, and jugglers.” An oratio pro domo of this sort might be suitably delivered by a monk to his fellow-monastics, but sounds strangely enough in the mouth of an academician addressing his learned associates in scientific research. Opposition of this kind only served to enlighten the public mind, and the secularization of the cloisters in Bavaria by Maximilian Joseph, in 1803, destroyed the last lurking places of the witch- craft delusion, of which the mendicant friars were the most per- sistent promoters. This measure was followed in 1806 by the com- plete abolition of judicial torture,+ and on October 1, 1813, by the publication of Anselm Feuerbach’s new criminal code, in which heresy, witchcraft, and sorcery found no place, and the secular arm ceased to be the instrument of a medisval hierarchy for the punishment of religious superstition. But a long-cherished and deeply rooted delusion is not easily eradicated, and although witch- * Owing to the similarity of their names, the Augustine and Benedictine have been fre- quently confounded, but they were two distinct persons and both prominent members of the Academy of Sciences. Scheiern was originally a castle belonging to the ancestors of the Wittelsbach dynasty, the present royal house of Bavaria. In 1108 it was converted ifito a cloister, which was secularized and sold in 1803. It was bought, restored, and richly en- dowed by Ludwig I, who intended to make it a place of burial for the royal family. The Benedictines took formal possession of it again with great pomp in 1838. + Other German states anticipated Bavaria in this beneficent reform, Prussia having abolished judicial torture in 1740, Baden in 1767, Saxony in 1770, and Austria in 1776.

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cee ne WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 43 eraft disappeared from the Bavarian statute books, and by being thus removed from the jurisdiction of both secular and ecclesias- tical tribunals was robbed of its most baneful character, it has not ceased to haunt the imaginations of men, and the belief in it con- tinues to be fostered by the Catholic Church both in papal encye- licals and in popular literature.* Perhaps the most recent in- stance of this survival of medisevalism in one of the chief centers of modern civilization and scientific culture occurred on March 15, 1897, at Munich, Bavaria, where a Catholic priest of St. Bene- dict’s Church solemnly went through the ceremony of exorcising a demon that haunted a house at No. 24 Park Street in that city. It seems that the evil spirit had disturbed the pious inmates of the dwelling by groaning, sighing, and making such a racket generally that it was impossible for them to sleep, and was seen one night by a child passing through the room in the disguise of an old woman dressed in black, evidently a survival of the race of ugly and ill- starred hags who have played such a melancholy part in the tragic annals of witchcraft. On receiving this information the parish priest and his acolytes went at once to the house with aspergills and censers to expel the infernal intruder by the supernal power inherent in holy water and consecrated incense. The event caused considerable sensation in the Bavarian capital and excited mingled feelings of indignation and disgust in the minds of even many good Catholics. Lest we should pride ourselves on our superior enlightenment and freedom from the thralls of medieval supernaturalism, it would be well to remember that on January 6, 1897, Satan was burned in effigy in New York, to the loud shouting and singing of jubilant Salvationists. Of the two performances, we must confess that the low-toned and almost unintelligible mutterings of the sacerdotal exorcist in Munich, arrayed in gorgeous ecclesiastical robes and armed with the approved apparatus of incantation, was by far the more dignified and impressive, and, considered merely as a pageant, had a certain picturesqueness which was wholly absent from the crude and vulgar exhibition at the headquarters of the Salvation Army in West Fourteenth Street. One curious and questionable feature of such survivals of medizvalism as that just witnessed in Bavaria, is the kind of evi- dence on which they rest. In most cases it is some child who sees the apparition and reports it, and whose word is accepted as con- clusive. In the forest at Planegg, near Munich, is a little church * See, for some examples of this tendency, the Popular Science Monthly for December, 1892, and October and November, 1895.

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. known as Maria Eich, or Mary of the Oak. It is built round an oak tree, which stands just behind the altar, and is visited every year by thousands of pilgrims, who seek at this wonder-working shrine re- demption from sin and relief for bodily infirmities. Here, too, the chapel in the woods, now so popular as a place of pilgrimage, owes its origin to the freak of a couple of boys, sons of a blacksmith, who in 1710 placed an image of the Virgin of Loreto in the bark of an oak, where it remained for a long time unnoticed and was gradually overgrown, until only the face could be seen apparently peering out of the trunk of the tree. This strange phenomenon now began to attract attention and soon came to be regarded as a supernatural apparition, and this belief was confirmed by rumors of miracles wrought by it. The sacredness of the spot, however, did not pre- vent the tree from being struck by lightning and partially destroyed on August 13, 1805, so that now nothing is left of it but a dead stump. With the predilection for logical non sequiturs peculiar to hagiologists, the fact that no one was killed by this accident was ascribed to the special protection of the Virgin, and this inference added greatly to the reputation of Maria Eich. Why she should have permitted the hallowed oak, which had borne her own image, to be smitten by a bolt from the sky, could not be satisfactorily explained, but was readily accepted as a divine mystery. Accord- ing to the official record extending from 1732 to 1800, she showed herself gracious seven hundred and seventy-nine times during this period of sixty-eight years; since the beginning of the present century the tokens of her favor have been innumerable, in proof of which the skeptic is pointed to the mass of votive tablets and thank-offerings. That the rules of evidence here applied should suffice to convince ignorant peasants is natural enough. But how is it with the priests, who have had a university education, and are therefore supposed to be competent to see through such shal- low and transparent fallacies? Are these men honest or not? Do they really believe what they affirm, or do they uphold these absurdi- ties merely because such teachings foster piety and strengthen the power of the Catholic Church? Doubtless some of these ecclecias- tics are hypocrites, but it would be unjust to assume that the majority of them are practicing dissimulation and deceit. The true answer to these puzzling questions is to be found by pointing to the kind of institutions of learning in which the clergy receive their education. Take, for example, as a favorable speci- men, the Academy of Miinster in Westphalia, which comprises only two faculties, one of theology and one of philosophy, but which, as regards the instruction imparted in these departments of study, claims to be on a par with German universities in general. SS oe ea! VET IEPA I LE —— oI

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LE CET ENTE PRIN Ey Dt WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA, 45 The Prussian Government also exercises a certain control over the appointment of the professors. As an illustration of the sort of knowledge and intellectual discipline acquired in this academy, which has nearly five hundred students and about fifty professors, we may cite a course of lectures delivered in the summer semester of 1897 by Prof. Joseph Bautz on Die Lehre von den letzten Dingen, or the doctrine of the last day, including the dogmas of the Romish Church concerning the final judgment, purgatory, heaven, and hell. On each of these subjects Professor Bautz has already published a little volume, issued at Mainz with the appro- bation of the bishop, and therefore containing views accepted by the highest ecclesiastical authorities as orthodox. His positive knowledge of the topography of the infernal, purgatorial, and celestial regions is most remarkable, and can hardly fail to excite the amazement and admiration of the young candidates for holy orders who listen to his academical lectures. Purgatory, he tells us, is three stories high and all aglow with flames, which, however, are rather light-colored and pinkish in contrast with the dark-red and lurid fires of hell. The lower story of purgatory borders on hell, while the upper story is near the gates of heaven. Thus the same fire, although in different intensity, serves to torture the damned and to purge the just. This arrangement, he adds, is such as we should naturally expect from the all-wise God, who avoids superfluities and chooses the simplest and most economical way of accomplishing his eternal purposes; and it is also confirmed by the testimony of Mechthild of Magdeburg, St. Brigitta, and of a vision recorded by the Venerable Bede. The professor’s so-called “ facts,” which he is constantly and copiously citing in proof of his theses consist almost wholly of what he terms “ visions and private revela- tions,” or what the carnal-minded scientist would dismiss with con- tempt as the wild dreams and morbid imaginations and “ airy noth- ings ” of ecstatic saints and hysterical nuns. Thus, as regards the duration of purgatory, he says, Catharine Emmerich speaks of souls compelled to remain in that place for centuries; according to Ma- rina of Escobar, the average time seems to be at least from ten to twenty and fifty years or more; but Francisca of the Holy Sacra- ment was visited by pious Carmelite nuns, who had been in purga- torial fires for sixty years and expected to abide there much longer. A little girl, who died when she was eight years old, had been in purgatory sixteen years when last heard from through “ the appari- tion of 1870”; this same authority, frequently adduced by the learned professor, states that some souls are not released from purga- torial punishment until the end of the world. How material fire can affect disembodied spirits, and whether

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. souls in purgatory are directly tortured by the devil, are questions, he says, which are quite pertinent in this connection, but some- what difficult to answer. Whatever doubts may arise, however, are removed by the testimony of eyewitnesses, such as the blessed Maria Anna Lindmayr, to whom her friend Maria Becher and the mother of the latter appeared and left on her feet scars which were produced by contact with their persons, and were not only visible but quite painful for weeks afterward. -Another instance, tend- ing to edify the faithful and to confound the skeptical, occurred on November 16, 1859, at ten o’clock in the morning in the cloister of the nuns of St. Clare at Foligno, where a recently deceased sister appeared enveloped in smoke and earnestly entreated the superior, Anna Felice, to intercede in her behalf; in token of her presence she left the imprint of her hand burned into the door. The tourist in the Tyrol, who visits a little church in a place of pilgrimage near Innsbruck, will be shown by the sexton a similar mark of a man’s hand on a wooden door. The deceased, we are informed, had been noted for his piety, and his widow could hardly believe the woeful tale of his purgatorial sufferings as he related them to her on one occasion, begging her at the same time to hasten his release by having additional masses said for his soul. In order to convince her of the truth of his statements, he pressed his hand against the door and left his “ sign manual ” there for all time. Professor Bautz is equally certain as regards the locality of hell, which, he says, is not in Mars or in the moon or in the sun, but in the innermost parts of our own globe; volcanoes are its flues and earthquakes are produced by the movement of its fiery waves when it is especially active owing to the arrival of a large num- ber of the damned. When the ground begins to tremble under our feet and the habitations of men “nod from high and totter to their fall,” we now know the reason why. The seismometer thus acquires a new and most appalling significance as a means not only of measuring the concussions and vibrations transmitted in the material of the earth’s crust, but also of registering the in- tensity of the sufferings endured by the denizens of hell. In the light of this doctrine we see the smoke of their torment ascending from every voleanic crater, and discern in the earthquake a moral admonition and spiritual meaning of which “science falsely so called ” has not the slightest appreciation. ' Professor Bautz tells us, furthermore, that souls in hell are beyond redemption and therefore without means of grace. In pur- gatory, on the contrary, sacred rites are performed and sanctuary privileges are enjoyed. The “poor souls” go to church (perhaps as a part of their punishment), and the services are conducted by

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eet WITCHCRAFT IN BAVARIA. 47 deceased priests or, on extraordinary occasions, by holy angels sent for that purpose. The feasts and fasts prescribed by the Catholic Church are observed there; in this respect “the most perfect order prevails in purgatory.” Indeed, he seems to think that in no spot on the surface of the earth are the offices so well done and the conduct of the worshipers so earnest and exemplary as in this sub- terranean place of expiation on the very confines of hell. It is no wonder that under such circumstances there should be “ kindled in their glowing breasts an ardent longing for mansions in the skies.” In speaking of the final judgment, Professor Bautz refers to the resurrection of the Virgin Mary and her ascension to heaven as incontestable historical facts and describes these events in all their details. The apostles, he informs us, were caught up into the air, wherever they happened to be, and transported to Jerusalem, the scene of her “ glorious departure.” On their arrival they saw angels and heard the celestial hosts singing psalms. The body of the Virgin Mother was buried at Gethsemane and escorted thither by apostles and angels, the latter continuing to sing at her grave for the next three days. On the third day Thomas also made his appear- ance, this delay being due probably to the difficulty attending his aérial transportation on account of the heavy burden ef doubt resting upon the mind of the inveterate skeptic. He was welcomed, however, by the other apostles, who took him to the tomb in order to show him the body of the deceased, when lo! it was no longer there; only the shroud lay on the ground and “ emitted an inde- scribable perfume.” It would be tedious, as well as superfluous, to cumber our pages with further citations. These few examples will suffice to show the kind of academical instruction and intellectual discipline imparted to young men in such institutions of learning as the one at Miinster, in which Professor Bautz is a bright and shining light. What wonder, then, that priests, who have been prepared for their sacred calling by having their minds crammed with stuff of this sort, and who have been taught to accept Tertullian’s test of truth, “Credo quia absurdum,” as the highest law of evidence and to make the absurdity of any statement the ground of its credibility, should be full of superstitious notions, especially as regards our re- lations to the invisible world and the agency of the devil in human affairs! ” * * Since this article was written, a distinguished Catholic theologian, Dr. Hermann Schell, Professor of Apologetics in the University of Wiirzburg, has published a book entitled Der Katholizismus als Prinzip des Fortschritts, in which he ascribes the Catholic clergy's “ in- feriority in the independent exercise of their reason” to the same cause—naniely, the per-

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

48 Professor Bautz makes no claim to originality in his views, but merely gives a general exposition of the opinions held by many fathers of the Church and the great majority of medieval theologi- ans. Tertullian and other patristic authorities believed volcanic erup- tions to be the outbursts of hell fire, and in the middle ages Hecla was regarded with peculiar awe as one of the principal vent-holes of the infernal regions. The queer thing is that such antiquated and childish notions should be revived and taught in a German seminary of learning in the last decade of the nineteenth century. ~ o> ae

KITE-FLYING IN 1897. Br GEORGE J. VARNEY. NE of the most noticeable movements of the present time in popular science is kite-flying, while its practice as a pastime is having a large increase. Its interest to our reader, however, is almost wholly in its scientific aspect. To the question, What is really the use of all this practice with kites Mr. H. H. Clayton, superintendent at Blue Hill Observatory (in the suburbs of Boston), once replied nearly as follows: “ We are living in an atmosphere of which we practically know very little. Our position is like that of crabs at the bottom of the sea. It is expected that such knowledge will be gained in these aérial explora- tions as will enable the meteorologist to predict hot and cold waves and the various kinds of storms more accurately and much earlier than has been done heretofore. The observations have already become serviceable in this direction, while the knowledge gained has modified opinions found in the text-books.” Truly there are mountain tops three, four, and nearly six miles high, but these are remote or inacessible; besides, the atmosphere enveloping them is mainly of the same stratum which rests upon the surface of the earth elsewhere, only a little rarefied, chilled, and broken in upon slightly in storms, when the stratum is shallow, by the more rapidly flowing stratum next above; so that usually what may be found on the mountain peaks is merely the crest of a billow of the lower atmosphere.

nicious character of their theological training, involving the sacrifice of the intellect to the dictates of ecclesiastical authority. In this connection he refers to the “ revelations of Miss Diana Vaughan,” and the credulity with which they were received by the clergy, as a recent illustration of the results of such teaching. The ease with which the representatives of the Romish hierarchy, from the infallible Pope and his cardinals down to the humblest country vicar, fell into the snare laid by Leo Taxil and his confederates, ought to serve as a serious warning and lead to educational reform.

—mecewet we we ~ eR E-E

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2 a a RSE RE a KITE-FLYING IN 1897. 45 The pioneer in scientific kite-flying in America, in the recent period, is the Blue Hill Observatory, in the suburbs of Boston; and here, too, the highest flights have been made. It is not asserted that there have not been other successful experi- ments with kites, but that the results of those at Blue Hill are in advance of all others in the field of meteorology. Mr. E. Douglass Archibald, in England, has made experiments with a kite and anemometer, and is the inventor of the improved tail, which has Clayton’s Eddy’s Cellular or Keel Kite. Bird Kite. Box Kite. A Trai or Tanpem Kites spearine A METEOROGRAPH. cup cones instead of bobs; while Mr. Hargrave, an Englishman in Australia, there invented the valuable type of kite which bears his name. In America, Prof. C. F. Marvin, Mr. A. W. Potter, and others, of Washington; Mr. William A. Eddy, of New Jersey; and Mr. G. T. Woglom and others, of New York, have all done valuable service. Professor Marvin is the author of the two pam- phlets of valuable technical investigations in relation to kites, issued by the United States Weather Bureau. Mr. Woglom, also, has pub- lished a valuable treatise on parakites, while Mr. Eddy has devised the excellent kite connected with his name. The first attempts at Blue Hill were with the Malay kite—the prototype of the Eddy kite. Mr. Eddy claims, however, that his bird-form kite is the result of his own study and experiment, before he had exact knowledge of the form used by the Malays and Javanese. The descriptive term, bird-form, has reference, not to the out- lines of a bird of any kind, but of the proportions of width to length in a kite, as comparable to the length of body and spread of wings VOL. Lin.—5

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5° POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ina bird. In the Malay kite the cross-stick is almost as long as the backbone; in the Eddy kite it is slightly longer. The Malay cross- piece is permanently formed to the shape of a Cupid’s bow, the central arch to the wind, thus pressing out the covering in a wide keel; in the Eddy kite the cross-piece is slightly bent by a cord, like the simplest form of archer’s bow. All kites of the Malay and Eddy type are intended—unlike the common kite—to fly without a tail. It was doubtless in the island of Java and in the Malay Penin- sula that kite-flying had its earliest and greatest development. The practice appears to have spread from these countries to China and Japan, where the forms are greatly varied and the uses extended. In China the notable forms are the dragon kite and the bird kite. The first is composed of a large painted disk representing a horrible head, drawing two lines of smaller disks diminishing to the tail, where they unite in a tuft of some sort; each disk being also con- nected with one opposite in the parallel row. This basal form is diversified by various treatment. The frame of the Chinese bird kite is generally made up of bamboo splits in loops, joined in rude, conventional imitation of the body, spread wings, tail, and head of a bird. This kite is often provided with a musical attachment in the shape of a hollow section of bamboo pierced with holes, or furnished with reeds that are vibrated by the wind. When mounted high in air, the tones pro- ‘ceeding from it resemble those of an wolian harp, and can be heard at a great distance. Chinamen have a superstition that both these forms of kite are a protection to the family against evil spirits—the first, by frightening them away; the latter, perhaps, by abashing them by its harmonies, as those which infested Saul were influenced to depart from him at the sound of David’s harp. Sometimes these kites—the cord being securely fastened—remain aloft for several days and nights; the family meanwhile enjoying an unusual sense of security. Kite-fighting is also practiced in the vicinity of the cities and larger villages. This sport consists in tearing the kite of a rival or cutting the line; the first, by means of long wooden knives attached to the assailant’s kite; the latter, by small fragments of glass mixed with glue, as a coating for the upper portion of the line. All Chinese kite-flying, though skillful, is in some feature barbaric. In Japan the kite-forms indicate a more practical character in the makers. The kites are shaped to represent many kinds of ani- mals—quadrupeds, birds, and fishes. When in the sky, these kites might convey information quite a distance to acquaintances who could recognize them and thus know what family was repre- sented at the other end of the string; for in Japan the sport is

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PGRN AS e } » : § 4 lr en mein nt IOLA DOE Kite Resi, opERATED BY STEAM ENGINE.

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52 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. largely social. A recent announcement comes as a surprise to everybody, that the Japanese records prove that six hundred years ago kites were used by this people in war time for carrying up observers to detect the position of an enemy’s forces. After all, America must be credited with the first application of the kite to scientific investigation; Ben Franklin—as all intelligent persons know—being the experimenter from whose discoveries large results in electrical science have proceeded. Numerous experiments in this direction followed his initiative, in France and, with less fer- vor, in England; while in Russia a zealous scientist lost his life by his temerity with a metallically equipped kite in a thunderstorm. Perhaps this catastrophe was the cause of the abandonment of this method of investigation of the upper atmosphere, for nothing that attracted much attention was again accomplished by kites until the year 1894, when the Blue Hill investigations began. The first year’s work at this observatory (a private institution, established and sustained by Mr. A. Lawrence Rotch, from public spirit) made little addition to the knowledge previously acquired by amateur fliers; but the succeeding years show marked advances. At present it is usual, in flying flat kites, to send up several on the same main line. Generally a small kite is first sent up, and, when this is securely mounted, a larger one, attached to the main line perhaps a hundred feet below by about that length of its own string, is started after its leader. As the number of kites in the tandem increased, more strength was required at the lower end of the line to withstand the pull; so the reel quickly became an important part of the apparatus. The labor of winding was such that the reel was provided with a crank, and mounted more and more strongly, and a recording wheel and dial were soon added to measure the line as it ran out. The apparatus was then made portable by combining it with a sort of wheel- barrow. Not only the number of kites but the height of their ascent in- creased the strain on the wheel, and one after another—though of solid oak—were crushed by the drawing of the concentric layers in winding in, especially after the change was made to a metal string. Last season (1897) a unique reel was introduced in which a two- horse power steam engine took the place of human muscle for wind- ing in. Steam is supplied by a boiler heated by oil spray as fuel, these and the reel proper being mounted on the same portable base. Included in the winding apparatus is a strain-wheel around which the wire passes four or five times, running from this to the drum of the storage reel—on which it is wound lightly and evenly by automatic action. The wire comes in from and goes out to the

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LE ELLE OIE KITE-FLYING IN 1897. 53 kites over a pulley, which turns so as to deliver it in any direction to them. There is also a wheel which records the pull of the line, and a provision for recording the measurement of length. Thus the relation of wind pressure to pull, and several other matters, can at any minute be figured out. The purpose of the observatory from the first was to secure by means of kites a more elevated plane of observation than could be obtained by other means. As soon as the corps had acquired skill in kite making and flying, a self-registering thermometer was sent up; afterward they were able also to add a barometer, these being carried on a base, covered by a wire basket, and attached to the line as high among the kites as it could be sustained. But the two instruments did not furnish a record of all the ele- ments; and finally a complete “ meteorograph ” was devised. Ex- ternally, this was a cage of wire one foot in height, the same in width, and half that in the other dimension. The weight of a simi- lar one used in Washington is two pounds and a half. The com- bination within consists of a thermometer, barometer, hygrometer, and anemometer—all making record on a sheet of paper wound on a cylinder that is revolved by clockwork. As the direction of the wind is ascertained by the drift of the kites, each flight furnishes the observers with five meteorological elements. No doubt they will be able ere long to determine the electrical conditions at differ- ent heights with equal accuracy. Every well-constructed kite has a fixed capacity for ascending to a certain height—not more than a few hundred feet usually, be- cause of the increase in the weight of the line and the wind’s pres- sure on it; therefore, in order to reach a greater altitude, it became necessary to connect another kite to aid in the lifting. Still higher flights required a further addition of kites, until sometimes a dozen, ranging in size from five to twelve feet, were up in the same tandem, requiring a small rope to hold them. A large and divided wind surface was necessary, else in lulls the kites would descend and the instruments with them; so the obtaining of observations was at great cost of time, labor, and money. In a fresh wind the vigorous efforts of three strong men were required for two or three hours to bring a large tandem down. Several times, in strong winds, the kites have broken away, only reaching the ground two, four, and nearly six miles distant; yet nearly every time they have been re- covered without having sustained much damage. For the reason mentioned on a previous page, some two years since, No. 14 steel music wire (the size of small piano strings) was substituted for the line of vegetable fiber. A mile of this wire weighs from twelve to fifteen pounds, which is much lighter than

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‘LaT’ . ‘@ * . ‘Id SLI *£yoDwosg jPornrUo1gVy uowog_ jo quaprIset *u01Bqs LaTIIyT ‘a ‘f uy 4a NMO Mw ‘sayy OATITIV]Y ‘SOY [INN ‘soyry Appa ‘soy Pll IT CMA 3 & | é _ oe —.

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KITE-FLYING IN 1897. 55 the bulky flaxen cord previously used, and it offers so much less resistance to the wind that two kites on a wire line will bear the instruments to as great a height as six of the same size on a flaxen line. Still, owing to weight and wind, the droop in the wire is so great that about two miles of it are required for one mile of ascent. The wire had also some disadvantages, one of which was rust. This has been overcome by an arrangement by which oil is dropped upon it as it is wound in. Another difficulty last year was the start- ling shocks the men holding the line got from the electricity it *% A.LuminuM Camp, which attaches kite string to wire of trunk line in a tandem. brought down from the sky; but no handling is now required, and the machine carries all the sparks harmless to the ground. No attempt is yet reported on the part of the Blue Hill people to investigate specially the electrical phenomena since those by Mr. Alexander McAdie at this observatory in the summer of 1885, and again in 1891 and 1892; but certain gentlemen near New York, assisted by Mr. W. A. Eddy, on the night of November 13th, sent up by means of kites an electrical collector (presumably a plate or wire net of copper), a small copper wire forming the conductor. The first spark was obtained between fifteen and twenty-five minutes after the kites were sent up, and when the collector was at a height of three hundred and eighty-one feet. The time was between ten o’clock and midnight. The temperature at the earth’s surface at the time was 38° Fahr., while a self-registering thermometer sent up on the kites showed 37° at an elevation of four hundred and twenty feet—the sky being clear, or nearly so. Quite likely the records of electrical phenomena at Blue Hill are more full and explicit than this at Bayonne, but neither these nor the theories on the subject have been given to the public. The first practical use of electricity obtained by means of kites,

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56 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. so far as I have learned, is in the wireless telegraph system of Signor Marconi, in which the collectors at the poles are kites of thin copper, these being connected by small copper wires to either the receiver or the transmitter, on the ground. Though Marconi claimed to have sent readable sig- nals twelve miles, Su- perintendent Preece, of the English Govern- ment Telegraph Sys- tem, in endeavoring to duplicate these suc- cesses, was unable to obtain a_ satisfactory result at a greater dis- tance than two or three — Z| miles. f | The experiments at Blue Hill have shown a difference in elec- - . mn wei trical conditions at dif- owing ring at the upper end ef the wire line to which are ° . attached the strings of two kites, also the cord bearing ferent heights, and in the meteorograph. The two round objects atthe bottom different conditions of represent the two round cups of the anemometer. . the atmosphere in re- spect to temperature, humidity, and movement; and there seem good reasons for confidence that ultimately this element will yield valuable results in more than one directiow. It is not improbable that if metallic kites could be sent up to the verge of some higher stratum of the atmosphere, where the con- tact of the diversely moving strata sometimes evolves noticeable auroras, some considerable electric charge might be obtained for telegraphic or telephonic transmission, and, possibly, by storage, for light and power. In considering the various phenomena of kite-flying, however, we must not neglect the kites themselves. The effort of the scien- tists has from the first been to find a form which would give readi- ness of ascent, steadiness in flight, lifting power, and capacity of reaching great altitudes, together, of course, with mechanical stabil- ity and endurance under all conditions. Because of their necessary slenderness, and their delicacy of adjustment for balance and pull, all flat kites have been found precarious; consequently, not meeting

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ome a Ee eT 2 ete oe ae KITE-FLYING IN 1897. 57 requirements except in the best weather; besides, so large a number are necessary in light winds to carry up the instruments to the de- sired elevation, involving labor and time, that the cellular kites are becoming the chief reliance for meteorological observations aloft. The antetype of all these is the Hargrave pattern, invented by an Englishman of that name in Australia in 1894. All are remark- able for their lifting capacity, and generally for their ready ascent. The Hargrave consists of a light frame, outlining a box, about which, at each extremity, is a wide band of cloth, the frame being bare at the middle section. In proportions, a rectangular cell six feet long is usually about the same in width, and one fourth as deep as it is wide. There is much variation in most features of the box kite, as made by different fliers. The bridle is attached to the two lower corner bars nearly midway of the length or the four lower corners of the uncovered section, or otherwise, according to form and use. For use at Blue Hill, observer Clayton devised a modification of the Hargrave, consisting chiefly in the narrowing of the box, and a different framing. Another form of the cellular type is the diamond kite of Mr. 8. A. Potter, of Washington, D. C., whose device has a square instead of an oblong aperture, and has the bridle on one of the longitudinal angles, so that it flies with a corner, instead of a side, downward. To this another Washington inventor has attached a pair of trian- gular wings, which is said to increase the lift very much. Neither of the forms of Hargrave type bears even a suggestive resemblance to the common kite. Still another cellular kite is that constructed by Mr. J. B. Mil- let, president of the Boston Aéronautical Society. Except by a diagram, an idea of this kite may be best conveyed by saying that, in the main, it is a Hargrave cell doubled, or having a third wall inclosing a superimposed cell; a development which might be car- ried on indefinitely. It is nearly the same form as the flying machine, carrying and operated by a small steam engine—the in- vention of Professor Langley, of the Smithsonian Institution. T am not aware that the lifting capacity of any kite has been sub- mitted to so striking a tesi as on the Hargrave until the present sea- son. Two of these, on November 12, 1894, in Australia, are reported to have borne the inventor up sixteen feet; and in 1895, by the same number, he is said to have been lifted forty-five feet. Subsequently, Captain H. Baden-Powell, of the Scotch Grays, in England, was carried up one hundred feet by a tandem of the same type. On January 21, 1897, Lieutenant Hugh D. Wise, of the Ninth In- fantry, United States Army, was lifted in a boatswain’s swing sus-

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58 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. pended from four Hargrave cells to a height of forty-two feet above New York Bay. The ijater instance referred to is thoroughly verified and reliable. It is the ascent made by Mr. Charles H. Lamson, near Portland, Maine, on June 19, 1897, to an elevation of fifty feet with a single kite of the form devised by him. In most other exploits of this kind the aéronaut has been drawn up by a pulley to kites already well poised aloft; but Mr. Lamson started with his kite, running along on the ground as it was drawn forward, and going up with it when the initial impulse had been gained. The Lamson kite is constructed on an original idea, though it is a combination of the flat and the cellular types. The gain in height of ascent by kites since experiments began at Blue Hill has been at the rate of about one thousand feet each year. The highest ascent pre- vious to 1897 was made by a six- foot kite of the Malay or Eddy impiehe pattern, on October 8, 1896. The elevation attained was 9,400 feet above tide-water, 9,300 feet above the surrounding country, and 8,770 feet above the top of Blue Hill, which is 635 feet above the sea —in full view from its summit. The meteorological instruments made records up to a height of 9,375 feet. A higher ascent was made early in the autumn of 1897 at Blue Hill, when the leader of a tandem, a Lamson kite, reached an elevation of 11,060 feet (two and a tenth miles), where it was broken by the strong wind. The observatory people now hope that, with the Lamson kite as a leader, they will be able to send their instruments to a much greater height. The elevation of the kites is determined by the same means used for mountains—the pressure of the atmosphere as recorded in the barometer, and calculations with the angle the kites make with the extremities of a base line. The string has too much indeter- minate sag to furnish an accurate measurement. It has been found that with an increase of altitude a constantly lowering temperature is encountered, except rarely, when there is an overlying warm stratum, ushering in a spell of unseasonably warm weather. At the approach of these warm tides, when the IE ee a = a

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AITE-FLYING IN 1897. 59 kites ascend they find, as usual, a decreasing temperature for a while, but it suddenly rises as the instruments enter the radiating waves of caloric—sometimes as many as seventeen degrees. In advance of and during cold waves the temperature falls uniformly and rapidly in the ascent. Observations at Washington, New York, and Blue Hill coincide in showing that approaching warm and cold waves are perceived, at a height of a thousand feet or more, from six to twelve hours earlier than their prevalence at the surface of the earth. One reason for this is that the air moves freely and rap- idly at the height of a few thousand feet, while it meets with many obstacles below. There is an interesting bit of information from the kites for us in regard to Boston’s much-denounced east wind—though in the heated term it is generally quite a relief. It has been ascertained at Blue Hill that these chilling inflows begin at the surface and thrust themselves wedgewise under the local stratum, working up- ward. At their greatest expansion, however, these eastern winds rarely have a depth of more than twelve hundred feet. At the surface of the earth, as every one knows, there is usually a marked increase of the temperature during the day, and a decrease at night; but at an elevation of three thousand feet this variation disappears entirely, the days being there as cold as the nights. The changes of temperature aloft are very large, but they are not diurnal. At this height, also, the days are marked by a damp atmosphere, while the nights are dry. This is simply a phase of the dewfall, and to a degree also of the clouds and the rainfall. The behavior of kites in the vicinity of cumulus clouds is pe- culiar. When one of these tracts of snowlike baseless hills sails calmly over, the kites ascend more or less rapidly toward it, often following as far as the line will permit. Every observer has re- marked the rounded shapes of these fair-weather clouds, like high upheavals of condensed steam; and it has long been held that they were the result of—or, at least, attended by—upward eruptions of air, perhaps from heat expansion. The nimbus cloud, from which most of our rainfal! comes, has little effect on the kites other than disqualifying them for flying because of wet. Kites usually find little or no obstacle in the stra- tus. Among the memoranda of flights is noted, of one such passage in summer, the emergence of the kite above a cloud of this kind of a computed depth of five hundred feet. The hygrometer showed that in the midst of the cloud the humidity was one hundred per cent—full saturation; so that a slightly cooler wave of atmosphere would have caused precipitation; yet above the cloud the atmos- phere was quite dry.

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. In the colder seasons of the year the kites would usually have come back from such passages beautifully iced in minute crystals. In an observation made in October, 1896, the box of instruments, at the height of three quarters of a mile, entered a cloud from which Kite Mereorooram or Octoser 15, 1897. it emerged at an elevation of about a mile. The record showed that close under the cloud the temperature was just below freezing; above the cloud the atmosphere was very dry; and at the limit of the ascent (9,375 feet) the temperature was twenty degrees below freezing.

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KITE-FLYING IN 1897. 61 Probably the most striking thing in recent kite-flying is the making of photographic views by a camera in the sky, borne up by kites. Mr. William A. Eddy has claimed to be the pioneer in this field, having taken views from kites on May 30, 1895; while Messrs. G. T. Woglom and George E. Henshaw, of New York city, claim that the first good picture from a camera sustained by kites was made by them on the afternoon of September 21st, following. There are several ways in which a camera could be carried up, and operated from terra firma. Mr. Eddy sends it up with its bearer attached to the strings of as many as three kites. The apparatus consists simply of two spars about the length of a trout rod, and of about its size at the butt, the end of one spar being joined firmly to the middle of the other; and on this junction the camera is mounted. A cord looped along the trunk line controls the slide of the camera. Many excellent pictures have been made by these means. Kites have been used, also, for sending up colored lights for sig- naling; while by an ingenious use of a large and somewhat modified camera, views of objects at a distance have been presented to observers on the ground, when such objects would have been otherwise in- visible to them. Thus the operation constitutes a sort of artificial mirage, which, very likely, will not always be without its uses. It may reasonably be expected that kite-flying will, in the early future, become one of the most common pastimes, as it has already become a scientific pursuit at many places; being specially adapted to certain situations, as islands and upland regions. On the Isles of Shoals, off the New Hampshire shore, during the last season there was a very elegant kite carnival. Nearly one hundred kites were there, mostly in the hands of children. The larger number were of the Clayton cellular pattern, but of small size. On one occasion sixteen of them were flown to a great height in a single tandem. Each kite was differently marked, by color or other means, so that these alone afforded a very pleasing spectacle, without regarding the delighted children and their maturer com- panions beneath. Kites in tandem, unlike members of equine and other tandems, are rarely if ever in line, but diverge irregularly, like the branches of a tree. This is owing to variations in the flow of the atmosphere, which appears to be less uniform than the currents in a river, having eddyings, swervings, and evanescent accelerations and retardations. Aside from the charming groups watching their progress, there is pleasure for any observer in a flight of these ethereal forms, vari- ous in color, dispread from the trunk line as though they were huge leaves or high-flying butterflies on the tips of invisible branches.

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The flat kites of the Malay or Eddy type are not less pleasing than their tailed cousins, the common kites of various shapes, and are more like living creatures, because of their incessant action. The mounting up of one after another with irregular movement, now turning to right or to left or downward, then catching an upward-going zephyr and soaring with it at an angle of seventy or BAROMETRIC HEIGHT PRESSURE ‘ ABOVE SEA IN oe sf ‘eo ‘N AeRoruize ” (893) Sg INCHES a T CLovos SS... | Jcvaus 4 SSS SSS 1 734 , 1/ 4 GLAISHER (1862) _ en + 6 STRATUS BERS ON(89Y SSS = —>> ‘ a . STount | +S Saks MLNS Co PQS Oe ore Everest +k CUMULUS + I wimeus _|{RAIN ce ovo) seein SBi.ve Mice Evrrec Tower CoMPARATIVE ALTITUDES. eighty degrees far up after its happy mates, will be watched by the leisureful looker-on with absorbing interest. Behold them, at length, poised high in air; the position of the far-away leader discoverable only by following with the eye the faint spider thread of drooping line. Ceasing from progress and retro- gression, poised like humming birds before a flower, tipping mo- mentarily now one side and then the other in rhythmic movement, Seite aetna oon chee eet

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ee TE ec en KITE-FLYING IN 1897. 63 changing their tint with every motion, the casual observer has an impression that he is gazing at a flock of real birds, with a notion of white, gray, pink, blue, and purple gulls, uncommonly wide of wing and unusually fascinating. Now and then one or another sails away from its place and poises itself for a few moments, then returns nearly to its former position; while another takes a sudden dive downward, ending in a graceful parabola which brings it to a new point on its original level. Sometimes one kite will move almost directly at another, which shyly sidles away; when the first ceases its movement, droops, and sinks down, until, just in the nick of time, a strong young zephyr catches it and buoys up its faltering pinions. The cause of all these apparently purposed movements being invisible to the beholder, some degree of reflection is required to rid one’s self of a lurking idea that these are animate things. Elements of the Hargrave Kites. From the Tables of Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory. | Cross-section of Wei ht a Lifting sticks: Square mil- Total ght pe | | Width of|Length of Depth of| Width of ; weight of, 5J-, metre No. |_ kite: eS : bell : Cell: | — q limetres. | kite : of lifting Metres. | Metres. | Metres. | Metres. | ra Lenat | Kilo- SUETNSS - “* | Lateral. ngitu-| ramm 8. Kilo- | dinal. | grammes ; | - _ a . a ian 1.52 1.80 0.57 | 0.58 | 8.58 240 $20 2.47 0.69 == 1.12 1.32 0.46 | 0.41 1.84 200 . 200 1.56 0.85 Dien 0.91 1.22 0.41 0.41 1.49 40 80 0.82 0.55 Ginx 1.22 1.82 0.46 0.46 2.13 110 110 1.64 0.77 The lifting surface of these several kites is assumed to be the total surface of the side planes (upper and lower). ‘The sticks have a rectangular or elliptical cross-section. The kites are very stable, and fly in recorded wind velocities of from six to twenty metres per second. The angular attitudes reached by the first two kites average between forty-five and fifty-five degrees, and those reached by the last two average between fifty and sixty de- grees. ‘The pull in a recorded wind of ten metres per second aver- ages about five kilogrammes per square metre of lifting surface. The Blue Hill method of testing kites is to fly them with a short line, usually from fifty to one hundred metres long, and to make fre- quent and regular observations of the angular attitude and of the pull. The instruments employed are a surveyor’s transit and a spring balance. ‘Tests are usually made under widely varying conditions of wind velocity, and the kites flying at the highest angles and those exerting the greatest pull are easily selected. The work in view consists of raising a meteorograph of known weight under varying conditions. ;

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. By DAVID A. WELLS, LL. D., D.C. L., CORRESPONDANT DE L’INSTITUT DE FRANCE, ETC. XVIII.—THEORY AND PRACTICE OF INCOME TAXATION. “YOMMENCING with first principles, the general taxation of meomes is theoretically one of the most equitable, productive, and least exceptionable forms of taxation. What can be fairer than that each citizen should annually contribute an equitable and just portion of his net gain or income for the support of the government or State under which he has elected to live, and in default of which he would not be likely to have either gain, income, or property ? and such a method of supporting a government would therefore seem to be in accord in the highest degree with those canons or maxims of taxation which are regarded by nearly all economists and jurists as the highest embodiment of human wisdom on this subject. And yet the proposition is hardly open to dispute that a general income tax, with such administrative features as are essential to make it desirable as a revenue measure, can not be successfully adminis- tered under a free and popular form of government. On this point the comparatively recent experience of the United States, which few now remember, ought to be most instructive. Thus, in 1869, under a Federal law assessing all incomes in excess of $1,000, and with a corps of trained officials to execute it, only 259,388 persons out of a population in that year of about 37,000,000 acknowledged the re- ceipt of any taxable income; and in 1872, when the exemption had been raised to $2,000 and the population had increased to over 39,000,000, the number of persons who had an income tax ran down to 72,949—leaving a presumption that every one of those who did not pay and was made subject to inquisition by the officials in respect to his income, made oath that he was not in receipt, from wages, salary, interest, or profits, of an income liable to taxation in excess of $2,000. From an economic point of view it would be a misnomer to call such a result “ taxation”; from a moral point of view its characterization as “ appalling ” would not be inappropriate. - Another point which may also be accepted as theoretically be- yond dispute is, that if all were willing to live up to and carry out the correct and rational theory of an income tax, there would be little use for tariffs, customhouses, internal revenue departments, and excises. But that is exactly what human nature, as we find it, will not agree to have done in the one case, or to do in the other. In fact, there is hardly any other one thing which human nature so much dislikes to do as to pay taxes, although it is capable of demonstra-

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PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 65 tion, even to a most obtuse intellect, that there is no one act which can be performed by a community that brings in so large a return to the credit of civilization and general happiness as the judicious expenditure for public purposes of a fair percentage of the general wealth collected under an equitable system of taxation. Now, an income tax is the very essence of personal taxation, and although in respect to a specialty of application it has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States not to be a direct tax, it comes to the ordinary taxpayer most directly; and this is the first or one of the most influential reasons why human nature, as ordinarily constituted, does not like it. The world’s experience is to the same effect in respect to a “ poll” or “ head” tax. This in a popular sense is almost universally regarded as a direct tax, and altogether personal in its incidence. It has accordingly always been most unpopular. Its collection has been the occasion of great civil disturbances in the world’s history, and it has been denied a place by popular vote or constitutional provision, in the tax system of most of the States of the Federal Union. A second and more important reason why a general income tax powerfully antagonizes popular sentiment is that its efficient admin- istration, or revenue productiveness, requires that every person liable to taxation in respect to his annual net gains, profits, or income shall make to a Government official an exhibit of the financial condition of his estate, business, or profession; for, in default of such an exhibit, any basis for assessment must be a mere matter of conjecture on the part of the assessor, with a result devoid of any pretense to correctness or equality. But such an exhibit, necessarily disclosing to a greater or less degree his financial condition to his business com- petitors, and to a curious, gossiping public, no man will willingly make; and he naturally regards it as in the nature of an outrage on the part of the government that seeks to compel him to do it. Hence the zuccessful administration of an income tax involves and requires the use of arbitrary and inquisitor.al methods and agencies, which, perfectly consistent with a despotism, are entirely antagonistic to and incompatible with the principles and maintenance of a free govern- ment. ~ Practically, as John Stuart Mill has expressed it, “ the fairness which belongs to the principle of an income tax can not be made to attach to it in practice”; and, “while appparently the most just of all modes of taxation, it is in effect more unjust than many others that are prima facie more objectionable.” And again he says, “ The tax, on whatever principles of equality it may be imposed, is in prac- tice unequal in one of the worst ways, falling heaviest on the most conscientious,” and “should be reserved as an extraordinary resource VOL. Lu1.—6 yew

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. for great national emergencies, in which the necessity of a large additional revenue overrules all objections.” Mr. Gladstone, speaking in 1853, also said, “I believe it” (an income tax) “ does more than any other tax to demoralize and corrupt the people.” And Mr. Disraeli subsequently in Parliament ex- pressed his agreement with Mr. Gladstone by saying, “ The odious features of this tax can not by any means be removed or modified ”; and with these opinions nearly all educated financiers and economists are in complete unison, except a comparatively few persons who, educated in Germany, have embraced the idea that because income taxes are effectively collected in countries having a despotic form of government, they can be equally collected in countries under a popu- lar government.* In support of these conclusions attention is asked to the following historical evidence. It is well known that one of the principal causes which led to the great French Revolution was the inequality (class exemptions) and multiplicity of taxes; and one of the first acts of the National Assembly of 1789 was to repeal all inquisitorial and arbi- trary taxes of every name and nature; and this repeal was based on the report’ of a committee of some of the most eminent members of the Convention—La Rochefoucauld and Talleyrand being of the number —which commenced with the following proposition: “ Every system of taxation which necessitates personal and arbitrary inquisitions for its execution is inconsistent with the maintenance of a free people.” And although, from that day to this, France, by reason of a national debt greater than that ever borne by any other nation, has been com- pelled to resort to almost every expedient for obtaining revenue, it has, theoretically at least, endeavored to maintain a system of gen- eral taxation not inconsistent with the above principle. Under the head of indirect taxation, however, which includes the general direction of the stamp tax, “ domainal public land ” revenues, customs, duties on imports, salt and sugar taxes, and monopolization of the manufacture of powder and the sale of tobacco and matches, the so-called communes of France have a right to “levy a tax of three per cent on the annual income (interests, dividends, etc.) of personal property, such as French or foreign securities, shares, bonds issued * As the opinions of English authorities (above referred to) have been disparaged on the ground that they represent old-time utterances and imperfect fiscal experiences, atten- tion is here asked to the following extract from a letter of Prof. Thorold Rogers, late mem- ber of the British House of Commons and Professor of Political Economy, University of Oxford, under date of August 25, 1884: “ Nobody defends the income tax. It was first imposed on the tyrant’s plea that the administration can not do without it, and it has been continued for the same reason. Every Chancellor of the Exchequer has condemned it in principle and has continued it in practice. It is not wonderful, therefore, that, fortified by these avowals, people who can evade the tax do so,”

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PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 67 by departments, industrial establishments, independent of the stamp or transfer tax, but not affecting the bonds of the state (or rentes), nor associations of partnerships in a collective name, nor private obligations, mortgages, and the like.” “ Religious societies are taxed five per cent on the income of their capital.” In 1886 the revenue derived from the above taxes was returned at 47,200,000 francs ($9,400,000), representing in 1886 a capital of 1,500,000,000 franes, of which 131,000,000 francs represented properties situated in France. Again, it is not generally known that Alexander Hamilton, as a member of the conventions which framed the Constitution of the United States and the first Constitution of New York, gave all his influence in favor of the restriction of all internal or local taxation to visible, tangible objects, and to the assessment of these specifically, and by some uniform and simple rule. The language used by him in one of his papers (The Constitutionalist) on this subject is as follows: “The genius of liberty reprobates everything arbitrary or discretion- ary in taxation. It exacts that every man, by a definite and general rule, should know what proportion of his property the State demands. Whatever liberty we may boast in theory, it can not exist in fact while (arbitrary) assessments continue.” The following sentiment or legal principle, laid down by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Boyd vs. United States (116 United States Reports, 631, 632), though often apparently little regarded by the legal profession, would, however, seem in itself to constitute a complete and insuperable barrier against any resort in the United States to the prosecution of arbitrary or inquisitorial inquiries, which must of necessity be instituted and prosecuted by tax officials for the obtaining of any personal and warrantable data for the correct assessment of an income tax, the language of the court being as follows: “Any compulsory discovery, by extorting the party’s oath or compelling the production of his private books and papers to convict him of a crime or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an English- man. Its abhorrent to the instincts of an American. It may suit the purposes of despotic power, but it can not abide the pure atmos- phere of political liberty and personal freedom.” So much, then, for what may be termed the philosophy of an in- come tax. Consideration of some of its most instructive experiences is next in order. The old Romans, who never gave much place to sentiment in their laws or policy, had an income tax in the days of the empire, and they overcame all difficulties connected with its administration in the

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68 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. following manner: They authorized their tax officials, in cases where the citizen did not in their opinion make a satisfactory payment, or was suspected of false statements in respect to his income or property, to administer torture; and the historian Gibbon, in writing about this feature of Roman history, justifies it in a measure in the follow- ing language: “The secret wealth of commerce, and the precarious profits of art and labor, are susceptible only of a discretionary valuation ; and as the person of the trader supplies the want of a visible and permanent security, the payment of the imposition, which in the case of a land tax may be obtained by the seizure of property, can rarely be extorted by any other means than corporeal punishment.” That the Roman income-tax system was successful as respects revenue is probable, but it was also destructive of the state; for the testimony of history is that its people finally welcomed the inroad of the barbarians as a lesser evil than the continuance of their tax system. As has been already intimated, there has been nothing corre- sponding to a general income tax, with personal inquisitorial fea- tutes, in the fiscal system of France since the Revolution of 1789, In place of it, taxes are levied on the indicia or signs which each citizen presents of his possession of income or personal property; and the rents or rental value of the premises he occupies for residence or business, and the doors and windows of buildings, are regarded as such signs or indicia. This tax applies to the doors and windows into streets and courtyards and gardens of houses or workshops. In general, all openings giving light or air to houses and buildings for human habitations, shops, workshops, sheds, warehouses, etc., are taxable, whatever their shape, dimensions, or fastening may be. Thus, all openings to afford light to the stairs, to a habitable room opening on a covered yard, of a habitable house used for rural pur- poses, or the door of a garden leading to a dwelling, all are taxable. The openings to new buildings become taxable as soon as they are habitable. If at the time of making the tax roll some rooms in a new house are not yet habitable, the openings of such rooms are for the time exempt. If the entire front of a room or atelier consists of windows, the number of windows to be taxed is determined by their solid divisions of either iron, wood, or stone. Exempt are the doors and windows to light or air of barns, sheepfolds, stables, cellars, etc., not intended for human dwelling. Further exempt are doors or gates not locked; also interior doors of communication from one yard to another. Doors as well as windows of manufacturing establish- ments are not taxable except to those in the dwelling part. Again, what is called a mobiliary tax of France is governed by NR Os RE

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PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 69 the amount of rent paid or the rentable value of the dwelling of the taxpayer. That portion of a house used exclusively for trade or a similar purpose and not for a residence is not counted in the valua- tion of the rentable value like a furnished house or a private chapel; but premises or dependencies of dwelling houses, courts, stables, and carriage houses of luxury, clubs, societies, and Masonic lodges are counted in. In assessing the mobiliary tax it is not necessary that the figures taken as a basis for taxation should be the real rent; it is sufficient that the proportion of the assumed rent, the basis of the tax, and the real rentable value of the dwelling should be exactly the same for all taxpayers; so that a taxed citizen can convince himself whether he is overtaxed or not by comparing his own rent with that generally charged in his community. The theory which underlies the French system of taxation is that the rent or rental value of the premises occupied by the taxpayer as a residence is proportioned to the amount of his property; and this generally speaking, would seem to be a not unreasonable assumption. At all events, it would seem to possess this great advantage—namely, that the rent payable by every citizen may be readily ascertained, while the amount of his means can not, if he chooses to conceal it.* Russia seems to have abandoned the idea of an income tax, and in place of it would appear to have substituted what is known as a * The following epitome which has been recently made of the burdens of taxation im- posed upon an honest taxpayer in New York as compared with that which is bgrne by a man possessed of the same means or income in the city of Paris is believed to be approxi- mately correct : _ “Let us assume that the property of such an individual, if out of business, consists of personal estate, such as railway bonds and stocks of the value of $100,000, that the net annual income therefrom is $5,000, and that the rent paid by such individual amounts to one fifth of his income, equal to $1,000, or that being engaged in business his average annual profits enable him to occupy an apartment of the same rental value, In Paris the party in question would have to pay as contributions mobiliéres about 400 francs, or, say, $80, or, including his door and window tax, which he pays through his landlord, say, $90. If engaged in business or practicing a profession, he would have to pay a license tax or patente, which varies from 100 to 1,000 ffancs (we are speaking, of course, of the mass of the people, and not of merchants or companies occupying very extensive and costly prem- ises, whose patente may run up to several thousand francs, and whose taxes are payable out of the profits of their business, and not out of the income derived from their investments). Such householder thus pays on an average, say, 1,000 francs as the total of his direct taxes. Supposing him to pay the sum of 1,000 francs indirectly in the shape of octroi duties on the provisions consumed by himself and family in the course of the year (and this allowance we consider a very liberal one), we find the total amount of his annual taxes, di- rect and indirect, to be, say, 2,000 francs, or $400; while in New York a person similarly situated would have to pay, if he made an honest and full declaration of his property, about 2.6 per cent on his principal, making, in the present case, his tax amount to $2,600. Even if we assume that the Parisian pays an additional $200 per year on an average in the way of succession and other exceptional taxes, his contributions to the expenses of the Govern-

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70 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. “hearth ” tax, which is collected from each separate building in- habited, or used for any commercial or industrial purpose. An income tax has éxisted in Austria-Hungary since the begin- ning of the nineteenth century. It was repealed in 1829, and re- enacted in 1849. This tax is divided into three classes. “ Under the ment would be at the utmost only $600 in place of the $2,600 levied upon the unfortunate New-Yorker. “Tn return for what he pays, the Parisian enjoys well-paved and well-cleaned streets, wide and unobstructed sidewalks, shade trees with benches under them for the weary, pub- lic gardens kept in beautiful order, etc., while the New-Yorker gets—well, the less said on this subject the better. May we not entertain the hope that honest men of all parties will soon unite to secure a better system of taxation and a more efficient administration of the government in the most populous and wealthy city of the model republic? or must we ac- cept as a melancholy truth that universal suffrage inevitably resulis (at least in American cities) in rabid democracy, dishonesty, and dirt?” Nors.—M. Yves Guyot, in a report recently made on questions connected with proposals relating to the establishment of an income tax in France, regards the great fiscal wrong in that country to be the inequality of the assessments of real property in the different de- partments. This is increased by the fact that the French land tax is not levied at the same rate on all property, but the proportion of the whole amount which is to be paid by each department is fixed by the central authority; the departments allot the quotas to be paid by the several communes, and the communal authorities apportion their quota among the individual taxpayers. The tax is, to use the French technical term, one of répartition and not of quotité. If it were the latter, each taxpayer would pay in proportion to his prop- erty ; the rate of the tax would be fixed by the Government instead of the amount to be raised from each department. The valuation on which this tax is levied is the net annual value, and was fixed unsystematically and imperfectly from fifty to seventy years ago; the value of real property has changed, but the original assessment is still in force. The re- sult is that some departments pay from six to eight times as much as others in proportion to their real annual value. M. Guyot advocates a tax on the capital in place of on the annual value. There is, as he points out, a manifest injustice in taxing the same amount of capital at different rates, according to the mode in which it is invested. In France a capitalist might invest his money in building lots or other land temporarily unproductive, but held for resale at a profit. ‘The investment, yielding no income, would practically escape taxation. If the same sum were invested in safe securities yielding an income of three per cent, the tax would be levied on that income, while if placed in. business where, though it might tempo- rarily yield twelve per cent, the loss of the whole would be risked, the owner woulc pay four times as heavy a tax as in the previous case. The same objections have been frequently urged against the income tax in England, but there a difficulty exists in the way of assessing the capital value of land—viz., that land is generally the subject of letting and seldom of sale. In France, however, not only are there nearly a million sales of land each year, but on every devolution by inheritance the capital value of the land is officially registered. The ascertainment of the capital value of the entire country would be an easy matter, and such an assessment would be of more du- rable benefit than an official estimate of the annual value, which, necessarily varying from year to year, would be a much more fluctuating and uncertain basis for taxation than the selling value. The reforms proposed by M. Guyot would increase the land tax in those departments which are undervalued; and he estimates that a revaluation for taxation would cost ten million dollars, and that it would take ten years to complete. He thinks the complaint by landowners of overtaxation generally is unfounded; but he would nevertheless relieve them

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PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 71 first class, the tax in force in 1887 was from eight and a half per cent to ten per cent of net income.” Under this class the following income was taxed: income derived from all those trades and occu- pations which are subject to a license tax; the income of mining and smelting establishments, and the profit made by the tenants of agricultural lands. In the second class, which includes income from services rendered or labor performed in occupations not subject to a license tax, the rate reported is exceptionally high. Under the third class, which embraces interests from loans, from invested capital, savings banks, and life-insurance companies, the rate is re- ported to be ten per cent. The exemptions under this latter head are very extensive, and include the pay of officers and soldiers in active service, interest on deposits in savings banks, and a great number of public securities—as five per cent Austrian stocks and bonds, certain bonds of the Tyrol, bonds of all railroads subject to taxation, lottery loans of 1859 and 1860, and a large number of other corporation securities. Servants are only taxed under the second class and in case their total income exceeds six hundred and thirty florins ($226.16). In case a party subjected to an income tax makes either a false return or neglects to make any, thrice the amount of the tax is imposed, the payment of which, however, includes the tax itself, so that the fine proper is double the amount of the tax. Denmarx.—The income tax of Denmark was recently fixed at two per cent of the taxpayer’s income. The tax is collected by authorized agents, who are obliged to give ample security for the faithful performance of their duties, for which they receive a re- muneration of two per cent on the amount collected, together with an allowance for house rent in return for the obligations imposed upon them of having residences and offices in the taxing districts. This income tax does not seem to be objectionable in the sense of undue burdensomeness, the only complaints made being in regard to the publicity of the pecuniary conditions of the individuals taxed. SwirzerLanp.—A resort to an income tax for the purpose of defraying state expenditures seems to find especial favor in Switzer- in the interest of free-trade principles from the vexatious and heavy duties on transfers, which, with legal expenses, make the cost of sales amount to ten per cent of the price paid. This heavy impost prevents sales, and its removal should be supplemented by establishing a simple system of transfer on the record-of-title principle. These reforms, which involve equality of taxation and free trade in land, are, in M. Guyot’s opinion, essential to the well- being of France, whose greatest wealth consists in her land. Fifty per cent of the popula- tion are engaged in agriculture, and, without releasing them from their fair share of the public burdens, they should be placed in such circumstances as will permit land to pass. into the possession of those who are most capable of working it to advantage. (Rapport sur les questions relatives @ Vimpdt sur le revenu. Par Yves Guyot. Paris: Guillaumin & Cie. 1887.)

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72 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. land, though it does not seem probable that the systems adopted for its enforcement will ever be found satisfactory to the people of other countries. Thus, in the taxation of incomes, the average rate does not generally exceed four or five per cent, but in some cantons the rates rule as high as seven and even ten per cent. By a com- paratively recent law established in the canton of Vaud, which in point of population and wealth ranks third in the Swiss confedera- tion, progressive taxation has been established, and the property of the canton is divided into three classes which are taxed in the follow- ing proportions: One per cent 1,000 for estates under $5,000 capital value; 14 per cent 1,000 between $5,000 and $20,000, and 2 per cent 1,000 for estates exceeding $20,000 in value. Personal prop- erty is divided into seven classes, the lowest class being under $5,000, the highest exceeding $160,000 capital value. The rates of taxa- tion on these classes are to be in the proportion of 1, 14, 2, 24, 3, 34, and 4 per cent 1,000. Incomes from earnings are also divided into seven classes, but in arriving at the net amount to be taxed, a deduc- tion of $80 is allowed for each person legally dependent on the head of the family for his support. The result of this is that while a bachelor earning $1,000 a year would pay a tax of $15, a married man with the same income and ten children would pay but fifty cents, and if he had twelve children nothing. The Vaudois law was carried by overwhelming majorities when submitted, as was neces- sary, to a “ referendum ” vote of the whole people, and at every sub- sequent stage of its progress. The only one of the great governments of the world at the pres- ent time which can prefer a claim to a large measure of success in administering an income tax is that of Germany, and especially that of the kingdom of Prussia; and the methods by which such success has been attained, and which seem to be based on the precedents established by the old Romans so far as the changed conditions of civilization will permit, ought to be most instructive to those who think this tax can be administered and made notably productive of revenue in the United States. The tax in Germany is levied, as it were, in duplicate, or under two forms: first, by towns and cities, and termed “communal”; and, second, by the state, under the designation of “class” tax. An entire exemption from these taxes is granted only to the very poorest and humblest of the popu- lation. “Petty hucksters with a small stock of potatoes, second-hand clothes peddlers, servant girls earning four dollars and twenty-five cents a quarter, pay the communal tax, and are also inscribed in the first (or lowest) grade of the class tax.” * * United States Consular Reports, Nos, 99, 100, p. 461.

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PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 73 Every foreigner staying in Prussia more than one year, but with no intent of becoming a permanent resident, must expect to be taxed on his income at the expiration of the first year, although none of the sources of such income may be within the territorial jurisdiction of Prussia. Up to the year 1891-92 the income tax of Prussia was levied by a board of income-tax commissioners, one third of whom were appointed by the authorities and two thirds by the taxpayers. The assessing was done by the board on informa- tion and evidence obtainable; and in the absence of authentic proof as to the amount of annual income, “ circumstantial and hypothetical evidence was accepted.” Parties thus assessed might appeal from the conclusions of the board to another tribunal organized for that pur- pose, whose decision was final. Appeals are not often made to this latter board, as the methods adopted by it to bring unwilling or evasive taxpayers to terms are harsh and inquisitorial in the extreme and most peremptory. The modus procedente against delinquent taxpayers is very summary. If after three days’ written notice pay- ment fails to be made, a mandate is issued by the tax collector, and the property of the delinquent, especially his household goods, is seized and sold. By another curious provision in the German tax law the collector of taxes is made personally liable for any taxes lost by reason of his failing to mercilessly enforce the collection with- in a prescribed period. In 1891 some mitigation of the harsh pro- ceedings involved in the assessment of the income tax in Prussia was made by the Government, and now every taxpayer is allowed to make a return. Great Brirarn.—The idea of a general income tax as a means of raising revenue was first embodied in the form of a statute in Great Britain under the administration of Mr. Pitt, in 1798, and was proposed and advocated solely as a means for obtaining additional revenue for the prosecution of the war with France. It imposed a tax of ten per cent on all incomes in excess of £200 ($1,000). After the Peace of Amiens, in 1802, it was repealed on the ground that a tax of this character ought to be exclusively reserved for the exi- gencies of war; and for a like reason it was reimposed on a revival of the war during the following year. Subject to various modifica- tions, it formed an important constituent of the fiscal system of Great Britain until after the battle of Waterloo and the peace of 1815, when it was again repealed. After this, nothing more was heard about it until 1842, when Sir Robert Peel reimposed it as a merely temporary measure—i. e., for a period of five years. It has, however, since remained a permanent feature of the British fiscal system, although its repeal has been promised and anticipated by various administrations, and in the general election of 1874 Mr. VOL. Lin.—7

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74 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Gladstone, in an address to the country, especially asked that the con- fidence and continued administration of the Government be given him on the ground that he contemplated an early repeal of the income tex. Circumstances, however, have prevented any such action, and in subsequent years of office Mr. Gladstone has not hesitated to raise the tax whenever the necessity of additional revenue for the Government became imperative. That he has re- gretted his inability to abolish it is evident from his saying, in his financial statement in 1853: “I think some happier Chancellor of the Exchequer may achieve this great accomplishment, and that some future poet may be able to sing of him: “ He took the tax away, And built himself an everlasting name.” From the outset the income tax has been more odious and unpopular in Great Britain than any other form of taxation. Among states- men and economists there is hardly any dissent from the opinion that the tax is bad in principle, because unequal and unjust in its assessment, and incapable of being made equal and just; and this, too, although the administration of the revenue laws of Great Britain—owing to the comparatively small area of territory sub- jected to supervision, and the fact that the tenure of office on the part of officials is dependent solely on honesty and intelligence—is wonderfully efficient, far more so than can be expected under exist- ing conditions in the United States. The annual reports of the British Commissioners of the Inland Revenue always mention ex- tensive evasions of the income tax. For the year 1864~—’65 the amount of such evasion was estimated to have been equal to about one sixth of the revenue collected under it. The demoralizing effects which are inevitably produced by the habit of making false returns respecting income are regarded by many British authorities as far more deplorable than those resulting from any inequality contin- gent on this form of taxation; as the transition from a fraud upon the Government to a fraud upon the public is comparatively easy. The reported product of the income tax of Great Britain for 1893- 94, was £15,200,000 ($76,000,000); an amount beyond the esti- mate. Note.—The following incident, which has become a part of English political history, is curiously illustrative of the state of public opinion in England at the time of the first impo- sition of the income tax under the statute of Mr. Pitt, and is derived from the memoirs of John Horne Tooke : Mr. Tooke was an Englishman who participated actively in British politics during the latter third of the last century. He early espoused the side of the Americans in their struggle for liberty, and was persecuted, fined, and imprisoned by the British Government for publishing an advertisement for a subscription for the widows and orphans of the Americans “ murdered by the King’s troops at Lexington and Concord.” After his release

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A STUDY OF SNOW CRYSTALS. 75 from prison he naturally, and in connection with John Wilkes, made himself politically dis- agreeable to the Government, and the Government in turn made itself disagreeable to him; and accordingly the office of the commissioners for carrying into execution the act for taxing incomes addressed Mr. Tooke the following letter : “ May 3, 1799. “Sir: The commissioners having under consideration your declaration of income have directed me to acquaint you that they have reason to apprehend your income exceeds sixty pounds a year. They therefore desire that you will reconsider the said declaration and favor me with your answer on or before the 8th inst. “T am your obedient servant, ‘““W. B. Lurriey, (¥erk.” To this Mr. Tooke replied : “ Sir: I have much more reason than the commissioners can have to be dissatisfied with the smallness of my income. I have never yet in my life disavowed or had occasion to reconsider any declaration which I have signed with my name. But the act of Parliament has removed all the decencies which used to prevail among gentlemen, and has given the commissioners (shrouded under the signature of their clerk) a right by law to tell me that they have reason to believe that I am a liar. They have also a right to demand from me upon oath the particular circumstances of my private situation. In obedience to the law, I am ready to attend upon this degrading occasion so novel to an Englishman, and give them every explanation which they may be pleased to require. “T am, sir,-your humble servant, “Joun Horne Tooke.” A STUDY OF SNOW CRYSTAILS.* By W. A. BENTLEY anv G. H. PERKINS. M* Y have admired snowflakes as they observed their exquisite outlines and varied forms, but few have ever given them care- ful study or distinguished the crystals of which a flake is usually composed. Extended examination of snow crystals has hitherto been very difficult because, except in a very uncomfortable atmosphere, the delicate structures speedily disappeared, and their outlines could be preserved for study and comparison only by the aid of skillfully executed drawings. Even these must often be hastily made, and could show little of the internal structure which is so important a feature of most snow crystals. Now, however, by any of the usual combinations of microscope and camera, these crystals can be easily and quickly photographed, and far more satisfactory representations obtained than were possible formerly. The term snow crystal is used because a snowflake may be a crystal or it may be, and usually is, a cluster of crystals. * It is only just that I should state that my share in the production of this article has been to compile its pages from Mr. Bentley’s notes and photographs. The facts, theories, and illustrations are entirely due to his untiring and enthusiastic study of snow crystals.— G. H. Perkins, University of Vermont.

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A STUDY OF SNOW CRYSTALS. 77 The illustrations which accompany this article are all of them photomicrographs taken directly from crystals which were collected in northern Vermont during the past fifteen years. They are se- lected from over five hundred different forms. A close and minute study of many of them will reveal beauty and complexity of struc- ture not seen by a casual observer. The methods employed in obtaining the illustrations have been very simple. It has been found that any apparatus which can be used for taking photomicro- graphs will serve to photograph snow crystals, but the microscope should be fitted with half-inch or two-thirds-inch objectives, of wide aperture and short axis; the focusing arrangement must work quickly and accurately; the diaphragm aperture be small, not more than one-sixteenth inch; the illumination ordinary, uncondensed daylight; the exposure, rapid plates being used, from forty seconds to three hundred, as the light is strong or weak, camera bellows closed or elongated, ete. A black card placed between two pins which project from the stage on each side of the objective serves to exclude unwelcome light when the slides of the plate-holder are changed. Great care is necessary to prevent the crystals from melt- ing, as this is one of the chief difficulties which must be overcome. On this account the observer must not breathe upon his slides, nor handle them except with gloved hands. The whole work must be done in a cold room, with but one unscreened window. Crystals may be collected as they fall, wpon a black card, and transferred by a bit of broom splint to a glass slide upon which they may be pressed flat with a feather. Careful examination of the illustrations will soon convince one that, great as is the charm of outline, the internal ornamentation of snow crystals is far more wonderful and varied. Many of the speci- mens, we might almost say all of them, exhibit in their interior most fascinating arrangements of loops, lines, dots, and other figures in endless variety. So far as is known to the writer, these illustrations are the first which have been published that show in any adequate manner these interior figures, and surely they add greatly to our in- terest and delight as we study snow crystals. So varied are these figures that, although it is not difficult to find two or more crystals which are nearly if not quite the same in outline, it is almost impos- sible to find two which correspond exactly in their interior figures. It is asserted by some observers that many of the lines or rods seen in the interior of snow crystals are really tubes filled with air. Perfect crystals are by no means always common in snow storms, most of the forms produced being more or less unsymmetrical or otherwise imperfect. It rarely happens that during a single winter there are more than a dozen good opportunities for securing com-

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A STUDY OF SNOW CRYSTALS. 79 plete crystals, and there may not be half so many. The greater number of perfect crystals is found in widespread storms, or blizzards, while the local storms produce most often granular or imperfect forms. So marked is this distinction that very often the character and extent of a storm may be in general determined by an examina- tion of the crystalline forms obtained. Extensive storms produce smaller crystals, more uniform in size, less clustered in flakes, and in greater variety than local storms. Figs. 1 to 20, inclusive, are crystals from general storms, while Figs. 23 and 24 are those of local storms. When the temperature is very low while a local storm is raging, its crystals resemble those of the blizzard more closely. Some forms are common to both classes of storms. Probably be- cause identical conditions do not occur frequently, the crystalline forms of each storm during a winter may differ from each other, one type appearing abundantly in one storm, a different type in the next, and soon. Conversely, the types most common in a given storm may reappear after an interval of months or years—as, for example, those obtained during the great blizzard of March, 1888, were repeated in the storms of February 16, 1892, and March 3, 1896, and most of these were of forms such as Figs. 13, 14, and 15, while unusual types, such as Figs. 7, 9, and 17, occurred in the storms of February 24, 1893, and February 13, 1894. Not only do different storms afford different types of crystals, but different parts of the same storm, if it be general, give different forms. In this region, the northern and western portions of the storm area produce more perfect crystals than the southern and eastern, and from this we infer a difference in the atmospheric con- ditions in these portions, the former being more quiet and otherwise favorable to crystallization. What has been called granular snow is shown in Figs. 4, 6, and 23. In this very common form we find only loose, irregular, sub- crystalline forms, which are larger and heavier than others. This is formed in the middle or lower cloud layers, and when these are dis- turbed by wind, or otherwise rendered unsuitable for crystallization. Sometimes, perhaps always, these granular masses have nuclei of true crystals. Granular snow may explain the origin of the great rain- drops which often fall during a thundershower. It is probable that such drops have a snow origin. Most, if not all, hailstones also origi- nate in granular snow, as their thin, opaque centers and concentric rings of opaque, snowlike ice show. The superiority of photography over drawing in securing details of structure may be readily seen if one compares any of the accom- panying figures with the ordinary drawings of snowflakes, or even with the finest illustrations hitherto published. It is unfortunate

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A STUDY OF SNOW CRYSTALS. 81 that the depth and solidity seen in some erystals when the photo- graphs are mounted as stereoscopic views can not be in some ade- quate manner reproduced in engravings, for this adds not a little to an understanding of the manner in which the crystal has been formed. Yet something of this can be seen in the figures as here given. A careful study of this internal structure not only reveals new and far greater elegance of form than the simple outlines ex- hibit, but by means of these wonderfully delicate and exquisite figures much may be learned of the history of each crystal, and the changes through which it has passed in its journey through cloud- land. Was ever life history written in more dainty hieroglyphics! It is well known that crystals which form in a low temperature are smaller and more compact than those formed in a warmer atmos- phere. As the higher cloud strata are colder than those nearer the earth, the snow crystals which originate there are smaller and less branched than those from lower clouds. Such are shown in Figs. 2, 20, and 22, while crystals from the warmer clouds are more often like Figs. 24 and 25. Thesmall, compact crystals of the upper clouds do not always remain of their original form or size, for, as they fall through layer after layer of clouds, each layer subjecting them to its own special conditions, they may be greatly modified, and by the time they reach the earth they may closely resemble the crystals from lower clouds, though they can usually be distinguished from them by an examination of the internal structure, as well as by, in some cases, their general form. All crystals falling from high cloud strata, the cirrus or cirro-stratus, are not changed; especially is this true in a great storm, or when the temperature of the lower clouds is low, and in any case some are much more completely transformed than others. One crystal may pass through cloud layers not very unlike that from which it came, and of course will not be greatly changed. Another may encounter here a quiet cloud layer and there a tumultuous layer, here a lower, there a higher temperature, here a dense and there a thin cloud mass, and by all of these condi- tions may be affected. Examples of crystals which have been little changed are shown in Figs. 3, 7, and 8, while Figs. 12, 13, 14, and 16 show more completely modified crystals. Total transformation, such as the change of one type into another, does not often occur. The nucleus retains its original form, to which various additions are made during the downward passage. Composite crystals may, however, be formed during the passage through diverse cloud layers, though they are not common, as shown in Figs. 11 and 19. Usually, how- ever, the tabular, compact, small crystals of the high clouds continue their development at lower levels upon the original plan, though be- VOL, L111.—8

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82 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. coming larger and more complex by the addition of branches at the angles. The triangular forms, such as Figs. 7 and 9, are less com- mon than the others figured, and occur usually in the greater storms. Fig. 17 shows a very unique composite crystal, which, beginning in the higher clouds as a simple hexagon, seen in the center, received the peculiar additions which are well shown in the figure. Fig. 11 is exceedingly unusual. It appears to be a composite crystal formed from two, each of which has been in some way broken apart, and the portions shown were so brought in contact as to unite and form a single crystal of very nearly the original form of each of its parts. The above are some of the more important of the many inter- esting results which have come from our study of snow crystals. They are given not merely as of value in themselves, but also in the hope that others may be stimulated to undertake similar investiga- tions, and that thus our knowledge of these charming objects may be greatly increased. After what has already been said, it should not be necessary to add that any one who engages in the study of snow crystals will speedily find his task both absorbing and delight- ful. There is no surer road to fairyland than that which leads to the observation of snow forms. To such a student the winter storm is no longer a gloomy phenomenon to be dreaded. Even a blizzard becomes a source of keenest enjoyment and satisfaction, as it brings to him, from the dark, surging ocean of clouds, forms that thrill his eager soul with pleasure. Pror. WILLIAM TRELEASE relates, in his address on Botanical Opportu- nity, that when engaged with Prof. Gray in collecting and republishing the botanical writings of Dr. Engelmann, they were both surprised to see how voluminous these works were. A few years later, when Prof. Trelease had to arrange in form for preservation Dr. Engelmann’s manuscript notes, he was far more surprised at the extent of them than he had been on col- lecting his printed works, for when mounted and bound they formed sixty large volumes. “In addition to their intrinsic value, these are of more than usual interest as showing the methodical manner in which Dr. Engelmann worked. On his table seems to have been always a bundle of plants await- ing study. As each specimen was examined its salient features were noted and sketched on the back of an ever-ready prescription blank. When in- terrupted, he laid his unfinished sketch away with the specimen, to resume his observation and complete his study on the first opportunity, without any doubt as to what had been seen in the first instance. And so from individual to variety, from variety to species, from species to genus, and from genus to family, his observations were preserved in memoranda that facilitated the resumption of interrupted work at any time and after any lapse of time.” Thus the off moments in the work of a busy physician were made to contribute to botanical knowledge, and a seemingly small opportunity for investigation was converted into a great one. eile phe ta

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A RELIC OF ASTROLOGY. A RELIC OF ASTROLOGY.* By Pror. H. CARRINGTON BOLTON, Px. D. : igor mysterious picture of a nude man surrounded by the signs of the zodiac, which forms a prominent feature of nearly all patent-medicine almanacs, is familiar to every one, yet few realize the great antiquity of the symbolism implied and the interesting history of this persistent relic of astrology. The supposed connection between the zodiac and the anatomy of the human body is related in the following lines: “The Head and Face the Princely Ram doth rule, The Neck and Throat falls to the sullen Bull, The lovely Twins guide Shoulder, Arm, and Hand, The slow-paced Crab doth Breast and Spleen command, The Lion bold governs the Heart of Man, The modest Maid doth on the Bowels scan, The Reins and Loins are in the Ballance try’d, The Scorpion the Secret Parts doth guide, The Shooting Horse lays claim to both the Thighs, The Knees upon the headstrong Goat relies, The Waterman he both the Legs doth claim, The Fishes rule the Feet, and meet the Ram again.” Moore’s Vox Stellarum, 1721. As commonly drawn, this “ repulsive picture ” has changed very little in the last fifty years; a study of the bizarre conception takes us back to the earliest records of civilization: Chaldean astronomers laid its foundations, Hebrew sages and Greek philosophers built on them, Christian mystics and medisval astrologers enlarged them so that a popular superstition arose which still has a hold on the com- mon people. The first step in the evolution of this conception was taken more than four thousand years ago, when the star-gazers of Babylon observed the circular zone through which the sun appears to pass in the course of a year, and divided it into twelve constellations, creating what is known as the zodiac. To these twelve divisions signs were given, some of which are said to be Babylonian ideo- graphs of the months. The astronomers of Egypt adopted this system, and their lively imaginations peopled the constellations with genii; thus arose a symbolism in which each group of stars is likened to a given animal or human character; these zodiacal signs are found sculptured on Egyptian temples and inscribed on papyri. The second step was taken when philosophers, who “in the infancy of science are as imaginative as poets,” assumed that the * Abstract of a paper read at the Baltimore meeting of the American Folklore Society, December 28, 1897.

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 84 celestial bodies exert a controlling influence on terrestrial life. This belief is alluded to in the earliest poetical book extant; the Almighty himself is represented as saying to Job: “ Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season?”” The word Mazzaroth is said by commentators to signify the signs of the zodiac. The idea that man’s life on earth and destiny for good or for evil is subject to the heavenly planets and stars and to their relative positions obtained in the early centuries of the Christian era; on a tombstone erected 364 a.p., in memory of an infant named Sim- plicius (that died the day it was born), there is an inscription which states that this double event took place in the “ fourth hour of the night, of the 8th ides of May, the day of Saturn, the 20th day of the moon, under the sign Capricorn.” The details of this epitaph are in- tended to account for the sad affliction of the parents. “ Almighty Wisdom by a Mistique Tye Spread through the World a Secret Sympathy, Impregnating Superiours to dispense On lower Bodies, daily Influence.” Ames’ Almanack, 1730, Astrology flourished mightily throughout the middle ages, and by degrees a novel conception became ingrafted on the pseudo-phi- losophy; the physical universe came to be regarded as an organized being endowed with a soul and analogous to man. An intimate cor- relation between the universe and man was held to exist, the uni- verse controlling the organism and destiny of man, and man having power over the fundamental laws of Nature. In this connection the terms macrocosm and microcosm came into use—the former to designate the world at large, and the latter the smaller world within man. In the “ Epistle of Isis, Queen of Egypt and wife of Osiris, to her son Horus,” a Greco-Egyptian writing on the “Sacred Art,” of obscure origin and unknown authorship, man, as the microcosm, is regarded as the physical epitome of the universe, or macrocosm. “Hermes calls man the microcosm, because the man, or the small world, contains all that which is included in the macrocosm or great world. Thus the macrocosm has small and large animals, both terrestrial nd aquatic; man, on the other hand, has fleas and lice— these are the terrestrial animals; he has also intestinal worms— these are aquatic animals. The macrocosm has rivers, springs, and seas; man has internal organs— intestines, veins, and arteries. The macrocosm has aérial animals; man has gnats and other winged insects. The macrocosm has volatile spirits, such as winds, thunders, and lightnings; man has internal gases and pordas of diseases. The —

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A RELIC OF ASTROLOGY. 85 macrocosm has two luminaries, the sun and moon; man has also two luminaries, the right eye representing the sun, and the left eye the moon. The macrocosm has mountains and hills, man has bones and skin. The macrocosm has heavens and stars, man has a head and ears. The macrocosm has twelve signs of the zodiac; man has them also from the lobe of the ear to the feet, which are called the fishes.” This writing dates approximately from the fourth or fifth century. The expressions macrocosm and microcosm are frequently met with in astronomical, medical, and theosophical writings of the middle ages; they are found in the works of Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, John Baptist van Helmont, and of Nicolas Culpeper. Shakespeare used one of them; Menenius says to Sicinius, “If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follow it that I am known well enough too?” (Coriolanus, ii, 1). The phrase “map of my microcosm ” obviously refers to the picture of the nude man surrounded by the zodiacal signs. This “wicked stupefaction of the mind,” astrology, has been kept alive during the past two hundred years largely through the wide popularity of almanacs. From their earliest appearance these useful aids to everyday life have mingled truth with error; and through the prevailing association of astrology with the diseases of man and the means of curing them, they become the vehicles for advertising quack medicines. This feature of almanacs is said to have originated with Francis Moore, whose Vox Stellarum was founded in 1698; but I have found an advertisement of a medical nostrum in the Merlint Anglict Ephemeris of 1671; the “ Elixir Proprietatis ” is advertised as an “ effectual medicine for griping of the guts, putrid Feavers,” and other distressing maladies. The pictorial representation of the influence of the zodiac on man’s anatomy occurs as early as the year 1496, in Gregor Reisch’s Margarita Philosophica, a famous encyclopedia that went through many editions. This engraving is amusingly described by Robert Southey in The Doctor: “There Homo stands, naked but not ashamed, upon the two Pisces, one foot upon each; the fish being neither in the air, nor water, nor upon the earth, but self-suspended, as it appears, in the void. Aries has alighted with two feet on Homo’s head, and has sent a shaft through the forehead into his brain. Taurus has quietly seated himself across his neck. The Gemini are riding astride, a little below his right shoulder. The whole trunk is laid open, as if part of the old accursed punishment for high treason had been performed upon him. The Lion occupies the thorax as his proper domain and the Crab is in possession of the abdomen. Sagittarius, volant in the void, has just let fly an arrow,

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86 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. which is on the way to his right arm. Capricornus breathes out a visible influence that penetrates both knees. Aquarius inflicts simi- lar punctures upon both legs. Virgo fishes, as it were, at his intes- tines; Libra at the part affected by schoolmasters in their anger; and Scorpio takes the wickedest aim of all.” A similar woodcut appears in James Scholl’s Astrologia ad medicinam adplicatio, published at Strasburg in 1537. An examination of Astrology’s Last Home, a Musty Pile of Almanacs, published in England and the United States between 1659 and 1897, shows that this emblem, modified in various ways, has been introduced since the end of the seventeenth century. In Great Britain’s Diary for 1721 the central figure takes the form of a nude woman seated on a globe, and surrounded by the signs of the zodiac. Beneath is the following legend: “ Should I omit to place this figure here My Book would scarcely sell another Year. What (quoth my Country Friend) D'ye think Pll buy An Almanack without th’ Anatomy ? As for its Use, nor he nor I can tell. However, since it pleases all so well I’ve put it in, because my Book shou’d sell.” In Gadbury’s Ephemeris for 1721, and in Poor Robin’s Alma- nack for 1729, the emblem takes quite another shape, being a plump cherub curved backward within a circle, which is surrounded with the usual signs. In the latter issue the following stanza appears: “The little Mortal in the Ring below Drawn Neck and Heels, doth to the Reader show That part of Men and Women, Sheep and Swine Are govern’d by each Celestiall Sign. But Women’s Tongues, when Passion once gets vent, Break out from this and other Government !” Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac and Poulson’s Town and Country Almanac (Philadelphia) contain similar em- blems. The present style of an erect man with the zodiacal signs appears in Saunders’s Poor Richard Improv’d for 1783, and it has been a valuable trade mark for more than a century. Modern pretenders to a belief in the influence of the zodiac on human life are as bold in their claims as the most superstitious char- latans of the seventeenth century. One, writing in 1894, represents the physical framework of man as merely “a vessel of breath, motion, and vibration, played upon by active thought atmospheres, waves of sound and light, and positive and negative electro-magnetic forces in limitless activity.” Although the twelve signs point to weak or vulnerable parts of the body, they have no power over the

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ee — f A RELIC OF ASTROLOGY. 87 spiritualized man, spirit being absolute over matter. The same writer informs us that “ Aries is the head-sign of the Grand Man; cardinal, masculine, equinoctial, and movable, the positive pole of the Fire Triplicity. People born under Aries are usually very executive, earnest, and determined, also noble, generous, magnetic, and have occult powers and metaphysical tastes. Good scholars and great talkers.” The modern astrologer professes to predict the per- sonal appearance, characteristic temperament, dominant faults, prevalent diseases, love affairs, and character of children born under each of the twelve signs. This “ craft by means whereof knaves practice on fools” is now enjoying a revival in both Europe and America. Several periodicals are devoted to its propaganda; as recently as August, 1897, a monthly magazine was started in New York city, and, as an induce- ment to subscribe, every one is promised, not a chromo, but a “ Free Horoscope of Events for 1897 and 1898.” In December, 1897, a society was formed by women in New York city to study the influences of the zodiac on human life and destiny; the society is ealled The Zodiac, and plans to hold monthly meetings at which each sign is to be studied in turn. The “Faust Institute of Solar Biology, Occult Science, Astro- Phrenology, and Biblical History,” situated in Philadelphia, em- ploys a perambulating agent to lecture in the streets of Eastern cities to the admiring crowds that are attracted by a vividly colored diagram and by printed handbills. Those seeking more light are referred to “ Professor Faust.” . M. PrerrE Leroy BEAULIEU concludes an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, on social conditions in Australia and New Zealand, with some observations on the effect of the enlargement of the sphere of occupations for women in the postponement of the age of marriage. In 1883 the pro- portion of married women who were minors in New South Wales was 28°17 per cent; in 1892 it had fallen t 23°55 per cent. A similar condition is found in Victoria, where the proportion of married women under twenty- one years of age was 21 per cent, and of those between twenty-one and twenty-five years old 43-2 per cent, from 1881 till 1890, while the correspond- ing figures in 1893 were only 17°4 and 39°8 per cent. In New Zealand, where the married women minors constituted 29°4 per cent of the total in 1882, they formed no more than 19°3 per cent in 1893. “When a woman earns her living herself,” M. Leroy Beaulieu observes, “and custom allows her considerable independence, she is in less haste to marry; and often, too, marriage forces her to give up her calling.” The fact that children are less numerous when marriages are so late is the principal objection brought against this system by the author. Yet, he remarks, we ought not to sacrifice the woman’s independence or forbid her all occupation unre- lated to housekeeping in order that more children may be born.

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. A STUDY OF CHILDREN’S IDEALS. By ESTELLE M. DARRAH. GREAT Herbartian wave sweeping across the schools during the last few years has carried away much of the lifeless me- chanical drill which characterized the old education. In its place has been left the vitalizing influence of the study of humanity. Believing that the contemplation of the world’s greatest thoughts and noblest deeds must result in arousing kindred enthusiasms, litera- ture and history have been introduced to our youngest children. We have given this teaching a sufficient time to prove its efficacy. Is it giving our children lofty ideals? Is it exalting goodness, wis- dom, strength, truth, patriotism? It is enkindling generous ¢esires to perform noble deeds? As a working basis for the solution of these problems, papers were collected from fourteen hundred and forty school children in answer to the following questions: “What person of whom you have ever heard or read would you most like to resemble? Why?” Being written as a regular composition exercise, these answers with one exception show every evidence of sincerity. Out of the total number only seven children fail to return a ready response, and their hesitation seems due to a premature development of fatalism. “Nobody,” writes a boy of fifteen, “ because it will do me no good to want to resemble any one.” A girl of twelve reaches the same conclusion from a feminine reliance upon authority. “I would not like to envy of the people. Because they say it is not right. They say that God made you to be so.” To believers in the culture-epoch theory our results are most satisfactory, implying no accidental selection of ideals. Half the papers came from San Mateo County, California, and half from St. Paul, Minnesota; but, widely apart as are the sources, the results are so nearly identical that they have been collated together. The only pronounced difference, it may be stated, consists in the fact that while seventy-three St. Paul children find their ideal in the Divine Being, he is referred to by only four Californians.* Sovrors or Curtpren’s Iprats.—The ideals of the children naturally fall into three groups: * See in the Pedagogical Seminary, vol. ii, No. 3, an article by Prof. Earl Barnes, en- titled Theological Life of a California Child. Professor Barnes says, “ Many California children seem to be ignorant of the most common and most generally accepted theological concepts of Christian peopie.”

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—— 4 A STUDY OF CHILDREN’S IDEALS. 1. Acquaintances. 2. Historical characters, past or contemporary. 3. Characters from literature. The comparative importance of each source at different ages is shown in Chart I. As might be expected, the younger children pay little attention to the outside world. At seven years of age forty-seven per cent of the children find their ideals in father or mother, in neighbor or friend, thirty-nine per cent in literature, and fourteen per cent in history. ie-] o ~ °o ” O = 50 = z w 50 oO wi w 40;— Cuart No. 1.—Sources or Ipeats. History - - - - - Literature — - — - — - Acquaintances =m, But this relation changes with great rapidity, the two former ele- ments steadily growing less important, until, at the age of sixteen, eighty per cent of the children’s ideals are historical characters, twelve per cent characters from literature, and only eight per cent are acquaintances. All this indicates strongly the expansion of the child’s personal- ity. The world of a young child, centering at first, so psychologists tell us, about his mouth, does not grow much larger than the circle of his own immediate desires and needs before the age of seven. Those characters, either real or imaginary, to whom he feels his per- sonal relation therefore furnish his ideals. But he soon begins to feel his integration with the outside world. He reaches out beyond his own little circle, endeavoring to form some bond with the larger world. He is growing into the social consciousness, which makes him akin to all those who have felt and hoped and acted as he feels and hopes and desires to act. The characters of literature become secondary to the authors who created them. The great men of all

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a lS Pa sili. his eee ee ee ee ON A OI TN ORE SET ts AARC TAM NO at a a PN go POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. times—Ceesar, Napoleon, Washington, Lincoln, Grant—embodying to a supreme degree the traits previously admired in his acquaint- ances, supplant those nearer ideals whose imperfections are more easily perceived. Enthusiasms are aroused for those men who repre- sent contemporary society. At fifteen years of age twenty-nine per cent of the boys and twenty per cent of the girls choose as ideals the statesmen, rulers, authors, artists, explorers, and philanthropists who are making the history of to-day. Two papers, written just be- fore the last presidential election, emphasize this participation in social movements, often extremely partisan. A boy of thirteen Cuart No. IL.—Ipeat Arrrisores. Seven years |Twelve years| Fifteen years of age. of age. of age. Per cent. Per cent. Per cent. a eb thawh tn e'eeene se eaeeceecese 25 23 22 Goodness to self or class............. bitceteeaews 27 4 0 ss cccwasecccencccccececccecece 4 9 10 Business and possessions ...... 0. .....2+eeeesceees 10 8 2 ec iineaeke 66eeecee ohew ee manbicas 8 3 4 CG hs ianebsec 6¢00000000scescese 12 1 0 Feminine accomplishments .............seeeeeeee. 0 2 4 Intellectual ability or accomplishment.............. 8 10 12 Bravery, freedom, adventure, war..........++.0es- 5 19 13 ET ME CUEIND.s oc cccrcccccccccceccocese 2 1 0 Chih cebu seeddwecsossossaeseeoseeoeses 0 6 10 SR CcSUS Shh ede bCieucdwsssscoonsecsnes 4 13 18 Ps cbc ccccccbeccscocccosscccccesess 5 6 5 writes: “ William McKinley. Why? Because his whole career shows such a nobleness of character, such true patriotism, and such honest thought that history can not help but say that a grander, nobler man never breathed the breath of life.” Another boy of fifteen writes: “William Jennings Bryan. The reason that I would like to re- semble him is because I have seen and heard him, and that is what some of these ‘ gold people ’ can not say about McKinley. “Because Bryan had too much dignity, and he went to the peo- ple and explained the ‘ Silver Question’ to them. “Bryan is but 36 years old. The youngest man that has ever been nominated for president of the United States. “He is but one year past the limited age to be a candidate for president. “ Bryan is well proportioned and well built, a good looking gen- tleman, and one of the smartest men in the United States, or in fact in the whole world, and is, without any exceptions, the greatest orator on the face of the globe. “He has made as many as twenty speeches in a single day.

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A STUDY OF CHILDREN’S IDEALS. “ Just think, all this, and is but thirty six years old. “ America had ought to be proud to have such a smart man.” From the ideals presented through the teaching of the home, the street, the newspaper, and the school, children are constantly select- ing certain qualities to be emulated in their own lives. As Chart IT indicates, the child’s ideal must first of all be good, and to the ma- jority of the younger children this goodness must manifest itself in some form directly benefiting themselves. “My mamma, because she is so good and buys me clothes and shoes and hats,” “ My father because he is kind and gives me many things,” “My aunt,’ because she is so kind and good. Because she lets me wheel the baby ”—these papers show the original meaning of goodness. Conversely, whatever means goodness to the child must be a characteristic of his ideal. Girls of ten write: “I want to be like George Washington be- cause he was always good. He always kept his books clean and he loved his mother and father. George Washington obeyed his pari- ence. He loved his parience too.” “T would like to be like Queen Elizabeth. The reason why I would like to be like her is because she was kind to everybody.” And a boy of eight writes: “I want to be like a king. Because he don’t tell lies or do bad things.” As the reference of goodness to self disappears in the older chil- dren, we find it supplanted by either rectitude of life, or, still more commonly, by altruistic deeds for the benefit of humanity at large. A ten-year-old boy wants to be like his father, “ For the reason that he does not drink and is honest.” Boys of thirteen desire to be like George Washington, “ Because he was so brave and honest, and he never told a lie.” “ He never did anything that he thought wasn’t right and he did lots of good in the world.” “ He was always good to his men.” Girls show more commonly than boys an appreciation of altruism. Typical papers are the following: Girl of eleven: “I would like to be as George Washington was, for he was good. He never told an untruth and helped other people whenever he could. I do’nt care very much if I am por or not, if I can only be as good as he was.” Girl of twelve: “Clara Barton, because she has done so much good in the world. She has taken care of the poor and has gone far away to help people. And so I wish I was as good as her, she has done so much for other people and is so kind to them.” Girl of thirteen: “I have heard a little about a girl and her teacher Miss Sullivan. She is a very good lady becuse she teaches a girl who is blind, deaf and mute, and can do most any school work

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92 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

so far as she has come in school. I would like to be like Miss Sulli- van becuse she helps other people and I would like to help someone. I know I can not do so much but I try my best.” Very responsive are the younger children to the wonder-workers of myth and legend and Scripture: “ Apollo, because he rides a golden chariot all the time ”; “ Hercules, because he held the earth on his shoulders”; “ Quicksilver, because he can fly through the air and not get very tired,” are attractive ideals. In very much the same spirit they desire to be like God, “ His wonders to perform.” Of the total number of children, five per cent, most of whom are below twelve years of age, mention God and Christ as ideals. The moral attributes found in these Divine Beings are very similar to those found in George Washington or other human heroes. The majority of the children give a composite of characteristics which impress them in the Deity, into which enter the marvelous, the directly personal, and the moral. The Deity appealing to them must be anthropomorphic, human and yet superhuman, ministering directly to their personal needs. “ He is onest,” “He never tells a lie,” “ He is so kind and good,” “ He can do every thing,” “ He can turn something into enything,” “ He sends rain and snow for us to sled and skate,” “When we go into the woods he will help us through.” <A boy of eleven writes: “If it was not only for Him, what would become of us. Maybe we would be stones which lay beneth the guter.” It is pleasant to find that to few of the older children do pos- sessions make a character ideal. While ten per cent of the seven- year-olds are attracted by the commercial side of life, at fifteen only two per cent consider that paramount, at least in an ideal life. Typical papers are: Boy of seven: “I like two be a king of a graet kasle. Why. A king has a graet kasle.” Boy of ten: “I would like to be like Doctor About. Because it is a nice Occupation, and is a smart business.” Boy of ten: “I want to be a preacher. He is a very good man and they have a very good position.” Girl of twelve: * “My teacher. Because she is a teacher and receives @ large salary a month, and teaching is a good occupation.” Boy of fourteen: “Mr. Levy. Because he has not very hard work, and he has a Good time and plenty of money and he can get any amount of money because he owns plenty of land and mortgages on peoples land, he has everything he wants.”

* Teaching is not an attractive occupation to these boys; while nearly five per cent of the girls speak of this profession, it is mentioned by one boy only, ten years of age, who writes, “ A teacher because they get money.”

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: . A STUDY OF CHILDREN’S IDEALS. 93 Boy of fourteen: “ Fitzzimmon. Because there is money in it.” At seven years of age, three per cent of the children appreciate intellectual ability, which they commonly find among their acquaint- ances. As they grow older their favorite authors or artists are prized, though quite as often for their goodness as for their accom-. plishments, as expressed in some of the following papers: Girl of seven: “Annie Dervine because she kin spell some words.” Girl of eight: “ Olga, Becas she is a good reder.” Boy of nine: “H. W. Longfellow. Because he knows how to write poems, and knows many poems and he is called a poet and I would like to be called a poet.” Girl of nine: “ Kate Douglas Wiggins, because she is so famouse and every body likes to read her books and she think of so many lovely things, because she was the first one that ever thought of having a kindergarden.” Boy of ten: “I would like to be William Shakespere because he is the famous poet in the United States.” Girl of eleven: “I would like to be like Kate D. Wiggins, be- cause she was so kind to the poor little children in San Franceis. I have read about her that she was so kind to everone.” Boy of eleven: “ I would like to resemble Lousia Alcott, she was one of the first to go to the war to help the wounded and dieing, then she wrote to some of her friends and told them to come.” Boy of fourteen: “The person whom I would like to resemble is John Greenleaf Whittier. The reason why is because he was a smart man and could write poetry.” Girl of sixteen: “I would like to resemble Shakespere, because he was such a famous poet.” The most significant increase is in those qualities which are ac- companiments of an active life. To be brave, to be free, to have adventures, to go to war—these become ideal characteristics to nearly one fifth of the children of twelve. A mistaken youth of ten writes: “I would like to be like my father. Because he can do what he wants ”; and a carefully reared boy of eleven finds his ideal in the neglected son of a Scandinavian washerwoman: “I would like to be like John hansen because he can play all day and doesen hafter saw wood.” The pioneers of history and the heroes of fron- tier life and romance usually furnish this type of inspiration, as in the papers quoted below: Boy of nine: “I would like to be like Bufullow Bill because he lived in the wild West where he went shooting buffulows and In- dians, I would like to be like him because he was such straight shot in shooting.”

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94 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Boy of nine: “I would like to be like Captain Jack Crawford. I like him because he is so brave and because he fought the Indians. I heard him speak at the Market Hall. He said, ‘Once there was a man in front of me and one in the back and I killed them both at one time.’ ” Boy of ten: “Captain John Smith because he made adventures all over america where he was captured many times by the in- dians.” Boy of twelve: “ Wicarta the New York detective Becuse he had so many adventures.” Boy of twelve: “Robison Crusoe. Becuse he had no expenses to pay and I would like to be near the Indians and a person would be more appt to discover something.” Perhaps to us the most important result of historical instruction in the lower grades is the making of patriots. At fifteen it is true that only ten per cent of the papers consciously emphasize the love of country. But Washington and Lincoln are the chosen ideals of forty per cent of the children above ten years of age, and the curves shown in Chart III are made up almost entirely of American heroes. Probably no greater variety of nationalities could be represented in an equal number of papers than are found in those forming the basis of the present study; nevertheless, the public schools have done their work. Children of English, German, Italian, Irish, Spanish, Portuguese parentage have become Americans, and their loftiest ideals are embodied in our national heroes. <A striking illustration of this is the case of an English boy of thirteen, who last year refused to salute the American flag in the school exercises of Decoration Day, but who, the following. November, named, as his hero of heroes, Abraham Lincoln, “because he was trueful, honest, kind and brave.” Indeed, those children who select foreign ideals often apolo- gize, as in the case of the ten-year-old boy who explains his choice of Napoleon, “ He was in a great many more wars than Washington or Lincoln.” This patriotic spirit is exemplified below: Boy of ten: “George Washington because he saved our coun- 99 Boy of ten: “Col. Allen. I like him becuse he saved our coun- try one clear morning.” Girl of eleven: “Washington. I wish to be good myself as Washington has been, and mostly because I wish to do good for my country (the United States) as Washington has done.” Boy of thirteen: “Abraham Lincoln. It was he who pro- claimed slavery ended.” Boy of thirteen (of foreign birth): “The one whom I should like to resemble most is George Washington, because he was brave

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A STUDY OF CHILDREN’S IDEALS. 95 honest and truthful, and moreover he freed his country without tak- ing pay for his valuable services. He was also the one that formed the constitution of the honored country he had saved. These are the reasons why I should like to resemble him most.” But the older children are not satisfied with an ideal who is great and good and wise and brave; he must be the greatest or best or wisest or bravest of his kind. He must excel all others in his chosen line. George Washington, “ because he was the greatest man that ever lived in America”; “John S. Johnson, the champion bicycle rider in the world ”; Paderewski, “ because he is the greatest musi- cian in the world”; James Corbett, “because he is the champion fighter of the world ”—these are examples for this desire of leader- ship, almost as strong in girls as in boys. Indeed, one of the most significant features of this study is the increase in male ideals among the girls. A corresponding influence of female ideals is not shown AGES 8 9 10 1 12 13 14 15 3 90 . 80 8 3s wo o ” Ww o < j= z Ww 19) « WwW a 8 8 8

Cuart No. III.—Mate Iprats. Boys

among the boys. Some of the younger boys wish to resemble their mother, the little girls with whom they play, or the heroines of romance; but with one exception all the boys above ten years of age who select female ideals mention authors, as in the case of a boy of fifteen, who writes, “I would like to be Annie Laurie,* to be travelling all around the world and you could learn a great deal in that way and make out reports for the Examiner and always be working.” As shown by Chart ITI, as many as sixty-seven per cent of the girls of fourteen and fifteen select male ideals. To be sure, there are

* The nom de plume of a well-known Western journalist.

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96 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. many who, like the girls quoted below, choose the purely feminine type. Girl of ten: “I would most like to resemble Elsie Densmore of whom I have read in the ‘ Elsie Book.’ because she is pictured to be as near perfect as it is possible for any one in this world to be. She is pictured as a true Christian woman, and while she is accomplished and belongs to the ‘ upper ten’ of society, she does not neglect her home duties, and does not look down on those about her. She spent much time in charity.” Girl of fifteen: “ Agnes Wickfield. Because she was kind, good natured, gentle, unselfish, loving and had very good manners.” Girl of fifteen: “I would like to resemble the Lady Rowena. Because she was a very handsome woman of the Saxon tongue and every body admired her.” But, as is shown by Charts IIT and IV, among the girls of six- teen, fifty-one per cent choose male ideals, and fifty per cent em- phasize as ideal those characteristics which twenty years ago would AGES 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 90 80 ~ to) 8 wn o nn WwW oS < a Zz WwW oO « W a g

Boys

have been considered pre-eminently masculine. Under the head- ing of Chart IV, “Masculine Virtues,” are masked intellectual ability, patriotism, and the desire for freedom, adventure, war, leadership, fame, discovery, and invention. On the whole, nearly as many girls as boys find in the purely virile type their ideal. This tendency can be attributed partially, no doubt, to the “ Zeit- geist,” but it must be remembered that the historical instruction in our public schools presents only male characters, and that it deals almost entirely with conquest and war. It is more difficult for the girl than for the boy to make connections with the outside world.

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A STUDY OF CHILDREN’S IDEALS. 97 This shows in the fact that at seven years of age sixty-two per cent of the girls and only thirty-one per cent of the boys find ideals among their acquaintances. But the potency of education shows in the seventy-two per cent of the girls who at fifteen find their ideals.in historical characters, either past or contemporary. The following papers illustrate the curves in Chart IV: Girl of twelve: “Washington. Because he went bravely to war.” Girl of twelve: “Julius Cesar. Because of his bravery and greatness.” Girl of thirteen: “Remenyi. Because my name would become famous ail over the world.” Girl of fourteen: “Columbus. Because he discovered America, and his name is wide spread.” Girl of fourteen: “Robinson Crusoe. I like him because he went through many adventures.” Girl of fifteen: “I would most like to resemble William Mce- Kinley, because he has such a strong will, and whatever he says that he will do he always does.” Girl of fifteen: “ The person whom I should like to resemble if I were a man is Sir Francis Drake. He was a man of action: The reason I should like to resemble him is because he made a great many dangerous journeys around the world.” The tendency shown in Chart IV is best expressed by the follow- ing papers.* A girl of ten writes: “{ would like to resemble Barbara Fichy (Frietchie). Why? Because she was such a brave lady, and you know that there are not very many brave ladies.” Another girl of thirteen says frankly: “T believe that I would rather resemble a man than a woman, because the deeds of woman, although sometimes great, selfsacrific- ing and brave, sink inio insignificance when compared with the valorous deeds of man.” In conclusion, we are able to distinguish three marked types of * The following recent studies also show the same tendency: A Preliminary Study of Children’s Hopes. J.P.Taylor. In Annual Report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of New York, 1895-'96. Children’s Ambitions. Hattie Mason Willard. Studies in Education. Edited by Earl Barnes, vol. i, No. 7. Mr. Taylor’s study finds thirty-eight per cent of the girls wishing to be teachers, twenty- four per cent milliners and dressmakers, eleven per cent clerks and stenographers, three per cent housekeepers, and three quarters of one per cent wives and mothers. Mrs. Willard finds thirty-five and a half per cent of her girls wish to be teachers, eight per cent music teachers, thirty-one per cent milliners and dressmakers, six per cent clerks, typewriters, and bookkeepers, and three per cent housekeepers. VOL, LII1.—9

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Pls eee POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. children’s ideals. Those of the youngest children must be good and kind, with desirable possessions and marvelous powers. As the children grow older, the last two attributes are supplanted by courage, freedom, wisdom, and truth, while the ideal of children of sixteen must add to these qualities altruism, patriotism, and the ability to lead. In the case of the girls, -however, a divorce is evident between the ideals adopted and the line of life best suited to the interest of the race. The girl of to-day demands freedom, strength, independence, activity, and recognition. Can we not em- body them in the person of “ brave ladies,” as our ten-year-old girl expresses it? Surely, among the “ Pioneers of History,” enough women have played a part brave, strong, patriotic, and wise, so that material exists for commemoration. Far more than a “ Woman’s Bible,” which appeals only to the mature, do we not need a “‘Woman’s History,” which shall become a factor in increasing this three quarters of one per cent who desire to become wives and mothers—which shall present ideals embodying the most attractive virtues, and still permitting of a home? This study proves that our instruction in history and literature is emphasizing goodness, truth, wisdom, bravery, patriotism, and the ability to lead, the characteristics we most desire in our children. Ethical instruction, then, in our best public schools, is anything but lifeless and impotent, as is taken for granted in much of the popular discussion. Morality is inculcated by the most effective method possible—most effective because best adapted to the child’s demand for virtue embodied in a human form. Jesuit self-extinction, Chinese’ filial piety, emphasize the power of suggestion no more strongly than do these children’s papers. When teachers and parents shall have the wisdom to consciously select and present to children those ideals into which they ought to grow, endowed with those qualities naturally seized upon by the developing soul, the cause of moral education will be immeasurably furthered.* Sratz Norwat Scuoor, Mankato, Minn. A BRONZE statue in honor of Marcello Malpighi, the famous doctor and microscopic anatomist of the seventeenth century, was unveiled in Septem- ber, 1897, at Crevalcore, near Bologna, Italy. The Royal Society of Lon- don sent an address of congratulation. A memorial volume on Malpighi and his works, edited by Dr. Vallardi, is to be published, and will contain a note by Prof. M. Foster. * The writer wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness for the papers used in making this study to Miss Etta M. Tilton, superintendent of San Mateo County schools; to Miss Mary Hanchett, principal of the Scheffer School; and to Miss Laura Hand, principal of the Van Buren School, of St. Paul, Minnesota.

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MAN'S DEPENDENCE ON THE EARTH. MAN’S DEPENDENCE ON THE EARTH.* By M. L. GALLOUEDEC. EGARDED in their relation to man, the different regions of the earth may be arranged under two general types. Some seem to repel man, who does not establish cities or large states in them. Their inhabitants lead a kind of vegetative existence, often as nomads, always thinly scattered, and poor if not wretched, with no aspirations beyond material existence. Other lands, on the con- trary, seem to attract human life. Men flow to them from all quar- ters, as the blood from the extremities to the heart. They collect in opulent cities, and build up powerful states in which brilliant civiliza- tions develop. But only a superficial zlance over history is sufficient to enable us to recognize that these centers of resort and centers of dispersion change their places in the course of ages; and on every side we behold them undergoing alternations of grandeur and decay; countries once resplendent with glory are now deserted and wretched, while men are thronging toward regions which they for- merly persistently avoided. The reason of these contrasts is to be found in the complex relation between the land and man. If man goes to one — preference to another, it is because he finds there a fuller satisfaction of his desires and wants. To obtain the largest sum of enjoyment at the price of the smallest expenditure of effort is essentially a law of man’s life. "We may, therefore, conclude that if man turns away from a région to which he was once attracted it is be- cause the resources of the country have become, in his eyes, rela- tively less valuable. The study of the relations between man and the earth compre- hends three parts: the determination of the factors on which the value of the relation depends; the variations of the relation and the inquiry whether it tends toward a limit, and, if so, toward what limit. The men who people the surface of the earth do not appear to have any great resemblance to one another, but the different races present very dissimilar physical characteristics and mental aptitudes. Yet these contrasts are purely super- ficial. At bottom all men are indifferently subjected to the same general conditions of existence and development. These condi- tions are of various kinds: some are essential in the nature of neces- sities that impose themselves on all animal life—such as the impos sibility of subsisting without a certain quantity of air, warmth, and moisture, and vegetable or animal food; other conditions, still im- portant but less essential, are those which, without directly influenc- * A paper read in the Congress of Scientific Societies, France.

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100 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ing the very existence of man, favor or oppose his development. Nations are under similar conditions. As only a man whose cor- poral subsistence is assured can devote himself to research and the cultivation of thought, so only a rich nation can produce a remark- able literary or artistic movement. Civilization is the fruit of the leisure which material prosperity gives, and can not exist long of itself any more than a fire can continue to burn without being replenished. As a whole, the existence and development of man are subject to three series cf conditions: for living, the realization of a certain minimum of indispensable natural requisites; for the crea- tion of a particular civilization, a certain material abundance, which can be obtained only by utilizing the resources of the planet; and for the transformation of this local civilization into a general civiliza- tion, facilities for outside contact and mutual exchange. The second term ‘of this series is the earth, which is far from homogeneous in its different parts. Its surface is constituted of three elements of very different properties: a solid element, the land which incrusts the planetary spheroid; a fluid element, water, which occupies the cavities and depressions of the solid crust; and a gaseous element, the air, which envelops the land and the water. These elements, besides differing from one another, vary in their own qualities. Water is fresh or salt, stagnant or running; here spread out in wide, open oceans, there in interior basins or even con- fined in close ones; the air is warm or cold, moist or dry; and the solid crust is constituted of soils of different origin, composition, and aspect; level, moderately undulating, or bristling with mountains; formed of movable particles or of compact, hard masses. The diversified shapes assumed by the constituent elements of our planet determine an infinite variety of aspects and resources. While the laws of human development remain the same everywhere, necessarily very unequal values attach to different regions in their relations to man. In fact, some parts of the earth are not at all adapted to human existence; others favor the development of a par- ticular civilization; while other still more favored countries possess also the facilities for external communication indispensable for the growth of a brilliant civilization. It is clearly evident that the earth does not furnish in all its parts even the minimum of comforts necessary to human existence. Man can not live on the ocean except artificially and temporarily, and is consequently confined to the land. This is not adapted to the maintenance of man everywhere alike. In many places it only sparingly furnishes the food necessary to his life. In one place, &s on the tops of high mountains, the air is too rarefied; at another, it is too cold or too arid, while in other places it is perniciously hot and

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MAN’S DEPENDENCE ON THE EARTH. 101 moist. Thus man’s existence is dependent upon particular condi- tions of climate, the nature of the ground, and especially the relief— for the inequalities of relief, controlling the disposition of the water, exclude him from all those depressed parts which are submerged, and also from the highest spots that rise above the water. The importance of the development attained by man in any region depends upon the same conditions. The wealth of a country must be derived from agriculture, manufactures, or commerce. Be- sides the factor of man’s skill, it is the resultant of the natural con- ditions that favor the development of plants, animals, minerals, mechanical forces, and facility of communication; and all these are governed ultimately, as it would be easy to demonstrate by going into details, by these same conditions of climate, character of the ground or geological structure, and relief. When we come to con- sider the facilities of communication we find a new element entering into the consideration—that of situation. Even supposing that their resources are equal, we can not attribute the same value to two countries, one of which borders on civilized countries, while the other is in some out-of-the-way corner. Switzerland is worth more than Lapland, North America than South America, and Europe than Africa. A country well situated on the sea enjoys vastly greater advantages than a strictly inland country. Of those who have treated the question of the factors constituting the value of a region of the earth, some have given pre-eminence to geological constitution, others to the relief, and others to the climate. None of these factors, it seems to me, can be regarded as exclusive, and none as always more important than the others. The favorable condition is a resultant to which all contribute. A thousand con- trasts remain inexplicable if we presume that one of these factors prevails at the expense of the others. How shall we account for the dry soil of Beauce under the same amount of rainfall that once converted the adjoining Sologne into an impracticable and fever- laden marsh, unless we regard the nature of the soil—compact and impenetrable in Sologne, permeable to excess in Beauce? How can we understand that the terrible deserts of Turkestan and the famous yellow lands of northern China, which bear such wonderful crops unmanured, are constituted of the same loess, unless we recollect that it rains regularly upon the loess regions of China, while those of Turkestan are baked under an ever-cloudless sky? And how, if we ignore the influence of climate, shall we explain that the high moun- tain and table lands, centers of repulsion in the temperate zones, be- come attractive under the equator? To attempt to explain such facts by a single essential condition would be to understand only part. In fact, all varieties of reliefs, ground structures, and situa-

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102 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. tions are found in desert countries: mountain and plateau by the side of the plain; regions of primary rocks by the side of limestone formations, clays, sands, and lands of wholly different composition and age; hot and dry climates, and moist and cool; the sharp prom- ontory looking out upon the open, and the gulf with low and swampy coast; and yet, also, among the countries that attract man, we can cite side by side the plain fruitful in harvest and the mountain rich in minerals; the temperate climates of the European seacoast and the hot and moist climate of the Soudan. The value of a country, therefore, does not depend upon any form of relief or any special situation or particular nature of the ground, or special climate, but upon all these things together and the way they are combined. Soil and climate affect fitness for agriculture; the geological formation bears on mining industry; relief, climate, and geological structure regulate the natural motor powers; and all these together, with situa- tion, determine fitness for commercial enterprises. We may, there- fore, define a country as the product of these four factors, either of which may, now here, now there, have the greater part in deter- mining its production. If three of the factors are common to two countries, it only needs for the fourth to be different to determine a variance. Let one of these factors be eliminated, and the product becomes nothing. Such is the case in Greenland and desert coun- tries generally, where the climate, a relativly minor factor as to human existence in itself, produces a condition, however favorable the other factors may be, that makes human life almost impossible. Thus in these four initial factors and their infinite combinations, under which the most numerous aspects and various conditions are engendered, are to be sought the reasons for the contrasts which are presented in the various regions of the earth and the human com- munities that are developed in them. Both the earth and man are changing all the time, but there is no correspondence in the rate or the nature of the changes they un- dergo. The earth changes very slowly—so slowly that the progress is hardly appreciable in the lifetime of a single man, or so far, almost, of the human race; yet the continuance of its changes through a time of incalculable duration has made them very important, and has exposed it to many great revolutions. Man undergoes vastly more rapid transformations. He is one of the latest comers on the earth, and has had an existence relatively as of only a moment. Yet he has undergone most wonderful transfor- mations in his development from the cave dwellers of the stone age to the highly civilized man of the present, with his extensive knowl- edge and complicated relations. It is no exaggeration to say that the distance from the primitive man to the contemporary Englishman or

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MAN’S DEPENDENCE ON THE EARTH. 103 Frenchman is not less than that from the rude marble block to the statue which the genius of an artist designs from it. So, while the earth has evolved slowly, man has developed with a feverish activity. With time he has contracted new needs and tastes, which have caused him to appreciate and seek out what he had despised; and, collected in groups, with gathered knowledge, men have acquired powerful forces which have enabled them finally to surmount obstacles that had at first stopped them. It could not be otherwise than that the value of the relation between the earth and man should have been frequently and materially modified. Every one of the four factors of which we have determined the essential importance has undergone great variations in the course of man’s evolution. Consider the relief. Hills and small moun- tains appear to have been the first places inhabited by man. It was in the foothills of the Pyrenees and the Alps, in the moderately elevated limestone plateaus of the central massif, and the modest heights of Charolais and Picardy, that were found the traces of the most ancient human occupation in France. It is reasonable that it should be so. The nascent brook, the living spring, the slightly undulating slope, are mollified natural forms with which the in- dividual man can enter into immediate relation without exerting too great effort. The plain, or rather the wet plain, offers only much later ves- tiges than the hills. Some may say it is because it has been dug over so often; but it is probable that life became possible in such situations only after some development of civilization. Re- gions subject to overflow ayd excess of stagnant water present obstacles to cultivation and comfortable living which it was beyond the power of primitive man to overcome, and would repel habitation for a long time. But once made habitable, the plain, with its mel- low, fertile soil and its rivers offering easy ways of communication, would become attractive and draw population down from the hills, the chief value of which would henceforth lie in their adaptability to purposes of defense against attack. Only the high mountain still remains unsubdued; but daily progress is made toward mastering it. Terrible in aspect, and seem- ingly beyond man’s reach a hundred years ago, it is now the resort of tourists, and is climbed, traversed, and tunneled or threatened by railroads. It is not yet subdued, but it no longer stops us. Thus each form of relief is more or less adapted to some of the many human wants. Each has its special value, changing from one epoch of civilization to another. The hill, an obstacle to the agri- culturist and the merchant, has become auxiliary to the manufac- turer through the motor force which is derived from its streams.

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104 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. The plain, precious in peaceful times, affords a poor shelter when war is raging. . So, also, the value of the different qualities of ground varies in different epochs. In the times when agricultural resources consti- tuted the only or principal element of wealth, all the advantages appertained to lands in which the best qualities for tillage were combined. In the present age, the natural geological constitution of the soil is not of such paramount importance. As the earth has be- come better known, as scientific conditions of fertility have been ascertained through chemical analysis, man has learned to improve Nature by adding to soils the indispensable elements they did not already possess. Mechanical progress, creating increased facilities for transportation, and giving more perfect agricultural tools, has acted in the same direction. There is no soil so refractory that it may not be brought to reason by suitable application of fertilizing or corrective elements. By means of agricultural geology, which has been raised to a science, man can completely transform the natural value of any soil. Different sorts of land have likewise values for mining not less unequal than their adaptations to agriculture. The minerals and coal with which industry is fed, and which have become the principal factors of wealth and power, have not been distributed at hazard over the globe. The beds exist in direct relation with the geological constitution. When we compare the fitness of different lands for mining and for agriculture, we most often find an incompatibility of qualities. The primary mineral and coal lands, when decom- posed, yield chiefly hard gravels, cold and sterile. Secondary and Tertiary soils, on the other hand, almost destitute of minerals, most often have the looseness and the variety of composition that render them most friendly to remunerative cultivation. In view of these contrasts we are able to comprehend the importance of the revo- lution which modern scientific advance has provoked in causing preponderance of economical advantages to pass from agricultural fitness to adaptation to mineral and industrial exploitation. The equilibrium of the regions of the earth has been disturbed. Coun- tries long neglected on account of their barrenness have been peopled all of a sudden because they contained coal; while other countries, which by virtue of their excellent agricultural soil had become chief centers of life, find themselves relegated to the second rank because that same rich agricultural soil affords nothing in the way of manu- facturing facilities. All climates, likewise, are not equally agreeable to man. Some - are unhealthy, like those of marshy regions and equatorial countries, and hinder man’s establishment within them, or condemn him to a

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MAN’S DEPENDENCE ON THE EARTH. 105 precarious existence. Drainage, more and more extensively carried out, and the advance of hygienic science have modified and are still modifying these natural conditions; and the advance of civilization tends to diminish the difference in the specific value of climates to man. As to the situation, man formerly, with his limited means, accom- modated himself to Nature in the ways it offered. On the sea, he did not go far from the shores along which he coasted. On the land, he followed the stream, the valley, the mountain gorge, or the cove; and if the mountain stretched out in too compact a mass or presented a too high wall, rather than attack it in front he went round it. It is no longer so. Scientific advance has freed him from his close dependence upon these circumstances. The discovery of the compass brought on the advent of long sea voyages, and made possible the crossing of wide oceans. Moreover, we dig through continents to give passage to ships; attach islands to the mainland by means of gigantic viaducts; and pierce mountains by tunnels to give passage to railways. With each isthmus penetrated, each tun- nel opened, and each new canal and railroad the courses of great commercial currents are turned. The road frequented yesterday is deserted to-day, and solitudes, lately unexplored, are filled with the periodical tumult of railway trains. Countries which were boasting of their situation deplore it now, as shops on a former prin- cipal thoroughfare in cities undergoing transformation are compelled to witness the diversion of movement and life away from them to new streets. Thus the rational study of the soil as related to the successive scientific, historical, and social conditions of man gives the key to the local shiftings of civilization through the ages. It rested for a long time on the Mediterranean Sea, the peculiar situation and figure of which facilitated communication between bordering and adjacent countries, and this region was then the whole world, the sailor fancying when he got upon the ocean that he had passed the ends of the earth. The compass was discovered, sailors went farther, even to America, and the Atlantic Ocean became the center of the world; preponderance passed from the southern to the western coun- tries of Europe. The development of steam navigation put all parts of the earth in constant communication. The Isthmus of Suez was pierced, and the Mediterranean recovered part of its lost prestige, while the Southern Atlantic ceased to be the principal route to the East Indies. Other changes, affecting the nations of western Eu- rope, are still going on as results of these events; while in the ex- treme East, China, Japan, the Indies, and Australia, which were hardly known two hundred years ago, are forced into the current

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106 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. of western civilization. No one can predict what the end of this movement may be. Without going into detail concerning the fluctuations seen in general history, we may consider those that have taken place in the interior development of particular countries. In France, once busy centers have declined, and their glory has been transferred to other places where conditions have in some way become more advan- us. In the United States, a country as of yesterday, the fluctuations are sometimes very remarkable. A new region is opened to culti- vation; a new lode is discovered; and railroads are built and cities rise as if by magic; then the railroad is extended, the mine is ex- hausted, or more fertile lands are discovered, and the new city disappears while another one is built somewhere else; but if the favorable conditions continue or others are found or made, it be- comes permanent, In England, the ancient towns which owed their prominence to military, ecclesiastical, or feudal conditions are declining or station- ary, while places only recently of relative insignificance have be- come immense manufacturing centers or commercial cities. There is no region which we can say will never be of importance; no country that can be supposed superior to a reverse of fortune. The most arid desert will become populous if a gold mine or a diamond bed is discovered in it; the most prosperous country would be liable to decline if a more important source of wealth were found near it. Suppose a method were discovered of applying the heat of the sun directly to the production of motion. Coal would be- come useless and coal lands waste. If a system of irrigation by artesian wells were practically developed and conveniently applied in the Great Desert, it would become populous. The future of any country is at the mercy of the discovery or of a new application by man of some property of matter. What seems to be a speculative research may possibly result in overthrowing the material or moral - equilibrium of the world. But while the evolution of the earth is going on slowly, almost imperceptibly to man, it is advancing all the time; and while man’s evolution is, as we have seen, vastly more rapid to appearance, it has limitations. Man can never burst the bonds that subject him to Nature, and will never be able to abstract himself from the material: necessities of his existence. Great as seem to be the resources now at his disposal, his development is absolutely controlled by the conditions of animal life. The earth is already far advanced on its course from the primitive nebulous condition toward that which has been reached by the moon. It, too, like the moon, will eventually lose its interior

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MAN’S DEPENDENCE ON THE EARTH. 107 heat, its air and water will be absorbed into the rocks or will enter into new combinations. As man’s existence was not possible under primitive conditions, so the time will come when the earth will no longer furnish him even a minimum of the necessaries of life. Even now life is not as exuberant as it was, although it is more varied. The first care of a rational being whose resources are limited should be to husband them. Instead of doing this, we are spending lavishly, and seemingly wasting them all we can, and are destroy- ing, without thought of the far future, the stores which the earth has laid up in the vast ages of the past. Even what we call improve- ment or development of a region is often its ultimate devastation, an improvident exploitation, removing from the earth what can not be restored to it, exhausting present supplies at the cost of the future. The grand discoveries on which we pride ourselves are often a con- tribution to this process, furnishing new means of expediting the waste and thus helping to bring on the final ruin. Without indulging in too gloomy visions, it is a real truth that our exploitation of the earth’s resources is pursued too recklessly. Consequently, we find that formerly fertile regions have become sterile; the productive deposits of our soils are undergoing exhaus- tion; the earth that should ripen our crops is allowed to flow into the rivers, making them turbid, and to be carried to the sea; foun- tains dry up, streams lose their way, and climates deteriorate. The remedy by which these processes shall be prevented from ultimately making the planet unfit for habitation is to be found, in- stead of the present haphazard course, in applying rational and scien- tific methods in the exploitation of the earth’s resources. The prin- ciple which, because it controls his development, man should never forget, is that he is a terrestrial being, that he is nothing without the earth, from which he can not disengage himself; and that the only true civilization is that which is developed in harmony and conformity with the laws that rule the planet.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique. THe German committee on antarctic exploration have presented to the Geographentag a scheme for an expedition to remain two years within the Antarctic Circle, while a second vessel carries on hydrographic work on the edge of the ice. The longitude of Kerguelen Island is mentioned as the most suitable region for attempting to force a way southward. The co- operation of the observatories in Cape Town, Melbourne, and Mauritius would give special value to the meteorological and magnetic observations made in the selected part of the antarctic area. Two vessels of about four hundred tons would carry each four officers, four members of a scientific staff, and a crew of twenty-two. The whole cost is estimated at less than $250,000, and the German people are to be appealed to for the money.

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. Br VICTOR axp CATHERINE HENRI. N 1895 we published in a number of reviews and addressed to individuals a series of questions relative to the tenacity and dis- tinctness of visual and auditive impressions, and to the earliest recollections of childhood. We have received one hundred and twenty-three answers to them, a larger number than we had antici- pated, of which seventy-five came from Russia (obtained largely through the courtesy of Prof. A. Wedensky, of the University of St. Petersburg), thirty-five from France, seven from England, and six from America. Of them, further, thirty-five were from women and eighty-eight from men; seventy-seven from persons between sixteen and twenty-five years old; thirty from those between twenty- five and thirty-five years old, and sixteen from persons of between thirty-six and sixty-five years. Nearly all the respondents were teachers or pupils, and some were lawyers, some doctors, and two ministers. In examining the answers we found it difficult to classify them fully and draw absolute general results from them. We proceeded thus: Each of us read the responses separately, and took note of the general ideas that seemed to be elicited from them; then one of us wrote in a general table in detail the principal points in each answer, and this done, the other underlined the points in the answers that seemed most important. The questions relative to visual and audi- tive images did not elicit any new results. Most of the persons an- swered that they had clear visual and weaker auditive images; a small number (thirteen) had better auditive than visual images; and there were persons who, using visual memory, were better able - to represent forms, others colors; some, with auditive memory, pieces of music, and others words. We asked these questions in order to learn whether there was not some relation between the nature of the predominant images held in the eye or ear and the first recollections. To the questions concerning earliest recollections, one hundred of our respondents had some recollection from infancy which seemed to be first; twenty had two or three recollections of infancy sepa- rated by days, weeks, or months, but could not give their chrono- logical order; and three had no special recollection which they could indicate as earliest or as from a certain age. They could recall a series of facts, generally without chronological order. The age to which they referred these facts—five, six, or seven years—was quite advanced, and considerably greater than that given by other per- sons—two or three years—for their earliest recollections.

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EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. 109 The date of the first recollection varies between very broad limits. There are persons who can recall a fact or scene which took place when they were one year old, or even less; others can not recollect anything from before they were six, seven, or even eight years old; but in general the first recollection corresponds with an age of from two to four years. One professed to have recollections from the age of six months, two from eight months, four from one year, nine from a year and a half, twenty-three from two years, twenty from two and a half years, nineteen from three years, four- teen from three and a half years, twelve from four years, six from five years, five from six years, two from seven years, and four from eight years. In an inquiry made by C. Miles * on like subjects, we find two questions relative to the earliest recollections of infancy. The author concludes that the average date is about three years, but the figures are not given in detail. The questions are suggested first whether there may not be some essential difference in the nature of recollections that correspond with different ages, and then whether there is not some special cause that may explain why one person recollects a fact of his first year and another one only of. his fifth year. We have not enough answers or any sufficiently detailed for the complete treatment of these questions. We proceed now to give our own conclusions. The prime difference between recollections going back to the first year and those which relate to five or six years of age is that the former are all of events which greatly affected the child, and were frequently recalled to him in his infancy and youth; the latter are likewise facts that struck the imagination of the child, but generally less than the former; and there are cases in which the latter recollec- tions were called up late in life; in two persons they were not evoked till our questions brought them up. One person, for instance, recalled the following scene: “A large room, with a fire on the hearth, and the ceiling and walls in the dark; an aged lady sitting before the fire, which shines brightly upon her. I am sitting in her lap. On the floor is a toy, a sheep with gilded horns. I have on red stockings, and have hold of the woman’s nose. It is a large, flabby nose; the woman’s face is wrinkled, her hair is white, and she wears spectacles.” This was when the subject was eight or nine months old. One evening, when this person was six years old and his parents were sitting round the fire, he came up and of his own accord enacted the scene described above, and told the story, when they all laughed. Since then he has recalled the incident many times. * C. Miles, A Study of Individual Psychology. American Journal of Psychology, vi, p. 555.

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Another person recollects when he walked for the first time. He knows he was less than a year and a half old. He represents himself as walking from one lady to another, holding on to a chair, and very much pleased with his exploit. A third person writes us: “ When I was weaned, I for several days asked for ma nini, or sucking-bottle, and they told me that a dog had carried it off. So when I saw a dog I would say, ‘ The tou-tow has carried off ma nini.’ This was when I was fourteen months old.” The fact was often mentioned to him. Among other recollections of early age we find one of a painful disorder of the eyes, one of a surgical operation, and one of setting out in a boat on the Aisne (at a spot to which the person re- turned frequently during his childhood). Among the examples of recollections relating to five or six years of age is this: “I see again the class of little ones in the primary school which I had just entered; the master, a gentleman whose eye-glasses impressed me very much, was standing at his desk, ruler in hand, and accosted the person who was with me. During this time I stood up and looked at the wall covered with colored pictures and maps, at the blackboard, and the pupils’ benches. I was then about six years old. Your list of questions was the occasion of my calling up this recollection.” Another, while writing his answer, recalls a vision of his nurse, who loved him, sitting in the kitchen sewing. The subjects of other “delayed” recollections were a lunatic who was greatly frightened by the war of 1870, a fire, the death of the respondent’s father, which caused a change in his life, and entering school. A very clear difference is noticeable between the persons whose earliest recollection relates to the age of about one year, and those in whom it corresponds to five or six years. The former have many memories of an age of which the latter have none—that is, the date of the first recollection is in relation with the date of others. A person who recalls an event that happened when he was one year old, remembers also a number of events of two or three years of age, and is able to recall the current of his life after the age of five or six years. On the other hand, a person whose first recollection dates from the age of five years, begins to have several from six or seven years of age, and remembers the current of his life from eight, nine, or ten years. It would be interesting to collect facts concerning the infancy of these several persons and see if there is not some marked difference in them. The opinion most generally current concerning the subject of the earliest recollections of infancy is that of Taine: “ The primi- tive impression was accompanied by an extraordinary degree of

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HARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. 111 attention, either because it was horrible or delightful, or because it was entirely novel, surprising, and out of relation with the ha- bitual current of our life; this is what we express when we say we were very forcibly struck $y it, were absorbed in it, could not think of anything else, our other sensations were effaced by it, we were pursued by the image continuing all through the next day, we were possessed by it, could not get rid of it, and all distractions were powerless as against it.” It is because of this disproportion that the impressions of infancy are so persistent; the mind being entirely new, ordinary objects and events are surprising to it.* According to Taine, the chief cause of the reproduction of an image is attention. “ Whether attention be voluntary or involuntary, it always operates in the same way; the image of an object or an event is the more capable of revival or of complete resurrection in proportion as the object or event has been considered with greater attention.” Taine’s theory is applicable to the large majority of cases. Most of the earliest recollections relate to events which have attracted the child’s attention by their intensity, their novelty, their action on the affections, or by numerous repeti- tions—facts, especially, which have evoked strong feelings—fear, terror, shame, lively joy, pain, grief, curiosity, self-love, antipathy, sympathy, etc. The first recollection, however, in some persons re- lates to a merely common fact, not particularly distinct from others, and which did not provoke any strong feeling, which is remembered with details; while important events which produced an impression on the child at the same period, as the parents relate, are not remem- bered at all. Such cases are few, and we can not explain them. It may be, as one of the subjects suggested, that the fact remembered only seems banal because it is not completely recollected, the strik- ing elements having been forgotten. Most of the earliest recollections relate to brief scenes. The impressive fact is generally clearly remembered to the minutest details, but it was only of an instant’s or a few minutes’ duration. ~ An event of an hour or more is rarely remembered, or, if it is, there are gaps in the recollection. As to the kind of mental images that constitute the recollection, the scene in the majority of cases is represented visually. The things, the colors, and the character of the light appear very clearly, but the personages are poorly set forth. The general form is seen, but few or no details of the figure, and sometimes it is not deter- mined whether it is a man ora woman. Occasionally, however, the persons are clearly distinguishable, especially when they play an * Intelligence, i, p. 35.

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112 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. important part in the event that is recollected, as in the following example: “ My father was holding me at the window of the ground floor in which we resided, and, balancing me now to the right and now to the left, he made me play hide and seek with one of his friends, whose hairy, laughing face I still remember. This memory goes back to an age when I could hardly walk, and could not speak— when I was about two years old.” A professor’s recollection is of a garden planted with flowers and vegetables, inclosed by a hedge with a green wooden gate. “The image of the garden is floating and vague, like the recollection, except that the gate is retained in my memory with a really surprising precision of details. I see it now, with its leather hinges, nailed to a rough post, and slimy with the moisture; and I see hanging to that gate a rude boy, the terror of the children of his age, who clung there with tense legs and clinched hands, all doubled up, with a grinning face and his eyes glowing with mischief through the intervals of the bushy red hair that fell over them—a cynically grotesque figure. A cracking was heard, and all the urchins ran away like a flock of frightened spar- rows, this one in the lead shouting shrilly and ironically. All the details of this scene have remained very precise in memory, and yet I can not say that I recollect the mocking cries of this youngster. I do not hear them now. I was then sixteen or eighteen months old; not more than two years at most.” We transcribe this example in full because it illustrates the usually indefinite character of auditive recollections. Some persons recall them more distinctly, and some can remember words that were spoken, but not by the sound. A few persons who have analyzed their remembrances subsequent to the earliest—of seven, ten, or fifteen years of age—observe that audi- tive memory comes later than visual. We have the same affirmation in a large number of responses of the manner in which the subject himself is represented. He sees himself as a child, but does not feel himself a child. He has a picture in which there is a child, and knows that he is the child. “I see myself in the view as somebody outside of me.” “I am at the seashore and my mother is holding me in her arms. The picture appears to me as if I was away from the scene.” Many of the an- swers describe the feature thus. Other sorts of perceptions rarely make part of the earliest recol- lection. Only three persons speak of the pain of an operation. Taine cites a fact of this kind. “M. Brierre de Boismont, having had a scalp disease when a child, declares that he still feels the pull- ing of the hair in the treatment of his skull.” One example occurs among the answers we received: “I had the croup when I was twelve months old, and it was necessary to burn all the ulcers in

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EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. 113 my throat. I have a very clear visual image of the scene; I see dis- tinctly four persons holding me down. What I see most clearly is a glowing brazier in which two red-hot irons were being heated to a white heat; and to this moment I still seem to feel that burning iron coming to my lips.” There is still one other group of images—the emotional ones. Our inquiry confirms the results obtained by M. Ribot on the remem- brance of the feelings.* Some persons who know that they had a particular emotion do not feel it, but can only describe it. Others, on the other hand, still feel the emotion they had when a child. “ My first recollection,” says one, “ was the astonishment I felt one morning at seeing the roofs without snow upon them. I thought they must be white all the year round, and I conceive now very clearly my surprise when I found that they were not. I was then three or four years old.” “ My first recollection,” says an- other, “is of the birth of a sister. We received the news by letter, and I remember the details clearly. My father read the letter aloud, and I was very much struck with the name given my little sister—Hortense—it sounded queer. Every time I recall this memory, I witness the scene precisely in all its details, but that name, Hortense, especially, resounds in my ear, and I conceive a kind of echo of the singular impression it made on me. I was exactly two years eight months and a half old.” Our inquiry did not include the accuracy of these impressions, but several of our correspondents voluntarily communicated their verifications of them. One had frequent recollections of a modern balcony extending from the first floor of a country house, protected by a wooden balustrade, coming more commonly in dreams than when awake, and which he was not able to connect with anything real. When about fifteen or sixteen years of age, he passed through a village which his parents had left when he was two years old, and which he had never seen afterward. Everything was strange to him till he came to the balcony of his dreams. He asked what house that was, and found that it was the one his parents had.lived in. Another person, who had left his natal village when three years old, returning to it when twenty, recognized the place and the former house of his parents. In another case, where the recollection proved not quite exact, the subject remembered the death of his father as having occurred in a certain room, but learned afterward that that was not the room in which his father actually died, but one they had moved into after- ward. * M. Ribot. Psychologie des Sentiments. Chapter headed Remembrance of the Emo- tions, VOL, Lim1.—10

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‘ 114 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. It was not possible in any of the cases in which the point was mentioned to fix the time of the incident recollected, except it was re- lated to other events, the date of which was learned afterward. Thus, a scene is remembered that took place in a certain house; it subse- quently appears that the parents left that house when the subject was three years old, and the conclusion is drawn that the event occurred before that age. It also seems impossible to fix the date relatively, or, in other words, of several events recollected, to determine the order in which they happened. Thus, M. Binet furnishes a list of twelve events remembered which took place when he was perhaps less than six years of age, most of which acted on the emotions, and which he believes are remembered because of the feeling they excited. He remarks that the memories form complete detailed visual pictures, in which he sees the persons and their positions, and even trifling things like the stones in the wall in one of them. But he is not able to fix their order, or to say this one happened before that one, except in the case of three, which he has localized in time without know- ing how. The answers are unanimous concerning the conditions under which these recollections of infancy come to mind. They are recalled when we are thinking of our childhood, or of the places where we lived in childhood, or when we meet the names of per- sons who were concerned with us at that period, or when we see a thing or a scene similar to one which formed a part of the event recollected. In some persons the event is recalled by an emotional condition like the one we felt when it happened—in all these cases by some form of association by resemblance or contiguity. In most persons a considerable interval exists ‘between the first and second recollections; it is generally more than a year; in some cases it reaches five years; and in a few instances it is only a month or two, in which cases the subject does not know which is first or second. After the first, many isolated facts and scenes are usually remembered, but not in any known chronological order, and with- out connection with one another. Usually our connected recollec- tions and power to recall our life in chronological order begin at the more advanced age of between seven and eleven years; and with many persons the period coincides with some change in the life, such as a removal of residence, entry into the lyceum, or something of the kind. The characteristics of the posterior recollections are the same as those of the earlier ones—emotional, visual, presenting them- selves as complete pictures with many secondary details, and corre- sponding to events of short duration; while auditive images are rare, but less so than in the earliest recollection.

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SKETCH OF RUSSELL H. CHITTENDEN. 115 Concerning recollections in dreams, we find that few persons see themselves as children in dreams, and when they do the subject of the dream is of a time posterior to the earliest recollection. The results of our investigation, one of the first to have been made, so far as we know, are far from complete, and give no definite information concerning the why of the phenomena; but they indi- cate some of the points concerning which the inquiry can be pur- sued with profit, and will enable us to frame our next set of ques- tions more systematically and with more intelligence. We shall be glad to receive observations on the subject from all persons who may choose to communicate them to M. V. Henri, Laboratory of Physio- logical Psychology, Sorbonne, Paris.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from L’ Année Psychologique. 64 seo SKETCH OF RUSSELL H. CHITTENDEN. N his address at the celebration of the semicentennial of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, President Daniel C. Gilman spoke of physiological chemistry as one of the latest addi- tions to the subjects taught there and as a department in which the school had risen to the foremost place. “ Nowhere else in this country,” said the speaker, “ not in many European laboratories, has such work been attempted and accomplished as is now in progress on Hillhouse Avenue, unobserved, no doubt, by those who daily pass the laboratory door, but watched with welcoming anticipation wher- ever physiology and medicine are prosecuted in the modern spirit of research.” The creator and master mind of this establishment is Russell Henry Chittenden, professor of physiological chemistry. Professor Chittenden is a descendant of William Chittenden, who came to America from the parish of Cranbrook, Kent, England, in 1639, and settled in what is now known as Guilford, Connecticut. Both his paternal and maternal grandfathers fought in the Revolu- tionary War. He is ason of Horace H. Chittenden, and was born in New Haven, Connecticut, February 18, 1856. He received his primary education in the public schools of New Haven, and later entered the private school of Mr. French, where he was fitted for college. Even at this time his aptitude for teaching was so developed that he was able to defray his expenses in the school by giving instruction to the younger pupils in the rudiments of Latin and Greek and in mathematics. His original intention had been to pursue classical studies, but a growing fondness for natural science with a leaning toward medicine as a profession led to his entering the

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116 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. scientific department of Yale. He was graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School in 1875 with the degree of Ph. B., when nineteen years of age. His graduating thesis was considered sufficiently note- worthy to be published in the American Journal of Science, and it was also translated into German and published in full in Liebig’s Annalen der Chemie, Leipsic. As an undergraduate in the Scien- tific School he evinced great devotion and aptitude in the study of chemistry, and became especially interested in chemistry as ap- plied to physiology. His success is shown by the fact that in the last year of his undergraduate study he was appointed a labora- tory assistant in chemistry, to carry forward such instruction in its physiological bearings and applications as was then possible. In this connection it is to be remembered that the Sheffield Scientific School was one of the first institutions in the country to recognize the importance of a preliminary scientific education for young men intending to study medicine, and in the annual catalogue for 1869- "70 reference is made to an appropriate scheme of study specially designed for those expecting to pursue the courses in the medical schools. This was the beginning of the so-called “ biological course ” in the school with the development of which Professor Chittenden has been closely identified. The existing laboratories of chemistry, physics, zodlogy, and botany at Yale had made it easy to establish a course in general biology at this time, well adapted for providing instruction in branches especially fitted for men intending to enter the medical profession, but in which facilities in physiology and physiological chemistry were still almost wholly wanting. The general character of the work done in this department is fittingly recognized by President Gilman, who says, in his semi- centennial address: “ One of the most advantageous of these courses has been preliminary to medicine. To follow the healing arts, which have made during the last half century such wonderful advances, dis- cipline is requisite in physics, chemistry, and physiology with pro- longed laboratory practice and increasing familiarity with the normal functions of organic life. Such courses were projected here five and twenty years ago, and gradually the medical colleges are discovering their value. The Johns Hopkins Medical School, for example, allows no student to enter as a candidate for its four years’ course unless he has had such training, substantially as that here offered many years ago, and never so advantageously as now. Names might be cited of eminent physicians, leaders in physiology, pathology, physiological chemistry, and hygiene, who received their bent from the preliminary medical course of the Sheffield School.” Physiological chemistry was, indeed, at that time given very scant attention in this country, and its importance in biology

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SKETCH OF RUSSELL H. CHITTENDEN. 117 and practical medicine was only beginning to be felt even in Ger- many. Up to 1874 only an occasional student availed himself of the opportunities afforded by the new course in biology in the Sheffield Scientific School, and physiology and physiological chemistry were taught only in name. In the class of 1875, however, there were six or seven students taking the new course, and it was decided to start an independent laboratory of physiological chemistry. Nominally under the charge of one of the professors of chemistry, the laboratory instruction was really placed in the hands of the inexperienced and youthful assistant, who, although not yet a graduate, had manifested remarkable ability in both acquiring and imparting knowledge in this direction. The laboratory was a single small room provided with the simplest of equipments, but the young man was full of en- thusiasm, and by hard and persistent work managed to keep ahead of his class and pilot them safely through a moderate course of study. Immediately after his graduation Mr. Chittenden was appointed instructor in physiological chemistry, which position he held until 1878, acquiring each. year added experience and facility. Further, each year witnessed the completion and publication of some piece of scientific research in his favorite branch. Having now made up his mind to devote himself to physiological chemistry, and feeling the necessity of a broader knowledge of the subject than could be acquired in this country, he decided to go abroad, and accordingly 1878 and 1879 were spent in Germany, chiefly at Heidelberg with Professor Kiihne, where the time was occupied mainly with the study of experimental physiology, physiological chemistry, and histology. Not only were routine courses pursued, but Mr. Chittenden’s natural bent for scientific investigation led to constant work in the laboratory, with the result that in 1879 three papers on physiological subjects were published by him in the Untersuchungen aus dem physio- logischen Institute der Universitit Heidelberg, and one in the Eng- lish Journal of Physiology. Returning to America in the fall of 1879, Mr. Chittenden took his former position at New Haven, more fully equipped for his life work. The establishment at this time of the American Chemical Journal led to an invitation to write a series of reports upon recent progress in physiological chemistry, which were continued for several years. In 1880 he received from Yale the degree of Ph. D., and in 1882 he was appointed professor of physiological chemistry at Yale, and member of the governing board of the Sheffield Scientific School. In this same year he received an urgent invitation from Professor Kiihne to come to Heidelberg and join with him in a series of inves- tigations upon the physiology of digestion. Accordingly, on the 1st

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118 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. of June he started again for Germany, where he spent the summer months in the Heidelberg laboratory with Kiihne, returning to New Haven in the fall in time to take up his routine work at the opening of the college year. This was the beginning of a series of investiga- tions undertaken jointly with Kiihne and carried on for many years by correspondence, which resulted in a long list of contributions bear- ing on the chemico-physiological problems of gastric and pancreatic digestion, published mainly in the Zeitschrift fiir Biologie, in Munich. The facts thus acquired threw great light upon many of the darker problems of gastric and pancreatic proteolysis, and consti- tute at present the basis of our physiological knowledge concerning the changes which proteid foods undergo in digestion. During these years Professor Chittenden’s activity was very great. Besides enlarging and modifying his course of instruction to the students of biology, and attracting graduate students to his laboratory, independ- ent research work was continually carried on, with the result that in the years 1883 to 1888 three volumes of Studies from the Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry, of from one hundred and sixty to two hundred pages each, were published, containing the results of his in- vestigations carried on by the help of the graduate students and assist- ants he had collected about him. The value of these researches may be inferred from the constant reference made to them in all standard text-books on physiological chemistry. In 1890 Professor Chittenden became one of the associate editors of the English Journal of Physiology, edited by Michael Foster, and for several years thereafter the researches from the laboratory ap- peared regularly in this journal. In 1885 to 1887 he wrote a num- ber of articles on physiological topics for the Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences. In 1890 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In the revision of Webster’s Inter- national Dictionary he was charged with the editing of the defini- tions in general biology, physiology, and physiological chemistry. In 1894 he delivered the Cartwright Lectures before the Alumni Association of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New York, the subject being Digestive Proteolysis. These lectures were pub- lished in book form in 1895. When the Journal of Experimental Medicine was started, in 1896, he became one of the associate editors for physiology. He has been on the council of the American Physiological Society ever since its foundation in 1887, and has been president of . the society since 1895. He was president of the American Society of Naturalists for 1893. He has read various papers before the New York Academy of Medicine. He was active in the establishment of the American Journal of Physiology—the first number of which ap-

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SKETCH OF RUSSELL H. CHITTENDEN. 119 peared in January of the present year—and is one of its editors. He was one of the original members of the Committee of Fifty for the investigation of the drink problem, and has contributed, with the aid of his coworkers in the physiological laboratory, two important papers containing the results of various researches on the influence of alcoholic drinks upon the chemical processes of digestion, and their effect upon secretion, absorption, etc. He served as one of the vice-presidents of the Congress of American Physicians and Sur- geons, held at Washington, May, 1897, at which he presented a paper on “internal secretions” considered from a chemico-physio- logical point of view. Professor Chittenden has always been especially interested in bringing about a wider recognition of the importance of the chemico- physiological side of biology. He regards the physiological side as equally important with the morphological side of biology, but finds only scanty recognition of the fact in too many of the courses in biology, and only rarely tangible evidence of appreciation of the chemical side of physiology; and yet, as he has pointed out -in an address before the first Pan-American Medical Congress, held at Washington in 1893, “ there is hardly a question either in physiology or in the science or practice of medicine that does not draw to a greater or less extent upon physiological chemistry for its solution. . . » In every medical school in the land there should be a well- appointed laboratory for the practice and study of physiological chem- istry in every direction bearing on medical science. So, too, in every well-rounded biological course there should be ample facilities for instruction and experimentation, not only in pure physiology but likewise in physiological chemistry, so that a broader and clearer con- ception of physiology may be obtained than is possible by the pres- entation of a single side of the subject.” Professor Chittenden has labored faithfully to embody the principles expressed in these views and give them practical effect in the work of the biological course at Yale University. Morphology, comparative anatomy, general biol- ogy, botany, zodlogy, etc., are by no means ignored, but physiology and physiological chemistry have been made an integral part of the instruction in biology given to the undergraduate students in the Sheffield Scientific School. The importance of physiological chemistry as an adjunct to the medical course is forcibly presented in the address to which we have referred, where the sovereignty of morphology, which had given the course a somewhat unsymmetrical development, is said to have reached its climax, and the clinicians are declared to be “ even now looking to physiological chemistry to aid them in unravel- ing many of the hidden processes of life, thus helping to gain

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120 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. clews to clearer methods of diagnosis and more rational lines of treatment.” Recognizing the great gains that have accrued to medicine from the marvelous development of pathological inves- tigation and from anatomy and histology, he added: “ If, however, a small fraction of the time and energy given to these branches of medicine had been devoted to the simultaneous study and investiga- tion of the chemical processes of the body in health and disease, I am sure equally important results would have been obtained, and, as a final outcome, a far more satisfactory explanation of many phe- nomena for which anatomy, histology, and pathology have thus far given only incomplete or unsatisfactory explanations. It is from a judicious combination of the results obtainable by different lines of inquiry that the broadest and most definite, as well as the most accu- rate, deductions are to be drawn. In estimating the value of the various aspects of the study, it is shown that our knowledge of the composition of the tissues, organs, and fluids of the organism is de- rived entirely from chemical study and investigation. This is plainly self-evident; but when we consider how far-reaching are the facts thus obtained in promoting our understanding of the laws of growth of the human body, of the relationships of the various physio- logically active and inactive tissues, of their development, of the character and extent of their activity, and of all the variations inci- dent to pathological conditions, we see at once the great importance of this knowledge in aiding us to a rightful interpretation of physio- logical laws. The great progress made of late years in our knowledge of the various digestive juices of the body, of their mode of action, of the character of the products resulting from the digestion of the various classes of food stuffs, of the conditions favorable and unfa- vorable to ferment action—these and many other things connected with the study of digestion i in its broadest sense have all been accom- plished as the results of long-continued and laborious experiments— results that have not only helped to give us broader and clearer ideas of the physiology of digestion, but have made possible much of the advance in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the alimentary tract.” Then there are the chemical! composition of muscle and nerve tissue and the processes going on in them, with their influence on heat production and on proteid and other forms of metabolism; the broad question of nutrition in general, with its bearing on health and disease—“in great part chemical problems, partial solution of which has already afforded results of inestimable value”; and “the part chemistry has played in bringing about our present understand- ing of the manner in which micro-organisms act in the animal body, with its bearing upon the whole question of infectious diseases, the discovery of the production of distinct chemical poisons by specific

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SKETCH OF RUSSELL H. CHITTENDEN. 121 pathogenic bacteria, with the impetus this fact has given to the search for methods of producing immunity. Then, too, we must not forget to recall the great aid chemistry has lent to therapeutics, not only giving us methods for the preparation of purer and more definite products, but opening up methods of studying the physiological action of drugs which have greatly advanced the growth of scientific pharmacology.” A course in physiological chemistry worthy of the name should extend, Professor Chittenden thought, at least through half the col- lege year, and preferably through a whole year, with an average of fifteen hours of laboratory work a week, interspersed with lectures, recitations, and demonstrations. It could be advantageously under- taken only by men who already have knowledge of general, analyt- ical, and organic chemistry, physics, anatomy, and histology, together with more or less familiarity with general physiology. An outline of the order of such a course as existed in the author’s mind is given in the address, with the observation that, to make it of the highest value, no opportunity should be lost to show the physiological bearing of all the results obtained; to try and instill into the mind of the stu- dent the idea that the facts of physiological chemistry have a wide application. The biological course (purely optional), started originally in the Scientific School, is now open also to those junior and senior students in the academical department who are desirous of taking this line of work. Naturally, the majority of the students electing this course of study, extending through two years of the college course, are intend- ing to enter upon the study of medicine after graduation, and it is interesting to note that the graduates of this course almost invariably take a high standing in their professional study, thereby indicating the beneficial effects of their biological training. To-day the Sheffield laboratory of physiological chemistry is a very different structure from the laboratory of twenty-three years ago. Situated in what was formerly the Sheffield mansion, on Hill- house Avenue, nine good-sized rooms are required to care for the many students working there, while one assistant professor and three instructors aid in carrying on the instruction given. In addition to his duties at Yale, Professor Chittenden has re- cently been made lecturer on physiological chemistry at Columbia University. The list of Professor Chittenden’s publications to date contains ninety-three titles of papers, ete., nearly all contributions to scientific journals and the proceedings of scientific societies, and nearly all bearing on physiological chemistry or subjects related to it.

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A FASTING FROG. Editor Popular Science Monthly : EAR SIR: Late last autumn, just as the winter was beginning, I drew from our well one evening a live frog. It was get- ting dusk, and, as I was about to pour the water into the teakettle, my little girl said, “ Mamma, there is something in that water”’ ; so we took a cup and fished Mr. Frog out of the bucket. We put him in a “ Mason” quart jar with some water, and there he has lived all winter without anything to eat, and unless he in some manner drew sustenance from the water, which we changed frequently, I do not know what he lived upon. Our frog proved a better weather prophet than De Voe, for he invariably warned us when there was going to be a change in the weather. We had had him only a few days when, one night, after we had retired, we heard a slow, low, grating sound from the sitting room; for some minutes we could not imagine what it could be; again it came—a sort of low g-r-r-r; then it oc* curred to us it must be the frog. We won- dered what it meant, for it was the first time he had made a sound, unless when the chil- dren handled him and squeezed him a little too tightly. The next day was cold and stormy, and from that time on we noticed that whenever the weather changed our frog always croaked the night before; I do not think he ever did in the daytime. Some- times he gave only one croak, but we have counted nine, yet he never croaked very loud nor but one series of croaks. When the weather was warmer he would sit up in the water, and if the sun shone he would swim and splash in a lively manner ; but when the days were quite cold and cloudy he would lie in the bottom of the jar entirely under the water, and if it was very shallow would flatten himself out until as flat as one’s hand. We put in more water and placed a large pebble in the jar to see if he would sit upon that when he wished to be at the surface, but he did not; he simply floated on the sur- face if he could not sit up with his head out. Our frog is a pretty creature too. His eyes are gold with a spot of jet for the pupil ; he has two gilt stripes down the back just at each edge ; his body is gray lichen color with spots of dark wood color, which vary in size and shape, each spot edged with a hair line of gilt ; his sides and the edges of the thighs are of a green tint which shade to white un- derneath. A curious incident occurred the night of February 4th. A cup of salt water had been left on the table, and one of the family POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Correspondence, coming in hastily and wishing a drink, with- out knowing what it was, poured the salt water into the frog’s jar. The next morn- ing Mr. Frog was stretched out on his back on the top of the water, cold and stiff and puckered up till not larger than my thumb. I took him out of the jar, but he did not move, so I tossed him on the table and let him lie there until I had made the kitchen fire. Then I thought to experiment: I would put him in fresh water; I did so, and in the course of half an hour I was surprised to see him flop over right side up, although still pretty well shriveled up; I again changed the water, and in a little while he had apparently resumed his normal condition, and ever since has prophesied for us as before. SaraH A. EDENBURN. Des Mornes, Iowa, March 1, 1898. DEAN BUCKLAND AND THE HEART OF LOUIS XIV. Editor Popular Science Monthly : Dear Sir: A beautiful painting of Louis XIV when a child of five years suggested the relation of the following anecdote, which the narrator assured the writer was au- thentic: When the French revolutionists were breaking into the tombs of their kings and throwing the bodies into the Seine, it was found that the heart of Louis XIV had been taken out by the embalmer and pre- served in a leathern sack. The heart had shrunken to about the size of a mulberry. An English officer, at the time in Paris, res- cued the heart and carried it off to England, where it was preserved by a family repre- sented to-day by one of England’s most dis- tinguished statesmen, the name being here withheld for personal reasons. The family caused to be made a golden receptacle, with a glass top, to hold this treasure, and it was frequently shown to guests, who were not supposed to open the lid. Every one familiar with the history of geology knows the name of Dean Buckland as one of the English fathers of the science, who was also one of the most absent-minded, and late in life became the most eccentric of men, owing to brain disease: Upon being shown the casket he immediately opened it and, before the heart could be rescued, he, according to his habit of tasting minerals (as is the case with all mineralogists), not only tasted it but swallowed it! Thus disappeared the last remains of the great king. J. D. SPENCER. Wasurneton, D. C., March 21, 1898.

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AN EDUCATIONAL HERETIC. E observe that Professor Peck has not feared to include, in his lately published collection of es- says, the title of which, The Personal Equation, no one has yet been quite able to understand, the paper on American Education which appeared in The Cosmopolitan last year, and for which the editor of that periodical felt compelled, in a manner, to apolo- gize. Some of Professor Peck’s ut- terances, it must be acknowledged, sound rather awful, considering the age and the milieu in which they are given to the world. When he says, for example, that “every really great thing that has been accom- plished in the history of man has been accomplished by an aristocra- cy,” he runs the risk of shocking, if not the moral, the political sense of the community no less rudely and painfully than the anarchist does when he passionately pronounces the doom of private property and recommends the treatment of all social diseases by dynamite. We are not sure, however, that Professor Peck means as much harm to our cherished institutions as the average reader might be led to suppose. By an aristocracy he does not mean a privileged caste, but simply a body of men trained to think and having personal gifts of control. Even the most extreme democracy must ac- knowledge that there are such per- sons. By whom are our “ primaries” dominated if not by individuals trained to think along certain lines which, by an abuse of language, we call political, and who are masterful in council and decisive in action ? And how many men, all told, have a really controlling voice in our na- EDITOR'S TABLE. Editor’s Table. tional politics ? We doubt very much if their numerical proportion to the whole community is greater than that borne by the narrowest aristoc- racies of the past to the communities in which they have severally existed. Yet without these men nothing, sub- stantially, can be done. Their will is law. It is true they rule partly by fawning on the multitude, but they can afford a little of this condescen- sion to secure the reality of power. “Paris is well worth a mass,” said Henry of Navarre, when he became a Catholic on succeeding to the throne of France; and the boss does not grudge a little servility when needed to strengthen his hold upon the people. In Professor Peck’s sense, then, we have an aristocracy now—that is to say, a ruling class— only it is not one out of which much good can come. It is organized on too bad a principle. It is apropos of education that the professor gave expression to this shocking sentiment. He does not be- lieve in compulsory education, and evidently thinks that the state goes too far now in facilitating education for all. It is not, if we understand him aright, that he grudges education to any, but simply that he thinks the present system, from a strictly prac- tical point of view, is not working well. “A sounder policy,” he says, “would be to make the way to edu- cation easy, but not free, to all.” As we have before expressed our general adherence to this view; we must be content to share whatever odium at- taches to the professor for his re- marks. A recent writer in a French review * has been discussing what he * See Revue des Revues for January 15, 1898, article by M. Henry Berenger.

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124 calls “the intellectual proletariat” in France. The facts and figures he furnishes in regard to the moral and economic condition of a large pro- portion of the educated class are not at all encouraging. “Our poverty- stricken mandarins,” he says, “are starving in their tracks.” He re- marks that the evil of an intellectual proletariat has not yet manifested it- self in America ; but some of us who have a closer view of the facts would not be quite prepared to indorse the statement. The moral and intellectual prog- ress of a people, it can not be too often repeated, depends largely upon its ideals ; and there is reason to fear that universal education, or rather the attempt at universal education made by modern states, tends to lower rather than elevate popular ideals. The one great false thing the system teaches—not advisedly and intentionally. no doubt, but all the same most effectually—is that education is mainly to be desired as a qualification for money-making. That idea alone is enough to poison the popular consciousness. Educa- tion means nothing if it does not mean the improvement of the intel- lectual and moral nature of the per- son educated; but to what extent can it be shown that the state agen- cies in operation are really working toward such a result? We do not, therefore, regard Professor Peck, in spite of his audacious aud seemingly paradoxical expressions, as an enemy of the people. We believe, on the contrary, that he means right and has at heart, as fully as the intensest democrat of us all, the greatest hap- piness of the greatest number. REALIZATION OF A PROPHECY OF MR. SPENCER. “ ARE we to become the China of the West ?” shouted a United States Senator, indignant because the Amer- POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ican people would not fly to arms at his bidding and put an end to the savage struggle between the Span- iards and the Cuban insurgents. The implication was that, unless they did so, they would fall a prey, just as is threatened in the case of China, to the attack of some militant power. Only by cultivating the war spirit, which the Chinese hold in such de- testation, could they mairtain, to use the glowing language of Mr. Theo- dore Roosevelt, “ our proper position among the nations of the earth, and . ». do the work to which our des- tiny points.” Since the opinion appears to be general that the sudden assault of the European powers upon China and her apparent impotency to re- sist them are due to her devotion to pacific pursuits, and that the aggres- sive policy of her assailants is some- thing that the American people ought to imitate in order to save them from the same fate, it seems needful to call attention to a prophecy that Mr. Spencer makes in the last volume of his Principles of Sociology. It has a very instructive bearing upon the astonishing political phenomena now witnessed in the far East. It makes perfectly clear the absurdity of the interpretation that the Senator in question put upon them. It shows that China is not a victim of her de- votion to pacific pursuits, but to mili- tant pursuits, and that her assailants are following in precisely the foot- steps that have brought her to her present position of impotency. The conclusion to be reached is that only in imitating them is there the slight- est danger of the United States be- coming “the China of the West.” In forecasting the future of the peoples that seek social regeneration through the adoption of certain in- stitutions, which are simply the in- stitutions of aggression, Mr. Spencer says that they may hold their place

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in the world for a long time. But the moment they come in contact with peoples not become degenerate through the sustention of the unfit at the expense of the fit, they will repeat the history of the conflict be- tween the Spaniards on the one hand and the Mexicans and Peruvians on the other, and, like a house of cards, collapse almost without a struggle. Had Mr. Spencer postponed the writ- ing of the chapter in which this prophecy appears, he could have cited as a fulfillment the cowardly and contemptible submission of the Chi- nese to the militant barbarians from Europe. Enervated by institutions that grew out of militant pursuits, they find themselves unable to resist their more vigorous and progressive assailants. It is but a commonplace to say that China has the most powerful, conservative, and corrupt bureau- cratic system in the world. As may be easily shown, this system, like all other bureaucratic systems, is the natural and invariable product of militant activities. Although it has outlived them many centuries, it has not ceased in any considerable de- gree, if at all, to exert the restrain- ing and paralyzing influences that come from a crystallization of so- ciety. To it is due very largely the extraordinary difficulty now experi- enced in introducing into China new ideas and new industrial methods. An abandonment of old ideas and old methods would mean a disturb- ance of its privileges, and a disturb- ance of its privileges would mean a diminution or abolition of the sources of plunder that it has enjoyed time out of mind. Hence it has opposed the introduction of Western culture, Western modes of production and Western means of communication and transportation. Hence China is what she is to-day—a great, un- wieldy mass of ignorance and super- # EDITOR’S TABLE. 125 stition, destitute of the power of ini- tiative and incapable of lifting a hand against the unscrupulous greed that has all at once encompassed her on every side. Not less grossly inaccurate than the prevalent theory of China’s help- lessness is the theory advanced to account for the sudden desire of her assailants to appropriate her terri- tory. It is supposed that the inhab- itants of France and Germany, crowded to suffocation at home, are anxious to find an outlet for their energies, and, like the emigrants that have poured out of the harbors of Great Britain during the last three centuries, wish to establish another patrie or fatherland beyond the seas. But there is not the slightest founda- tion for this enchanting supposition. One of the most melancholy com- plaints heard in France for many years is that the births do not equal the deaths. Another complaint is that the French people show no de- sire to leave their country and take up with the life of a pioneer in the new territory acquired in northern and central Africa and in southern China. They prefer to remain at home and live upon the slender in- comes they get from a government office in the city or some strip of land in the country. The same is more or less true of theGermans. Although they emigrate in larger numbers than the French, they do not leave their country to establish another father- land in the colonial empire that Ger- man statesmen have attempted to establish in the wilds of Africa. Anxious to escape the intolerable despotism of their own Government, they go to new countries already peopled, chiefly the Argentine Re- public and the United States, to swear allegiance to another flag than the one they have lived under all their lives. What, then, is the explanation of

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126 this sudden desire of the French and Germans to get possession of the Chinese Empire? If they do not want it as an outlet for a surplus population or for a population am- bitious to improve its condition, what do they want it for? The answer to these questions is to be found in the powerfully aggressive impulse im- parted to them by their military and bureaucratic systems. As is well known, these systems inspire a con- tempt for industrial pursuits, which require private initiative and enter- prise, and lead young men anxious to distinguish themselves to seek to do so in the army or the civil serv- ice, where they are cared for as re- cipients of pensions in case of fail- ure. But in both Germany and France the number of places of this kind is necessarily limited, and as a consequence the demand has far ex- ceeded the supply. A further con- sequence is that the tests applied to candidates for appointment have be- come very severe. A still further consequence is that after candidates have spent the best part of their lives in preparing themselves for a certain kind of work, and fail, as they often do, to get it, they consider themselves too old to prepare for anything else. Naturally they are inclined to join what Prince Bis- marck has fitly stigmatized as the educated proletariat, and begin an agitation for the vague and absurd reforms known under the name of socialism and anarchism. If places could be found for such men and the country relieved of their disquieting presence by the establishment of a colonial empire in a land like China, where there is a vast industrious and docile population to be ruled and ex- ploited, would not an enterprise of POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. this kind appeal, consciously or un- consciously, to the leaders of a na- tion? Would nota vain and ambi- tious man, like the German emperor, see in it an opportunity not only to gain an outlet for the military ac- tivities of his people, but to make for himself a name that would com- pare with that of any of his Hohen- zollern ancestors? What is true of him in a striking degree is true in a less degree of every other victim of the militant and bureaucratic spirit of France and Germany. China is wanted, therefore, not as a home for landless populations, but as a place for the soldiers and officials of these countries to pillage. But, unless France and Germany change their policy, China will have her revenge. The time is certain to come with them, as it is certain to come with the American people, if their example be followed, when the same fate will, as Mr. Spencer pre- dicts, overtake them that has over- taken their victim. Great standing armies of soldiers and officials, cou- pled with constant aggressions upon weaker nations, can not fail to pro- duce again the same paralysis that made the Mexicans and Peruvians such easy prey for the Spaniards. The immutable law of biology, that benefit must always be commensu- rate with merit, and the equally im- mutable law of sociology, that mili- tant institutions lead to foreign and domestic aggression and finally to national decay, can not besuspended. Even in the case of Spain, there has been an exemplification of this pro- found and important truth. Why should not the French, Germans, and Americans exemplify it, if they pur- sue the same career of shameless ag- gression ?

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SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. Scientific Literature, SPECIAL BOOKS. THERE is no form of literature that has been more affected by the mod- ern scientific spirit than history. Readers who are familiar with the writ- ings of our earlier historians, even to the time of Bancroft, have found that the stories of the Discovery of America, of the Beginnings of New England, and of the Revolutionary War, as told by Professor Fiske, were full of fresh- ness and novelty, taking hold of one in a way not felt before. The count- less details of these respective periods under Fiske’s philosophic treatment are found to have acquired an absorbing human interest. In tracing effects to causes and showing the successive stages in the progress of events, new meanings are perceived and new emotions awakened, and the period we are studying becomes a part of “the solemn work of ages, which is slowly win- ning for humanity a richer and more perfect life.” While each of Fiske’s histories deals with a period that can be studied by itself as an epoch in human experience, the several works constitute a carefully planned series, and Old Virginia and her Neighbors * falls at once into its place between the Discovery of America and the Beginnings of New England. The story of Old Virginia begins with Sir Walter Raleigh and the Rev. Richard Hackluyt, near the close of the sixteenth century, and ends in 1753 with the expedition of the “ youthful George Washington to warn the approaching Frenchmen from any further encroachment upon English soil.” On March 25, 1584, was sealed the document that empow- ered Raleigh to “hold by homage remote heathen lands not actually pos- sessed by any Christian prince, nor inhabited by Christian people, which he might discover within the next six years.” The wealthy Raleigh, without delay, sent out two ships, which reached what is now known as North Caro- lina on July 4, 1584, and after a run of a hundred miles northward their commanders landed at Roanoke Island. The next year Raleigh sent out a hundred men to make the beginnings of a settlement at this island, which Queen Elizabeth suggested should be called Virginia, in honor of herself. But Raleigh’s Virginia extended from Florida (held by Spain) to Canada (in the hands of the French). The first charter, issued by James I in 1606, limited Virginia within the thirty-fourth and forty-fifth parallels of lati- tude, and from the seashore a hundred miles inland. Three years later a second charter made the hundred miles inland reach “from sea to sea.” In 1609 New England and New Netherlands were cut off from Virginia; in 1632 Maryland became a separate palatinate; in 1663 Carolina, and in 1732 Georgia, were also detached from the original tract. The preliminary chapter is entitled the Sea Kings, and it closes with the destruction of Spain’s naval power by the catastrophe of 1588, when Eng- land snatched from Spain the sovereignty of the seas, and determined to begin the work of settlement in America, hoping to find mines of wealth like those Mexico and Peru had supplied that power; Chapter II, A Dis- course on Western Planting; III, The Land of the Powhatans; IV, The * Old Virginia and her Neighbors. By John Fiske. In two volumes. Cambridge: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., The Riverside Press.

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128 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Starving Time; V, Beginnings of a Commonwealth; VI, A Seminary of Sedition; VII, The Kingdom of Virginia; VIII, The Maryland Palatinate; IX, Leah and Rachel, comprise the first volume, which is illustrated by three maps—Tidewater Virginia, from a sketch by the author; Michael Lok’s map, 1582, from Hackluyt’s Voyages to America; and the Palatinate of Maryland, from a sketch by the author. In this volume we are brought down to the middle of the seventeenth century. Chapter X, on The Coming of the Cavaliers, opens the second volume, and the reader’s interest deepens as the history proceeds. Not the least of the charms of Professor Fiske’s style are the racy comments and the fine observations interspersed throughout the story. Hereis one. In speaking of the contrast between the maps of New England and Virginia, he says: “One can not find in all New England a county named from an English sovereign or prince, except Dukes for the island of Martha's Vineyard. . . . But for this one instance we should never know that such a thing as king- ship had ever existed. As for the names of towns, there is in Massachusetts one Lunenburg, copied in Vermont, and on the map of New England we may find half a dozen Hanovers and Brunswicks, originals and copier, Between this showing and that of Virginia, where the sequence of royal names is full enough to preserve a rude record of the country's expansion, the contrast is surely striking. The difference between the Puritan temper and that of the Cavaliers seems to be written ineffaceably upon the map.” Now follows a spirited sketch of the Cavalier element in the composition of Old Virginia, and, while deprecating the personal and sectional preju- dices of half a century ago, the author adds: “It is impossible to make any generalization concerning the origin of the white people of the South or of the North, further than to say that their ancestors came from Europe, and a large majority of them from the British Islands.” And again: “It isa mistake to suppose that the contrast between Cavaliers and Roundheads was in any wise parallel with the contrast between high-born people and low-born ”; and toward the close of the work we come upon the following statement that will doubtless be a surprise to many readers: “ A compara- tive survey of Old Virginia’s neighbors shows how extremely loose and inaccurate is the common habit of alluding to the old Cavalier society of England as if it were characteristic of the Southern States in general. Equally loose and ignorant is the habit of alluding to Puritanism as if it were peculiar to New England. In point of fact the Cavalier society was re- produced nowhere save on Chesapeake Bay. On the other hand, the Eng- lish or Independent phase of Puritanism was by no means confined to New England colonies. Three fourths of the people of Maryland were Puritans. English Puritanism, with the closely kindred French Calvinism, swayed South Carolina; and in our concluding chapter we shall see how the Scotch or Presbyterian phase of Puritanism extended throughout the whole Appalachian region from Pennsylvania to Georgia, and has exercised in the Southwest an influence always great and often predominant.” Following the opening chapter upon the Cavaliers is Chapter XI, on Bacon’s Rebellion, and like all the rest it is full of interest and instruction; XII is entitled William and Mary; XITI, Maryland's Vicissitudes; XIV, Society in the Old Dominion; XV, The Carolina Frontier; XVI, The Golden Age of Pirates; XVII, From Tidewater to the Mountains. There are three maps—Western Growth of Old Virginia, frontispiece, from a

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SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 129 sketch by the author; North Carolina Precincts in 1729, after a map in Iiawk’s History of North Carolina; A Map of ye most Improved Part of Carolina, from Winsor’s America, vol. v, p. 351. Professor Fiske’s genius for the writing of history is apparent on every page of his work. His broad training in philosophy and his accurate knowledge of modern science, along with his remarkable historic con- sciousness, make him equally happy in tracing effects to causes, in viva- cious narrative, or when dealing with stirring incidents and graphic details. Nor does he omit upon occasion to draw lessons from the past for our pres- ent guidance, and now and then to point a very opportune moral. His next contribution to American history will be The Dutch and Quaker Colo- nies, which are promised without much delay, and will be warmly wel- comed by a host of readers. The purpose of the founder of the Smithsonian Institution, as stated in his will, “ the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,” has been more fully achieved by the group of men who constituted its officers during its first fifty years than even James Smithson himself could have expected. His motto has been faithfully adhered to, and as a result its workers and laboratories are probably more widely known among scientists than those of any other American institution. Its close connection with the Govern- ment has not been the least of its difficulties, and the consistency with which anything savoring of politics has been avoided reflects great credit on the officials. It is to these latter that whatever success the Smithsonian has achieved belongs. The simple subsidizing of an institution is but a step in its foundation. That the Smithsonian has been singularly favored in its officials, its present position implies. Joseph Henry, Spencer F’. Baird, and Samuel Pierpont Langley, its three secretaries, are all names of high repute in pure science; as also those of men combining in a most unusual way ex- ecutive ability with the true scientific spirit. Its minor workers have been equally efficient in their special departments and have also contributed largely to the success of the institution. In fact, the Smithsonian is one of the few scientific national enterprises of which we can be entirely proud. The present volume * is published in honor of its fiftieth anniversary, and to commemorate its first fifty years’ work. A brief preface by William McKinley and a paragraph by the present secretary serve to introduce the reader. The first chapter gives a history of the founder, James Smithson. An account of the founding of the institution and the board of regents and the work of the three secretaries occupies the next three chapters and is by James Brown Goode, who was to have seen the volume through the press, and whose untimely death not only much delayed the latter’s issue, but made a vacancy in the institution which it will be difficult to fill. The benefactors of the Smithsonian and their bequests are next taken up by Professor Langley. Since the original endowment, which was about $700,- 000, there has been received over a quarter of a million more; $250,000 of this latter amount was given by Thomas George Hodgson, whose curious and eventful life is briefly sketched by Professor Langley. A number of smaller bequests are also spoken of. The United States National Museum, the Smithsonian Library, and the general buildings and equipment of the * The Smithsonian Institution, 1946-1896. The History of its First Half Century. Edited by George Brown Goode. City of Washington. 1897. VOL, Lin.—11

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130 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. latter are described in a chapter by G. Brown Goode. The Bureau of Amer ican Ethnology, one of the most efficient of the Government’s scientific departments, is treated of by W J McGee. Several other papers calling attention to various outside scientific enterprises instituted by the Smith- sonian, the international exchange system, the National Zodlogical Park, etc., are concluded by an appreciative sketch of G. Brown Goode by David Starr Jordan ; and finally we have a series of papers under the heading, Ap- preciations of the Work of the Smithsonian Institution, which occupy the last three hundred pages. A number of excellently executed portraits add much to the attractiveness of the volume, which is in purpose, contents, and mechanical execution a worthy monument to the institution which it describes. GENERAL By the Sun’s Place in Nature* Sir Nor- man Lockyer means the stage of stellar evo- lution through which the sun is passing. This subject and the constitution of the sun, the source of its light and heat, and the na- ture and history of meteorites, stars, and nebulz, as they may throw light upon what is going on in the sun, have been the objects of Professor Lockyer’s studies for a long period. The results of twenty-five years’ investigation of the subject and the conclu- sions the author had matured have been published in the books The Chemistry of the Sun and The Meteoric Hypothesis. Their most important points were, as regards the general question, that there is the closest possible connection between nebule and stars, they representing two stages in an evolutionary series: that the first or nebu- lous stage in the development of cosmical bodies is not a mass of hot gas, but a swarm of cold meteorites; that some of the heav- enly bodies must be increasing their tem- perature, while others are decreasing; and that therefore a new classification is de- manded, based on the varying states of con- densation of the meteoric swarms. Great advances have been made in physical astron- omy since these books were published. Larger telescopes have been in operation; the sys- tem of mountain observations has been estab- lished and carried on; spectroscopic obser- vations and astronomical photography have been energetically prosecuted ; nove or new stars have come and gone; and the mysteri- ous element, helium, of the solar spectrum, * The Sun’s Place in Nature. By Sir Norman Lockyer. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 860. Price, $2.75. NOTICES. has been found on the earth. A new dis- cussion seems to be required in view of these recent developments, and is given in the pres- ent work. Vogel’s classification of stars based upon the supposition that all the stars are cooling is set by the side of the author’s view in the face of the new evidence, and the conclusion is reached that the result of the test is in favor of the latter; that some stel- lar bodies are increasing their temperature, while others are reducing it; that the sun is cooling in a similar stage with that of Arctu- rus and Capella; that the theory that the primal nebula of the sun was not exclusively gaseous, but only contained gases among its constituents ; and also that in general, “along all lines, the fundamental requirements of the meteoric hypothesis have been strengthened by the later work.” Professor Curtis’s Tezxt-Book of General Botany * is intended as an introduction to the study of the science, and not as a substi- tute for any of the books designed for persons who would know something of botany and have but little time at their disposal. The text is based upon the laboratory work re- quired of beginners at Columbia University. The book being intended for a single year’s work, rigid compression and broad gener- alization have been compelled. The author emphasizes the importance of guarding the student “against the peril of making him dependent upon directions and so defeating one aim of the work, the making of self- reliant, intelligent observers. The student should see everything, but first and clearly * A Text-Book of General Botany. By Carlton C. Curtis. New York : Longmans, Green & Co, Pp. 359. Price, $3.

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the essentials of each exercise and as many modifications of it as possible. For this rea- son a variety of species has been used rather than a few types, since, if our experience is not at fault, this assists rather than confuses our comprehension of the subject, and above all prevents those false generalizations and conceptions that must follow a narrow study of forms. The student should collect and prepare his own material. The anatomy of the plant body, plant physiology, systematic botany, and plant morphology are treated in succession. In his Afloat on the Ohio,* the Secretary of the Wisconsin State Historical Society has given us a book that may be read with pleas- ure and profit by every lover of American history and advancement and by persons who enjoy beautiful scenery or are fond of sketches of personal idiosyncrasies as well. The author’s primary object in making the pilgrimage was historical; that appears on every page of the narrative as well as in his own avowal that his purpose was to gather “local color” for work in Western history, the Ohio River having been an important factor in the development of the West and in the making of the nation and of its great- ness to a much more predominant extent than we are accustomed, in our superficial view, to realize. The party of four, voyag- ing in a skiff, floated down the stream by day and camped on the shore at night; and they contrived to have some shopping to do at every town so as to get more opportuni- ties to explore. Their very starting-place— Redstone, or Brownsville, at the mouth of Redstone Creek—is famous in history, be- ginning even with its prehistoric founda- tions, and is memorable for having been the first English agricultural settlement west of the Alleghanies, and for its prominence as a post in the frontier wars; and it was only the portal, as it were, to the succession of historical sites that are distributed along the whole length of the great river. The de- scriptions of the ever-varying scenery of the river, which are given in a few happy touches here and there, are another element of attractiveness in the narrative. At the * Afloat on the Ohio. An Historical Pilgrim- age of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff from Redstone to Cairo. Chicago: Way & Williams. SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 131 beginning of the voyage are the manufactur- ing establishments, forming an almost con- tinuous line for miles along either shore of the river; farther down it is more rural, with wide bottoms on one side, sharp bluffs and high hills on the other, alternating with one another, broad meadows, cultivated farms, and forests; towns that were pros- perous in the days of steamboating, and now falling into decay, and other towns that have brought railroads to themselves and are busy and prosperous; changing below Louisville into broad reaches of meadow, with the hills receding far away; and then the bayous and swamps: truly the Ohio is a stream of many aspects. It is a surprise to learn how the more obscure parts have been left behind by the railroads, which have built up and developed the inland towns at their expense, and how primitive the rural populations still remain. In order to give a clearer idea of the history which is inter- woven with the narrative, a historical out- line of the settlement of the Ohio is given in the appendix; and this is followed by a biblicgraphy. “It is time,” the author says, “that our Western and Southern folk were awakened to an appreciation of the fact that they have a history at their doors quite as significant in the annals of civilization as that which induces pilgrimages to Ticon- deroga and Bunker Hill.” The soil of the subconscious forms a fer- tile ground for the experimental labors of Dr. Sidis,* and he harvests there a large crop of new ideas in regard to the laws and conditions that govern suggestibility. This state of mind is one open to suggestion, but the latter term is not given its ordinary sig- nificance of an external idea which influ- ences the mental attitude. Neither is it confined to the technical definitions of the psychologists of Salpétriére and Nancy who employ it mainly in their studies of the neu- rotic. Our author by definition and illustra- tion furnishes a clear conception of his spe- cial use of the word. “By suggestion is meant the intrusion into the mind of an idea, met with more or less opposition by the person, accepted uncritically at last, and realized unreflectively, almost automatically.” *The Psychology of Suggestion. By Boris Sidix, M.A., Ph.D. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 386. Price, $1.15.

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132 To investigate suggestibility in normal individuals, Dr. Sidis conducted over eight thousand experiments. These consisted of letters, figures, or colors displayed for a few seconds and arranged variously so as to demonstrate whether frequency, repetition, coexistence, or last impression influence the greater number in their choice. An exhibi- tion of colored shapes revealed the extent to which strangeness of tint, shape, or position were factors in the decision. Movements and acts were also verbally suggested, and from them all the law of normal suggestibility was deduced ; it increases as the suggestion becomes indirect. Examining hysterical, hyp- notic, and somnambulistic subjects revealed the law of abnormal suggestibility, which is the reverse of the former. Its strength is in direct suggestion. The conditions under which a suggestion is effective are found to be nearly the same in normal and abnormal instances, fixation of attention, monotony, limitation of movement, inhibition of ideas. These divorce the higher controlling con- sciousness from the lower reflex conscious- ness, so that suggestibility is simply “a cleft of mind,” a disaggregation of consciousness. By a number of experiments, Dr. Sidis ar- rives at the conclusion that even in normal subjects the subconscious self possesses a superacute sense-perception. The phenom- ena of crystal-gazing, shell-hearing, and auto- matic writing he accepts also as “‘ facts that clearly reveal the presence of this hyper- wsthetic consciousness.” Although in sev- eral instances the subconscious self is called an ego and endowed with personality, “it must not be regarded as an individual; only as a form of mental life.” According to Dr. Sidis’s researches, man may be occasionally social, or even rational, but he is, above all, a suggestible animal. In this characteristic of his nature lies the explagation of the mental epidemics that ravage nations. The crowd swayed by the flattering orator, the mob that lynches de- fenseless men or sacks Versailles—are exhi- bitions of the soulless, senseless, secondary self ordinarily dormant. It is shown as well in the uniformity of manner and fashion that is the creed of society, but this mani- festation does not excite alarm. The same unreasoning consciousness obtains the mas- tery in speculative fevers and panics, in POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. revival meetings, witchcraft delusions, and popular crazes of all sorts. Having unveiled for us this uncanny spirit—“ the subconscious self, devoid of all morality”"—a clew for its exorcism may be found in a description of the primary self, “which alone possesses true personality, will, and self-control, . . . creates ideals and struggles for them.” The outlook, however, for the growth of this better consciousness would be a very gloomy one were it true, as our author states, that “under the crushing pressure of economical, political, and reli- gious regulations there is no possibility for the individual to move, live, and think free. ly, or determine his own relations in life.” This prognosis would deaden all effort; and its faultiness is shown by the fact that, how- ever difficult it may be, a minority do find it possible to live and think freely and to culti- vate that personality which is a lasting safe- guard against all unreasoning action. A Manual of Fish Culture* has been prepared by the United States Fish Com- mission under the feeling that a handbook describing its manner of propagating the different fishes was needed, and would be of value to all persons interested in the subject. The material for this book has been fur- nished by experienced fish culturists connect- ed with the commission, who have treated of the subjects with which they were especially familiar. In order to increase the usefulness of the work to the general reader, a technical description of each important fish is given, together with brief information respecting its geographical distribution, habits, movements, size, growth, food, natural spawning, and other characteristics. While the operations described are essentially those of the National Commission, they are usually the same as those employed by the State commissions and individual fish culturists, while in some instances excellent work is done by other methods, Among the fishes coming under review are the salmon, trout, whitefish, shad, basses, and other fresh-water fishes ; the cod, mackerel, flatfish, and other salt-water fishes, and lobsters, frogs, oysters, and clams ; trans- * A Manual of Fish Culture. Based on the Methods of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, with Chapters on the Cultivation of Oysters and Frogs. Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp. 840, with 35 plates.

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| portation of fish and fish eggs, spawning seasons, the character of fresh eggs, and periods of incubation are also treated. Lieutenant Butts’s Manual of Physical Drill * is a useful book generally, and not in the army alone. Its object is to systematize physical training in the army and to furnish a practical guide that will enable any officer to give regular and beneficial instruction to his command. [Illustration is largely used, as being the simplest mode of description. The exercises are supposed to be controlled by music, of which two schedules are fur- nished, and are arranged in sets of five each— adapted to other music in many of the drills —and are made to follow one another so closely as to compel the attention of the men and demand concentration of mind upon the work in hand. The work is introduced with brief remarks on the method of instruction, dress, hygiene, bathing, general rules, etc., and includes rifle drill, bar and dumb-bell drill, calisthenics, Indian clubs, running, wall scaling, work with the various articles of gymnastic apparatus, athletic games and contests, and related exercises. The direc- tions are very brief, but plain and explicit. The value of the work depends largely upon the illustrations, a considerable proportion of which are from the life, by instantaneous photography. Mr. 7Jeall recognizes in the beginning of his lessons on Punctuation + the difficulties in the art, and the failure of authors to agree upon a reasonable and consistent sys- tem. It is, in fact, a matter into which the personal equation enters to a much larger extent than is generally suspected. Each writer has his own moods, his own shades of meaning, and his own emphases to express, of which he alone is conscious, but which he wishes to convey to others; and for this, punctuation is his resource. Hence a punctu- ation proper for one author might not be suitable to another, even though he may have seemingly the same thoughts, the same words, and the same construction of sentences. * Manual of Physical Drill, United States Army. By First Lieutenant Edmand L. Butts. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 175. Price, $1.25. + Punctuation, with Chapters on Hypheniza- tion, Capitalization, and Spelling. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 198. Price, $1. SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 133 There can, therefore, be no hard and-fast rules for the details of punctuation. The effort in Mr. Teall’s treatise has been to re- duce the number of actual rules to the fewest possible. Principles have been considered as much as possible, and the rules given are, with the exception of a few that it seemed impossible to reduce to that basis, really concise statements of principle. Much detail that other authors have subjected to special rules thus becomes here mere exemplifica- tion under general rules. We have received No. 4 of the second part of Vol. II of the Bulletin of the Geo- logical Institution of the University of Upsala, Sweden, edited by Hj Sjéznen. It contains articles in German on the Cambrian and Silurian phosphorus bearing rocks of Sweden, by John Gunner Anderssen ; Graptolites, by Carl Wiman; Peat Bog Investigations, by Rutger Servander and Knut Kjellmark—all accompanied by fine illustrative plates; and in English, Notes on the Structure and De- velopment of the Turfmorr Stormur in Ges- trikland, by Gustaf Helsing, and Proceed- ings of the Geological Section of the Associ- ation of Natural Science at the University of Upsala. The Transactions of the Nineteenth An- nual Meeting of the American Microscopical Society, held at Pittsburg in August, 1896, form a volume of upward of 400 pages, and comprise various papers on Histology, Photo- micography, Astronomical Photography, the Rotifers of Sandusky Bay, Water Supply, the Bacteriology of Diphtheria, and kindred subjects, chiefly in biology; together with methods of teaching microscopical science. Numerous full-page plate illustrations are given. xhe second part of the voluminous re- port of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1895-96 contains elaborate summaries of the usual character concerning various educational matters at home and abroad. The first article is on education in Sweden and Iceland. It is followed by brief accounts of upward of fifty institutions char- acterized as “typical,” that offer manual or industrial training. Dr. Gabriel OCom- paryé’s criticism of higher and secondary education in the United States is reproduced from his report as delegate to the Chicago

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134 Exposition. A short article is given on mental fatigue in school. The Bertillon sys- tem as a means of suppressing the business of living by crime is explained in a chapter entitled Current Discussions. Several of the papers relate to esthetic cultivation in con- nection with manual training and to deco- rative art; another chapter is given to art decorations in schoolrooms; and another treats as “current questions” of teachers’ mutual benevolent associations and pension laws, coeducation, compulsory school attend- ance, transportation of children to school, and temperance instruction ; and there are statistical chapters on agricultural and in- dustrial education in the United States and other countries, education in Alaska, city school systems, commercial and business schools, professional schools, education of the colored race, schools for the defective classes, reform schools, and other schools. The sixteenth annual Report of the Bu- reau of American Ethnology, besides Mr. Powell’s administrative report giving details of the work of the bureau month by month, and by departments, contains papers on Prim- itive Trepanning in Peru, by M. A. Mufiiz and W J McGee ; Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chel- ly, Arizona, by Cosmos Mendeleff ; Day Sym- bols of the Maya Year, by Cyrus Thomas ; and Tusayan Snake Ceremonies, by J. Walter Fewkes. We have also Dr. Thomas’s Day Symbols of the Maya Yeur in a separate pub- lication. We have the first number, October, 1897, of the American Quarterly Economist, pub- lished at 15 East Eleventh Street, New York, a magazine devoted to the interests of economical science. It advances a for- mula for the conception of the point of equi- hbrium of the wages of labor which it pro- poses to demonstrate. This initial number has articles on A New Theory of Value and Price ; Labor, its Price; and how affected by the Use of Machinery ; Machinery; and Suc- cess of Nations. Pp. 31. $1 a year. Uncle Robert's Visit is the third book in the series Uncle Robert’s Geography of Ap- pletons’ Home-Reading Books. This series is edited by Colonel Francis W. Parker, one of the most eminent and successful teachers in the country. He believes in putting life into the schools, and has done it wherever POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. he has been, and designs the geography series to help teachers put life into their teaching in the primary classes. Uncle Robert comes to the farm and talks to the children, assisting them at the same time to observe and experimentbout the map of the farm, the thermometer, the animals, flow- ers, sunlight and shadow, barometer, woods, birds, thundershower, railroad, the rainy day, etc., and the things which these suggest and illustrate, always having the geograph- ical bearing well in view. So far as is pos- sible each child is left to discover facts for himself and make original inferences—an example which the teacher may follow to a reasonable extent, taking care that the child’s desire for knowledge is in the end satisfied. The name of Nellie Lathrop Helm is asso- ciated with that of Dr. Parker in the author- ship of the book. New York: D. Appleton & Co. We have from the Macmillan Company the first four volumes of a series of six Sci- ence Readers for the schoolroom or the house, by Vincent T. Murché, revised and adapted by Mrs. L. L. Wilson (price, 25 and 40 cents each). They are intended to be used as reading books or text-books or as the bases of object lessons in the secondary and gram- mar grades, and the teacher is expected to illustrate them by object exhibitions and experiments before giving them to the chil- dren. The lessons are consecutive in groups of which the members depend severally upon the preceding one, and concern the properties of bodies ; the nature, growth, and structure of plants; the common types of animals; minerals and metals; the phe- nomena of the weather; and, generally, the conditions around us. The Open Court Company, Chicago, pub- lish a second edition of the Popular Sci- entific Lectures of Dr. Ernst Mach, revised and enlarged. The additions consist of the author’s Vienna inaugural lecture on The Part played by Accident in Invention and Discovery, a lecture on the Sensations of Orientation, and two historical articles on Acoustics and Sight. The lectures are of the highest order, as to both matter and manner, thoroughly scientific and adapted to popular understanding. One of the pur- poses which the author seeks to carry out in

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them is to show the substantial sameness of scientific and everyday thought, by perceiv- ing which the public loses its shyness toward scientific questions and acquires an interest SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE.

135 in scientific work that is a great help to the inquirer, and he is brought to understand that his work is only a small part of the uni- versal process of life. P.ic , $1. PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. jee Experiment Stations. Bulletins and Reports. Cornell University: No. 142. The Codling Moth. By M. V. Slingeriand. Pp. 69; No. 143. Sugar-Beet Investigations. Pp. 81.— Delaware College: No. 88. Apple Culture. B G. H. Powell. . 20.—Michigan State Agricul- tural College: No. 149. Feeding Dairy Cows. By C.D. Smith. Pp. 56; No. 150. Su By C. D. Smith and R. C. Kedzie. Pp. 36.—New Jersey: No. 128. The Peach Borer and Experi- ments with Hydraulic Cement. . 28: Report of the Botani . 138.— New York: No. 120. A New Disease of Sweet Corn. Popular edition. Pp. 5: No. 181. Oat New Preventives. Popular edition. No. 133. Gooseberry Mildew. By C. P. Pp. 12 (and popular edition, pp. 5); No. 144.—Analyses of Commercial Fertilizers. By L. L. Van Slyke. . 40; No. 135. Sugar Beets. By L. L. Van Slyke, W. H. Jordan, and G. W. Churchill. Pp. 32.—Ohio: No. 88. Co-operative Experiments by Students’ Union. Pp. 32; No. 89. Diseases of Cucumbers, Melons, and Toma- toes. Pp. 24.—United States [ epartment of Agri- culture: No. 22. The Periodical Cicada in 1897. Pp. 4; No. 23. The Buffalo Tree Hopper. Pp. 4; No. 24. The Two-lined Chestnut Borer. > 8; The Ox Warble. Pp. 10; The Pear Slug. Bo Department for 1897. Pp. 5; Case. The Mexican Cotton-Ball Weevil in 1897. by E. A. Schwartz, C. L. Marlatt, F. H. Chitten- ) ~A and L. O. Howard, Assistant Entomolo- gists).—No. 12. The San José Scale in 1896 and 1897. By L. O. Howard. Pp. 42.—University of Wisconsin: No. 65. A Bacterial Rot of Cabbage and Allied Plants. Pp. 39.—Washington State Agricultural College and School of Science: No. 31. Sugar-Beet Culture in the Yakima Valley. By Eiton Fulmer. Pp. 80, with Irrigation Map. American Physical Education Review. Vol. II, No. 4. Boston: American Association for the Advancement of Physical Education. Quarterly. Pp. 64. 50 cents; $1.50 a year. Arthur, J. C., and MacDou; Plants and their Properties. & Taylor. Pp. 234. $1.25. Authors’ Circular (The). Vol. I, No. 1. don. Monthly. Pp.16. 5 shillings a year. Ayer, N. W., and Sons. American Newepaper Annual, 1898. Philadelphia: N. W. Ayer & Sons. Pp. 1504. $5. Bailey, G. H. The Tutorial Chemistry. Part Il. Metals. Edited by William Briggs. Lon- don: W. B. Clive. New York: Hinds & Noble, 4 Cooper Institute. Pp. 300. $1. Bulletins, Reports, Proceedings, etc. Acad- emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Pro- ceedin; 1807. Part III, October to December. Pp. 240,” with plates.—American Philosophical Society. Proceedings, December, 1897. . 180. —Bureau of American Republics. Monthly Bul- letin, February, 1898. Washington. . 240. 50 cents; $2 a year.—Department of Labor. Bulletin for March, 1898. Carroll D. Wright and Owen W. Weaver, Editors. Washington. Pp. 150.—Michi- gan. Monthly Bulletin of Vital Statistics, Febru- ary, 1898. Pp. 20.—Wugner Free Institute of Sci- ence, of Philadelphia. Transactions, January. 1898. Pp. 66, with plates.—Minnesota Botanica} Studies. Bulletin No. 9, March 2, 1808 (title-page, . 118.—National Science Club, . Journal, February, 1898. . 29.— New England Free-Trade ue. Debate on Equitable Protection between David Luben and Hon. John E. Russell. Pp. 33.—New York State Library Bulletin. Legisiation. No. 9. sla- tion by States in 1897. Pp. 150.—Perkins ti- , D. T. Living ew York: Baker Lon-

tution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. Sixty-sixth Annual Report, 1897. Pp. 264.—The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, Febru- ary, 1898. . 8. Clark, Charles H. A Laboratory Manual in Practical Botany. American Book Company. Pp. 271. 96 cents. Del Mar, Alexander. How to Keep our Gold. New York: The Author. Pp. 15. De Witt, T. H. Benton. Correspondence be- tween an Amateur and a Professor of Political Economy. Philadelphia. Pp. 19. aw, ag A Theory of Life deduced from ut the Evolution eee: London: Williams & Norgate. Pp. 34. 1 shilling. Fairhurst, Arthur. Organic Evolution Con- sidered. St. Louis: Christian Publishing Com- pany. Pp. 386. - Fitz giz on Philosophy f the umanities. cago: University of Chicago Gerhard, William Paul. Sanitary E neering. New York: Published by the Author. . 182. Greene, George K. Contribution to Indiana Paleontology. PartI. Pp. 7, with plates, Hall, Ansiey. The Herring Industry of the Passamaguoddy Region, Maine. United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Pp. 48. Harris, W. T. Psychologic Foundations of Education. New York: D. Appleton and Com- pany. Henderson, John. Practical Electricity and Magnetism. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 388. Hickson, 8.J. The — { of Life in the Seas. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 173. 40 cents. Belyoain, George Jacob. The Jubilee History of the ds Industrial Co-operative Society, from 1847 to 1897. Leeds, England: General Co-opera- tive Offices. Pp. 260. Interstate Commerce Commission. cf Railways in the United States. Report, June, 1896. Pp. 709. Jayne, Horace. Mammalian Anatomy: A Preparation for Human and Comparative Anat- omy. PartI. The Skeleton of the Cat. Phila- delphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp. 816. Subscription, $5. Le Dantec, F. Evolution individue! et Hérédité. Théory de la Variation quantitative (Individual Statistics Ninth Annual Evolution and Heredity. Theory of Quantitative Variation). Paris: Félix Alcan. p. 8. 6 francs Mallock, W. H. Aristocracy and Evolution. = York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 385. “Mann, N.M. Glimpses of Eternity. The New Heaven and the New Karth. Omaha, Neb.: H.S8. Mann. 5 cente each. Modern Education. Thomas J. Allen, Editor. uarterly. Aurora, Ill.: Aurora Modern College. . 82. 25 cents a year. Millspaugh, C. F. Contribution III to the Coastal and Plain Flora of Yucatan. Field Co- lumbian Museum. Chicago. Pp. 64 Overton, Frank. Applied Physiol<gy for Ad- vanced Courses. American Book Company. Pp. 432. #80 cents. Pearson, H American Book . 14.— . 14. C, Greek Prose Composition. Company. Pp. 187. 90 cents.

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Cn ne ne Ramsey, George M. Philosophy of Phenom- ena. Boston: Bonner of Light Publishing Com- pany. Pp. 208. Reprints. Allen, Arthur: Extra-organic Evo- Intion. . 2.—Babcock, 8. M., and Russell, H. L.: ween Rag gp 3 in Milk; .. we By | in e ng eese. . 82.—Bangs, Out- ram: The Land Mammals be Peninsular Florida and the Coast Region of Georgia. Pp. 80.—Brig- A. P.: To phy and Glacial Deposits of Mohawk Valley. . 82. with map.—Chamberlain, C.J.: Winter Characters of Certain Sporangia. Pp. 5, with plate.—Coulter, J. M.: Contribution to the Life History of Ranunculus. . 16, with lates.—Dorsey, G. A.: The Socqmaey of the imsian Indians. Pp.7; A Copper Mask from Chimbote, Peru. PP. 2, with plates.—Herter, C. A., M. D.: On Certain Relations between Bacte- rial Activity in the Intestine and the Indican of the Urine. Pp. 4; Some Aspects of the Doctrine of Autointoxication. Pp.20.—Hollick, Arthur: A New Fossil Grass from Staten Island; A New Fossil Monocotyledon from the Yellow Gravel at Bridgeton, N. J.; and Affinities of Caulinites Ad. Brong. . 8, with plates —Kemp, J. F.: Physi- ography of the Eastern Adirondacks in the Cam- brian and Ordovician Periods. Pp. 6, with plate. —Miller, M. L.: A Preliminary Study of the Pueblo of Taos, New Mexico. Pp. 48, with plates. —Newhberry, J.8.: New Species and a New Genus of American Paleozoic Fishes, etc. (edited by Bashford Dean). Pp. 24, with plates.—Prosser, C. 8.: The Permian and es ad arboniferous of Southern Kansas. Pp. 28.—Prudden, T. Mitchell: Pathology and the Department of Patholo Columbian University). > 20.—Reeve, C. H., lymouth, Ind.: Money. hat it ie. Its Only Function. Pp. 16.—Franklin Institute: Smoke Nuisance, The, and its Regulation, with Special 136 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. Reference to the Condition prevailing in Phila- delphia (Improved Furnaces, Automutic Stokers, etc.). Pp. 91.—Stuver, E.: The Relation of Food, Air, and Exercise to Healthy Growth and Devel- opment. Pp. 7.—White, T. D.: A Contribution to the Petrography of the Boston Basin. . 40, with plates; The Original Trenton Rocks. = 3. Rotch, A. Lawrence. Observations made at the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in 1896. Cambridge, Mass., Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College. Pp. 128, with plates. Smithsonian Institution. Report of the United States National Museum for 1895. Pp. 1080.—A Catalogue of Earthquakes on the Pacific Coast, 1769 to 1897 (Smithsonian Contributions to Know]- edge). By E. 8. Holden. Pp. 253.—A Revision of Tropical African Diplopoda, of the Family Strongylosomatide. By O. F. Cook. Pp. 14. St. Amand, Imbert de. NapoleonIII and = New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 407. Spencer, J. W. Great Changes of Level in Mexico and the Interoceanic Connections. Roch- ae N. Y.: The Geological Society of America. Tappeiner, Dr. H. Introduction to Chemical Methods of Clinical Diagnosis. Translated by E. J. McWheeney. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 152. United States Commission of Fish and Fish- eries. Report of the Commissioner for the Year ending June 30, 1897. Pp. 171. Vincent, Frank. The Animal World: Its Romances and Realities. A Reading Book in ZoSlogy. New York: D. Appleton ant Company. Pp. 24u. 60 cents. Fragments Folklore of the Yew Tree.— Various rea- sons are cited by Dr. John Lowe, in his book on yew trees, as having been given to account for the planting of yews in churchyards. The yew is said to be sacred, the Druids having sacrificed in groves of them, and the character of the tree having been preserved when Christianity superseded Druidism. Evelyn thought that the trees were planted there so as to have them handy to furnish branches for processions, and other authors believed they furnished a substitute for the sacred palm. The yew is, in fact, still called palm by rustics in East Kent. One writer affirms that the evergreen was con- sidered typical of the immortality of the soul. The supposition that the tree was planted to afford shelter to the buildings is contradicted by the fact that the yews are seldom large enough or near enough to the church to protect it. Dr. Lowe believes that these churchyard trees were planted in order to insure a continual supply of bow staves for the English bowmen. A general planta- of Science. tion of yew trees for the use of archers was directed in the reign of Richard III, afid in the reign of Elizabeth they were ordered planted in churchyards to insure their culti- vation and protect cattle from their leaves. Foreign as well as English yew was used for bows, and the rate of prices fixed by an act of Elizabeth indicates that the foreign was preferred. The best bows, it is said, were made of Spanish yew. The yew tree has poisonous properties which affect both men and animals when they eat too copiously of it, and a drug of considerable value is ex- tracted from it. English schoolboys are said to be fond of taking the small red fruit of the yew into their mouths, chewing it, and then spitting it out, while they are careful not to swallow any. The berries when thus used go by the name of “ spitagobs.” Predeterminate Seleetion.—Telesis is the name given by Lester F. Ward to that prin- ciple or that faculty of mind which pursues some definite end. It is further explained

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FRAGMENTS as the law of mind, in contradistinction to the process or principle according to which evolution in general takes place, and which the author calls the law of Nature; not that telesis is not also a natural law; but it is utterly unlike the other law, came forward at a late stage in the history of cosmic evolu- tion, and seems to have inaugurated a new order of things. In dealing with the animal world the law of Nature is replaced by that of reason in destroying the tendencies of the wild state and substituting complete sub- mission to man’s will, or domestication. By a process of artificial selection, which sup- plants that of natural selection, those quali- ties which are most useful to man are ren- dered more and more prominent until most domesticated animals undergo profound physical modifications in the direction of utility. These modifications are not always also in the line of natural evolution, but, so far as the particular qualities selected are concerned, they usually are so, and in many cases careful breeding improves the whole animal, so that man becomes a powerful ally of evolution itself. This is not disproved by the fact that such improved races usually revert more or less to their original condi- tion when human influence is withdrawn ; but the fact establishes another law of biol- ogy; viz., that natural selection does not secure the survival of the fittest in the strug- gle for existence. It merely fixes the exact position which each species is capable of holding in the general competition. This is far below what it might attain if competition were removed. Exactly what man does is to remove this competition, and the immense progress that every species makes is shown in the improvement of the stock under man’s intelligent care. Substantially the same re- sults have attended the operation of the telic power on the vegetable kingdom. The display of individual telesis on inanimate objects and natural forces has been the mainspring of human progress; and the defi- nition of civilization is reached that it is the utilization of the materials and forces of Nature. Decorative Art of the Northwestern In- dians,—The decorative art of the Indians of the North Pacific coast—the subjects of which are almost exclusively animals—is OF SCIENCE. 137 characterized by Mr. Franz Boas, as differing from other arts in that it is less convention- alized and geometrical, and the parts of the body may still be recognized as such, al- though liberties have been taken with their size and arrangement. The objects deco- rated are always of practical use, and the carvings are subordinated to them and limit- ed by their shape. Carving is done mostly in wood, but also in stone and horn, and is usually in the round, in bas-relief, or, al- though more rarely, in high relief. In con- sequence of the adaptation of the form to the decorative field, the native artist can not attempt an artistic representation of the ob- ject, but is compelled to indicate only its main characteristics. In consequence of the distortion of the animal body due to its adap- tation to various surfaces, the animal meant would be hardly recognizable if the artist did not emphasize what he considers its charac- teristic features, and these in many cases be- come its symbol. Yet, while the symbolism develops a tendency to suppress parts of the animal, we find in the efforts of the artist to adapt the form of the creature to the deco- rative field a desire to preserve, as far as is feasible, its whole figure; and with the ex- ception of a few profiles, we do not find a single instance that can be interpreted as an endeavor to give a perspective and therefore realistic view of the animal. The represen- tations are combinations of symbols of the various parts of the body, arranged in such a way that if possible the whole animal is brought into view. A tendency is manifest to exaggerate the symbols at the expense of other parts of the subject. The Chinese Oil Tree.—We find the fol- lowing interesting information in the Con- sular Reports, vol. liv, No. 205: The wood- oil tree (Aleurites cordata) belongs to a family very common in China, known as the Tung. It is mentioned in some of the oldest books of the Chinese, where it is praised for its beautiful flowers and for the peculiar value of its wood in the manufacture of lutes. The leaves, bark, and flowers of certain va- rieties are used in medicine. The variety from which the oil is obtained is known as the ying-tzu tung, so called from the shape of its fruit—ying meansa jar. Oil is said to be derived from other varieties, but it is the

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138 ying tzu tung which is especially cultivated for this purpose. It is found chiefly in Hunan, Hupeh, and Szechuen. It attains a height of from ten to twenty-five feet. It has large, beautiful leaves, small pink-white flow- ers, and a green fruit somewhat like an apple. The seeds are large and poisonous, and it is from them that the oil is expressed. The fruit is gathered in August and September. The machinery used for extracting the oil is very rude, consisting of wooden presses with wedges. The oil is usually of a light color, somewhat resembling linseed oil, and emits a nauseous odor. The principal place of ex- port is Hankow, whence in 1895 there were shipped, chiefly to Chinese ports, 38,714,112 pounds, the value of which amounted to $1,162,524.80. The oil is used in the manu- facture of paint and varnish, waterproof pa- per, and umbrellas, and in western China, it appears, for lightingalso. The greater part, however, is consumed in calking, for which purpose it is everywhere used in China. In applying it to the bottom of boats it is put on hot, but for parts not commonly sub- merged it is used cold. The upper part of a Chinese boat is oiled once or twice a month. Soot from the burned oil and nut is also ex- tensively used in making ink. On the Summit of Mauna Loa.—Dr. H. B. Guppy recently published an interesting ac- count of a three weeks’ sojourn on the sum- mit of Mauna Loa. Many curious observa- tions were made. The air was at first highly electrified. A red blanket used by Dr. Guppy crackled under his hands at night, and he could trace letters on the surface in phos- phorescent lines with his finger nails. The effects of these meteorological conditions soon showed themselves in the cessation of the action of the skin, in severe headaches and sore throat, in a tendency to palpitation and dyspnoea, and in sleeplessness, general lassitude, and loss of appetite. These symp- toms were attributed to the extreme dryness of the air; for, when a short spell of damp weather intervened, most of the unpleasant symptoms disappeared. Another interest- ing phenomenon was observed every morn- ing and evening. For about twenty minutes after sunrise and before sunset the shadow of the mountain was thrown back against the sky of the opposite horizon. The aver- POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. age range of daily temperature was found to be about twice as great as at the coast. In order to familiarize himself with the crater, Dr. Guppy adopted the method of making a rough plan with a pocket prismatic compass, In some places the lava crust was thin and fragile, and there was always the chance of a sudden fall into a subterranean cavern, His descent into the crater was made on the northwest side. During dry, clear weather smoke is only evident at two places in the crater: one near the center, and the other in the southwest corner from the base of a yellowish cliff, where there are apparently extensive deposits of sulphur. When, how- ever, the sky is clouded, and especially when the air is moist, white vapor may be seen arising from the greater part of the surface of the crater. The explanation seems to be that this vapor is escaping all the time, but is only visible when the air contains a large quantity of moisture. A very large amount of vapor is discharged from the borders of a small crater lying near Pohaku Hanalei, and this is the smoke sometimes observed from the Kona coast. It is probable that the next eruption will occur on this, the south- southwest, slope of the mountain. Strange to say, a considerable amount of insect life was observed. Butterflies, moths, gnats, bees, and house flies were quite numerous, and in noticeably larger numbers when the wind was southerly. No doubt, they had all been brought up to this absolutely sterile region by air currents. The American Association, 1898.—The officers of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the local com- mittees are preparing to make the meeting for 1898 of the association, to be held in Boston, August 22d to 27th, which will be its fiftieth anniversary, or jubilee meeting, worthy of the occasion and of the honorable record the association has made for itself. It is re- alized that the anniversary gives promise of being the most important scientific gathering ever held in the United States. Many for- eign men of science have been invited to take part, and many foreign educational and sci- entific institutions are expected to send dele- gates, whereby the meeting will be given an international character. Additional interest will be afforded by the meetings of affiliated

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FRAGMENTS societies to take place in connection with it. The officers of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and of the Boston Society of Ndtural History have offered the use of their halls and rooms—constituting three closely adjoining buildings. The corporation of Har- vard University will make the association its guest for a day in Cambridge ; the Essex In- stitute has arranged for a day in Salem; and there will be an excursion in the harbor, and after the meeting, trips to the White Moun- tains and Cape Cod. It is hoped that one of the results of the anniversary meeting will be an increase of the research fund of the asso- ciation, which in twenty years has grown to only six thousand dollars. All members whose names have dropped from the roll are request- ed to renew their membership, either by pay- ing back assessments and having their names replaced on the roll under their old date of election, or by re-election. Nature Stady for Farmers.—The Agri- cultural Extension work instituted by the College of Agriculture of Cornell University, in compliance with a law of the State of New York, has so far borne the shape of an at- tempt to discover the best method of teach- ing the people agriculture. The results to the present time indicate as the most efficient means of elevating the ideals and practice of the rural communities the establishment of Nature study or object-lesson study combined with field walks and incidental instruction in the principles of farm practice in the rural schools ; correspondence instruction in con- nection with reading courses; itinerant or local experiment and investigation, made chiefly as ovject lessons to farmers, and not for the purpose, primarily, of discovering scientific facts; the publication of reading bulletins which shall inspire a quickened ap- preciation of rural life; the dispatch of spe- cial agents as lecturers or teachers, or as in- vestigators of special local difficulties, or as itinerant instructors in the normal schools and before the training classes of the teach- ers’ institutes ; and the itinerant agricultural school. The farmers are found, as a whole, the report says, willing and anxious for edu- cation; but “it is astonishing, as one thinks of it, how scant and poor has been the teach- ing which has even a remote relation to the tilling of the soil; and many of our rural OF SCIENCE. 139 books seem not to have been born of any real sympathy with the farmer or any proper appreciation of his environments.” In the belief that the fundamental difficulty with our agriculture is that no attempt is made to instruct the children in matters that will awaken an interest in country life, the experi- ment was tried of visiting the rural and vil- lage schools and talking to the children about any object that presented itself at the time. The children imbibed the information with notable readiness and showed a keen interest in it, while the teacher took an almost uni- versal interest in this kind of work; so that the conviction resulted that the greatest good that can be rendered to the agricultural com- munities is to awaken an interest in Nature study on the part of teachers and children. The best way to reach these persons appears to be by short and sharp observations upon plants, insects, and other objects, and not by means of definite lectures of stated lengths. Hand Spinning.—Domestic spinning, ex- cept in its modern revival, is treated by Mr. T. Blashill, of the British Archeological As- sociation, as a lost art. Although it went out in England some fifty or sixty years ago, and in the United States a little later, it has become as completely forgotten by the world as if it had been for centuries unknown. Spindle whorls have been discovered from time to: time in deep excavations; imple- ments used in spinning may be seen in the most ancient Egyptian sculptures ; and spin- dies with the whorl attached are found in Egyptian excavations ; so that we have means of acquainting ourselves with the conditions of the art in all ages. In hand spinning with spindle and distaff there has been no progress through all these ages, and the most ancient specimens extant might be used by women who in remote countries practice band spin- ning to-day. The great wool wheel was in use as early as the fourteenth century and lingered on in Wales down to recent times. The ordinary spinning wheel was known as early as the middle of the sixteenth century, and was at first turned by hand and after- ward by the treadle. The earliest spinning wheel extant in England is believed to be in the British Museum, and is of the fourteenth century. In former times the art of spinning was a necessary accomplishment for women

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140 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. and girls, and perhaps its use was rendered more popular by the idea that it promoted grace in the female form. In the year 1721 an aged lady left considerable property to endow a school for spinning. The art was practiced in England in the drawing rooms and servants’ halls of country houses as late as 1830. Rabbit wool is spun at Aix in Savoy at the present time. Statements were made, after the reading of Mr. Blashill's pa- per, that the spinning wheel is still used in Sutherland; that “ home-spun” is made in the Isle of Lewis; and that the Bedouins in spinning use their fingers and no distaff. Child Training.—The child and the man he is destined to become, said M. Berthelot in his address on Science the Educator, are not passive beings, receivers into: which we can arbitrarily pour a certain sum of teach- ing and science, distributed more or less harmoniously—matters which they will find later in special schools and their whole life. Far from it. We should seek to develop in the child, along with memory and alertness in answering the questions of the examiner, aptitude for work and personal activity ; to excite curiosity and the initiative in the young man, and to provoke in his mind suit- able elaboration, a kind of digestion of the information hastily accumulated. In this way only can we make individual faculties and latent capacities really available. Plato teaches us to study the dispositions of our children and adapt our instruction to them so that it shall seem less like work and more like play. Hence in our first essay in instruc- tion we should try to draw out the tastes and aptitudes, in order to discern what they are and put them to profitable use. We can reach this essential result only by giving the cbild leisure enough to develop them m the special direction it prefers. But the child must have to do the work. Now the tend- ency of our systems of secondary education is to do away with this leisure of work and of personal tastes. During the years of youth, perhaps the most fruitful for mental evolution, we are eager to push the child into intellectual molds. Instead of its first ob- ject being science and letters in themselves, or the seeking for scientific truth and literary beauty, which woo the child by their intrinsic attraction, reserving till afterward the more special determination of its inclination toward some particular end, our teaching is first and almost exclusively directed with reference to the examination. The highest motives of the mind are thus suppressed or diverted from infancy. Baccalaureates and the competitions of the special schools spoil the late and most precious years of youth, those in which the individual initiatives and vocations ought to appear. Bounties and the Extermination of Nox. fous Animals.—We are informed by Mr. T. S. Palmer, of the Department of Agriculture, in a paper on the extermination of noxious animals by bounties, that “more than a score of animals in the United States are considered sufficiently injurious to require radical measures for their extermination. Wolves, coyotes, panthers, bears, and lynxes are very destructive, but perhaps do not cause greater loss than ground squirrels, pocket gophers, rabbits, and woodchucks, A few birds also, such as blackbirds, crows, English sparrows, hawks, and owls, are some- times included in the category of noxious species.” Remarking that the most plausible and persistent demands for protection from the depredations of wild animals have come from owners of sheep and cattle, and many of the laws offering bounties have been en- acted ostensibly to encourage sheep-raising, Mr. Palmer notices the curious fact that while, no doubt, this industry has many claims for protection, “the most urgent demands for bounties in the West have come, not from the farmers or owners of small flocks, but from cattle and sheep men whose immense herds and flocks are pastured on Government lands, and who claim that the cost of protect- ing their herds and flocks should be borne by the county or State.” In some regions the losses on account of wolves and coyotes are so serious as to threaten the success of the sheep industry. The author further shows that while bounty legislation has ex- isted in the United States for two centuries and a half, has called for an enormous ex- penditure, and has been thoroughly tested in most of the States and Territories, bounties have not resulted in the extermination of a single species, and have failed even in the island of Bermuda, which has an area of less than twenty square miles. The larger

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FRAGMENTS animals are gradually becoming rare, but it is through the growth of settlement rather than by the operation of bounties; and Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota have tried to rid their lands of pocket gophers and ground squirrels by offering bounties, “ but the effect of the law was far more evident on the county treasuries than on the animals.” Ancient Monuments of Ceylon.—An ink- ling to the character and extent of the an- cient cities and architectural monuments buried in the forests of that island is given in Mr. H. W. Cave’s book on The Ruined Cities of Ceylon, but yet the author has to confess that he has only touched “ the merest fringe of the great subject.” The works of which they are examples were compar- able with other massive works of antiquity, and such as we could not imagine the mod- ern Ceylonese capable of constructing, and that the ancestors of these people should have been competent to execute them is hard to conceive. They are, however, like other Buddhist art, rather monotonous, repeating the same motives. A single exception to this rule is the crag of Sigiri, where King Kasyapa secured himself as in an impreg- nable fortress after he had by his crimes made his life among the people unpleasant and dangerous. He carried a spiral stairway around the precipitous sides of the rock to the summit, surrounded it with a strong ram- part, collected his wealth and treasure there, and built a palace and offices. There he lived in great luxury. The rock rises abrupt- ly from the plain, and has an artificial lake on its west side. Traces of massive stone walls inclosing about fifty acres are visible around its base; within these terraces, de- fenses, and the foundations of buildings are marked. Parts of the spiral galleries of ascent are well preserved. On the top of the rock ruins have been found that be- long to two periods at least. Only small parts of the ruins of the huge cities of Anad- hurapa and Polanaruwa have been recovered from the jungle, and “other remains of a glorious past are scattered here and there all over the island.” The “ moonstones” are a peculiar feature of Singhalese architecture, and constitute the doorstep to the principal entrance of a building. They are floridly ornamented, and look very much like a door OF SCIENCE. 141 mat laid at the foot of a staircase. The carving of one specimen described by Mr. Cave, not less than sixteen hundred years old, “is as sharp and well defined as if it were just from the sculptor’s chisel.” Works on a similar scale to those of Ceylon abound in Burma, Java, and Cambodia, and are all attributed to the early Buddhist ancestors of the present common people. Their dynasty ended in Ceylon in the thirteenth century, when Tamil invaders took the capital and laid the whole country waste. Ancestral Survivals in Domesticated Ani- mals.—Dr. Louis Robinson, in a book he has recently published concerning that subject, goes back to their wild ancestrv for the ori- gin of nearly all the traits we observe in domesticated animals, giving only a minor place to human selection and human train- ing. Thus, as the Academy says in a review of his book, he suggests that the dog could never have been taught what man has taught him had he been originally a solitary hunter ; he was a member of a pack which co-oper- ated for ccmmon purposes; which subordi- nated some individuals to others; which had division of labor and specialized functions. By virtue of this fact, when man took the dog into his company for a partner, the dog continued to fill his accustomed place in the new community. His loyalty to his master and his readiness to defend him when at- tacked are an echo of -his loyalty to his four-footed comrades. His work as pointer or setter is the result of the habit of hunting in company. To dogs man is a very superior dog, a capable leader in the pack to which both belong. The shying of horses is ex- plained by the fact that horses descend from ancestors accustomed to roam over close-cropped pastures, where any tuft of long grass might conceal a snake or other venomous animal. Hence timidity about such objects—transferred now to pieces of loose paper or cabbage leaves in the road— was really in the beginning a preservative trait. The donkey, whose progenitors were mountain beasts living among desert rocks, does not shy. Pigs fatten easily, because their ancestors had to eat mast in autumn against the winter fast; and when frost lasted long, the fattest wild boar would alone survive to carry on the species. Cows give

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142 us milk and wait to be milked, because the ancestral cow left her calf in hiding, and went far afield for pasture. Her chewing the cud depends upon her habit in early days of eating hastily when exposed to the attacks of wild beasts, and then digesting at leisure in her lair with comparative safety. Abatement of Smoke.—The best method of abating the smoke nuisance has under- gone a full discussion at the instance of the Franklin Institute, several meetings having been devoted to the subject, and communi- cations having been invited and received from engineers and scientific men in differ- ent parts of the country, and the subject has been treated practically from a scientific point of view. The participants in the dis- cussion seem all to have agreed that the abolition of smoke is practicable and not difficult ; and most of them prescribe for the accomplishment of it the simple remedy of securing a perfect combustion of the fuel. This can be effected, according to Professor Thurston, of Cornell, and the others, through eare and skill in stoking and by the use of properly constructed furnaces, without any costly apparatus. “Secure maximum tem- POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. perature of furnace, producing the whole heat of combustion, as nearly as practicable, before commencing to take off heat for ap- plication to steam-making.” This, accord- ing to Prof. L. M. Haupt, can be largely effected by intelligent firing, whereby a large amount of oxygen is admitted over the in- candescent material instead of being forced through it. Experiences were related with patent devices, which with a bad fireman produced no better results than the plain fire box with a brick arch and a good fire- man; and with the steam jet, which pro- moted quicker and more thorough mixture of the gases and air, and was good; but no device found better favor than the judicious, even distribution of the right proportion of added fuel over a hot fire. Finally, resolu- tions were adopted declaring the continuous and frequent emission of dense black smoke unnecessary, and advising that it be not per- mitted within the city limits. Accounts of special antismoke devices were avoided in this discussion, which related to general principles only; but inventors were given opportunity to describe and illustrate their apparatus at two subsequent meetings of the institute held in the fall of 1897. MINOR PARAGRAPHS. M. Morssan, who has had much success in preparing carbides of the metals by heat- ing charcoal and the metals directly at the temperature of the electric furnace, now de- scribes a new and general method of pre- paring these substances by placing together in the furnace a metallic oxide and carbide of calcium in fusion. The metallic oxide is reduced; the metal unites with the carbon, producing a crystalline carbide, and the oxy- gen combines with the calcium to form lime. By this method M. Moissan has obtained crystallized carbides of aluminum, manga- nese, tungsten, molybdenum, titanium, and chromium. In case the metal does not give a combination with carbon, it is obtained in free state as a melted button. been reduced in this way by carbide of cal- cium, to form free metals, the oxides of lead, bismuth, and tin. Silica is likewise easily re- duced by carbon and gives carbide of sili- con, or carborundum, a substance much used in industry. There have | PresIpENT GiLMAN observes, in his semi- centennial historical discourse at the Shef- field Scientific School, that the institution has been a department of a university “* which never suffered its love of letters to blind its eyes to the value of science. In the days of closely restricted income, during the first half of the century, chemistry, mineralogy, geol- ogy, botany, mathematics, physics, meteor- ology, and astronomy were taught in Yale. Nor will any one think that scientific re- search was undervalued if he recalls the preparation of Dana’s Mineralogy, the light that was thrown on meteoric showers, the studies of the aurora and of the zodiacal light, and the search for an intramercurial planet. Very different would have been the Sheffield record if it were not associated with the fame, the fortune, and the followers of a greater alma mater. .. . No conflict of studies has been heard of; no hostility be- tween science and letters; no ‘ warfare’ be- tween science and religion. The Sheffield

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FRAGMENTS School has always stood for the idea of a liberal education in which scientific studies should predominate, but in which a moder- ate amount of Latin and of modern languages is required; history and economics are also taught. It is memorable that for a long pe- riod the greatest of American philologists was the daily instructor in French and Ger- man, that the most learned study ever made of ‘Dan Chaucer and his well of English undefyled’ proceeded from a Sheffield chair, and that no American professorship of eco- nomics or statistics has been more prolific or stimulating than that which was held for many years by one but lately brought to the end of his career.” THE custom of trepanning, or taking small pieces of bone from the living head, was much practiced in prehistoric times, as the skulls prove to us, and is still in vogue among some peoples. Among these are the people of the Berber stock in the Djebel Aurés and the Djebel Chechar of the edges of the Al- gerian plateau. The method of performing the operation is carefully described by Drs. H. Malbot and R. Verneau, of whom Dr. Malbot was shown by a native doctor a skull with more than a dozen circular holes, two slits, and a large irregular orifice, all of which had been pierced when the man was alive. The skull was kept hidden, and was evi- dently used as an example by the local doc- tors. The natives have recourse to trepan- ning for blows or wounds on the head; and it does not matter how long before the blow may have been given, if only the sick person can remember that he has had one. The operation is not severe. A woman, tired of her husband, is said to have called in the service of a trepanner in order to get a divorce from him by producing a piece of her skull and affirming that nePaad broken it in some of his cruel acts. Tue chief fire warden of Minnesota, C. C. Andrews, says in his report for 1896 that the main work under the fire-warden law of the State is to make people more careful about causing fires and more thoughtful of the benefit to the public and to individuals of forest resources. There are several million acres in the State, in detached areas, fit only for growing timber. It is computed that trees take from the soil only one twelfth part OF SCIENCE. 143 of the mineral substances required for field crops; and it is therefore profitable for the non-agricultural lands to be retained in tim- ber or planted with it. Properly taken care of and protected the forests might afford a sustained, permanent, and growing industry for many thousand more laborers than are now employed. A bill passed one house of the Minnesota Legislature in 1896 providing a way by which the State could receive and administer, on forestry principles, donations from individuals of cut-over and waste lands unsuited for agriculture. The measure has been discussed and approved by the Forestry Association and the State Horticultural So- ciety; and as it seems to be all-meritorious, it is to be hoped that it may become a law. NOTES. EBEONITE, a new material invented by M. Panchon, a French paper-maker, is named from the resemblance of many of its proper- ties to the hardest woods. It is made by treating fine chips of resinous woods with lyes of sulphates or sulphites, as if to obtain wood cellulose. The softened chips are then pounded to a pulp, which is treated during refining with such chemical or coloring sub- stances as will impart desired special quali- ties. The pulp is then transformed into boards of leaves of paper, is piled up to whatever thickness may be wanted, pressed in a hydraulic press, and dried slowly. The resulting crude ebeonite can be worked into any shape; or the pulp can be molded, be- fore drying, into articles which will be proof against atmospheric changes, heat, and mois- ture, and can be rendered incombustible. A curious instance of instinctive fear is related by R. L. Pocock, in Nature, of a baby orang, with which the writer and his wife were playing. When the lady gently extended her muff, made of the skin of the Indian flying squirrel and ornamented with the un- stuffed head and tail, toward the animal, it showed signs of terror. “Upon repeating the experiment, the ape promptly rolled over backward as the quickest way of removing himself from the immediate vicinity of the object ; then, getting bimself together, climbed up the branches of his tree and retired to the back of the cage, keeping all the while a wary and frightened eye upon the muff, as if in fear of an attack from behind. During all this, the orang made no sound. A PROPOSAL was made some time ago in a Belgian journal for the celebration of the seven hundredth anniversary of the discovery of stone coal, which was made in 1197 by a blacksmith of Liége. He found a kind of black earth, and, wood and charcoal being

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very dear at the time, the thought occurred to him to try its properties as a combustible. This black earth was coal. The man’s name was Hullioz; whence the French word for coal—houille. ‘Authentic documents show that coal mines were fully worked in Belgium in 1228 and 1229. The use of coal was in- troduced into England in 1340, but did not become common till the beginning of the six- teenth century. It was first mined in France in the fourteenth century; in Austria and Bohemia in the last century; while it was mined in North Germany about the year 1200. Some seeds of common plants—such as bloodroot, the large-flowered uvularia, and trillium—are furnished with whitish fleshy appendages, forming a slight ridge on one side. These crests are not conspicuous to be noticed by birds, but Mr. Charles Robinson, of Carlin- ville, Ill., has found them attractive to ants. He has often exposed seeds of bloodroot in situations frequented by ants, and has ob- served that the insects invariably seize them and carry them away, the crest serving as a convenient handle by which to take hold of them. He has also experimented with seeds of the other plants named with like results. These seeds seem to have no other means of dissemination, being such as simply drop from the capsules and lie where they fall, till the ants carry them away. They thus add one other to the variety of means by which seeds are scattered. Tue possibility of electrifying air entirely free from dust particles is still an open ques- tion. Late investigations by Lord Kelvin and 8. Arrhenius tend to prove that dust is not essential to electrification. Tue Proceedings of the Meeting of the American Railway Association held in Octo- ber, 1897, contains a carefully compiled re- port of the committee on the metric system, in which is embodied a brief, convenient, and useful history of the English and French standards, enlivened with interesting inci- dents. We learn from this report that “ the tendency in railway operations has been toward the use of a decimal system. Rates are made on the basis of one hundred pounds. Civil engineers have abandoned the Gunter’s chain of sixty-six feet for that of one hun- dred feet, and divide the foot decimally. The ton of two thousand pounds and the hundredweight of one hundred pounds are now generally used, instead of twenty-two hundred and forty and one hundred and twelve pounds. These changes, both Amer- ican in their origin, have commended them- selves because they permit calculations in decimals.” Dvrine the year covered by his last re- port, the director, Dr. Elkin, of Yale Ob- servatory, studied the photographic trails of five Perseid meteors which were secured in | POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. August, 1896. So far the results are not very conclusive as to the character of the radiant, but each year is expected to add to the data, and it is hoped that most valuable deductions may be ultimately possible. A portion of the work on the parallaxes of the ten first-magnitude stars in the northern hemisphere has been passed through the press; and values have been calculated which the director believes can hardly be modified appreciably by further discussion, Dr. F. L. Chase, assistant astronomer, has taken up the heliometer work on the paral- laxes of large proper motion stars. E1gHt new asteroids—a smaller number than the average of previous years—were discovered in 1897, bringing the whole num- ber up to four hundred and thirty-three. In- stead of names the later discoveries are designated by combinations of letters of the alphabet—as DH, DI, DJ, DK, DL, DM, DN, and DO for those of 1897. An exhibition of culinary art recently held in Vienna met with a prodigious suc- cess. It included everything apperiaining to cooking, from a richly served table to the emperor’s bivouac kitchen. Under a system of reducing the prices of tickets each day, the attendance on the second day was double that on the first, and on the third the ticket office had to be closed against the crowds. It is observed that such throngs came as are never seen at industrial expositions or dis- plays of pictures. We have to announce the deaths of Dr. Waldemar von Schroeder, professor of pharmacology in the University of Heidel- berg and author of a number of treatises on physiological chemistry ; William A. Rogers, professor of astronomy in Colby University, and formerly assistant in the observatory of Harvard College, at Waterville, Me., March Ist, aged forty-six years. He was the author of some important contributions to astrono- my and physics, and especially to the tech- nique of measurement. Léon Jambert, di- rector of the Popular Institute of Science at the Trocadero, Paris; M. Charles Cornevin, professor of hygiene and zodtechny at the Veterinary School of Lyons, France; ex-Di- rector Winfieke, of the Strasburg Observa- tory; Charles Scofer, a distinguished Ori- entalist, at Paris, aged seventy-eight years ; Sir Henry Bessemer, by whose invention the manufacture of steel was revolutionized, at London, March 15th, aged eighty-five years ; Sir Richard Quain, the eminent English physi- cian, March 13th, aged eighty-three years ; Admiral Popoff, Russian inventor of a curi- ous form of circular ironclad war ships ; Pro- fessor Kirk, of the Department of Forests of New Zealand and author of valuable works on the timber and timber trees of that col- ony; and Dr. Ferdinand Huster, near Liver- pool, a chemist of considerable loca] reputa- tion.

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GEWERAL LIBRARY, UNIV. OF MICH. 2 JUN189 PK ST ee glee i one a ad 4