The Popular Science Monthly 1911-12: Vol 79

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY DECEMBER, 1911 SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE By Dr. C. K. EDMUNDS PRESIDENT OF CANTON CHRISTIAN COLLEGE I. INTRODUCTION (a) Chinese Science a Case of Arrested Development.—In scien- tific knowledge, as in nearly everything else, China presents a case of arrested development. Chinese conceptions regarding the body of man, the materials of the earth’s crust, the surface forms of our globe, of its origin and process of formation, of the vast celestial universe through which it whirls, of the nature and origin of matter and of cosmogony in general, are the conceptions characteristic of western peoples before and during the middle ages. Not only so, but they are the same as were held by her own sages centuries before that period; in many cases they express the best thought of China’s deep thinkers in the days of Pythagoras and perhaps prior to his time, while in others they give us the cream of Chinese philosophy as de- veloped during the early days of the glorious Sung dynasty (A.D. 1020- 1120). While of course those who have within the last few decades read the books of the west have modified their previous notions, the number of such as compared with the general people, though rapidly increasing, is still small and the purely Cinese conceptions of anatomy, physiology and medicine still consist of interacting func- tions of hypothetical organs, the intermixings of various vital fluids, and the subtle influence of capricious humors; chemistry is still alchemy; geography, mere guesswork; geology, vague mythology; astronomy, astrology; and exact physical science, nil. Science in China has made few advances during the last few centuries and is now but slowly responding to a new impulse from abroad in all its departments. (b) Their Inventions, Arts, Engineering, not Evidence of Scientific Attainment.—To be sure, several striking inventions are probably to VOL. LXXIx.—36,

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522 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY the credit of the Chinese—gunpowder, printing, mariner’s compass, paper, etc., but the original crude forms or methods were not improved. Their use among the Chinese apparently had no direct effect in promot- ing their development among western peoples, and in nearly every case the invention was founded on the specific properties of matter dis- coverable directly and did not involve any scientific concept of principle established and tested by observation. It would seem too that much of the Chinese servile imitation in mechanics, metallurgy and other arts is due to ignorance of the real nature of the materials they use, and yet it is not for long that such things have been intimately known to ourselves of the west. The Chinese have made little progress in investi- gating the principles of mechanics, but have, however, practically understood most of the common mechanical advantages involved in various simple appliances. The lever, wheel and axle, cog wheels, wedge and rack and pinion, have long been known, but the screw is not frequent. In many of their contrivances there is an excessive expendi- ture of human strength; in many the object is merely to give a direction to this strength, not to decrease it, as in their manner of carrying a heavy stone, instead of constructing a simple truck that would transport it with half the expense of human power; yet the use of a truck would require something more in the way of good roads than most parts of China can boast of, and again human labor is almost the cheapest thing in China. While it is true that the manufactures of silk, of porcelain and of lacquered-ware were original with the Chinese, and that in none of these have foreigners yet succeeded in fully equalling the native product, and while the French looms are practically the same as those in Canton, except that steam power takes the place of human feet, it is also true that the mechanical arts and implements of the Chinese have a simplicity which suggests that the faculty of invention died with the initiator. Three accomplishments in Chinese engineering, however, challenge the rest of the world to show similar feats in any remote time. The Great Wall, traversing high mountains and large rivers, built two hundred years before the Christian era, still stands as the most extensive monument of antiquity to attest the high engineering skill and kingly energy of that day. Of like herculean proportions and for a more use- ful purpose is the Grand Canal which up to the date of its construction was the greatest public commercial work ever undertaken. The Great Sea Wall along the north shore of Hangchow Bay, judged in the light of the tremendous difficulties involved in its construction merits even greater praise for native energy and skill.1 And yet the very present *See ‘‘A Visit to the Hangchow Bore,’’ THE PopuLAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, February and March, 1908.

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SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE 523 condition of the Grand Canal, which has doubtless been its condition for a century or more, is an eloquent witness to arrested development due to failure to apply hydraulic improvements. While giving due credit for what they have done, we feel justified in concluding that the arts and the inventions of the Chinese do not, after all, witness to any degree of scientific attainment among them. Many of the later modern inventions of western people are the result of applied science, which certainly was not the case with these early inventions of the Chinese. There seems, however, to be room for a difference of opinion even among authorities. In 1839 G. T. Lay asserted in writing about Chinese musical instruments: It has been declared that the Chinese have no science, but of a surety, if we advance in the free and scholar-like spirit of antiquarian research, we shall be obliged to set our feet upon the head of this assertion at every step in our progress. And yet in his authoritative work, Williams closes his rather com- pendious account of “ Science among the Chinese ” with this summary: On the whole it may be said that in all departments of learning the Chinese are unscientific; and that while they have collected a great variety of facts, invented many arts, and brought a few to a high degree of excellence, they have never pursued a single subject in a way calculated to lead them to a right understanding of it, or reached a proper classification of the information they possessed relating to it. It may be of interest then to notice some of the leading ideas in what we may call “ Chinese science ” and to inquire into the causes of China’s scientific backwardness as compared with modern western knowledge. In doing this we shall be largely indebted to Williams’s “Middle Kingdom” for many of our facts and to Martin’s “ Lore of Cathay ” for suggestive lines of thought. II. THe Content or “ CHINESE SCIENCE ” 1.:Anatomy.—Wylie has noted fifty-nine Chinese treaties in medi- cine and physiology (some of them belonging to the earliest days), many of which contain good sense and sound advice amid the strangest theories. Harland has lucidly and in detail described the Chinese ideas (apart from the gradually spreading foreign teaching) concern- ing the organization of the body and the functions of the chief viscera— false ideas which a very little dissection, a prohibited practise, would have banished. We shall not pause to consider these, but merely note that the most curious is perhaps their idea of the liver, which they place on the right side of the body. It has seven lobes; the soul resides in it; and schemes emanate from it; the gall-bladder is below and projects upward into it, and when the person is angry it ascends; courage dwells in it; hence the Chinese sometimes procure the gall-

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524 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY bladder of tigers or bears, and even of men, especially notorious bandits executed for their daring crimes, and drink the bile, with the belief that it will impart courage. Theories are numerous to account for the nourishment of the body and the functions of the viscera, and upon their harmonious connection with each other and the five metals, colors, tastes and planets is founded the well-being of the system, the whole intimately connected with the all-pervading functions of the yin and yang—those universal solvents in Chinese philosophy. 2. Materia Medica, Botany and Zoology.—The advance made by the Chinese themselves in the study of natural history is shown by the contents of the two chief works—“ Pun Tsao,” or “ Herbal,” compiled by Li Shi Chin after thirty years spent in collecting information, pub- lished about 1590 (40 octavo volumes—52 chapters), and “ Chih Wah Ming-shih Tu-kao,” or “ Researches into the Names and Virtues of Plants,” 60 volumes with plates, some of them good drawings, published in 1848. The author of the first of these treatises was the first and last purely native critical writer on natural science. He consulted some eight hundred previous authors and selected fifteen hundred and eighteen prescriptions, to which he added three hundred and seventy-four new ones, arranging the whole in what for his day was a scientific manner. After two introductory chapters on the practise of medicine and an index to the recipes contained in the work, which fills the first seven volumes, there are two chapters (filling three and a half volumes), giving a list of medicines for the cure of all diseases, and this with an essay on the pulse in the final volume constitutes the therapeutical sec- tion of the treatise. The remaining forty-eight chapters cover, after the fashion of the author, the whole range of natural objects—treating of inorganic substances under “ water” and “fire” and minerals, as earth, metals, gems and stones, throwing into a polyglot chapter what could not be included in the preceding sections; the vegetable kingdom is presented under the five divisions—herbs, grains, vegetables, fruits and trees; these again into families containing members which have no real relationship to each other, the lowest term sometimes being a genus, a species, or even a variety, as Linnzus used these terms. In the classification of the minerals, etc., the influence of the language itself is shown, for, as pointed out by Williams, the division is exactly that of the seven radicals which stand for fire, water, earth, metals, gems, stones and salts, under which the names of inorganic substances were classified in the imperial dictionary. The same thing is true for other parts of the treatise. In classifying herbs, the habitat is taken as the criterion, an “ herb” denoting whatever is not eaten or used in the arts or which does not attain to the magnitude of a tree.

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SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE 525 The zoological grouping is as crude and unscientific as that of plants, though the sixteen zoological characters in the language are not so far astray from being true types of classes as the eleven botanical ones, and these groups, though containing many anomalies, are still sufficiently natural to teach those who write the language something of the world around them. The properties of the objects spoken of are discussed in a very methodical manner, so that a student can immediately turn to a plant or mineral and ascertain its virtues. 3. Geography.—A few sentences from Williams’s “ Middle King- dom ” will show the state of geographical knowledge among the Chinese prior to western influence. Their geographical knowledge is ridiculous. Maps of their own territories are tolerably good, being originally drawn from actual surveys made by nine of the Jesuits, between 1708 and 1718, and since that time have been filled up and changed to conform to alterations and divisions. Before the day of western influence, and even long after, to a great extent until the present decade, in fact, the Chinese did not teach geography in their schools, even of their own empire. The common people have no knowledge, therefore, of the form and divisions of the globe, and the size and position of the kingdoms of the earth. Their common maps delineate them very erroneously, scattering islands, kingdoms and conti- nents, as they have heard of their existence at haphazard and in various corners beyond the frontiers. ... Their notions of the earth’s inhabitants are equally whimsical. . . . Charts for the guidance of the navigator, or instruments to aid him in determining his position at sea, the Chinese are nearly or quite destitute of; they have retrograded rather than progressed in navigation, if one judges from the accounts of their former trade with ports in the Persian Gulf, on the Malabar coast, and in the Archipelago. Of course in the modern schools now under way throughout the empire correct geographical notions are being taught; but such schools have been so few up till 1900 and the total number of modern students so small even since then, that the notions of the common people are still subject to Williams’s characterization. To what extent even the supposedly more intelligent are still “at sea” in such matters is well shown by two recent cases, which illustrate also some effects of present- day scientific ideas upon Chinese minds educated according to the methods which have prevailed in China for ages. At the Shansi University, in discussing the search for the North Pole, a holder of the Chinese first degree seriously suggested that when the ship had proceeded as far north as possible, the pole might be seen with the aid of a telescope. Another man thought of the same expe- dient, but considered that the curvature of the earth would render it impossible, and suggested that ascending in a balloon might afford the opportunity to use the telescope to see the pole. Still another man thought it would be simpler first to moderate the climate of the polar regions by planting trees along the way there, and by diverting the gulf

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526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY stream in that direction to render possible a closer approach to the Pole. Another graduate of the ancient system in Canton offered the fol- lowing as an explanation of why he thought it was hotter in Peking than in Canton: “ At Peking the earth is thicker than at Canton, and so a person liv- ing on top of the earth is nearer the sun at Peking than at Canton and hence gets more heat, and we know that the earth is thicker at Peking than at Canton because in Peking you have to dig many tens of feet to get water, whereas in Canton you can readily strike water at ten to twenty feet.” 4. Astronomy—Astrology.—The precise attainments of the ancient Chinese in astronomy are not easily understood from the scanty records. To the burning of all native scientific books, except those on agri- culture, medicine and astrology, by imperial order in 221 B.c., the Chinese attribute the loss of a mass of astronomical learning. Wylie furnishes a list of 925 solar and 574 lunar eclipses, extracted from Chinese works, observed between 2150 B.c and A.D. 1785. The earliest known record of an eclipse occurs, though imperfectly, in the ancient “ Shu-King,” or “ Book of History.” Retrospective calculation shows that it may have occurred as early as the autumn of 2158 B.c. Simple methods for predicting solar eclipses seem to have been in use in China before 2000 B.c., but this eclipse of 2158 B.c. is said to have appeared unexpectedly and to have so disturbed the emperor that he at once executed the two court astronomers for failing to predict it! In the Chinese canonical books thirty-eight solar eclipses are men- tioned, eighteen of which agree with modern lists, but the others seem in error in either month or year, though the day is always correct. This suggests that the records are reliable and that the non-agreement ‘is probably due to an imperfect knowledge of the ancient calendar, particularly with reference to intercalation and the beginning of the year, which are probably irregular. Intercalations were probably intro- duced by Yao about 2637 B.c., but it is hardly likely that they have continued without variation to this day. Romish missionaries rectified the calendar about 1700 and have aided in its preparation until recently. A cycle of sixty years was adopted in very early times, but there is no record of when or why this number was selected. The Chinese year is lunar, but its commencement is regulated by the sun. New Year falls on the first new moon after the sun enters Aquarius, which makes it come not before January 21 nor after February 19. Comets, whose brilliancy enabled them to be seen, have been care- fully noted by the Chinese, because their course among the stars is thought to determine their influence as portents. A list of 373 comets mentioned in Chinese records has been published, extending from 611

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SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE 527 B.c. to A.D 1621. The general value of these records is thought to entitle them to credence. While these observations of eclipses and comets were made for astrological and state purposes, they are not without value to European astronomers and chronologists. It would not be entirely safe to judge of the astronomical attainments of the Chinese from what has come down to our day, or by present popular notions. The knowledge con- tained in their own scientific books has not been taught, and in general the astronomical ideas of the Chinese are vague and inaccurate and serve as the basis of superstitious astrology rather than as an agency of enlightenment among the people. The writer vividly recalls his experience during a recent lunar eclipse, when almost the entire popu- lation of one of the largest cities on the Yangtsze turned out, each one carrying something with which to make a noise, kettles, pans, sticks, drums, gongs, fire-crackers, etc., to aid in frightening away the dragon of the sky from his hideous feast. And even the crew of a Chinese man-of-war, foreign built and armed with Krupp guns, will by orders published in The Peking Gazette turn out with drums, iron pans, etc., to make a din to “ save the moon.’ Chinese astronomers distinguished five planets, or “ moving stars,” and named them according to their ideas of elementary substances: Venus, Golden; Jupiter, Wooden; Mercury, Water; Mars, Fire; Saturn, Soil. To them the galaxy was The Heavenly River, a close analogy to our term, The Milky Way. It is interesting to note how descriptive the Chinese terms are as applied in translations of modern astronom- ical ideas—a nebula is a “star-mist”; asteroids are “small moving stars ” ; the spectroscope is the “ shooting shadow-lamp ” ; and spectrum analysis is “ the shooting-shadow-difference-telling-light-method.” 5. Mathematics.—The arithmetical notation of the Chinese is based on the decimal principle, but as their figures are not changed in value by position, it is difficult to write out clearly the several steps in solving a problem. Arithmetical calculations are performed with a “ counting board,” an arrangement of balls on wires, which can, however, only serve as an index for the progress and result of a calculation done in the head, so that if an error is made, the whole operation must be done again. The study of arithmetic has attracted attention among the Chinese from early times, and notices found in historical works indicate some treaties extant even in the Han dynasty (206 B.c—a.p. 214), followed by a great number of general and particular works down to the Sung Dynasty (1020-1120 A.D.). The Hindu processes in algebra were known to Chinese mathematicians, but though studied even after inter- course between the countries had ceased, these branches made slow progress down to the end of the Ming Dynasty (a.p. 1368-1644).

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528 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY The mathematical writings of the early Romist missionaries greatly improved the mathematical texts available in Chinese, and since foreigners have begun to introduce western science, the development has been rapid. But aside from the graduates from modern schools, the knowledge of mathematics even among the learned men of China is very small, and the common people study it only as far as their business requires, and that is exceedingly little. The cumbersome notation and the little aid which such studies gave in the ancient system of literary examinations (only abolished in 1905) doubtless discouraged the pur- suit of what they seem to have no taste for as a people. Chinese authors acknowledge the superiority of western mathematicians, and generally ascribe their advance in the exact sciences to this power. 6. Action and Reaction of Elements.—Williams in his “ Middle Kingdom ” gives a table showing the leading “ elementary ” correspond- encies in the curious speculations used by Chinese philosophers to ac- count for any possible contingency in the changes of the visible universe, which in the hands of geomancers and fortune-tellers are the bases of considerable imposition on the people. The five elementary powers or hing are: water, fire, wood, metal and earth, and the table gives the qualities, tastes, and activities of the five hing as correlated with five points of the compass (the fifth being “ center”), the five correspond- ing planets, five colors, five viscera, five musical notes, five early emper- ors, four seasons, and four quarters of the zodiac. But to consider these ideas in detail would lead too far afield into unprofitable vagaries. %. Chemistry—Alchemy.—Chemistry and metallurgy have been un- known as sciences, but many operations in them are performed with a considerable degree of success, and bear testimony to Chinese shrewd- ness and ingenuity in the existing state of their knowledge. The skill which they exhibit in metallurgy, their brilliant dye-stuffs and numerous pigments; their early knowledge of gunpowder, alcohol, arsenic, Glau- ber’s salt, calomel and corrosive sublimate; their pyrotechny; their asphyxiating and anesthetic compounds—all give evidence of no con- temptible proficiency in practical chemistry. In their books of curious recipes (see section 2) are instructions for the manufacture of sym- pathetic inks, for removing stains, alloying metals, counterfeiting gold, whitening copper, overlaying the baser with the precious metals, etc., many of the rules in which are still in common use, and bear in their very terms the stamp of an alchemic origin. Dr. Martin in his “ Lore of Cathay ” presents striking evidence to show that in all probability western alchemy, from which our modern chemistry has come, had its root in the art as practised in China, where it appeared as an indigenous product, coeval with the dawn of letters. One doctrine of Taoism which was developed six centuries before Christ regards the soul and body as identical in substance, and main-

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SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE 529 tains the possibility of preventing their dissolution by a course of physical discipline—a seed-thought which led the disciples of Laotze to investigate the specific properties of matter in the two-fold search for long life and riches. In studying both the vegetable and mineral kingdoms Chinese alchemists were guided by the supposed analogy of man to material nature, which led them to ascribe an essence or spirit not only to animals and plants, but to minerals as well, so that in their view matter itself was constantly passing the limits of sense and assum- ing the character of conscious spirit. Thus was the world filled with fairies and genii. We need not discuss in detail the characteristic ideas of Chinese alchemy, but merely note that it had full vigor six centuries prior to western alchemy, which did not appear till a.p. 400 when intercourse was quite frequent between China and Byzantium, Alexandria and Bagdad. The two schools had much in common: same aims, closely corresponding properties ascribed to the two elixirs in each; principles, means, mystical character of nomenclature, and extravagant style of alchemic writings, all practically identical. So that, although it may be granted that the leading objects of alchemical pursuit might have occurred to men in any country as they felt their way towards a knowl- edge of nature, yet an independent origin seems unlikely, and it is almost certain that alchemy had its birth in the far east, yea in China, since the claims of India seem excluded by the abundant proof that the alchemy of China is not an exotic, but an indigenous product, the earli- est forms of which are found in the “ Book of Changes,” a significant title, whose diagrams date back to 2800 B.c., the text to 1150 B.c., and the Confucian commentary thereon to 500 B.c. It is a striking fact that this book, chief in the canon of Taoism, was spared from the flames of the Tyrant of Ch’in to which all other writings of Confucius and his disciples were consigned. 8. General Cosmological Ideas.—Contrast the modern ideas of the age and origin of the earth and of the extent of the universe in time with the following conceptions of Chu Hi (Chu Fu Tsz), the most famous of the eleventh-century philosophers: In the beginning heaven and earth were just the light and a dark air. This one air revolved, grinding around and around. When it ground quickly much sediment was compressed, which, having no means of exit, coagulated and formed the earth in the center. The subtle portion of the air then became heaven and the sun, moon and stars, which unceasingly revolve on the outside. The earth is in the center; it is not below the center. Heaven revolving without ceasing, day and night also revolve, and hence the earth is exactly in the center. If heaven should stand still for one moment, then the earth must fall down; but heaven revolves quickly, and hence much sediment is coagulated in the center. The earth is in the sediment of the air; and hence it is said, the light, pure air became heaven, the heavy, muddy air became earth.

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530 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY At the beginning of heaven and earth, before chaos was divided, I think there were only two things—fire and water—and the sediment of the water formed the earth. When one ascends a height and looks down, the crowd of hills resemble the waves of the sea in appearance; the water just flowed like this. I know not at what period it coagulated. At first it was very soft, but after- ward coagulated and became hard. One asked whether it resembled sand thrown up by the tide? He replied, just so; the coarsest sediment of the water became earth and the purest portion of the fire became wind, thunder, lightning, sun and stars. . . . Before chaos was divided the Yin-yang, or light-dark, air was mixed up and dark, and when it divided the center formed an enormous and most brilliant opening, and the two principles were established. Shao Kang- tsieh considers one hundred and twenty-nine thousand six hundred years to be a yuen, or kalpa; then, before this period of one hundred and twenty-nine thou- sand six hundred years there was another opening and spreading out of the world; and before that again there was another like the present; so that motion and rest, light and darkness, have no beginning. ... There is nothing outside heaven and earth, and hence their form has limits, while their air has no limit. Because the air is extremely condensed, therefore it can support the earth; if it were not so, the earth would fall down. Chu Hi’s theory considers the world to be a plane surface—straight, square and large—measuring each way about 1,500 miles and bounded on the four sides by the four seas. The sun, moon and stars revolve around it at the uniform distance of 4,000 miles. Estimates of the long mythological periods antecedent to the appearance of Fuh-hi (the monarch of “ highest antiquity,” 2852 B.c., according to Chinese annals) vary from 45,000 to 500,000 years. These ancient Chinese writings are a curious mixture of sense and nonsense, partially laying the foundation of a just argument and end- ing with a tremendous non-sequitur, apparently satisfactory to them- selves, but showing pretty conclusively how little pains they took to gather facts and discuss their bearings. One thing is to be observed concerning them, which is characteristic to-day, viz., there is no hier- archy of gods brought in to rule and inhabit the world they made; no transfer of human love and hate, passions and hopes, to the powers above, as in the Greek or Egyptian mythology; all here is represented as moving on in quiet order, the work of disembodied agencies or principles. “There is no religion, no imagination; all is impassible, passionless, uninteresting.” Perhaps the most sensible and orderly account of the creation to be found in these writings is the following: Heaven was formless, an utter chaos; the whole mass was nothing but con- fusion. Order was first produced in the pure ether, and out of it the universe came forth; the universe produced air and the air the milky way. When the pure male principle yang had been diluted, it formed the heavens; the heavy and thick parts coagulated and formed the earth. The refined particles united very soon, but the union of the thick and heavy went on slowly; therefore the heavens came into existence first and the earth afterward. From the subtle

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SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE 531 essence of heaven and earth the dual principles yin and yang were formed; from their joint operation came the four seasons, and these putting forth their energies gave birth to all; they produced fire; and the finest parts of the fire formed the sun. The cold exhalations of the yin being likewise condensed, pro- duced water; and the finest parts of the watery substance formed the moon. By the seminal influence of the sun and moon came the stars. Thus heaven was adorned with sun, moon and stars; the earth also received rain, rivers and dust. But such explanations were too subtle for the common people, and they personified and deified the powers and operations, though with far less imaginative genius and fine taste than the Greeks displayed in the same line. The most striking legend is that of Pwanku, the first crea-- ture, who was “ hatched ” from chaos by the dual powers and who then chiseled the universe into form and order by the might of his hands. His efforts continued 18,000 years, and by degrees he and his handi- work increased : The heavens rose, the earth spread out and thickened, and Pwanku grew in stature, six feet every day, till, his labors done, he died for the benefit of his handiwork. His head became mountains, his breath wind and clouds, and his voice thunder; his limbs were changed into the four poles, his veins into rivers, his sinews into the undulations of the earth’s surface, and his flesh into fields; his beard, like Bernice’s hair, was turned into stars, his skin and hair into herbs and trees, and his teeth, bones, and marrow into metals, rocks, and precious stones; his dropping sweat increased to rain, and lastly, the insects which stuck to his body were transformed into people! It must be confessed that most of us will find this quite as clear and a far more interesting account of the universe than the learned disquisition of the famous Chu Fu Tsz. (To be concluded)

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY WHY DO CERTAIN LIVING FORMS PRODUCE LIGHT? By F. ALEX. MCDERMOTT WASHINGTON, D. C. 7 every observer of natural phenomena, the query must some time come, “ Why do certain living creatures produce light?” The lu- minous molds of decaying wood, the photogenic bacteria of the sea-water, the fire-flies and lightning bugs, the deep-sea fish and other mysterious forms “that move in the waters”—why should some of them be en- dowed with the property of producing light? The question is undoubt- edly one of fundamental biologic importance. The production of light by living forms is really no more wonderful than the production of heat, motion or electricity, but the production of heat and of motion is so common and so well known that but little attention is paid to them, while the forms which produce electricity are relatively so scarce that they are little known outside of the scientific world. Between these classes are the forms possessing the photogenic function—sufficiently common to be well known almost everywhere, and yet sufficiently scat- tered among the creatures of the earth to excite wonder and admiration at the novelty of the property. We can, of course, beg the question by replying, “ These creatures have the power of producing within them- selves some chemical substance which, under certain circumstances, produces light, probably as the result of oxidation,” but this or equiva- lent statements leave us very little nearer satisfaction than at first. The matter presents also another question which is difficult to answer: Why should one creature be endowed with the photogenic function, and yet some other form, closely related to the first, be un- provided therewith? Did all creatures originally possess the power to produce light and have all but the few we know lost this power, or have the few that possess photogenicity acquired the power as a result of the development of certain habits or conditions of life? It seems probable that both explanations may be advanced for different forms—4. e., that in some cases related existing forms, some of which possess the photo- genic function and others of which do not, are descended from a com- mon photogenic ancestor, while in others the function has been devel- oped during the history of the species. There are certainly three reasons for the existence of the photogenic function some one of which is applicable to the great majority of luminous creatures above the unicellular and very lowly organized

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ey LIVING FORMS AND LIGHT 533 forms. The first of these is that it is a secondary sexual character ; the second, it is protective in purpose; third, it is a lure for prey. Other less general or less obvious uses may be shown, but in the great majority of cases one or the other of these explanations of the use of the light-producing function will be found adequate, and sometimes more than one will apply to a given species. The simplest luminous forms are the bacteria. It is certainly diffi- cult to see that photogenicity can be of any especial service to these unicellular organisms. Most, if not all, of the photogenic bacteria are cf marine origin, and it is possible that some of them may be pathogenic to certain marine creatures when ingested, and the light thus serves to warn the bacterivorous plankton, etc., that these bacteria are dangerous food. Some species have been found to be pathogenic to Talitrus, a crustacean, which may serve as a case in point. Luminous fungi are quite common, and here again we must leave the question with at most only a poor attempt at explanation. Pro- tective or warning it may be; but the author has never heard of lumi- nosity in the most poisonous of all fungi, the Amanitas, and certainly the luminous fungi he has seen did not appear to form any exception to the usual fate of fungi in general of being abundantly attacked by various species of insects. In both of these cases, the photogenicity may be like the fluorescence of extracts of the common firefly, Photinus pyralis, and of cultures of Bacillus fluorescens liquefaciens—merely a property of some chemical substance elaborated by the life processes of the organism, and having no bearing upon its economy. In simple marine forms like Noctiluca miliaris, the Pyrocyste, Pyrosoma, etc., it is possible, though unlikely, that the luminosity has a warning significance and it is obviously not a sexual character. These creatures exist in swarms, or in the form of communities—compound, or rather composite animals—and it would appear very probable that in them the possession of the power to produce light finds its usefulness in the fact that by its means they are enabled to communicate in such ways as their low state of organization may require. It is perhaps a digression, but a few words may not be amiss as to why the emission of light would be more useful to marine creatures than some other modes of communication in use among land forms. The sea-water is full of currents, ever changing and wavering; it varies in density slightly in different portions, owing to slight variation in concentration and in temperature. Therefore, the emission of a sub- stance to produce olfactory or gustatory sensations would be of little use as a means of communication, especially to a creature capable of motion, as many luminous forms are; they would have far more control over their own movements than over that of any emission. The pro-

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534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY duction of a sound would be better so far as transmission is concerned, for water is an excellent transmitter of sound; but to produce a sound, especially under water, a not inconsiderable amount of power is re- quired—as may easily be demonstrated by trying to clap one’s hands under water—and this amount of power is far and away beyond any possessed by the luminous marine creatures. True, some fish emit sounds—e. g., the drum-fish—but those marine creatures which do so are of considerable power and a quite high degree of organization. All living creatures, probably without exception, produce a certain amount of heat through their life-processes; but heat is obviously of no value so far as the purposes of communication are concerned, especially in an immense body of liquid of high specific heat. Variations in pressure more especially vibrations of longer interval than those of sound, may, of course, be produced and transmitted very effectively, but here again much power is required. As a matter of fact, some species of fishes have been found to possess along their lateral line, organs susceptible to vibration-frequencies approaching six per second in the water. Elec- tricity is a possibility, but in all cases of electrical tissues so far studied, considerable masses of muscular tissue have been found as the site of the electrogenic phenomena, again a matter out of the question for a simple organism. With light the problem is different: All that is neces- sary is the elaboration by the cell through its vital processes of a sub- stance which, when in contact with the oxygen dissolved in the sea- water, will produce light. Since certain bacteria can produce such a ma- terial from a compound as comparatively simple as asparagin (amino- succinamidie acid, CONH,-CHNH,-CH,-CO,H), this is a matter of comparative ease and requiring nothing more than the metabolic proc- esses which might be ordinarily expected. After synthesis, the sub- stance when brought into contact with the sea-water would be oxidized with the evolution of light. Light knows little of water currents, and but little more of differences in concentration; it would spread in all directions from the point of emission, and to the delicate structures of the ocean fauna and flora, would, however weak it might appear to hu- man eyes, be sensible for considerable distances. Hence light is an ideal method of communication for marine forms of low organization and indeed for many of those of higher organization. Returning again to a discussion of the various forms: Perhaps the first case, in the upward scale, where we may apply with any degree of certainty one of the uses mentioned before, is that of certain marine worms, the Annelids. Professor W. T. Galloway has recently shown the use of photogenicity in a species of Odontosyllid as a mating adaptation, with evidence which leaves little ground for doubt. In this case propagation of the species appears to be entirely dependent upon a periodic photogenicity limited to certain more or less definite por-

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LIVING FORMS AND LIGHT 535 tions of the year, of the month, and of certain hours of the early eve- ning, during which the male is attracted from below to the luminous female at the surface. Various species of earth worms have also been reported to be photogenic, and it seems probable that the usefulness of the luminosity in this case is somewhat the same as in the Odontosyllid mentioned above. The bivalve Pholas dactylus presents another anomaly, however, for it lives a rather sedentary life, and is certainly not poisonous, at least to man. Yet it possesses definite photogenic organs. Although it is possible that in this case the luminosity is protective, we probably have here one of the cases of the limited use of photogenicity, not yet dis- covered. Among the Crustacea there are several interesting cases of photo- genicity, and in regard to them, and indeed to the whole subject of the use of “ phosphorescence” in sea-forms, Alcock’s interesting book “A Naturalist in Indian Seas,” is well worth reading. Certain shrimp- like crustaceans throw out from glands, corresponding to kidneys, a substance which in contact with sea-water produces clouds of bluish light. There seems but little doubt that this is defensive in nature, and acts in much the same manner as the “ink” of the cuttle-fish. Some of these prawns are provided with enormous eyes, others with only rudimentary ones, and some with none at all. Alcock also men- tions a large spider-crab, which, although completely blind, “ shone like a star.” Here we may readily conceive the light is alluring in function, serving to attract the creatures on which the crab feeds. Among the insects we find the most widely known cases of photo- genicity, and probably, also, the greatest field of usefulness. With the true fireflies, the Lampyride, the evidence that has been collected tends to show that the possession of the photogenic function is primarily a secondary sexual character. It has long been known that if the fe- male of the European glowworm (Lampyris noctiluca) were exposed by night, a male would shortly come to it. The use of the photogenic function as a secondary sexual character has also been shown for the Italian luciola, and for certain of the fireflies common in the eastern United States (e. g., Photinus pyralis), and it appears probable that the same thing applies to the entire family. Curiously enough, the true “lightning bugs” show but little tendency to come to ordinary lights, though in Photinus pyralis either sex will respond to a small electric bulb operated in imitation of the light of the opposite sex.* Among the Pyrophores, the Elaterid fireflies of the tropics, such as the cucuyo of Cuba, the luminosity very probably plays the same réle as in the Lampyrids. These insects give a light which is continuous, though of varying intensity, instead of a flashing light as is emitted by 1McDermott, Canad. Entomol., 1911 (in press).

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536 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY the Lampyrids generally, and it is of interest to note that they may be attracted by an ordinary light. To be sure, a great many insects which are not luminous themselves are attracted to light, and there is some evidence that this is some- thing which the insects themselves can not help. The phenomenon of attraction to light among luminous insects, however, must be regarded as of particular interest, and as being most probably voluntary. That the photogenic function in insects may also be protective or warning in significance may scarcely be doubted. The Lampyride, as a group, are soft, easily crushed insects, slow of motion, and often, in the females, apterous, or of but slow and labored flight. It has indeed been observed that the flash of these insects has a tendency to discour- age pursuers, perhaps frightening them in some cases, but probably more often warning them that the light-bearer is inedible. The elaters are better protected by their hard, external chitin, than the soft-bodied Lampyrids, and hence it is unlikely that their luminosity has much protective purpose. So far as its possible use as a lure for prey is con- cerned, this is out of the question for the elaters, and also for many of the adult winged forms of the Lampyrids; the larve and probably some of the larviform females of Lampyrids, however, are carnivorous, and in them it is possible, though hardly probable, that the alluring significance for the photogenic function may hold good. A few species of myriapods are known to be luminous; perhaps more species than are now known to possess this function actually possess it for short periods during the year, probably during the height of the mating season. In some myriapods, the luminosity seems to be developed in a secretion which is ejected from pre-anal glands, while in others it is located in organs on the body of the creature, as in the insects. Mrs. Thomas has shown the almost undoubted defensive character of the first class of luminosity in myriapods, while the obser- vations of Bruner suggest rather the sexual significance in the second class. Among the Cephalopods we find a very peculiar class of luminous organs, occurring immediately upon or just beside the eyeball, which in these creatures is often relatively enormous. Here the significance of the luminosity seems to be interpreted by the situation of the organs as an adjunct to the function of sight, and such it very probably is. But very similar organs are found on various other portions of the body and in situations where they can not very greatly aid in vision, or illuminate the creature’s path through the water. Much the same thing is true of some fish, which possess one or more large photogenic organs | situated near the eye, and rows of smaller organs along the sides or abdomen; here the organs near the eye are naturally considered as an aid to vision, while the others can not possibly be so considered. In

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an art LIVING FORMS AND LIGHT 537 ‘both fish and cuttlefish the explanation of these body-organs is prob- ably the same. In the depths of the sea colors are practically indis- tinguishable. The dim light of the stationary photogenic forms there would be insufficient to differentiate colors. But in the more than semi- darkness of these depths, a creature with a row of luminous dots along its sides would show up like an electric sign in a dark street. The ar- rangement of the light-giving spots could very easily be followed, even for considerable distances through the water. It is probable, therefore, that these rows of photogenic organs on the bodies of these creatures serve the purpose of plumage and pigmentation on land, a welcome for friend and a warning for foe. No doubt one species of fish, seeing a luminous streak some distance away through the water, could readily tell whether its pattern of light—its “ electric ‘sign ”—-spelled the same as those upon its own body, or the legend of a foe. Many of the fish that possess these rows of luminous organs, while insignificant in size, are obviously raptatorial, and are armed with vicious teeth. Of course another expression of the luminosity of deep-sea as well as surface fish is that it is alluring. This is especially true in those species which are provided with luminous barbels, or baits, like those of the angler-fishes. Alcock mentions a blind angler-fish with a luminous barbel, in which the alluring significance is scarcely to be doubted. An objection which seems to have been urged against the “ pattern ” theory of photogenicity in marine forms is that different specimens of the same species occasionally show variations in the number and dis- tribution of their lights. It seems probable, however, that the reason for this variation may be the age of the specimens of the fish in ques- tion, the number or position of the spots varying with age. Almost any of the various books and papers on the deep-sea fish will illustrate the effect of this “ pattern ” arrangement as seen, for example, in Cyclo- thone and Astronesthes. Still another type of organ of light-production among fishes is illus- trated in Carl Chun’s book “ Aus den Tiefen des Weltmeeres ”; in this case the luminous apparatus is set in a pit in the foremost part of the head, before the eyes. Here there can be little doubt, again, that the usefulness to the animal consists in the illumination of the “road ahead,” as the searchlight does for the automobile. A large number of other forms might be mentioned, which emit light in more or less characteristic ways, but what has gone before will serve to illustrate the majority of the points in interest. Some consid- erations as to the phenomenon in the fireflies may, however, be of in- terest, especially as deductions therefrom will doubtless hold true for many other luminous forms also. It has been observed that the various species of fireflies (Lampyrids) emit lights of slightly differing tone, and in decidedly different man- VOL, LX XIX. — 37. \

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538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY ners. For instance, the observer would soon notice that the lights of Photinus pyralis and Photinus scintilans were decidedly more yellow- ish than those of Photuris pennsylvanica and Lecontea lucifera, and that the latter were distinctly greenish in tone. A little further ob- servation would soon enable one to distinguish these two latter insects from the two. former ones also through the different method of light- emission ; the flickering flashes usually given by Photuris and Lecontea differing markedly from the long flash of the Photini. Thus it be- comes probable that different species can recognize their own kind through the color and manner of emission of the light. Another interesting circumstance is that the majority of Lam- pyrids have their luminous apparatus on the ventral side, the greater part of the light being directed downwards and sideways, and but very little passing upward. The effect of this ventral arrangement so far as the sexes is concerned is that a female resting on a leaf or on the ground illuminates by her flash a considerable portion of the support- ing surface, and a male flying above her would see not merely a flash, but a silhouette of his mate against an illuminated background. The green color of the light would, of course, be of special advantage on foliage. Moreover, the flash of the flying male would illuminate most particularly an area immediately below him and ahead of him, as these insects fly with the body inclined, the head being highest. In species where the male is non-luminous, or but slightly so, this last service does not exist, while in those like Photuris, where both sexes are about equally active, the manner of applying the luminous property may be entirely different; it is perhaps significant in this latter group, that the light is easily visible from the dorsal side between the elytra. The cucuyo (Pyrophorus noctilucus) in which both sexes are equally active, have lights both above and below. We have been considering the purpose of biophotogenicity so far as its application to the creatures possessing the function is concerned, and to a more limited extent, to their enemies. A few words may well be given regarding its relation to man. The use of the cucuyos as decorations and as night-lamps in the tropical countries is quite well known, and a number of instances have been recorded where travelers have owed their safe passage and even their lives to the light given by a collection of these Elaterid beetles. Several naturalists have written and read by the light of vessels filled with Noctiluca and other sea-or- ganisms, and. Chun has photographed a Cephalopod by means of its own light. The luminous bacteria have been put to a number of uses, mainly in the laboratory; flasks coated on the interior with fresh cul- tures of some of these organisms give light which appears of considerable intensity when the eye becomes accustomed to it, and Dubois and Molisch have taken quite a number of photographs by bacterial light. It has

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LIVING FORMS AND LIGHT 539 been suggested that “living lamps” made from these bacteria could be used to advantage in coal mines and powder magazines, since as they emit no appreciable heat, they would be absolutely without danger of producing an explosion. They would certainly furnish a nice cool light for use in summer; the author would very much like to have one here in his little study now, in place of the Welsbach which is engaged in turning some 98 per cent. of its expended energy into heat instead of light, after a day that has shown 90° F. However, such lamps would probably not do for anything like general illumination, even if the in- tensity were great enough, for in their light any color effects beyond a very limited range would be impossible. Color considerations would not be a considerable factor in mines and mills, however, so this does not interfere with this application. It is more reasonable, however, to consider that these luminous forms merely point to what is possible in the way of efficient light—to serve as the goal to which all effort in the improvement of light-effi- ciency must strive. This must be the ideal—light without heat.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY THE WATER RELATIONS OF DESERT PLANTS By Dr. D. T. MAcDOUGAL DESERT BOTANICAL LABORATORY, TUCSON, ARIZ. fee working as a student in the laboratory of Professor O. P. Jenkins at DePauw University twenty-three years ago, a type- written schedule of experiments in plant physiology by Professor J. C. Arthur was placed in my hands as a guide in some practical work that was to extend throughout the collegiate year. The program in question probably constituted the first attempt of its kind in an American school, - and its series of demonstrations may be taken to represent with fair accuracy the concepts and assumptions which might be safely presented to a student at that time. Sachs and his students had made contributions of immense im- portance in growth, organogeny, irritability and tropisms in general, but the first serious efforts at analysis of the physical phenomena under- lying the action of organisms may be assigned to Pfeffer and DeVries. Pfeffer established the principles of osmosis by a study of the behavior of crystalloidal substances toward membranes, the results of which were published in 1877, and in the same year DeVries brought out his contributions on turgidity. To the latter we owe the first systematic analysis of turgor, and of the mechanism by which the rigidity and firmness of soft-bodied organisms are maintained and by which move- ments are executed. The plasmolytic method for the detection of the differential action of substances and membranes, and the establish- ment of the principle of isotonic coefficients were also the work of DeVries. Both of these authors were intent on finding the solution of problems in plant physiology, in which they were notably successful, but their results form the basis of the dissociation theory of Arrhenius, and theory of pressure in solutions of van’t Hoff, which together may be regarded as the basis of modern physics and chemistry. It seems highly characteristic of research in plant physiology that devotion to many of its problems may lead the student far afield from botany, or the stricter domain of biology. The worker in this subject frequently finds it necessary to build cantilever bridges across chasms which yawn in front of him to find that the farther ends of his spans comes down to the solid ground of chemistry, physics, climatology or geology. At present, however, he has come upon rifts which he can not cross without aid from the farther side.

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DESERT PLANTS 541 The conclusions of DeVries and Pfeffer, impressive as to their in- clusiveness and with some of their applications ranging far ahead of the science of the time-yielded methods of practical calibration of a large number of biological processes and set physiology in the way of be- coming an exact science. The water-relations of the organism have al- ways stood out as a subject of great importance, and as the main as- pects are presented with less complication in plants, where the essential features are not complicated by a circulatory system, it has naturally followed that the principal contributions have been made by workers who attacked the problems involved from a botanical point of view. Osmotic action, being earliest and best known, has had thrown upon it the entire burden of the explanation of the water-relations, and all of the mechanical action of the organism which might in any manner be attributed to pressures originating by the action of electrolytes. One contemplates departures from it, as set out in text-books, with re- gret; but some very substantial modifications of our conceptions with regard to these. matters are long overdue. The simpler phenomena of swelling and of changes of form due to the imbibition action of wood, starch and other material in a colloidal condition found place even in my preliminary directions for work: it was well recognized, however, that secretion, excretion and the accumu- lation of water anywhere in an organism were not fully comprehensible on the theory of osmotic action, and I can still recall that while trying out the simple tests in plant physiology which had been outlined for me, and .which were calculated to give an encouraging sense of sufficiency to the student, the professor of biology was leading us into a considera- tion of the action of the epithelial cells and of other tissues which pre- sented many features not explainable by osmosis. However much this inadequacy may have impressed my teacher, candor compels me to say that it did not bear too poignantly upon me, and I was willing to leave these as well as many other troublesome things to such all-embracing causes as “ special physiological action ” or any other convenient hogie, as being entirely too mysterious for a beginner. Osmosis has indeed brought us far, and the briefest review will demonstrate the tremendous strides that have been made by its appli- cation. Our conceptions of turgidity and of processes which depend directly upon cell-pressures are so well-established as to be subject to but slight possible modification. It is not so, however, with many other phases of the physiology of the cell. The greater mass of an organism is colloidal, complex as to constitution, diverse as to reaction to acids, alkalies and electrolytes in general, and lastly having highly specific inter-actions among its constituents. It is bodies or masses of this kind that are to be dealt with when considering the action and morphol- ogy of the chromosome, chlorophyll bodies and cell-organs in general,

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peremeraemcmss TS ee eS 542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY as well as the nature and action of the membranes of the living organ- ism The opinion is hazarded that further advances in cell-mechanics will await some more definite physical knowledge of the colloidal bodies whose evolutions and involutions are the center of the morphological interest in cytology. A systematization of the water-relations of these bodies, and of the changed qualities resulting from contact and action vf other cell-constituents is demanded: determination of chemical structure is of ultimate importance, but not so immediately necessary to the physiologist, who would now welcome a return from the chemist and physicist of the service rendered them earlier by botanists. The water-relations, now as earlier, hold the center of the stage in physiology, especially in plants. In a final analysis it might be truly said that it is to the immanence of this subject that the establishment of the Desert Laboratory is due. It may be profitable to discuss some of the problems which present themselves to those of us whose activities center at that institution, and to take a glance at the living material which has developed under water-conditions quite unlike those of this and other regions with a moist climate. I am confident that I speak with the concurrence of my colleagues when I say that whatever results of importance we may have accomplished must be attributed largely to the living plants available for our work and the environmental condi- tions which furnish a background for our experimentation. If organic response to environic factors is to be taken as a potent means to evolution some striking features might be expected in the southwestern deserts; and when one looks up and down the slopes of Tumamoc hill, or across the washes to the bajadas of the Tucson moun- tains, types of vegetation not seen in regions with more moisture are seen everywhere. Furthermore, it needs only a brief acquaintance with the desert to know that the animals which find food and shelter in this vegetation show structures and habits equally pronounced. Two general types of plants may be seen away from the stream- ways: one comprises species of annuals and perennials with retarded stems, branches reduced to spines, small, narrow, hardened and water- proofed leaves, which send their roots to only a moderate depth in the soil occupying a kettle-shaped mass, being of the generalized type of Cannon. It may be explained at this point that the moisture of desert soils available to plants is in the more superficial layers which are wetted by the rains. The spinose plants now under discussion contain a very small proportion of water: their bodies are hard, with a minimum of development of cortex or pith, and they hold only a small amount of sap in the protoplasts or suspension colloids of the cells. This juice, however, is characterized by the fact that it generally contains a very large proportion of salts or compounds which exert osmotic pressure. The state of the cells may be determined by the use of plasmolytic meth-

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DESERT PLANTS 543 ods in which the strength of a solution, such as cane sugar or potassium nitrate, which will balance the solution in the cell is measured, or by ex- tracting a certain measured amount of living material which has been crushed with distilled water and after the freezing point of this ex- tract has been found the original pressure may be calculated. The simpler process of squeezing out sap and testing its freezing point can not be used in a large number of instances since the highest pressures that can be applied fail to bring out the scanty sap from some species. The use of such methods at the Desert Laboratory demonstrates that the leaves of the creosote bush (Covillea, or Larrea) (Fig. 1) may have ° ae Fic. 1. Covillea (Larrea), THE CREOSOTE BUSH, THE MOST WIDELY DISTRIBUTED SHRUB WITH RESTRICTED SURFACES IN AMERICAN DESERTS. The leaves show osmotic pressures equivalent to over 75 atmospheres. osmotic pressures of 75 atmospheres, the upper parts of the stems 35 to 60 atmospheres, and the basal portions of the stems 35 to 50 atmos- pheres. Fitting, by the use of plasmolytic methods on plants in the Algerian deserts at Biskra, found pressures in leaves of plants of this type of over a hundred atmospheres. These pressures would support a column of water 250 to 300 feet high. It is notable that plants of this type are constantly in absorbent con- tact with the soil, and apparently continue to derive some water from it even in the driest times, as evinced by the fact that they wilt quickly when taken up. Such forms are very difficult to transplant. A misap- prehension as to the influence of concentration of sap upon transpira-

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ne ee pre Meet maa Ee, Se ee 2 te era: wpe spe: = te 544 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY tion has long been current, and I must plead guilty to some participa- tion in statements tending to perpetuate the mistake. It may be easily found, however, that even the maximum pressures noted above would not retard transpiration as much as ten per cent. from that which would take place with a sap of distilled water. One of my reviewers has re- cently made a variation of this mistake in suggesting that acidity would have a retarding effect on water loss. No foundation exists for such a supposition. Almost any ordinary branching plant with broad leaves will, if forced to carry out its development under arid conditions, show some of the features of the type of desert plants described, and it is customary to assume that the causal conditions responsible for such forms are the desert factors: that we have here a direct adaptation or environic re- sponse which has become heritable in the strictest and fullest sense. This is a matter that deserves the fullest consideration. Meanwhile it will be perfectly safe to assume that such spinose forms represent the simplest or most ‘elementary specializations of desert plants, and species with the most diverse morphological constitution may show alterations of this character. The sclerophylls of the American desert include species of Prosopis, Acacia, Calliandra, Parkinsonia, Cercidium, Olneya of the leguminous plants, Covillea and Zizyphus of the Zygophyllacee, Fouqueria, Lycium, Koehberlinia, Condalia, Manzanita, Franseria, Jatropha, Sapindus, Vauquelinia, Quercus, Aster and others. Southwestern America has been arid for an extremely long period, not uniformly so, however. The researches of Professor Ellsworth > Huntington, in which evidence has been obtained from ruins of struct- ures built by man, of geological terraces, lake beds, strands and drainage lines in Central Asia, Palestine, and America, and also by the examina- tion of the structure of the big trees of California, seem to justify the conclusion that variations in climate with regard to temperature and moisture have taken place within the last two thousand years that would be of profound biological importance. It seems fair to assume that similar oscillations, each movement of which might extend over a few hundred years, have taken place previously. It is under these conditions therefore that we are to think of the evolution of the desert vegetation of the southwest, and present knowl- edge compels us to believe that much of it originated somewhere within the limits of the region which is arid at the present time. Perhaps the most important constitutents of this indigenous specialized flora are the cacti, which must have originated somewhere in the Mexican highlands in the Tertiary or later. This group is known to contain . over a thousand species, and now extends through South America, its distribution offering some most highly localized occurrences of species. So rapid has been its evolution, and so wide the amplitude of its depart-

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DESERT PLANTS 545 ures from the prototypes, that the relationship of the group is very difficult to determine. Chief interest in the present connection lies in the fact that in the evolutionary movement the members of the group have undergone all of the specializations of the spinose forms in addition to a number of others of even more sweeping morphological importance. Stems have been reduced and branching restricted: leaves are retained by some; in others, such as the prickly péars, they appear only as rudiments drop- ping off before maturity, while in others, such as the great melon cacti and the sahuaro, they are not visibly represented at all. So far does the general reduction go in the Hchinocacts or melon cacti that the adult plant consists of a short stem, a few inches, or at most less than two yards high, unbranched, and bearing only two types of spines which may be taken to represent the rudiments of atrophied organs, or special- ized organs, largely according to the morphological prejudices of the observer. These plants represent the climax of specialization to desert conditions and the end result of the influence of aridity on the develop- ment of land vegetation. | In these succulents which constitute the highest group of desert plants, the cortex and medulla of the stems are exaggerated to an enormous extent and the greater bulk of the plant consists of a paren- chymatous tissue with mucilaginous cell-contents, which gives to the Fic. 2. A Group or Echinocacti anpD Ibervillea, ISOLATED FOR DETERMINATION ‘OF THE RATH OF WATER Loss. Succulents of this type have osmotic pressures of less than 12 atmospheres and absorb water only from soils containing large proportions of moisture. Some of these individuals have been without an external supply for thirty- eight months.

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546 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY plant the physical qualities of a huge roll of jelly. The comparison may be made more inclusive, however. As the spinose plants have a sap high in electrolytes, mineral salts, or of substances showing osmotic activity, so these plants are rich in suspension colloids, and simulate a mass of gelatine capable of taking in and holding great quantities of water. The most sketchy knowledge of the colloids prepares one to learn that the sap of these plants shows a very low osmotic pressure under ordinary conditions of growth. The melan cacti of Arizona have a drinkable sap which shows but 3 to 5 atmospheres of pressure, the Fic, 3. AN INVERTED Echinocactus ABSORBING WATER THROUGH A CLAY CUP IMBEDDED IN THE BASAL PORTION. great tree cactus with its mucilaginous juice varies from 7% to 10 atmos- pheres and the opuntias (cylindrical) as high as 10 to 12 atmospheres (Fig. 2.) These values are to be contrasted with those given above for the spinose forms, which are seven to thirty times as great and with such ordinary broad-leaved shrubs as the lilac, in which pressures from 20 to 30 atmospheres are the rule. These purely physical features of the succulents are correlated with habits and modes of activity widely different from those of the spinose 548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

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en - DESERT PLANTS 547 forms. The latter penetrate the soil more deeply and are in constant absorbent contact with the soil. The succulents of southwestern deserts, without exception, have a wide-spreading root-system horizon- tally disposed immediately under the surface of the soil in a layer which is wetted by even a slight precipitation. An increase in moisture is the stimulus which starts the development of myriads of small absorbent rootlets and these have an absorbent capacity which results in the pas- sage of a very large amount of water into the body of the jelly-like plant within a very brief period. (Fig. 3.) As the rains come to an end the soil moisture soon dries to a limit in which the absorbent elements of the cacti may not act, these die and the plant stands or sits inert, anchored by the heavier roots in a soil with which it bears almost no important physiological relations until the coming of the next rainy season. It was to determine some of the features of the behavior of these plants during periods of extended deprivation of water that my own observations on the water-balance - were begun in 1908 and are still being continued. It is pertinent to say at this point that the halophytes, fleshy plants of seashores and saline areas, are not succulents in the present meaning of the term. These forms contain a large proportion of water, but it is held at high pressures (Cakile as high as 50 atmospheres, according to Lloyd), their transpiration rate corresponds with the proportion of water which they contain and water loss is consequently rapid, and as a _ further consequence they wilt quickly. An interesting capacity to vary the pressure of the sap in the absorbing organs has been found by Eng- lish botanists. The transpiration or loss of water from leaves or green organs of a plant may be roughly compared to the drying out and shrinkage of drops of wet gelatine; but with the modification that comes from the enclosure of the gelatine in small capsules arranged inside a chamber whose bounding walls are fairly water-proof, but which have ventilat- ing openings, hundreds of them to the square millimeter. It would be as if a room were piled full of parchment bags distended with thin mucilage; the walls of the bags would undoubtedly be wet and water vapor would be constantly given off into the air-spaces at a rate very little affected by the composition of the water with which the mucilage is moistened. Furthermore, if the windows were open, the water vapor would be carried out and the total amount remaining lessened con- stantly. The accentuated conditions at the Desert Laboratory have been favorable for the observation of a phase of transpiration which has been noted there for the first time. The transpiration of a leaf increases with the rising sun in the morning and the rate is accelerated until sometime in the forenoon, when, with all of the atmospheric factors at

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548 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY an intensity that would facilitate water loss, the rate suddenly drops, with the stomata still open. The theoretical explanation offered for this break by Professor Livingston would assume that the outer walls of the jelly-like cells are coated with a film of water from which evapo- ration takes place and which is constantly supplied from the cell. When the evaporating power of the air causes a loss in excess of the rate at which the film may be renewed from the cell, the film breaks, and evaporation now may take place from the interstices of the walls only. If the wall of the cell were supposed to be of brick laid in mortar and coated with plaster, the plaster would correspond to the film and the mortar between the bricks to the water from which evaporation could take place after this “incipient drying,” as it has been termed, has taken place. Excessive water loss may proceed with or without the breaking of the film to a point where the turgidity or pressure of the cells is lessened, with the result that the leaf wilts. The wilting point is not a constant, but is mainly the product of the retentivity of the soil and of the evapo- rating power of the air, both of which may vary widely. The evaporat- ing action of the air may be calibrated exactly at any time, and it is proposed by Professor Livingston that the standard of wilting point for a test species might be one of the most valuable expressions of the agricultural value of a soil. The action of stomata inevitably comes up in any consideration of transpiration: the beautifully regular structure of these organs, and their delicate action, have led to some extremely fanciful interpretations of their self-regulatory mechanism. Time suffices only to say that the condition of the stomatal openings concerns not only transpiration but also photosynthesis and respiration, and any scheme of automatism for action in response to any one of these processes would at times be highly detrimental to the other functions. Of recent contributions to the physiology of these organs, Lloyd’s consideration of the manner in which carbohydrates are drawn into the guard cells and are concerned in the making or loss of turgidity, and also his method of determination of the actual state of the stomata on a leaf at any moment by instanta- neous fixation of a strip of detached epidermis must be reckoned to be of great importance. Frances Darwin has recently devised a poro- meter which measures the rate at which air may be pulled through a leaf from one surface to the other, thus obtaining a basis for the calcula- tion of the average condition of the stomatal openings. Such refine- ment of methods and perfection of apparatus will permit a much more accurate calibration of leaf action than has been possible hitherto. The enormous accumulations of water in the bodies of cacti and other succulents raise questions as to the part such liquid may play in the life of the plant and some observations to test the matter were begun

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DESERT PLANTS 549 in 1908. An afternoon in October, 1909, was spent in felling and cutting up a tree cactus (Carnegiea or Cerus giganteus) , near the Desert Laboratory, which consisted of a single cylindrical trunk 18 feet in height. The total weight was nearly a ton, and a section was found to contain over 91 per cent. of water, showing that the entire plant held over seventeen hundred pounds of water, or about five barrels. It has previously been pointed out that during the dry season these plants sustain only an anchorage relation with the soil, and that absorp- tion ceases wholly. The experiments were therefore planned to detach a number of individuals of the sahuaro (Carnegiea), the melon cactus (Echinocactus), and various opuntias from the soil, place them on suitable supports in the accustomed upright position and thus simply lengthen the dry seasons to which they had been subject. Accidents in nature tear many individuals loose from the soil and they may not be able to perfect a new root-system for many months, so that the observa- tions closely simulated happenings in the history of the species involved. Some of the test plants were placed in the open air, some in the more equable conditions of a well lighted laboratory room, a few were kept for periods of a few months in constant temperature dark room, and others were exposed to the full blaze of the Arizona sunlight, standing on a base of black volcanic rock, thereby avoiding none of the desiccating effects of the climate. The formidable armature of the bulky bodies of these plants made their manipulation a matter of some difficulty and discomfort even with the best supports and harness that could be devised. The larger ones were placed on platform scales, where they were allowed to remain undisturbed. The majority, however, were mounted and two or three men were necessary to handle them in the weighings which were made at intervals correlated with the season and the rate of loss. All individuals showed a high rate of loss when first taken from the soil, the excess being attributed to the evaporation from abraded sur- faces of the roots and stems. Next it was found, of course, that the rate of loss was least during the cooler season, at which time an Echinocactus might lose as little as one forty-thousandth of its weight in a day, and on the other hand during many days in the hot dry season the daily loss was one three-hundredth of its total weight. The minimum of the tree cactus was one nine-thousandth of its total and the maximum was about that of the Echinocactus, although not measured under equivalent con- ditions. Chief interest in the rate of loss, however, centers about the behavior of these plants from season to season, especially when the amount of water on hand was taken into account. In work of this kind it is found convenient to use a standard of succulency which calculates the number of c.c. of water to 100 sq. cm. of surface. Thus a great melon cactus

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550 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY weighing nearly a hundred pounds had a succulence of 3 on the scale noted, in which condition it transpired water at the rate of 10 g. daily. A year later the succulence had fallen but slightly, being 2.8 ; the rate of transpiration, however, had decreased to one half, being now but 5 g.. daily. ; The theoretical explanation of the sudden drop in daily transpira- tion given above will not suffice for this case which is a comparison of successive seasons. The slowness of the rate of loss would allow ample- time for the diffusion from the great water-balance of the plant to take. up a deficiency at any given surface. Morphological alterations are not found, and the theoretical explanation that presents itself would be that: the colloidal condition of the walls, or inner membranes had been altered. The altered concentration of the cell-sap with its included acids and other substances might well be responsible for a change similar- to that which takes place on the surface of a plate of jelly when acted upon by various reagents. A second phase of interest in the acids of the sap was found in their daily variations. Larlier the determinations of the acidity of the sap were made rather at random, with the general result that it was seen to be not affected by progressive desiccation. Within the last few months, however, Professor H. M. Richards has gone into this matter more exactly, with the astonishing discovery that the acidity of these plants is very great in the morning and decreases steadily throughout the day until evening, when it begins to rise and continues to increase until morning. So great is the amplitude of this change that a cactus may contain four times as much acid in the morning as at sunset. It is needless to say that the problem as to the making and fate of this acid is a matter that excites the keenest interest in connection with the respiration and food-construction processes in the plant. At present the change seems to be directly dependent, on the course of the temperature. It is to be recalled that the water-holding power of the cell colloids must be notably affected by this variation in the acids of the cell. The probability of the absorption of water vapor from the air by plants of the desert is one of perennial interest, especially to those who take a sentimental view of desert life. The spines of cacti, especially the large curved and hooked ones of the Echinocacti, will take up water vapor, as has been demonstrated more than once in my work, but the: very small amount of moisture thus acquired is not available to the living cells and is quickly lost when the plants are exposed to direct sunlight. The bark of the ocotillo (Fouquiera) will absorb liquid water and yield it to growing tissues, as has been found by Lloyd, the hairs of some south African succulents have been found to absorb moisture, and the fleshy beach plants will absorb either water vapor or liquid water through the leaves, especially when in a desiccated condition. Doubtless

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DESERT PLANTS 551 the heavy fogs of the California-coast are in this way a source of supply for Cakile and other halophytes. In none of these cases, however, is the existence of the plants concerned so dependent upon atmospheric absorp- Fic. 4. A SanvuAro (Carnegiea gigantea) OF WHICH THE MAIN STEM HAS BEEN DEAD FOR OVER A YEAR, with three living branches, one of which bore flowers. tion as has been found by Professor Peirce for the lichens which thrive in the fog channels leading up the valleys and over the passes along the Pacific shore. Any study of this subject leads in the end to a consideration of the

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552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY value of the great water-balances described in the life of the plant, and one naturally asks the question as to how long an individual might survive at the expense of its great accumulated supply, and what activity it may carry on while cut off from the customary supply of soil moisture. The replies to these queries vary widely with the species considered. The tree cactus may live a year or as long as two years in the open in Arizona upon its balance. Growth and reproduction are in the main inhibited, however, by any notable depletion. Sometimes. however, the death of the main trunk of a plant leaves a living branch held high in the air, and this may bloom, but this action must be due to the special stimulation of approaching death. (Fig. 4.) The melon cactus may survive one or two sea- sons in the open, although when given some shade individuals have been seen to live three years, carry- ing on some apical growth and flower formation with the usual rhythm. The prickly pears sur- vive, grow and carry on reproduc- tion for even longer periods. So far as physiological useful- ness is concerned, stores of water accumulated in tubers, bulbs or thickened underground organs are far more effective than thickened aerial stems or leaves in holding a “ ] | water-balance available to the plant Fic. 5. AN INDIvipuaL oF Ibervillea for extended periods. Jbervillea, snore wich nas raoooceD VINES HD the “ guarequi” of Sonora, has repeated many seasons. thickened stem homologous with the “Big Root” of California, which is a relative, and it has been cited many times to illustrate ob- servations of an individual which is still alive although detached from a supply since 1902, and has not received any notable addition since 1901. (Fig. 5.) The corms of Brodiwa form new small corms during desiccation, which are plump with the diminished supply on hand, and this process continues until the balance reaches the vanishing point in three or four years. The observations of Professor Campbell show that plants with so little external appearance of water-storage as the liver-

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ato DESERT PLANTS 553 worts may hold a balance in mucilage cells, a capacity shared by an ex- tremely large number of species. A review of the extensive data accumulated establishes the fact that Echinocactus may live for nearly three years at the expense of its water-balance, which may be depleted as much as 50 per cent. before death results. Carnegiea loses nearly 30 per cent. before serious results follow, although the extremely succulent seedlings of this plant may shrink to one third the original weight and still live. Plants with a large water-balance are especially characteristic of the arid regions of southwestern United States, Mexico, some parts of South America and South Africa. It is notable that the great deserts of central Asia and Asia Minor, as well as the whole of north Africa, have but few native species of this habit. Some succulent Huphorbias are reported from India, but information concerning the occurrence of plants with a large accumulation of water in Australia is very meager. The physical causes which might be operative in inducing this habit in representatives of widely separated families are not known. VOL, LXXIx.—38.

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552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY value of the great water-balances described in the life of the plant, and one naturally asks the question as to how long an individual might survive at the expense of its great accumulated supply, and what activity it may carry on while cut off from the customary supply of soil moisture. The replies to these queries vary widely with the species considered. The tree cactus may live a year or as long as two years in the open in Arizona upon its balance. Growth and reproduction are in the main inhibited, however, by any notable depletion. Sometimes, however, the death of the main trunk of a plant leaves a living branch held high in the air, and this may bloom, but this action must be due to the special stimulation of approaching death. (Fig. 4.) The melon cactus may survive one or two sea- sons in the open, although when given some shade individuals have been seen to live three years, carry- ing on some apical growth and flower formation with the usual rhythm. The prickly pears sur- vive, grow and carry on reproduc- tion for even longer periods. So far as physiological useful- ness is concerned, stores of water accumulated in tubers, bulbs or thickened underground organs are far more effective than thickened aerial stems or leaves in holding a water-balance available to the plant Fic. 5. AN INpivipuaL oF Ibervillea for extended periods. Jbervillea, sonore WHICH HAS PRODUCED VINES AND the “guarequi” of Sonora, has a FLOWERS WHILE ISOLATED. This may be § q ? repeated many seasons. thickened stem homologous with the “Big Root” of California, which is a relative, and it has been cited many times to illustrate ob- servations of an individual which is still alive although detached from a supply since 1902, and has not received any notable addition since 1901. (Fig. 5.) The corms of Brodiea form new small corms during desiccation, which are plump with the diminished supply on hand, and this process continues until the balance reaches the vanishing point in three or four years. The observations of Professor Campbell show that plants with so little external appearance of water-storage as the liver- = ? asx 8

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DESERT PLANTS 553 worts may hold a balance in mucilage cells, a capacity shared by an ex- tremely large number of species. A review of the extensive data accumulated establishes the fact that Echinocactus may live for nearly three years at the expense of its water-balance, which may be depleted as much as 50 per cent. before death results. Carnegiea loses nearly 30 per cent. before serious results follow, although the extremely succulent seedlings of this plant may shrink to one third the original weight and still live. Plants with a large water-balance are especially characteristic of the arid regions of southwestern United States, Mexico, some parts of South America and South Africa. It is notable that the great deserts of central Asia and Asia Minor, as well as the whole of north Africa, have but few native species of this habit. Some succulent Huphorbias are reported from India, but information concerning the occurrence of plants with a large accumulation of water in Australia is very meager. The physical causes which might be operative in inducing this habit in representatives of widely separated families are not known. VOL, LXXIx.—38.

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554 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY BUFFON AND THE PROBLEM OF SPECIES By Prorgessor ARTHUR O. LOVEJOY THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY II E have thus far noted three generally disregarded but funda- mental facts concerning Buffon’s opinions about the nature of species. The first fact is that in his preliminary discourse in the first volume of the “ Histoire Naturelle,” in which he sought to apply the Leibnitian principle of continuity to natural history, Buffon’s empha- sis upon the continuity of the gradations between species probably had no evolutionary implications. The second fact is that the principal doctrine of this discourse is to the effect that only individuals exist in nature, while species exist only by grace of the human imagination, which, aided by human ignorance, sees sharp lines of cleavage among organisms where no such lines are. The third fact is that this doctrine was already tacitly but decisively abandoned in Buffon’s second vol- ume, where he represents species as real and well-marked natural enti- ties, their limits being determined by the test of the sterility of the products of cross-breeding. There are, indeed, many later passages where the old phraseology incongruously recurs; but it recurs in con- texts in which the reality of species is expressly insisted upon. 2. When the fourth volume of the “ Histoire Naturelle ”—the first dealing specifically with the lower animals—appeared in 1753, four years after the first three, Buffon’s departure from the notions set forth in the preliminary discourse became still more evident. He had by this time, in the first place, been greatly impressed by the homolo- gies in the structure of the vertebrates; he had come to see some signifi- cance in those facts of comparative anatomy which his own treatise— though more through the contributions of Daubenton than through his own—was for the first time setting in a clear light. The existence throughout at least all the immensely diverse vertebrate forms of an underlying unity of type, Buffon was, I suppose, the first to bring forcibly to the attention of naturalists and philosophers, as a fact call- ing for serious consideration and explanation. If we choose the body of some animal or even that of man himself to serve as a model with which to compare the bodies of other organized beings, we shall find that . . . there exists a certain primitive and general design, which we can trace for a long way. . . . Even in the parts which contribute most to give variety to the external form of animals, there is a prodigious degree of resemblance, which irresistibly brings to our mind the idea of an original pattern after which all animals seem to have been conceived. What, for example, can at first seem more unlike man than the horse? Yet when we compare man and horse point by

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BUFFON AND THE PROBLEM OF SPECIES 555 point and detail by detail, is not our wonder aroused rather by the resemblances than by the differences to be found between them? .. . It is but in the number of those bones which may be regarded as accessory, and in the lengthening or shortening or mode of attachment of the others, that the skeleton of the horse differs from that of the human body... . The foot of the horse (as M. Daubenton has shown), in appearance so different from the hand of man, is nevertheless composed of the same bones, and we have at the extremities of our fingers the same small hoof-shaped bone which terminates the foot of that animal. Judge, then, whether this hidden resemblance is not more marvelous than any outward differences, whether this constancy to a single plan of structure—which we can follow from man to the quadrupeds, from the quadrupeds to the cetacea, from the cetacea to birds, from birds to fishes, from fishes to reptiles—whether this does not seem to show that the Creator in making all these used but a single main idea, though varying it in every conceivable manner—so that man might admire equally the magnificence of the execution and the simplicity of the design. But consideration of the anatomical homologies did not lead Buffon merely to pious reflections. He saw clearly and unequivocally declared that this unity of type forcibly suggests the hypothesis of community of descent. To one who considers only this class of facts, he wrote: Not only the ass and the horse, but also man, the apes, the quadrupeds, and all the animals, might be regarded as constituting but a single family... . If it were admitted that the ass is of the family of the horse, and differs from the horse only because it has varied from the original form, one could equally well say that the ape is of the family of man, that he is a degenerate (dégénéré) man, that man and ape have a common origin; that, in fact, all the families, among plants as well as animals, have come from a single stock; and that all animals are descended from a single animal, from which have sprung in the course of time, as a result of progress or of degeneration, all the other races of animals. For if it were once shown that we are justified in establishing these families; if it were granted that among animals and plants there has been (I do not say several species) but even a single one, which has been produced in the course of direct descent from another species; if, for example, it were true that the ass is but a degeneration from the horse—then there would no longer be any limit to the power of nature, and we should not be wrong in supposing that, with sufficient time, she has been able from a single being to derive all the other organized beings. Buffon thus presented the hypothesis of evolution with entire defi- niteness, and indicated the homological evidence in its favor. But did he himself regard that evidence as conclusive, and therefore accept the hypothesis? The passage cited is immediately followed by a repudia- tion, ostensibly on theological grounds, of the ideas which he has been so temptingly presenting. But no! It is certain from revelation that all animals have participated equally in the grace of direct creation, and that the first pair of every species issued full formed from the hands of the Creator.” This repudiation has been regarded as ironical, or as inserted merely pro forma, by those interpreters of Buffon who have made him out a thorough-going evolutionist. Unfortunately, nearly all these 2 << Hist, Nat.,’? IV., 1753, p. 383.

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556 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY writers—dealing somewhat less than fairly with their readers—have failed to mention that his rejection of the evolutionary hypothesis was not put forth by him as resting exclusively upon these religious con- siderations. If the words just quoted stood alone, it would, indeed, be scarcely possible to take them seriously. But they do not stand alone; they are directly followed by arguments of quite another order against the possibility of the descent of one real species from another; and the essence of the most emphasized of these arguments lies in the Buffonian conception of the nature of species, already expounded in the second volume. In other words, the fact of the sterility of hybrids, and certain other purely factual considerations, were urged by Buffon as conclusive objections against the theory of descent. Specifically, his arguments against evolution are three: (1) Within recorded history no new true species (in his own sense of the term) have been known to appear. (2) There is one entirely definite and constant line of demarcation between species: it is that indicated by the infertility of hybrids. This is the most fixed point that we possess in natural history. No other resemblances or differences among living beings are so constant or so real or so certain. These, therefore, will constitute the only lines of division to be found in this work. But why, it may be asked, should the sterility of hybrids be a proof of the wholly separate descent of the two species engendering such hybrids? This question Buffon does not neglect to answer. An “ im- mense and perhaps an infinite number of combinations ” would need to be assumed before one could conceive that “two animals, male and fe- male, had not only so far departed from their original type as to be- long no longer to the same species—that is to say, to be no longer able to reproduce by mating with those animals which they formerly re- sembled—but had also both diverged to exactly the same degree, and to just that degree necessary to make it possible for them to produce only by mating with one another.” The logic of this is to me, I con- fess, a trifle obscure; but it is evident that Buffon conceived that the evolution from a given species of a new species infertile with the first could come about only through a highly improbable conjunction of cir- cumstances. (3) Buffon’s third reason for maintaining the fixity of species is the argument from the “ missing links.” If one species had been produced by another, if, for example, the ass species came from the horse, the result could have been brought about only slowly and by gradations. There would therefore be between the horse and the ass a large number of intermediate animals. Why, then, do we not to-day see the repre- sentatives, the descendants, of these intermediate species? Why is it that only the two extremes remain? Taking these three arguments into account, then, Buffon arrives at this conclusion : Though it can not be demonstrated that the production of a species by

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BUFFON AND THE PROBLEM OF SPECIES 557 degeneration from another species is an impossibility for nature, the number of probabilities against it is so enormous that even on philosophical grounds one can scarcely have any doubt upon the point.” However plausibly Buffon’s incidental expressions of deference to the testimony of revelation may be regarded as perfunctory and insin- cere, it would be absurd to suppose that he was also ironical in these legitimate and ostensibly scientific (however poor) arguments for the fixity of species—arguments which are closely connected with that conception of the nature of species which was perhaps his most influ- ential personal contribution to the biological ideas of his time. We must conclude, then, that, while he clearly envisaged the hypothesis of evolution as early as 1753, and recognized that there was some probable evidence in its favor, he then seriously believed that the preponderance of probability was enormously against it. It is certain that contem- porary readers must have understood this to be his position. The same doctrine—that true species, as determined by the sterility of hybrids, are real natural entities and constant units amid the other- wise infinitely variable phenomena of organic nature—is repeated and emphasized many times in subsequent volumes of the “ Histoire Nat- urelle.” Thus in volume five (1755) Buffon—trying to retain as much of the principle of continuity as could be made consistent with his present view—writes as follows: Although animal species are all separated from one another by an interval which nature can not overstep, some of them seem to approximate one another by so great a number of relations, that there remains between them only so much of a gap as is necessary to establish the line of separation.” In the same volume he insists upon the equal antiquity of all real species, in the very passage in which he emphasizes the possibility of a wide range of variation within the species: Though species were formed at the same time, yet the number of generations since the creation has been much greater in the short-lived than in the long-lived species; hence variations, alterations, and departures from the original type, may be expected to have become far more perceptible in the case of animals which are so much farther removed from their original stock.” This is advanced as a partial explanation of the extreme diversity of breeds in the canine species: the dog is a short-lived animal and has therefore been capable of a relatively great degree of diversification. A little later (in Vol. VI.,2* 1756) Buffon declares that “ nature 1 These, the most definite and decisive words on the subject to be found anywhere in Buffon’s writings, have been strangely disregarded by most of those who have discussed his attitude towards evolutionism. Samuel Butler can scarcely be acquitted of suppressing the passage, fatal to his theory. For he quotes in full the opening part of the passage, leaving off abruptly at the point where Buffon begins to introduce his serious objections to the theory of descent. Cf. ‘‘ Evolution Old and New,’’ p. 91. 2P. 59 (italics mine). =P. 194. ™P. 55.

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558 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY imprints upon every species its inalterable characters.” In 1765—that is, at precisely the period during which we are told that Buffon “ was expressing very radical views on the mutability of species ”—-we find him (in his “ Second View of Nature,” Vol. XIII.) giving his most extreme expression to the doctrine of the reality and constancy of genuine species. Here the language of the preliminary discourse concerning the relative significance in nature of the species and the individual has come to be completely reversed. An individual, of whatever species it be, is nothing in the universe; a hundred, a thousand individuals are nothing. Species are the only entities of nature (les seuls étres de la nature)—perduring entities, as ancient, as permanent, as nature herself. In order to understand them better, we shall no longer con- sider species as merely collections or series of similar individuals, but as a whole independent of number, independent of time; a whole always living, always the same; a whole which was counted as a single unit among the works of the crea- tion, and which consequently makes only a single unit in nature. ... Time itself relates only to individuals, to beings whose existence is fugitive; but since the existence of species is constant, it is their permanence that constitutes duration, the differences between them that constitute number. . . . Let us then give to each species an equal right at nature’s table; they are all equally dear to her, since she has given to each the means of existing, and of enduring as long as she herself endures.” This sort of rhetoric is not the dialect of an evolutionist; it is almost that of a Platonist. And there is more in plainer language to the same effect: Each species of both animals and plants having been created, the first indi- viduals of each served as models for all of their descendants. ... The type of each species is cast in a mold of which the principal features are ineffaceable and forever permanent, while all the accessory touches vary.” Many years later still, in 1778, there appeared the sub-division of the “ Histoire Naturelle” which Buffon’s contemporaries regarded as his most brilliant and most significant work—the “ Epoques de la Na- ture.” This was a resumption on a grander scale, and upon new prin- ciples, of the task attempted in the “ Theory of the Earth” in the first volume, thirty years before—an outline of planetary evolution. To the diffusion of evolutionary ways of thinking in the larger and vaguer sense, this treatise was a contribution of capital importance. into the details of Buffon’s geology I do not wish to enter in this paper. But it is worth while for our purpose to recall one or two striking facts about the “Epoques.” In it the writer, whom a recent German historian of biology has declared to have had a too little developed sense for the historical or genetic aspect of nature, attempted, in a far more compre- hensive, more definite and more impressive way than any of his prede- cessors, to write the history of the gradual development of our planet from the time when, an incandescent ball, it was separated from the * Vol. XIII, p. i. * Vol. XIII., pp. vii, ix.

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BUFFON AND THE PROBLEM OF SPECIES 559 sun. The task was, of course, undertaken prematurely; but Buffon not only made the need of its eventual achievement evident, but also indicated two of the essential means by which it was to be accom- plished: the study of present phenomena which can throw light upon the past processes through which existing conditions have been brought about; and the study of those natural “ monuments which we ought to regard as witnesses testifying to us concerning the earlier ages.” He insisted, moreover, with the utmost plainness upon (as it was then regarded) the extreme antiquity not only of the earth, but also of organic life. And in doing so he showed himself not at all disposed any longer to permit “revelation” to settle scientific questions. “ How,” he writes, “some one will ask me, do you reconcile this vast antiquity which you ascribe to matter with the sacred traditions, which give to the world only some six to eight thousand years? However strong be your proofs, however evident your facts, are not those re- ported in the holy book more certain still?” Buffon replies that he has all possible respect for scripture, but that it always pains him to see it used in this way. Doubtless there is no real conflict between its testimony and that of science; and he thereupon introduces what I suppose is the first of the long series of reconciliations of Genesis and geology. The six days were not really days, but long periods of time, and so forth. But in any case, he concludes, the Bible was originally addressed to ignorant men at an early stage of civilization, and was adapted to their needs and their intelligence. Its science was the science of the time, and ought not to be taken too literally. - Finally, it is to be noted that in the “ Epoques” Buffon ceased to talk of the simultaneous creation of all species, and advanced the doctrine of the gradual appearance of different sorts of animals in conformity with geological conditions. If, then, Buffon was desirous of inculcating the theory of the muta- bility of species, here was the place in which, above all others, he might be expected to do so fully and unequivocally. But here once more we find him reiterating the substance of his old doctrine: A comparison of these ancient monuments of the earliest age of living nature with her present products shows clearly that the constitutive form of each animal has remained the same and has undergone no alteration of its principal parts. The type of each species has not changed; the internal mold has kept its shape without variation. However long the succession of time may be conceived to have been, however numerous the generations that have come and gone, the indi- viduals of each kind (genre) represent to-day the forms of those of the earliest ages—especially in the case of the larger species, whose characters are more invariable and whose nature is more fixed.” By the “larger species” here, Buffon means those of greater size, such as the elephant and hippopotamus; and when he says that these are “ especially ” invariable, he means, as the whole context shows, not << Hist, Nat.,’’ Supp., V., p. 27.

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560 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY that any other species ever departs from its specific type, but that in these larger creatures even the “accessory touches” have been com- paratively little altered. Thus, in a long series of passages, from 1753 on, we find Buffon reiterating with explicitness and emphasis the same teaching, which has, for him, its principal bases in two of his most cherished concep- tions: namely, in his conviction that the sterility of hybrids shows that species are real “ entities of nature”; and in his embryological theory of “organic molecules” and of the “internal mold” which “ casts into its own shape those substances upon which it feeds” and “can operate in the individual only in accordance with the form of each species.” One of the first of modern naturalists to make the idea of organic evolution familiar to his contemporaries and to discuss it seriously, Buffon repeatedly rejected that theory, at all periods of his career ; and he did so, not from timidity merely nor from an affectation of deference to scriptural authority, but upon reasoned grounds which he plainly stated and had every appearance of presenting as conclusive. Yet it is also undeniable, as will presently be seen, that he did not maintain this negative position without occasional waverings and doubts and at least one clear, though possibly inadvertent, self-contra- diction. 3. In spite of his habitual emphasis upon the constancy of true spe- cies, Buffon insisted more than any of his predecessors, and more, per- haps, than any of his contemporaries, except Maupertuis and Diderot, upon the variability of organisms and the potency of the forces making for their modification. Though nature appears always the same, she passes nevertheless through a constant movement of successive variations, of sensible alterations; she lends herself to new combinations, to mutations of matter and form, so that to-day she is quite different from what she was at the beginning or even at later periods.* The passage is from one of Buffon’s later writings; but its close counterpart is to be found as early as 1756: If we consider each species in the different climates which it inhabits, we shall find perceptible varieties as regards size and form; they all derive an impress to a greater or less extent from the climate in which they live. These changes are made slowly and imperceptibly. Nature’s great workman is Time. He marches ever with an even pace, and does nothing by leaps and bounds, but by degrees, gradations and successions he does all things; and the changes which he works—at first imperceptible—become little by little perceptible, and show themselves eventually in results about which there can be no mistake.” For the most part these changes were clearly represented by Buffon as taking place only within the limits of species; they amounted merely to the formation of new “races” or varieties. Since his criterion of % Supp., V., 1778, p. 3. * Vol. VI., pp. 59-60. I have borrowed Butler’s excellent rendering of this passage. =" Yr he k = SO.) UU lhU) Oe SO eee PO eee

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BUFFON AND THE PROBLEM OF SPECIES 561 identity of species (the possibility of interbreeding) did not essentially depend upon morphological similarity, he could with consistency sup- pose the descendants of a given pair to have departed to a very great (though not to an indefinite) degree, in the course of ages, from the form and external characters of their ancestors. It was, in other words, characteristic of his biological system that he set up an absolute distinction between species and varieties, gave an extreme extension to the notion of a variety, and sought to reduce the number of separate species as much as possible, by assuming—until the establishment of the sterility of the hybrids should prove the contrary—that most of the Linnean species were merely varieties descended from a relatively small number of original specific types. Near the close of his essay “ De la dégénération des animaux” (1766), Buffon writes: To account for the origin of these animals [certain of those found in America] we must go back to the time when the two continents were not yet separated and call to mind the earliest changes which took place in the surface of the globe; and we must think of the two hundred existing species of quadru- peds as reduced to thirty-eight families. And though this is not at all the state of nature as we now find it, but a state much more ancient, at which we can arrive only by induction and by analogies . . . difficult to lay hold of, we shall attempt nevertheless to ascend to these first ages of nature by the aid of the facts and monuments which yet remain to us.” Here, clearly, is an evolutionary program, strictly limited by the assumption that there are irreducible ultimate species, yet tolerably ambitious: to regard all known kinds of quadrupeds as derived from thirty-eight original types, by modification in the course of natural descent; and to determine the general causes and conditions of the production of species in the ordinary sense, 7. ¢., of relatively stable varieties. These ideas occurred to Buffon too late to be made use of in his general plan for the classification of the quadrupeds; that plan, it will be remembered, was formed while he was unluckily under the influence of the principle of continuity. But in the volumes on birds, of which the first appeared in 1770, he had the opportunity for a fresh start; and he took advantage of it to introduce a method of distinguish- ing and classifying species which—within the limits already indicated —is expressly evolutionary in its principles. For the natural history of the birds I have thought that I ought to form a plan different from that which I followed in the case of the quadrupeds. Instead of treating of the birds . . . by distinct and separate species, I shall bring several of them together under a single genus. Except for the domesticated birds, all the others will be reunited with the species nearest to them and presented together as being approximately of the same nature and the same family... . When I speak of the number of lines of parentage, I mean the number of species so closely resembling one another that they may be regarded as collateral branches of a single stock, or of stocks so close to one another that they may be supposed to have a common ancestry and to have issued from that same original stock with which they are connected by so many points of resemblance ® Vol. XIV., 1766, p. 358.

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562 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY common to them all. And these related species have probably been separated from one another only through the influences of climate and food, and by the lapse of time, which brings about all possible combinations and gives play to all the agencies that make for variation, for improvement, for alteration and for degeneration.” Even the groupings which he gives, Buffon adds, can not be re- garded, in the existing state of knowledge, as correctly and exclusively enumerating all the apparent species which are really akin to one another. The number of separate species which he lists, he intimates, is probably much too great. But at all events, he concludes with pride, his work is the first real attempt at an ornithologte historique. The purpose of the present inquiry does not call for any extended exposition of Buffon’s views about the causes of modification in animals and the ways in which quasi-species are formed. In the essay “ De la dégénération des animaux” the subject is discussed at the length of over sixty quarto pages; the theories there advanced have been sufii- ciently accurately summarized by many previous writers. In brief, the factors in modification which he mentions as the most important are changes of climate (in which the most potent influence is temperature), changes of food, and the effects of domestication. But it is evident that he also believed in a general tendency to variation in the germ, and in the influence of acquired habits, of the use and disuse of parts, and of acquired lesions and mutilations. Thus he explains the humps, and the callosities on the knees and chest, of the camel and the llama as due to the habits of those animals under domestication. Similarly, the cal- losities on the haunches of the baboons arise from the fact that “ the ordinary position of these animals is a sitting one—so that the hard skin under the haunches has even become inseparable from the bone against which it is continually pressed by the weight of the body.” These theories, of course, take for granted the inheritance of acquired characters, which Buffon also (less cautious here than Maupertuis**) explicitly asserts. It is, I suppose, also well known that Buffon called attention (as Linneus did independently) to the struggle for existence between species, due to the excessive multiplication of individuals, and pointed out how an equilibrium comes to be established (so long as ex- ternal conditions remain constant) by means of this opposition. It may be said that the movement of nature turns upon two immovable pivots—one, the boundless fecundity which she has given to all species; the other, the innumerable difficulties which reduce the results of that fecundity, and leave throughout time nearly the same number of individuals in every species.* Buffon, in fact, rather over-worked this notion of a stable equilib- rium, which rested upon the assumption of an approximate equality << Hist. des Oiseaux,’’ I., 1770, preface. "Cf. Lovejoy, ‘‘Some Eighteenth Century Evolutionists,’? Pop. Sct. MONTHLY, July, 1904, p. 248 n. << Hist, Nat.,’’ V., 1755, p. 252.

c6A THRE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

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BUFFON AND THE PROBLEM OF SPECIES 563 among species in their endowment for the struggle for survival. This is perhaps one reason why it did not occur to him to think of that struggle as causing a process of natural selection, or to see in it a factor in the formation of so-called species. 4. It must be evident to the reader from all that precedes that Buf- fon’s mind, throughout nearly the whole of his life, was played upon by two opposing forces. Quite apart from any illegitimate and external influences, such as fear of the ecclesiastics—of which too much has been made—his thought was affected by two conflicting sets of considerations of a factual and logical sort. He saw certain definite reasons for re- garding species as the fundamental constants of organic nature; what those reasons were has been sufficiently indicated. But he also saw that there was some force in the argument from the homologies ; and—what in his case was still more important—he was committed to the program of explaining the diversities of organisms, so far as might be, by the hypothesis of modification in the course of descent; he was deeply impressed by the fact of variability ; and he held to a theory of heredity (namely, of the heritability of acquired characters) which acted as a sort of powerful undertow towards a generalized evolutionism. Add to this that he was little careful of consistency and extremely careful of rhetorical effect—and it is not surprising that he occasionally forgot one side of his doctrine in emphasizing the other. There is one and, so far as I can discover, only one passage in which he seems categorically to contradict his ordinary teaching of the impossibility of the descent of really distinct species, sterile inter se, from common ancestors. This occurs at the end of the chapter on “ Animals Common to Both Conti- nents” (Vol. IX., 1761). It is not impossible that, without any deviation from the ordinary course of nature, all the animals of the New World may be at bottom the same as those of the Old—having originated from the latter in some former age. One might say that, having subsequently become separated by vast oceans and impassable lands, they have gradually been affected by a climate which has itself been so modified as to become a new one through the operation of the same causes which dissociated the individuals of the two continents from one another. Thus in the course of time the animals of America have grown smaller and departed from their original characters. This, however, should not prevent our regarding them to-day as different species. Whether the difference be caused by time, climate and soil, or be as old as the creation, it is none the less real. Nature, I maintain, is in a state of continual flux and movement. It is enough for man if he can grasp her as she now is, and cast but a glance or two upon the past and future, to endeavor to perceive what she may once have been and what she may yet become. Here Buffon seems either to have forgotten or to have deliberately discarded his own usual criterion of diversity of species. He does not propose to inquire whether the American species are capable of having fertile progeny when mated with their respective congeners in the old world, but predicates difference of species solely on the ground of dis- similarity of form; and to the distinct species so determined he at-

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564 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY tributes an identical origin. But it is possible that he has here merely lapsed (as he apparently does occasionally elsewhere) into the terminol- ogy in which he was brought up, and is using the word species in the Linnean sense rather than in his own. More significant, perhaps, than this possibly inadvertent incon- sistency is the fact that, in his fourteenth volume** (1766), Buffon seems to raise explicitly the question—though only as a question— whether, after all, descent with modification may not extend to species as well as varieties. After surveying the varieties which indicate to us the alterations that each species has undergone, there arises a larger and more important question, namely, how far species themselves can change—how far there has been a more ancient modification, immemorial from all antiquity, which has taken place in every family, or, if the term be preferred, in all the genera in which species that closely resemble one another are to be found. There are only a few isolated species which are like man in forming at once a species and a whole genus. Such are the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus and giraffe, which constitute genera, or simple species, arid descend in a single line, with no collateral branches. But all other races have the appearance of forming families, in which we may perceive a common source or stock from which the different branches seem to have sprung.” Even here one can not be wholly sure that Buffon is not referring to Linnean species, and using the word genera to indicate what he usu- ally means by species in the strict sense. Assuming, however, that he is speaking of “true” species, it must be observed that while he raises the question of their mutability, he does not answer it finally in the affirmative. For the passage is shortly followed by that cited earlier in this paper, in which Buffon, though he derives many species tradition- ally regarded as distinct from a common stock, yet finds even in “ the first ages of nature” thirty-eight irreducible diversities of specific type among quadrupeds. There is, however, one peculiarly interesting essay in which Buffon shows himself a little dubious even about that “most fixed point in nature” upon which his usual doctrine of the reality and constancy of species was based—namely, the fact of the sterility of hybrids. As I have already mentioned, this seemed to him so central a point in nat- ural history that he for many years assiduously collected data concern- ing it, and caused experiments bearing thereon to be made and carefully recorded at his own estate at Montbard. The results of these inquiries, which he reports in the chapter “On Mules” (in the third supplemen- tary volume, 1776), led him to the conclusion that hybrids are not necessarily without hope of posterity. On the testimony of an affidavit from a gentleman in San Domingo, Buffon declares that in hot climates mules have been known to beget offspring of mares, and females of their “Just a year earlier we have found Buffon using the most exaggerated language possible about the changelessness of species. * Vol. XIV., p. 335; italics mine.

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BUFFON AND THE PROBLEM OF SPECIES 565 kind to breed with horses. “ One was therefore wrong formerly in main- taining that mules are absolutely infertile.” Other experiments in the crossing of goats and sheep, dogs and wolves, canaries and goldfinches, are recited; they all go to show that sterility is merely a question of degree. All hybrids (mulets), says prejudice, are vitiated animals which can not produce offspring. No animal, say reason and experience, is absolutely infertile, even though its parents were of separate species. On the contrary, all are capable of reproduction, and the only difference is a difference of more or less.* That hybrids are relatively infertile, and probably incapable of breeding with one another, Buffon still maintains; “their infecundity, without being absolute, may still be regarded as a positive fact.” Something, therefore, is still left of his test of unity of species. But now that it seemed to be reduced to a mere difference in degree, it was no longer the sharp-cut, decisive, impressive thing that it had at first appeared. And, feeling that his criterion of species had a good deal weakened, Buffon was led—not, indeed, even now to an altogether unequivocal affirmation of the descent of real species from one another —but to a confused, half-agnostic utterance, in which he seems to take at least the possibility of such descent for granted: In general, the kinship of species is one of those profound mysteries of nature which man will be able to fathom only by means of long and repeated and difficult experiments. How, save by a thousand attempts at the cross-breeding of animals of different species, can we ever determine their degree of kinship? Is the ass nearer to the horse than to the zebra? Is the dog nearer to the wolf than to the fox or the jackal? At what distance from man shall we place the great apes, which resemble him so perfectly in bodily conformation? Were all the species of animals formerly what they are to-day? Has their number not increased, or rather, diminished (sic)? . . . What relations can we establish between this kinship of species and that better known kinship of races within the same species? Do not races in general arise, like mixed species, from an incapacity in the individuals from which the race originated for mating with the pure species? There is perhaps to be found in the dog species some race so rare that it is more difficult to breed than is the mixed species produced by the ass and the mare. How many other questions there are to ask upon this matter alone—and how few of them there are that we can answer! How many more facts we shall need to know before we can pronounce—or even conjecture—upon these points! How many experiments must be undertaken in order to discover these facts, to spy them out, or even to anticipate them by well-grounded conjectures !* This passage certainly indicates a strong inclination towards an acceptance of a thorough-going doctrine of descent; yet in Butler’s lengthy compilation of the evidences of Buffon’s evolutionism it is not cited at all! The volume containing it, says Butler, offers “little which throws additional light upon Buffon’s opinion concerning the mutability of species”! ** In truth, it offers one of the best of the * Supp., III., p. 20; the italics are Buffon’s. * Supp., III., 1776, pp. 32-33. **¢<Evolution Old and New,’’ p. 165.

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566 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY extremely few passages which give some plausibility at least to the theory that Buffon was continuously working towards an unqualified transformism and actually arrived at that position in his later life. But if he reached it (which his language just quoted does not quite justify us in declaring) he did so only in a transient mood. For, as we have already seen, in 1779, in the “ Epoques de la Nature,” we once more find him asserting—though no longer upon the ground of the sterility of hybrids—that the “constitutive form” of each separate species is the same to-day as in “ the earliest ages.” 5. It is more important, and it is commonly easier, to determine what opinions a man’s writings tended to encourage than to determine what opinions he actually held. Mind-reading is perhaps no essential part of the history of science. If, then, in conclusion, we raise the more important question with respect to Buffon, it is evident that his work both fostered and hindered the propagation of evolutionary ideas in biology. Earlier than any other except Maupertuis, he put the hypoth- esis of organic evolution before his contemporaries in a clear and defi- nite form. He called to their attention, also, the facts of comparative anatomy which constitute one of the principal evidences for that hypothesis. Throughout the rest of the century we never cease to hear about the wonderful “unity of type” characteristic of the vertebrates and perhaps of all living things. It was this consideration which led Kant as near to evolutionism as he ever came; Herder and Goethe are full of it, though the former never admitted its full evolutionary con- sequences ; and all, it is evident, learned it directly from Buffon. He, says Goethe, was the first to recognize eine urspriingliche und allge- meine Vorzeichnung der Tiere. Buffon, moreover, once and for all in- scribed upon the program of natural history, as its primary problems, the reduction of the number of separate species to a minimum, the derivation of highly divergent forms from a common origin through nat- ural descent, and the discovery of the causes and methods of modifica- tion. He, finally, did more than any one else to habituate the mind of his time to a vastly (though not yet sufficiently) enlarged time-scale in connection with the history of organic nature, a necessary prereq- uisite to the establishment of transformism. These were great steps in the progress of evolutionism. But it is equally true that Buffon probably did more than any other eighteenth century writer to check the progress of evolutionism. He did so partly by the authority which, for his contemporaries, attached to those per- sonal utterances of his favorable to the doctrine of immutability. These utterances were far more numerous and more categorical than those which could be quoted on the other side; and they certainly were not taken as ironical by the average reader of the period. But, what is still more important, Buffon put into currency what passed for a scientific and serious argument against any wholesale theory of descent. In the

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BUFFON AND THE PROBLEM OF SPECIES 567 eyes of many learned men of his own and later generations, perhaps his chief single contribution to science was his definition of species. This, as I have recently pointed out,*® was regarded as of immense importance by Kant, and was, indeed, the starting point and the controlling prin- ciple of that philosopher’s biological speculations. “It is Buffon,” wrote Flourens as late as 1844, “who has given us the positive char- acter of a species.” Now before the Buffonian criterion of species was propounded, there already existed a tendency towards evolutionism, fostered by the principle of continuity and by such embryological con- ceptions as those of Maupertuis—a tendency to disregard species alto- gether and to infer from the variability of individuals to an unlimited and rather promiscuous mutability of the successive generations of liv- ing things. If it had not been for Buffon, transformism would prob- ably have developed at first*® through the increase and diffusion of this tendency ; and its development might well, in that case, have been more rapid. But when species came to be regarded as real “ entities of na- ture,” determined by the objective criterion of the sterility of hybrids, this somewhat too facile evolutionism received a check, and a certain presumption of the constancy of true species seemed to be created. This presumption had all the more force because it left room for a large measure of mutability in the case of varieties, and thus gave a sort of appeasement to the strong impulse towards genetic modes of thought which was already active in the mid-eighteenth century. But more than all this, Buffon, as we have seen, from the first managed to associate with his definition of species the assumption that the sterility of one kind of animal when crossed with another was a character that (unlike almost all others) could not have been produced in the course of descent with modification. And this supposition that the sterility of hybrids was incapable of an evolutionary explanation long remained a serious obstacle to the acceptance of the theory of descent, even with those little influenced by theological prejudices against the theory. We find even Huxley in 1862 troubled over the difficulty. In his Edin- burgh lectures of that year “ he warned his hearers of the one missing link in the chain of evidence—the fact that selective breeding has not yet produced species sterile to one another.” ‘The doctrine of descent was merely to be “ adopted as a working hypothesis, . . . subject to the production of proof that physiological species may be produced by se- lective breeding.” 7 Since Buffon appears to have been the first to emphasize the notion of physiological species, and to give currency to the supposition that the sterility of hybrids affords a presumption against any thorough-going transformism, he must be regarded as hav- ing done more than almost any man of his time to counteract the tend- ency which he also, perhaps, did more than any other to promote. *° POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, January, 1911, pp. 37-38. “Cf. Lovejoy, PopuLAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, July, 1904, p. 248. “ Huxley’s ‘‘Life and Letters,’’ I., 193.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY PROTOZOAN GERM PLASM By Proressor GARY N. CALKINS COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY N his classical essays on the nature of the germ plasm, Weismann, more than twenty years ago, drew a distinction between that pro- toplasm destined for the perpetuation of the race and that needed by the organism for its ordinary functions of moving, eating, digesting, etc. The former, which he designated germ plasm, in Metazoa is early dif- ferentiated from the latter, and in some forms may be distinguished as the rudiments of a germinal epithelium even before the end of. seg- mentation. The latter develops into the vegetative organs of the adult and serves to nourish and support the former. The distinction, there- fore, especially in the higher Metazoa, indicates a real difference in potential, and the vegetative cells have no primary reproductive func- tions. In lower Metazoa the distinction is not so clear, many of the vegetative cells turning to germ cells either in groups or singly. Protozoa, or animals consisting of one cell only, were set apart by Weismann as differing from Metazoa in not showing this somatic germinal differentiation, and he regarded them all as potential germ cells. Furthermore, since germ cells have the possibility, at least, of continued life, while somatic cells die, he assumed that Protozoa are potentially immortal, while natural death is the penalty Metazoa must pay for the privilege of differentiation. Weismann’s hypothesis is certainly seductive, and, viewed super- ficially, would seem to indicate a fundamental difference between the unicellular and the multicellular animals. Protozoa, however, are ; more than mere single cells, comparable with the isolated tissue cells of ‘higher animals. They must be regarded as organisms, complete in | themselves and comparable, therefore, with the whole animal of higher type and not with any one of its cells. Like the entire Metazoon, it -excretes the products of destructive metabolism, it secretes many dif- ferent types of by-products; it moves, obtains food, swallows, digests and assimilates it through the action of digestive fluids; in short, it performs all of the functions which distinguish animals from plants. Finally, like higher types again it reproduces its kind by processes rela- tively as simple as the functions of digestion or nervous response are simple when compared with these functions in Metazoa. In such | complete organisms, therefore, it is a logical inference to consider the, | protoplasm of a protozoon as made up of widely different elements

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PROTOZOAN GERM PLASM 569 equivalent in function to the aggregate of cells making up the metazoon, and with some parts at least having the power to contract and move, some to digest food, some to secrete, others to excrete and still others, finally, to reproduce. Considered in this sense the cell theory as ap- plied to the Protozoa is obviously inadequate. The especial portions of the protoplasm that have to do with these several different functions of the protozoon can be identified in many cases as structurally dif- ferent from the remainder, espe- cially those parts which have to do with movement and with the perpetuation of the race, 1. e., the germ plasm. In the majority of Protozoa this portion of the protozoon is clearly differentiated, one time or another, from the re- mainder of the cell, and this justifies us in taking issue with Weismann, and with the majority of those who write casually about the Protozoa, as having no so- matic cell elements and there- fore no possibility of natural death. If it can be shown that there is a specific germ plasm in these unicellular animals, then the matter of immortality differs in no essential way frém the same problem in Metazoa or Metaphyta where the germ cells have a possibility of endless ex- istence. The evidence points to a common and universal law that continued life is an attribute of an especially endowed protoplasm, Fie. 1. Original. termed germ plasm, which forms the material basis of the reproductive cells. The history of single Protozoa, if taken superficially, seems to point to the fact that the protoplasm of these cells does not die a natural death, but continues to live in successive generations of similar indi- VOL. LXXIX. — 39. SS

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572 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY type corresponding with the hydroid, the macrospheric type with the medusa generation. Like these ccelenterates, the microspheric type reproduces asexually while the macrospheric type reproduces sexually. Like them also, the asexual generation gives rise to the sexual and the latter, again, to the asexual, hence there is a typical alternation of gen- erations. Like the ccelenterates, again, the sexual generation acts as a nurse for the important germ plasm. Let us see how this works out in the case of Polystomella crispa. Fic. 4. After Calkins. The young individual of Polystomella secretes a shell of calcium carbonate and grows by feeding on various minute animals and plants. Its nucleus divides by mitosis and the protoplasmic mass increases in size but does not divide with the nucleus. A new shell. chamber is formed partly enclosing the first one. Further division of the nuclei, increase of the plasmic mass and new chamber formation continues with constant feeding until a typical Polystomella shell is formed, containing a relatively great protoplasmic mass and hundreds of nuclei. When mature, all of the nuclei save one or two break down into thousands of

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PROTOZOAN GERM PLASM Fic. 5. After Lister. minute particles of chromatin which are distributed throughout the protoplasm in the form of fine granules. Authorities differ somewhat in regard to the next changes of the nuclei. If we accept Schaudinn’s After Lister. 573

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574 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY account, verified by Winter, the protoplasm of the microspheric indi- vidual breaks down into small fragments, each fragment enclosing a number of these granules of chromatin, which coalesce later to form one single nucleus. If we accept Lister’s account the coalescence occurs before the breaking down of the protoplasmic mass. All observers agree, however, that hundreds of minute nucleated “embryos” arise Photograph by J. J. Lister. Fic. 7. Polystomella crispa, Liberation of pseudo-podiospores from the megalospheric individual. by fragmentation of the parent protoplasm (Fig. 7).. The breaking down of the original nuclei is an important step, for by this process the important germ plasm is formed, which in the finely granular state described was named by Hertwig the chromidia. The small “embryos” leave the parent organism in swarms (Fig. 8), and the calcareous shell is finally deserted. Each “ embryo ” then grows into a megalospheric or large-chambered individual in which the primary nucleus remains single for a considerable period. New chambers are formed about the primary central chamber and a new adult individual results from the continued growth. The history of the nucleus, however, is quite different from that of the microspheric individual. The protoplasm contains a large primary nucleus which ultimately degenerates and disappears. During life of the individual, however, this nucleus gives rise by chromatin “ secretion” or by frag- mentation, to. an immense number of minute nuclei which are dis- tributed throughout the protoplasmic mass. Each nucleus becomes

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PROTOZOAN GERM PLASM 575 surrounded by a thickened zone of protoplasm and then each divides twice, thus increasing the number of the zones. All of the protoplasm is utilized in this zone formation, with the exception of a small portion surrounding the original “ primary ” nucleus, these parts degenerating and disappearing. Preparations of the decalcified individual at this period show hundreds of minute nucleated masses completely filling the shell space (Fig. 6). In life, these emerge in swarms, each in the form of a tiny bi-flagellated swarmer. The swarmers are gametes which Fig. 8. After Calkins. conjugate with similar gametes from another individual (Fig. 8, A). The flagella are thrown off after union, the nuclei unite, and each united pair, as a fertilized cell, or zygote, develops into a new microspheric individual. In Polystomella, therefore, fertilization is accomplished, not by union of the parent individuals as in Paramecium, but by coalescence and fusion of minute gametes which contain portions of the specific germ substance in the form of chromidia.

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576 ~ THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY Arcella vulgaris, a common fresh-water shelled rhizopod, has a much more simple life-history. The nucleus of the young form soon divides, so that most Arcella specimens con- tain two primary nuclei (Fig. 9). From the very outset, furthermore, each nucleus secretes a chromatin substance which collects in a zone about the periphery of the cell. This substance is not granular like the chromidia, but has a similar origin from the nucleus, and has the same germ-plasmic fate as chromidia, so that Hertwig was justified in calling it a “chromidial net.” When the organism is mature, minute nuclei condense out of the substance of this network, hundreds of them being formed (Fig. 10). As in Poly- stomella, each nucleus becomes surrounded by a zone of protoplasm, and, finally, a large number of small swarmers emerge from the shell mouth, leaving behind in the shell the two primary nuclei and a portion of the protoplasm as a degenerating residue. The swarmers are dimorphic, Fic. 9. Original. ane Fic. 10. After Hertwig. some are macrogametes, some microgametes (Fig. 11). These fuse two by two, a macrogamete with a microgamete, and the resulting zygote develops into the normal form.

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PROTOZOAN GERM PLASM 577 In Arcella, therefore, as in Polystomella, there is a definite germinal protoplasm composed essentially of chromatin which gives rise to new cycles of organisms, while a portion of the original organism, including the primary nucleus and a quantity of protoplasm, degenerates and dies. We can speak of germinal and somatic protoplasm in these cases, and with equal right in all of the thousands of allied species of protozoa, as well as in the case of \any higher animal. A still more interesting case of specific germ-plasm forma- tion is given by a type of Gregarine belonging to a group of parasitic Sporozoa. In all of the Gregarines there is a segregation of the germ plasm and a residual somatic protoplasm which degenerates and dies a somatic death. One of the most striking illustrations of this type is the case of Ophryo- cystis mesnilt, a parasite of beetles. Unlike the cases cited above, most of the gregarines do not reproduce asexually. Ophryocystis, how- ever, is one of the exceptions to the rule, the individuals reproducing by simple division until the protoplasm becomes mature, when, as in Paramecium, two cells come together in conjugation. The single Fic. 11. After Elpetiewsky. nucleus of each cell divides and one of the products becomes a “somatic” nucleus, to use Leger’s term, while the other daughter nucleus in each cell divides again (Fig. 12, A-G). One of these cor- responds to a polar body in the metazoon egg, the other is the gamete, or germ, nucleus. In each cell this nucleus collects about itself, pos- sibly through the secretion of nuclear material which transforms the surrounding stuff, a denser zone of protoplasm, which, with the nucleus, forms a gamete within the body ofthe parent cell. The two gametes thus formed fuse while in the space which their formation has left in the parent somatic, or nurse cells. The latter ultimately wither up and die. After union of the two gametes, the sporoblast gives rise to eight germs or sporozoites, each capable of developing into an ordinary vegetative form when under the proper conditions of environment (Fig. 12, H-N). Here in Gregarines, therefore, as in rhizopods, we see a clearly defined difference between germ plasm and somatic plasm, the latter dying, as in the Metazoa, the former capable of endless development. Unlike the rhizopods, however, the germinal chromatin is retained in the primary nucleus until full maturity of the cell and does not appear in the cytoplasm in the form of chromidia. Turning after this excursion into other fields of Protozoa, to the

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578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY case of Paramecium, it will be seen that the conditions are entirely different from those which accompany conjugation in the majority of After Léger. Protozoa. In the latter fertilization is accomplished by the formation and fusion of gametes or minute simulacra of the adult cells, some being differentiated into microgametes and macrogametes, or male and female.

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PROTOZOAN GERM PLASM : 579 In Paramecium there are no gametes of this kind, but portions of the adult individuals fuse as in Ophryocystis mesnili. Unlike this Gregar- ine, the fusion of the adult cells is only temporary and the two parties to the conjugation do not die. During the temporary fusion there is a mutual interchange of micronuclei and a mutual fertilization, while the only portion to disintegrate and die is the macronucleus of each con- jugant, and this is replaced by a specially differentiated fragment of the new micronucleus. In ciliated protozoa such as Paramecium and its near relations the germ plasm is concentrated in the micronucleus, while the somatic plasm is represented by the macronucleus. As we have seen, the micro- nucleus enlarges and divides during conjugation, first into two, then these into four, all but one of the four degenerating. The fourth divides for the third time, but this time unequally (Fig. 3) into a smaller migratory and a larger stationary form. The smaller micro- nucleus migrates into the other cell of the pair and there unites with the stationary larger nucleus. The macronucleus then degenerates and is absorbed in each of the conjugating cells. The aberrant conditions in these Infusoria can be interpreted if we regard the three divisions of the micronucleus as the reminiscence of a Fic. 13. Original, process of gamete formation which obtained in remote ancestral forms. A parallel, but less extreme, case is seen in the Gregarine Ophryocystis, where one gamete only is formed by the conjugating cells. This is an isolated case among these Sporozoa, for in the typical forms a great number of gametes are developed, as shown in the accompanying pho- +f. tograph of Monocystis (Fig. 13). The one pair of gametes in Ophryo- cystis, plus the nuclear derivatives of the pro-conjugants, represent the

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580 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY swarm of gametes found in other Gregarines. Here, also, the internal or “nursed” condition of the gametes is a new development or adaptation. Similarly in Paramecium the three divisions of the micronucleus may be interpreted as representing an ancestral brood of conjugating gametes, only two of which are now functional, the one representing a macrogamete or female form, the other a microgamete or_male cell. Unlike Ophryocystis, the Paramecium individual does not become a nurse for the conjugating gametes, but remains, as before, the mechan- ism for the performance of the various physiological activities and the vehicle of the somatic and germ plasms. The widely accepted view, therefore, as first formulated by Weis- mann and repeatedly stated in general works on biology, that Protozoa differ from Metazoa in having no equivalent of the somatic cells and therefore no somatic, or natural, death, must be abandoned. In the vast majority of Protozoa there is a clearly defined equivalent of somatic cells and an equivalent of natural death. The conditions in Para- mecium and its allies are different from those of other protozoa, the old individual does not die at conjugation but is completely reorganized and built up of parts derived from the product of fertilization exactly as in Metazoa. The protozoon is not a potential germ cell, but like the metazoon is the carrier of the racial germ plasm which, in the great majority of protozoa is differentiated from the somatic plasm. [As the germ cells of the metazoon become segregated into a germinal epi- thelium, becoming functional at maturity, so the germ plasm of the protozoon becomes segregated as chromidia or granules of a specific kind of chromatin, in the cell and is likewise functional at maturity.

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cas set eae biivisktusmeure tee THE SYMMETRIES OF CRYSTALS ADAMAS: OR THE SYMMETRIES ISOMETRIC CRYSTALS OF By ProFgessorR B. K. EMERSON AMHERST COLLEGE gar number 3, the first to have a beginning, middle and end, has always been sacred. We are all trinitarians. Four is the second prominent number. It is the first square. The strong man stands four square to all the winds of fortune. The combination of these in the number 7 has always had a peculiar mythical significance. The triangle with the eye in its center is the symbol of Freemasonry. And we may see how far this triangle will symbolize the three change- less and four variable solids which together constitute the seven crystal forms of the isometric system. The triangle has three points which are unique and three and only three unique forms—the octahedron, cube and dodecahedron find place in the three corners of this triangle at a, b and ¢ (as shown in the plate), forms made of eight triangles: of six squares, or twelve diamonds, and these numbers are twice the number three, or twice the number four or the product of three and four. We may refer the planes of all crystals to three equal rectangular axes and only three permutations can be made from the only non-vari- able parameters 1 and 2, viz., 1: 1:1 for the octahedron, 1:1: for the dodecahedron, 1: »:% for the cube—and so we reach the same result algebraically. The three corners of the triangle are joined by three lines, each line made of a series of points which should symbolize each a linear series of cognate forms, and we have these three forms in the trapezohedron d, the three-faced octahedron e, and the four-faced cube f, each linking by single unbroken series the three corner forms. These are placed each on its proper line on the diagram. They are each twenty-four-sided figures. In two, each side is an isosceles triangle, in one, a trapezium, a combination of two isosceles triangles. The three-faced octahedron starts as a 3 X 8-faced figure and ends az a 2X 12-faced figure. The 4-faced cube starts as 2 X 12-faced form and ends as 4 X 6-faced form. The trapezohedren starts as a 4: X 6-faced form and ends as a 3 X 8-faced form, the three-faced octahedron with which we began. This is expressed algebraically by the three formule 1:1:m, 1:m:m, 1:m:%, which have a single variable parameter, and no additional similar formule can exist. There remains the space of the triangle made up of points arranged in two dimensions, or in lines connecting any of the forms represented by the previous positions or formule with the center of the triangle. There is left a group of forms of a single type to occupy each point of this surface—the hexoctahedrons, and a sample of these is numbered ee

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582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY g on the diagram. As the space has two dimensions this has two varia- bles, 1:n:m. The first group at the corners of the triangle had faces with like sides, the second at the sides of the triangle had faces with two like sides, this third and last group has faces with unlike sides; they are scaline triangles. They have forty-eight sides, a number that can factor into 24, 12, 8, 6, 4 and 3. As they are arranged over the surface of the triangle, these nearest the octahedron are six-faced octahedrons in appearance, those nearest the cube are eight-faced cubes, those nearest the trapezohedrons are two-faced trapezohedrons, and so on. For many years I have shown this symmetrical passage of these seven forms into each other by using three colors, red for the octahedral lines, blue for the dodecahedral, and green for the cubical, a device my old pupil, Geo. H. Williams, used in his “Elements of Crystallography.” The upper corner is all octahedral, the middle horizontal band is half so, the base not at all octahedral, and so of the other corners symmetrically. The law of symmetry permits any symmetrical half of these faces to appear independently on the crystal, and the crystal fulfils the law of symmetry, and this may be done in three ways. (1) We may take all the faces in half the octants, or half the faces in each octant, and in the second case we may begin in the second octant (2) with the face adja- cent to the initial face, or (3) with a face not adjacent. In accordance with the first law the half of the faces of the octahedron forms the tetrahedron which we naturally place in the figure, as (h) directly beneath the octahedron from which it is derived. In the same way the tetragonal dodecahedron (1), the half form of the three-faced octahedron, and the trigonal dodecahedron (7), that of & @ A ® QOS S BSOeaa>}

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THE SYMMETRIES OF CRYSTALS 583 the trapezahedron, are placed beside their parent forms, and the hexa- tetrahedron (&), the half form of the hexoctahedron, is placed necessar- ily above the latter, from its relation to the tetrahedron.- In accord with the second law, the four-faced cube gives rise to the pentagonal dodecahedron (1) which is placed above it, and the central figure, the hexoctahedron (g) gives rise to the diploid (n) which is placed naturally just above its associate the pentagonal dodecahedron. There remains the single gyroidal form (n) obtained by the third law, which is placed directly beneath the central figure (g) from which it was derived. An inspection of the figure will show that the triangle with which we began, the mason’s symbol of the trinity, has most naturally de- veloped itself into the form of a cross. Isolated on either side stand the cube and dodecahedron, two unique forms not capable of change or con- version into any other form, like the two thieves beside the cross. But said one of my friends, who is a good crystallographer, as I called her attention to this similitude, one of the thieves was convertet. This would seem to throw doubt on the record, I replied, and yet there are infinite possibilities present, as one sees, in the formule, isms, St tim, One observes next that the five Platonic forms find symmetrical place on the figure: two at the top, two at the lower corners and one— the icosahedron—by evenly balanced combination of the top and bot- tom of the figure. 111, =. The cross may be a cross of gold or of any other of the noble metals, and an inspection of the figure shows further that it culminates in an upper triangle placed like a crescent above the cross which contains the perfect forms attained by the perfect mineral, the diamond. At the center of this triangle is the tetrahedron (hk) which gives the model of the atom of carbon and the hexatetradon (k) the most typical form of the diamond itself. So again in a new arrangement of the elements in accord with the periodic law, proposed by the writer, carbon is the culmination of the first octave and the very center and omphalos around which all the ele- ments circle in their grand evolution. It has four-fold valence and threefold allotrophism and stands as the center of the seven elements of the first octant. And as the diamond is brought down from the heavens in the meteorites and brought up from the depths of the earth with the deepest rocks, and as it is endowed with the greatest power over light and over all solid bodies, so it presents in its almost spherical hexatetrahedron a mean around which the earth seems many times to have oscillated, as Arldt has shown,” now varying slightly toward the tetrahedron ; now almost recovering again the spheroidal form. *«¢Helix Chemica,’’ Am, Chem. Jour., Vol. XLV., p. 160, 1911. *Dr. Theodor Arldt, ‘‘Die Entwickelung der Kontinente,’’ Leipzig, 1907.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY THE LACK OF PRINTING IN ANTIQUITY Bry FREDERIC DREW BOND MONG fragments from the Greco-Roman world which have come down to us, not a few imply the use of some sort of stamping, or rudimentary printing. Seals and stamps bearing reverse legends are not infrequent, and, in 1908, the Italian Archeological Committee at work in Crete discovered a terra-cotta inscription whose letters had been impressed separately. According to Lacroix’ Cicero had at least the idea of movable type, for in arguing against the Epicurean conception of the world as formed by the chance concourse of atoms, he uses this curious line of reasoning: “ Why not believe, also, that by throwing to- gether, indiscriminately, innumerable forms of letters of the alphabet, either in gold or in any other substance, one can print on the ground with these letters, the annals of Ennius? ” D’Israeli in his “ Curiosities of Literature ” has a quaint passage in which he suggests that the Roman Senate, fearing the effects of printed books, prevented movable type from coming into use. Another sugges- tion is that of De Quincey, who expresses the view, which he states he derives from Archbishop Whately, that the reason the Romans did not use the press was not from lack of knowledge of movable type but from ‘ack of paper with which to make use of it. The ancients, as is well known, used not paper, but papyrus, on which to write. Shreds of this river plant (which, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, still grows in the Nile valley) were split apart in long pieces, interwoven with one another and the whole then heavily pressed till a smooth and polished surface suitable for writing was obtained. But though lack of paper might have impeded the development of typography in antiquity, had its invention, otherwise, been feasible, this does not seem to have been the main cause accounting for its absence. For, after the fall of Samarcand in 704, the Saracens became acquainted with the manufacture of paper and, also, no doubt, learned of block printing among the Chinese; yet printing did not appear in the cali- phates of Arabia or of Spain any more than it did among the Romans. (Among the Chinese, needless to say, it was the multitude of written characters which prevented the development of typography from block printing.) It may be thus suspected that printing was wanting in the Roman Empire for much the same reasons that it was wanting among the Saracens. By the end of the first century of our era there were already written nearly all the works which we call classics and a num- *** Arts in the Middle Ages,’’ English translation, p. 486.

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PRINTING IN ANTIQUITY 585 ber of each large enough to supply the reading demand had been turned out in manuscript. The literary output of new works in the Roman Empire was, from our modern standpoint, extraordinarily small. Aside from a few romances nothing existed in prose which would fall under our head of fiction. More than this, the output of scientific, descriptive and even historical writings was scanty in the extreme. Poetry, satire, philosophy and religion seem to have made up the greatest part of the output of new books in the Roman shops. Reading never became in the Roman Empire the necessity it has been to an educated man for many centuries past. Those who read habitually in the empire were’ the school children and scholars, and the wants of these last were supplied by the great libraries of Alexandria, Athens and Rome. Reading and writing were to others rarely more than a means of communication and of casting accounts or other commercial business. Nevertheless, had printing been invented in the Roman Empire it would, no doubt, in the end, have created a demand for the books which it would almost certainly have called into being. Now the idea of typography, to nations possessing an alphabet, is so obvious that its failure to appear at all in Rome seems at first puzzling. Commercial enterprises are frequently started with no more prospect of gain than a printing office, if ready for work, would have faced in Rome. The real reason why in the conditions in the Roman Empire printing did not appear at all is revealed when we turn to the history of the early print- ers who invented the art in the fifteenth century. Though the idea of typography is obvious, the means first to make the idea actual were, we find, very far indeed from being so. Obscure though the early history of the art is, it is certain that effort after effort was made by several small groups of men in Holland and on the borders of Germany to make a commercial success of printing in the years between 1420 and 1450. The difficulties they encountered were manifold—a workable ink, a press which would give even impressions, but, most of all, type, both as regards its cutting or its casting and as regards its wear, we find giving them endless difficulties. We get some idea of the labors connected with the invention when we find Gutenburg trying to print at Strasburg as early as 1436. About 1442 he went to Mayence. There he exhausted his means in various experiments. In turn he took up and laid aside the different processes he had tried—xylography, movable types of cast iron, wood and lead. He invented new tools and experi- mented with a press made on the principle of a wine-press. He began work on nearly a dozen books and could finish none of them. In 1450 he entered into partnership with John Fust, a rich goldsmith of May- ence. Fust agreed to advance Gutenburg 800 gold florins for the manu- facture of implements and tools and 300 for other expenses. In 1451 Peter Schoeffer, an employee in the establishment, at last hit on a VoL. LXx1x.—40.

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586 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY commercially feasible method of casting type. This discovery, which enabled printing to become a business success, he communicated to Fust, and the two, after getting rid of Gutenburg by a legal device, then printed the famous “Great Bible” of 1456. The story of the invention of printing thus shows clearly that with- out a strong money-making stimulus, the years of thought, labor and expense necessary to make a business success of the art would not have been hazarded. This money-making stimulus existed in the fifteenth century but was lacking in ancient times. The first printers came on the scene at the beginnings of the renaissance, when in Germany, where the awakening took a religious direction, there was a strong commer- cial demand for bibles and works of devotion, which was not supplied by the manuscript output. Moreover, eager readers for the literature of Greece and Rome and for the writings of the Church fathers could be found in every European country touched by the early Renaissance. This antique and religious literature and the bible, in the Vulgate and in translations, furnished the materials for the first printers till the contro- versies of the Reformation brought more grist to the mill. Between 1456 and 1478 the new art had been exercised in Germany, the Nether- lands, Italy, France, Spain and Scandinavia. By the beginning of the sixteenth century it is computed that 16,000 editions of books had been printed. On the other hand, in the Roman Empire, the popular old books were already in sufficiently large manuscript circulation and what there was of new material was amply cared for by the few publishing houses of Alexandria and Rome. In the Roman Empire the demand either for new books or for new copies of the old was too well supplied for in- ventor after inventor to take up some thirty-five years in perfecting movable type. It was the insight that the demand for more books would afford great gain if gratified which induced the long labors which ended in a practicable method of producing and using movable type. No such prospect existed in antiquity. To a Roman of the Empire a printing press would have seemed a commercially useless contrivance. Whether, of course, fragmentary printing with some rude and easily produced sort of movable type, such as would be made of carved wood, ever occurred at all in ancient times can not be said. Not improbably, it did; the Cretan inscription, noticed above, had it been impressed on papyrus by ink, would have been an example of rudimentary typog- raphy. Possibly, for all we know, attempts of this sort, made for the amusement or for the novelty of the thing, may have occurred time and time again.

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VEGETARIANISM IS VEGETARIANISM CAPABLE OF WORLD-WIDE APPLICA- TION? By Proressor ALONZO ENGLEBERT TAYLOR UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA EGETARIANS are to be classed into four groups: Vegetarians from motives of gustatory taste. Vegetarians from motives of esthetic taste. Vegetarians from motives of physiological opinion. Vegetarians from motives of ethical opinion. Some individuals, particularly in youth and in advanced years, dislike the flavor of flesh. Esthetic vegetarianism is common; and much that in the minds of the adherents of this exclusive diet is re- garded as physiological opinion is really esthetic revulsion. The pub- lication of the “ Jungle” made many converts to vegetarianism. The centralization of slaughtering has intensified the natural aversion to the process, since, in addition to the lack of hygienic precautions that once prevailed in the large packing houses, the mass of gore as exempli- fied in the large establishments multiplies the esthetic revulsion. This is due to a trait in human nature familiar to every psychologist and sociologist. It has been difficult to arouse in this country a proper gen- eral appreciation of the extent of the yearly loss of life due to prevent- able dangers of machinery, The daily deaths among employees, here and there geographically, does not impress the public mind. But when through a defect of machinery a score of lives are obliterated in a wreck, the public is appalled. Vegetarians from motives of supposed physiological opinion are very numerous. The physiological reasoning of the majority of these individuals is not based upon a study of physiology in any sense of the word. It is too often merely an expression of that license of democracy, according to which in this free country everybody feels the right to a definite opinion on every subject, without having studied it—a license - almost as widely utilized by the college-bred as by the uneducated man, and contrary to common prejudice as widely utilized by men as by women. T'o the individual adherent of this school of vegetarianism, the exclusion of flesh from the diet is based upon the conviction that it is harmful to digestion or inimical to nutrition. A sense of personal ex- perience (often purely esthetic, sometimes merely an idiosyncrasy, at times imaginary) is all too easily expanded into a generalization in the untrained mind. That the contrary experience can occur is made evident by the reported instance of a young man in the Alps who from

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588 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY childhood has lived solely on milk, excluding all meats, vegetables and fruits. The physiological vegetarian is usually inconsistent, in that milk, cheese, butter and eggs are not excluded, and very often meat stocks and animal fats are used in the cooking of vegetables. Reference will be made later to the physiological grounds upon which consistency in this matter is to be judged. Philosophical vegetarianism rests upon the simple ethical proposi- tion that man has no right to preserve his existence, enlarge his com- forts or advance his material and spiritual welfare at the expense of the life of animals. Animals of all classes are to the ethical vegetarian, as in the Indian religion, as fully entitled to life as man; the com- mandment “ Thou shalt not kill” is interpreted to apply generally to all types of animal life, and the slaughter of animals for the service of man is regarded as an expression of brute force which is inhuman. There is in this proposition an ethical appeal which finds response in every heart. The historical opinion of mankind, outside of India, holds that the right of man to kill animals is one vested in the higher moral and mental position of man among the animals, grounded in a higher importance in the broadest sense. The right to kill animals is, however, quite universally confined to instances in which higher human needs are positively and directly advanced. Needless killing is by all culti- vated peoples condemned (if less consistently in practise than in theory) and the advance from savagery to civilization has been characterized by progressive cultivation of the regard for life. Our societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals and the Audubon societies are the pub- lic expressions of the ethical feeling that we owe it to animals, and to ourselves, to protect animals from suffering and from indiscriminate and purposeless slaughter. But deeply rooted in the minds of the mass of cultivated ethical men and women is the conviction that mankind has the right to be fed and clothed at the cost of the lives of animals; the domestication of animals is held almost universally to include the right of slaughter as well as the right of service. To be consistent, the philosophical vegetarian must not only abjure the use of flesh in the diet, he must also abstain from the utilization of products of animai bodies, the procurement of which entails the death of the animal. Thus his articles of clothing, personal effects, house- hold furnishings and implements of trade and occupation may bear no stain of blood. It is wholely inconsistent in one who keeps the hands and feet warm with the skin of an animal to reproach another for keep- ing the body warm by the use of meat as a fuel. Other fuels are truly available; so are other means for the retention of the heat of the body; the skin of man has no privilege above the other tissues of his body. The Indian soldier who refused to use ammunition greased with beef suet was entirely consistent. That it may be easy to feed the human

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VEGETARIANISM 589 body on food other than flesh and difficult to clothe the human feet with- out leather can have no bearing on the ethics or logic of the question. If man has the right to kill animals for his use, what is to constitute necessary use will always remain a matter of more or less individual judgment, as the movement for the protection of bird-life clearly illus- trates. An aigrette may seem more necessary to the woman of fashion than are leather shoes to her less evolved peasant sister. From this point of consistency therefore no departure can be permitted. Here the consistent vegetarian and the consistent anti-vivisectionist meet, both resting the ultimate argument upon the broad proposition that man has not the right to nourish himself, clothe himself or save his life at the ex- pense of the life of an animal. On the other hand, consistency does not demand of the ethical vegetarian, as of the physiological vegetarian, the exclusion of milk, cheese, butter and eggs from the diet. Although the slaughter of animals is from the ethical point of view condemned, the domestication of animals for their service is not excluded, since it can be easily shown that domestication yields to animals security from beasts of prey, protection from the elements and provision for food beyond the natural expectations, thus tending to prolong life as well as to promote the well-being of the animals. The ethical vegetarian is not concerned with physiological opinions bearing on the healthfulness of plant as against animal albumin, just as the consistent anti-vivisection- ist is not concerned with the question whether vivisection has resulted in knowledge that leads to the alleviation of human suffering, the cure of human disease and the prolongation of human life; even though animal flesh be the most healthful of foods, even though vivisection lead to the cure of human disease, man has no right to these at the cost of animal life. When now we turn to the modern science of nutrition, and ask the question : Is a vegetarian diet physiologically correct, adapted to the best purposes of a normal life, capable of sustaining the highest standards of growth, health, endurance and longevity? We receive a reply couched in no uncertain terms. Yes, a properly selected and prepared vege- tarian diet meets completely the highest requirements of a diet. The technical reply to the question, stated in untechnical terms, would yield something like the following elucidation of the dynamics of nutrition. The three main classes of foodstuffs are sugars (including starches), fats and albumins, using the last word to correspond to what the physiologist terms protein. Since the fats and sugars, whose réle is largely that of fuel, are interchangeable to a large extent, and since the vegetable fats are in every respect equivalent to the animal fats, the question of the adaptability of a vegetarian diet resolves itself into the concrete question whether plant albumin is the equivalent of animal albumin as tissue-builder. The chemical investigations into the con-

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590 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY stitution of albumins, carried out largely during the past two decades, have taught us that albumins are composed of simpler substances, termed amino-acids; the different native albumins are composed of many amino-acids in different proportions; and all the chief plant and animal albumins are in general composed of the same amino-acids, though in different proportions. These amino-acids we term the “ building-stones ” of albumin, and, as stated, the plant albumins con- tain all the essential amino-acids, the same building-stones that are contained in the animal albumins. When an albumin is digested, it is split (torn down) into the component building-stones. These building- stones are then absorbed, and with these the body, displaying a specific biological selection, builds or forms its own peculiar albumins. In other words, the building-stones are common to all albumins, the chem- ical and biological differences in the albumins rest in the architecture and not in the building-stones. Many types of houses may be con- structed of brick of a common type; and so many kinds of albumin are formed of building-stones of common types; and from the common albumins of plants all the building-stones needed in the formation of the human albumins are to be obtained. It is clear therefore that it is quite immaterial to the human body whether it forms its tissue albu- mins from amino-acids derived from the digestion of animal or plant albumin, 7. e., these are equivalent in their nutritive values. These purely physiological and chemical data, abundantly sustained by labora- tory researches and animal experimentation, confirm as well as eluci- date the now widely made human experience that a properly selected and prepared vegetarian diet is a complete diet for all conditions and periods of life, beyond the lactation term of infancy. Is a purely vegetarian diet better than a mixed diet, a diet contain- ing a reasonable amount of albumin of animal origin? To make the question physiologically fair (since meats are often hugely overeaten), the ration of albumin in the two diets must be such as scientific investi- gations have shown to be sufficient and normal. Possibly a gram of albumin per kilo of body weight per day (equivalent to eleven ounces of meat per day for a body of 150 pounds) may be accepted as the normal total ration of albumin. There are absolutely no data of scien- tific nature or reliable observations in practical experience tending to show that either of these diets is in any way preferable physiologically to the other. It is apparently immaterial to the body of a hundred and fifty pounds whether in a properly selected and prepared diet the 2.2 ounces of albumin are exclusively of plant origin or partly derived from flesh. Since all cereals and vegetables contain albumin, a mixed diet always contains both plant and an‘mal albumin, the ration of the latter of which would naturally run six to eight ounces of meat per day. I have used the words properly selected and prepared. It is obvious that

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VEGETARIANISM 59r the meats must be free of decomposition and properly cooked. It is on the other hand, possible for a vegetarian diet to disagree, if, as is often the case, the attempt is made to derive the larger part of the needed albumins from the legumins, peas and beans. For the vegetarian above all others, bread is the staff of life, and cereal albumin must remain the chief dependence of the consistent vegetarian. Modern physiology then teaches that there is no demonstrable basis for the so-called physiological vegetarianism. It teaches further, how- ever, that the assumed distinction, made for the convenience of arbi- trary vegetarians, between the flesh of animals and the albuminous products of animals (milk, cheese and eggs) is unfounded. The casein of milk and the albumin of the egg are as distinctive and specific bio- logically as are the muscular tissues of the animals from which they are derived. Every reason advanced, or assumed to exist, opposed to the use of beef as albumin for the human diet must hold with equal force against the use of casein of the cow’s milk; every argument against the breast of chicken must hold against the egg of chicken. As a matter of fact, as stated above, there is no physiologically valid argument against either beef or casein, against second joint or white of egg. Since it is apparent that physiological vegetarianism is merely a scientific error and that vegetarians from gustatory taste or from es- thetic considerations are merely instances of arbitrary individualism, ethical vegetarianism alone remains to be considered. This is in its tenets and conclusions a logical system. Is it susceptible of consistent, world-wide application? We will not attempt to discuss the large ques- tion as to man’s relations, biologically and ethically, to the lower ani- mals, concerning which the Christian and Buddhistic teachings are dia- metrically opposed. Assuming that the system were rigidly and consistently applied to the entire population of the earth, two main problems would be presented. Is the production of plant albumin on the earth sufficient to meet the albumin needs of the earth’s inhabitants? What transformations would result in the customs, industry and commerce of the world, in the sociology and economics of the nations of the earth? Before these two questions can be discussed, we must be clear as to exactly what would be demanded in the carrying out of consistent ethical vegetarianism. It would be permissible to domesticate animals, to employ them in service and to utilize the products of their life. It would not be permissible to kill animals either for food or for the prod- ucts of their bodies. The use of milk, butter, cheese and eggs would be permitted; the utilization of fur and leather would be excluded. An exception might be claimed in the case of leather, that it would be per- missible to use the pelts and hides of animals that had died of old age ee adnapaiians te ame agteen ee Mn tn ee ene een Ne se EE

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592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY and of natural disease. Practically, however, this would be of little difference; the leather made from the hides of animals dead of old age would be of so low value as to be almost worthless; and the use of the hides of animals dead of disease, many forms of which are infectious and communicable to man, would be fraught with danger and difficult of execution. Mankind would have to face the problem of clothing without the aid of leather and fur. Can the surface of the earth (for the fishes of the sea would have to be excluded) raise enough grain, fruits, nuts and vegetables, added to dairy products, to meet the albumin needs of the present earth’s population? Unhesitatingly it may be stated that the area of the earth’s surface now under cultivation could not, with the present meth- ods of agriculture, dependably produce enough plant albumin to meet the needs of the present population. Very large areas of the earth’s surface at present produce only grasses, shrubs and trees. Man can neither graze nor browse. At present these plants are consumed by cattle, goats, sheep and swine, whose albumin is utilized in turn by man. It is through the mediation of these animals that the vegetation of enormous areas of land is made available for mankind. At present probably one half of the albumin needs of mankind are met by animal albumin. To meet these needs with plant albumin and dairy products the world’s production of grains and legumins would need to be doubled at the least. It is quite certain that this could not, with the uttermost efforts of the world’s population, be dependably accomplished at present. It is possible that it might be accomplished, with the present methods on the present acreage of tillable soil, if no untoward manifestations of the elements occurred (such as severe winters, unseasonable frosts, floods, droughts, storms, excessive heat), with a dependable rain-fal] in both time and space. But mankind would be yearly at the mercy of the elements. To meet fully and safely the needs of the growing popu- lation, four scientific advances of monumental magnitude would need to be attained. The methods of the cultivation of the soil must be so intensified and revolutionized through scientific investigations as to make the yield of the soil less disproportional to its potential. The conservation of water must be accomplished on a scale never before dreamed of. The world-wide ravages of the parasitic diseases of plants must be checked. The conversion of inert atmospheric nitrogen into potential soil nitrogen must be accomplished upon a vast scale through microbic and electro-chemical agencies. The results of the accomplishment of these four advances, judged merely from present scientific knowledge of the possibilities in the four

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VEGETARIANISM 593 directions, would result in quadrupling the yield of the present area of cultivation, and in transferring to the state of cultivation vast tracts now untillable or even waste. The difficulties would not be technical, but human. To accomplish them the present intelligence of the human race, the dependable intelligence of the working race of mankind, would be wholly insufficient; the race has not attained to-day the scientific stature necessary to reach and pluck these fruits of knowledge. For the present, therefore, it is certain and beyond speculation that to place the human race upon the basis of ethical vegetarianism would be to expose the race to the mercy of nature, just as the vegetarian population of India is yearly at the mercy of the yield of grain. To dispense with the products of animal bodies would be a task trivial in comparison with the problem of feeding. With wools, cot- tons, linens and the other plant fabrics, with metals and woods, all could be accomplished without great technical difficulties, were pre- conceptions once obliterated. From the standpoint of ethical vege- tarianism, the wearing of fur, kid gloves and leather shoes constitutes fratricide. The number of animal and bird lives sacrificed to-day for purposes of superfluous comfort and for compliance with the vanities of fashion makes a striking numerical showing contrasted with the number of animals slaughtered for the supply of food. The difficulties would lie in clothing the extremities of out-door workmen; but the problem would be solved without difficulty in a world rich in inventive devices though poor in large scientific conceptions. The results of the world-wide installation of vegetarianism to the sociological and economic institutions of the world need but to be sketched to be appreciated. The race of swine, as a domesticated family would be obliterated, and the number of cattle regulated by the require- ments for dairy products. On the other hand, the number of horses would need to be augmented to meet the needs of enlarged agriculture; and the number of sheep to meet the increased demands for wool. The population of the world would tend to shift in latitude, and the com- merce of the world would be revolutionized to meet the alterations in the currents and articles of trade. Fashions in dress and house furnish- ings would be strikingly changed. There is no need to dilate further upon these features. Man is to-day a beast of prey. Just as the whole map of biology would be changed in the day when “ the lion and the lamb shall lie down together,” so the whole face of civilization would be given transformed features in the time when man regards the animal as a brother and not as a prey. Man is a beast of prey because thus the preservation of existence is made easy; vegetarianism would make it difficult, and will therefore not be adopted. This carries its personal lesson: I, the vegetarian, must not be vain; because it is the meat- eating of my brother that makes vegetarianism possible to me.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY A BUGBEAR OF ECONOMICS By Prorrssok HERBERT ADOLPHUS MILLER OLIVET COLLEGE gs seems to be peculiarly difficult for men, whether in science, poli- tics or religion, to give up a law or doctrine which has become a slogan to them, after it can no longer be justified. This is true of the law of diminishing returns which economists have considered to be fundamental to much of their reasoning. I have been able to find but one prominent economist of the present day who has made any definite attack upon this “ law.” Simon N. Patten, in the “ New Basis of Civilization ” says: The law of diminishing returns was discovered by the most stupid body in England—a committee of the House of Lords. English agriculture at the close of the Napoleonic wars was so abnormal that any one could see how the high price of food brought poor land into cultivation. A committee, even if it was stupid, could not but stumble on the pertinent facts that formulated the law. But their perception of it does not account for its subsequent vogue. The real question of control is, Why did a nation, naturally optimistic and in a period of rapid industrial advance, accept the hopeless doctrine and permit it to curb their thinking for generations? Why also do teachers in America, where notori- ously it never has been in operation, hold devoutly to it and spend their time expounding a lame philosophy to their classes? Professor Patten does not follow this statement with a specific dis- cussion as to his reasons, although his whole book is based on the prin- ciple of increasing returns. I have looked through many books of modern writers on economics and find that all lay much emphasis on this law. The following are typical definitions from prominent economists. Seligman in his “ Prin- ciples of Economics” says that “ The law of diminishing returns is. . . the foundation of the law of rent. A farmer will some time reach a point where it will not pay him to add another laborer or another ma- chine to his land because beyond the margin of profitable expenditure every additional ‘ dose’ of capital or labor will mean a return insufficient to cover cost... . The law of diminishing returns is universal and ap- plies to everything that possesses value.” Professor Seager in his “ In- troduction to Economics ” says, “ After a certain point has been reached in the cultivation of an acre of land or exploitation of a mine increased applications of labor and capital yield less than proportionate returns in product, it being understood, of course, that no important change is

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A BUGBEAR OF ECONOMICS 595 made in the method of cultivation or exploitation.” Carver in his “ Dis- tribution of Wealth” goes more into detail and proves the law with mathematical exactness. In fact, he is so clear that he seems to be proving the obvious. However, he offers as an excuse that such proof would not be needed “ had not certain writers seen fit to deny it because it did not harmonize with their views of economics, and certain would-be reformers to ignore it because its recognition would interfere with the acceptance of their reforms.” Such a reformer, I suppose, he would call Wm. H. Allen, of New York, who said in a recent article in the Annals of The American Aca- demy that “ When John D. Rockefeller said to the world, ‘There will never be enough money to do the world’s uplift work,’ he started in motion forces and doubts and compromises that will do vastly more harm to the south than the hookworm.” The reason Mr. Rockefeller made such a statement was that he was biased by the law of dimin- ishing returns which closes the door of hope, because, as Patten indi- cates, hopelessness is inherent in a world of diminishing returns. Many who argue for the truth of this law quote not only men of success like Mr. Rockefeller, but any business man or farmer who finds himself face to face with the law. The difficulty in both cases is that the indi- vidual is looking at production from his personal point of view, and not from the point of view of production as a whole. The economists, how- ever, ought to see principles in the large. | Scientific laws are much like creeds. Some one has an insight which he formulates, and for him and some of his successors the formulation seems to satisfy the conditions and the needs. So an economic law is the classification of a group of facts as some one’s insight sees them; but as with the creed, men may make the fatal mistake of thinking it an eternal truth. There was a time when belief in hell fire was an in- centive to morality, but now many of us succeed in getting a degree of morality when in the state of mind of the small son of a famous mod- ern philosopher who asked his mother what hell was. She described it to him and at the close added, “‘ But there are some who do not believe this.” The boy replied, “Mamma, I am one of those.” There was a time when the law under discussion had a vital meaning to the race, but I am one of those who think that a new formulation is in place, that here is a case where orthodoxy does not mean clear thinking. The fallacy common to Seligman, Seager, Carver and the others is that of emphasizing archaic conditions. Seligman, for example, was talking about equal “ additional doses ” of capital and labor ; and Seager at the close of his definition said, “it being understood, of course, that no important change is made in the method of cultivation or exploita- tion.” Now of what earthly good is a law for such conditions? If a an TA LLL LALO LL eee a ennnnennemnmnmenmens ~--eeemataeeea ea

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596 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY there is any indisputable fact in the world it is that important changes are being made in the methods of cultivation and exploitation, and as for equal “ doses ” of capital and labor, who is so simple as to think of adding them? The question is not that of adding another cartload of the old fertilizer to a wheat field, but of adding some new fertilizer, exactly fitted to the wants of the crop, by which it may be doubled in quantity. It is not a question of adding a man with a sickle, but of adding a man with a modern harvester; not of sowing the old seed to yield tenfold, but the new seed to yield an hundredfold. Capital is multiplying so rapidly that it worries some people, at least, to know what to “dose,” and invention multiplies the units of labor so fast that they outstrip even our imagination. Now, to be sure, individual farmers must have practical methods of directing the expenditure of what capital and labor they have, and the law applies to them since an individual is more or less in an eddy, just as I am in the matter of capital. I have little more than I had before the last multiplication of the capital of the world, but I am not so personal as to deny the increase. I claim to be part of the age of airships, though I have never seen one, and am no nearer an automobile than a state of covetousness. I try not to be like the woman in a small town who came to me after a lecture in which I had said that, since three fourths of the women in that vil- lage bought their bread from bakeries where it was made by men, they could retain their power over bread making only by voting, she confi- dentially told me that she made her own bread, and hence did not see any need for women’s voting. It seems to me that an economic law ought to be comprehensive enough to summarize the individual cases. Professor Carver shows conclusively that in an individual case the law of diminishing returns may work exactly. He even shows that large-scale production does not overthrow the principle; but he does not consider the pertinent fact of modern industry, that invention, or- ganization and efficiency make constantly changing conditions, and that “equal doses” are out of date. He admits that the law is more evi- dent when applied to stationary civilization, saying, “Jf civilization should remain stationary while population increases in density there would be a smaller per capita production because of the law of dimin- ishing returns. The terrible reality of this law is witnessed by the overcrowding of those populations where, as in the unchanging east, civilization has become stationary.” I reply, “ to be sure,” but modern economics is neither history nor anthropology, and what should be taught in our colleges and to business men is a principle that ap- plies to a progressive civilization. Again Carver says, “but with respect to the livelihood of a complex population considering all its in- dustries in a mass, the operation of the law is not so clearly perceived.”

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A BUGBEAR OF ECONOMICS 597 Again I say, “to be sure,” because under such conditions it is not operating. And at the end of his long chapter, considering the relative productiveness of different sorts of labor, he states, “that nothing could prevent its (the former of the cited classes of labor) declining relatively to that of the latter class except a radical change in the sys- tem of industry, which would call for more than a proportional in- crease in the former class.” The contention of this article is that there has been this radical change in the system of industry, that increases are becoming more than proportional and that we are not yet even in sight of the beginning of the end. I am perfectly willing to admit that the law of diminishing returns has an illustrative value, but it is taught in many courses and economic articles as though the world in which we live were about to suffer from its “ terrible reality” as it would in a world of stationary civilization. Ata recent large gathering of econo- mists there were but two expressed exceptions to the opinion that immi- gration was about to become dangerous because the additional numbers would make competition too keen. They thus implied the fear that this bugbear law of diminishing returns will soon deprive us of enough to eat. The whole difficulty is a mistaking of unjust and unequal distri- bution of wealth for an application of the law of diminishing returns. I presume that Mr. Rockefeller’s difficulty arises from the fact that any other method of distribution than that which has been contributory to his own success is inconceivable. But economists ought to be able to see production and distribution at the same time and in their totality. The law of diminishing returns is intimately related to another famous and equally archaic economic law, viz., Malthus’s law of popu- lation. The substance of this law is that population tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence. There is something in this. It works in determining the number of wolves, but the last census report does not show human population in America confirming it. It is always a great satisfaction to find a single principle which will explain a condition ; but we are becoming more and more convinced that social phenomena are the product of numerous forces and are not reducible to a single law. Malthus’s law does not care whether a single family has many or few children, but whether population is increasing or decreasing. So the law of diminishing returns ought not to be limited to individual production, but extended to production as a whole. It is quite true that the surface of the earth is limited in extent, and that the population of the earth is multiplying; but it is likewise true that the sun is losing its heat, and that some time the earth will be unin- habitable. Any physicist might logically teach his classes the desira- bility that the human race accustom itself to the idea of being frozen nas ne qn

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598 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY out. But whatever the logic of the question, it would and should make very little impression on the average healthy-minded individual. Our problem presents a very similar situation in which we may justly ques- tion whether a healthy-minded person should have any fear about the exhaustion of the proper number of food units that may be required, even if he is as far sighted as a conservation congress. Soon after Malthus had written his book, his theory fell into dis- repute because of the opening of the great interior plain of the United States. But thinkers soon saw that the principle was just as true as before, though the pressure of conditions was temporarily postponed. But now that we have come practically to the end of free land we seem to be nearer than ever to the threshold of the catastrophe. Even such a good thinker as Joseph L. Lee, the Boston philanthropist, feels it, for in speaking about immigration he says: America is not infinitely large. It will in any case—in what, compared with the long future, must be regarded as a very short time—become so crowded that any further increase of the population—except at a comparatively slow rate can be made.only at the cost of lowering the general standard of prosperity. Land, however, is only one of the three factors in production. The incalculable additions to labor and capital in the last generation are so much greater contributions than more land could be that we are getting farther and farther away from, rather than nearer to, the catastrophe. To return to the analogy of the sun’s heat: it is of course true that the sun can not continue to give off heat forever and remain as hot as before. But we have an interesting condition arising from the fact that though the sun is radiating its heat and thus diminishing its potential energy, yet the process of contraction which is taking place within the sun causes it to generate heat as rapidly as it is losing it, and while this is not a perpetual-motion machine, for the purposes of giving continu- ity of heat to the earth it is a perfectly satisfactory arrangement. In like manner it makes no difference whether we get more land, or more productivity from the same land. Malthus found that population tended to multiply by geometrical progression, while the means of subsistence multiplied by arithmetical progression. This is true so long as the process is on an “ equal dose” basis. But the conspicuous fact of modern times is that means of subsistence are multiplying at a rate which makes the multiplication of population look like the pace of the historic tortoise compared to that of Achilles, whom logic tried to keep from catching up. The logic of the law of diminishing returns is of the same type. Professor Carver shows that on a certain area of land twenty men can produce more per man than fifty, though the total production of the twenty men is but 380 bushels compared with 650 bushels produced by the fifty men. As a matter of fact, in spite of Zeno’s logic we know that Achilles could overtake the tortoise, and we

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A BUGBEAR OF ECONOMICS 599 likewise know that the 650 bushels are being produced, and that every- body has more to eat than formerly. If pragmatism is justified any- where it is in such considerations. A farmer recently told me that his father paid for his farm, fifty years ago, by carrying the mail from Jackson to Grand Rapids, Mich., one hundred miles, taking just a week for the round trip. All the in- formation he carried could now be transmitted by wire in three minutes and the increase in the amount now transmitted per man in the mail service per week is represented by a geometrical progression with a tre- mendous ratio. From this same farm his father hauled his wheat thirty- five miles to Jackson, taking approximately fifteen hundred pounds to the load, and requiring three days for the round trip. The Michigan Central freight can now transport wheat at least sixty thousand times faster ; so that even though the most liberal division be made as to the part contributed by an equivalent of a single man and team now, a man’s productivity is multiplied several thousand times. This is what we add instead of an “ equal dose.” It may be claimed, however, that the intro- duction of the railroad brought a period of phenomenal increasing re- turns, but that they were not maintained. It is a fact that there has not been an increase in speed at all in proportion to the outlay de- voted to increasing speed, and the law of diminishing returns seems herein to be finely illustrated. However, increase in transportation does not mean simply increase in speed, but much more, it means number and extent of persons and things that can be transported in a given time. The number of people who have been brought into participation in transportation through the extension of the railroads, the increase in the power of locomotives, and the organization of the systems, demon- strates that the rate of progress has been continuous and of the same radical character as the change from stage-coach to express train. The exhibition of increasing returns is multifarious. During the Boer War I received the evening paper in an interior city at five thirty p.m. and read of battles that occurred at six o’clock that same afternoon in South Africa. This was in Tennessee near the home of Andrew Jackson who fought the battle of New Orleans after the war was over, and he did not then hear of peace until several weeks after it had been declared. Increase in units of production does not consist merely of adding similar units. The saving of time by rapid transportation and inter- communication, the organization of capital so that it may be turned over several times where formerly it could perform but one service, makes a multiplication almost inconceivable, and every one knows that in the region of invention and organization we are just beginning to open up discoveries for entry ; while the division of labor and the applica- tion of the processes of efficiency-engineering give a potentiality to the present units of labor that is revolutionary. If we will project our

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600 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY imagination, keeping within the limits of reason, we can predict the rate of progress will be continuous. It is quite conceivable that before this generation is passed we shall plough with power generated by the tides and transmitted by wireless processes, and that radium will be harnessed so that its incalculable energy can be used. With the tre- mendous increase in power the surface of the earth can be enlarged indefinitely. Why should not the plains of Europe and America be set on edge, or why should not artificial heat and light make possible sev- eral layers of productive soil, and certainly it can be employed all the year round! Already sanitation and invention are making possible the exploitation of the tropics, the really productive regions of the earth which hitherto have been undeveloped. Men can soon work where they can not live continuously because they can commute in airships and change climatic conditions daily. In the light of these facts and fancies let us consider the validity of Malthus’s three principles: 1. “ Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence.” This is more imaginative than dangerous, for, since “means of sub- sistence” is psychological as well as physical, it can not become a mathematical term. Nowadays our magazines are telling us that con- sumption of one half or one third of the “ means of subsistence ” would add greatly to our efficiency. I myself have made a definite reduction in the amount of food consumed and thereby multiplied my efficiency. Furthermore, it is undoubted that the science of nutrition is going to add many units to the food supply by subtracting the injurious, the wasted, and the unnecessary. This is the prospect before us, but in the meantime, with all the natural forces for multiplication of population active, nevertheless the means of subsistence has increased far beyond any proportions that have before prevailed. There is not the slightest evidence to-day that means of subsistence is directly effecting the in- crease in population. 2. “ Population invariably increases where the means of subsistence increases, unless prevented by very powerful and obvious checks.” This is so untrue to-day that it is not open to argument. In fact, the por- tion of population having the greatest means of subsistence is standing still while the poorest furnishes the greatest increase. To be sure, the standard of life may be the line at which the force of the means of sub- sistence is defined, but this is an artificial line. The rate of increase is not lessened by any powerful and obvious check, and it is not beginning to keep up with the rate of increase of the means of subsistence. There never was a time when the world was as well fed as at the present. 3. “These checks and the checks which repress the superior power of population and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsist- ence are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery.” Professor

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A BUGBEAR OF ECONOMICS 601 Patten in his last book, “'The Social Basis of Religion,” says, “ Sin is misery; misery is poverty; the antidote of poverty is income.” If the signs of the times meant anything, there is an increase in the world’s income and a potential decrease in the world’s misery through better distribution. Misery, then, with its accompanying vice can not be the result of the law of diminishing returns, for returns are increasing. Since the means of production are land, labor and capital, and the methods of capitalistic-mechanical production increase the possibilities of the last two indefinitely, the resources of production show no more signs of being exhausted than the heat of the sun. Our census returns show that the population of the United States has increased 21 per cent. in the last decade, that urban population has increased even more, and that many of the best rural districts have lost population; and still there has been a disproportionate increase in the amount and variety of food. These facts make it absurd to argue that, as applied to produc- tion in the large, the law of diminishing returns is a factor to be con- sidered. Why then in the teaching of economics, and in business is not the emphasis changed so that such a point of view as that of Mr. Rocke- feller may not be attained? For obviously, as Patten says, our modern progressive civilization has passed the line of deficit and is capturing broader and broader fields of surplus. If we are going to retain a full treatment of this law and Malthusianism in our text-books, could it not be labeled as a historical condition of which occasional relics may still be found? In answer to the argument that it is essential that we take the law as a starting point for the explanation of economic phenomena, I would reply that the explanation is good only for a condition that is stationary and looks to the past. May we not demand that in some way economists should frame a law, in which, as in the law of the moving point by which the hyperbola is traced, the prophecy of the future should be as perfectly expressed as the history of the past, and thus. looking ahead, give us a true description of modern conditions of pro- duction? VOL, LXXIx.—41.

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY THE GERMANS AT SCHOOL By Proressor HUGO MUNSTERBERG HARVARD UNIVERSITY T the time of their political weakness the Germans were derisively called the thinkers and dreamers. When the other great nations divided the world of reality among themselves, the Germans took refuge in the realm of fancy. The stronger peoples considered them as the members of a rich household look on the poor schoolmaster at their table. That time has passed away. The politics and commerce and in- dustry of Germany have secured its powerful position in the world, and no one doubts the strength of the Germans in the field of the real facts. But there was mingled with the derisive mood of previous times a silent respect for that German idealism. The name of thinkers and dreamers appeared to some, and not to the worst, a title of honor. The world ac- knowledged that in scholarship and research and education the Germans were able to teach mankind. Their schools were models and their meth- ods superior, and in the days of war the world accepted the saying that the German schoolmaster had won the battles. How much of this honor and glory has been left in these days of German commercial, industrial and political advance? Has the forward striving in the realm of might and power meant loss of prestige, and, what is more important, loss of true achievement in the field of thought and education, or did the progress of modern Germany involve as much intellectual gain as prac- tical profit? The Germans at work easily win the admiration of every visitor who goes to their centers of industry. Are the Germans at school equally deserving of honorable praise, or are they simply resting on their laurels? The educational life of a country is always a great organism in which all parts are interdependent. There can not be good schools without good universities, nor good universities without good schools. The quality of the teachers and the quality of the pupils, the general education and the special instruction are all intimately related to one another. We must look into this organic system if we want to ascer- tain its strength and endurance. A few educational show pieces are not enough. Is there progress and growth in all the essential parts. We may begin with the German university, which is, after all, the real heart of the whole organism and which had more direct influence on American educational life than any other part of the German educational system. Those who built up the great American institutions in the last genera- tion from mere colleges into true universities had received the decisive impulses in German academic halls. To be sure in recent years a kind

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THE GERMANS AT SCHOOL 603 of reaction has set in in America. The tradition that German univer- sity work represents the highest standards of scholarship has recently been roughly handled by skeptics. Some have claimed that German university research is too specialistic and on that account too narrow. The German scholars lack the wide perspective which has been char- acteristic of so much of the best English work. Others insist that the structure of the German publications is formless. They long for the French polish and clearness. Some blame the German professors for a certain remoteness from life and feel that American scholarship will abolish this kind of “ scholarship for scholars ” and will again unite sci- ence and life. It was inevitable that such a reaction should occur. The young generation of American university instructors found a situation entirely different from that which their teachers had found some de- cades before. Great American universities had been built up in the meantime and had created a new spirit of scholarly independence which naturally took the turn of a slight opposition to the former masters. But such reactions are only passing moods. Those who know German scholarship to-day have no doubt that all these accusations never have had less justice than at present. Certainly German scholarship is specialistic, and there will never be any true scholarship which is not founded on specialistic work. Any thorough research must be special- istic, and research without thoroughness can never secure lasting re- sults. But the work of the great German naturalists and historians has shown at all times the tendency to wide generalizations, and the present day perhaps more than the last half century is again filled with broad philosophical endeavor. Still more unfair is the often repeated cry against the formlessness of German scholarship. Not every doctor’s thesis can be a thing of beauty, but perhaps there has never been a time in which the German language has been so shaped by aesthetic ideals. The German bookbinders were for a long while notorious for tasteless covers, but the general opinion in recent international exhi- bitions has been that now no country makes more beautiful bindings than Germany. This artistic improvement of the book is not confined to the cover. The content of the German book shows a literary finish in structure and style which ought not to be overlooked. Finally, as to the aloofness of German scholarship, the triumphs of modern German tech- nique and medical therapy speak loudly enough of the comradeship be- tween science and life. And how could it be otherwise in a country which has become so mark-hunting and practical. The best proof of the injustice of such accusations and attacks lies in the number of Amer- ican students who still feel attracted by the German academic atmos- phere in spite of the wonderful development of American higher insti- tutions of learning. Last winter there were three hundred American students in Ger-

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604 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY man universities, and it must not be forgotten that these young men and women are not undergraduate college students, but that the German university welcomes them only if they can show their college diploma. The German semesters correspond to the study in the post-graduate de- partments of the American universities. As Director of the Amerika- Institut, I wrote to these three hundred delegates of the new world and asked them with what training they came and for what purpose, whether they felt satisfied or whether they found anything of which to complain, what they were doing and what they were intending to do, and what they could suggest. The answers display an interesting va- riety. The young American scholars came from all parts of the coun- try and their favorite spots in Germany are Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, Heidelberg and Gottingen. In their studies naturally the German language and German literature take the lead, but philosophy, history, political economy and, in the line of science, chemistry and medicine stand next. Mathematics is also often chosen, and, on the whole, there is no corner in‘the field of learning to which some Americans are not turning. Lowest in the list is the study of law, which of course is best pursued in one’s own country. As to their aims and reasons for coming to Germany, some, to be sure, had no deeper argument than that they “had a fellowship,” and some that there “is no special reason.” Some wanted to see a foreign civilization at first-hand in order to be able to judge more correctly of their own, or to study German in order to teach it in America. But the overwhelming majority insisted that there was still superior opportunity for their special branches in Ger- man institutions and that the most thorough and deepest preparation could still be gained on German soil. The two fundamental tones of the replies were given by the one who wrote: “I came to train myself to think independently,” and by the other who wrote: “The best that was offered me in the American lecture room, library and seminary was the fruit directly or indirectly of German research. I wished to come into intimate contact with it.” As to their satisfaction with the results, praise and complaint were intermingled. Many asserted that they were entirely satisfied, not a few expressing themselves in terms of enthusi- asm. Some limited their approval to certain sides: “ Very well satis- fied with intellectual side of the university, but have not received much help religiously.” Others miss the American sports or the social life among students. Many are dissatisfied with the lack of personal con- tact with professors. Again some complain that the student finds no oversight and is not called to account and that accordingly too much loafing is possible. Some complain that the attendants do not under- stand English or that the libraries do not give out the books quickly enough. Some suggest more opportunities for learning the language, others demand the removal of evil social influences and student drunk-

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THE GERMANS AT SCHOOL 605 enness. But there is an almost surprising unity in the instinctive ac- knowledgment of the admirable methods of research and of highly advanced instruction. This cordial appreciation by those who stand in the midst of the German influences corresponds to the judgment of all who see German academic life with impartial eyes. There is an inten- sity in the search for truth and an eagerness for the development of the best scholarly methods which is still unsurpassed in the world. The weaknesses of the German university are not few. To those who come from American traditions the most regrettable difference is the lack of interest in the student’s life. The student is practically left to himself. This is true as to his social life and true as to his studies. No one supervises him, no one cares whether he is industrious or lazy, and the result is that many a weak man comes to grief who might have succeeded with the help and control of the American sys- tem. But these defects of the German university as educational insti- tutions are the necessary counterparts of their excellencies as places of independent scholarship. The highest goal of intellectual achievement will always be reached only in complete freedom, and this freedom is somewhat dangerous for the weak man. There can be no doubt that the German system is indeed much more adjusted to those above the aver- age than to those below, and the opposite is true of the American sys- tem. But it is not only the lack of personal help and the demand for his own activity which is in contrast with the American ample provi- sions for intellectual support. Even the choice of the teachers differs in the same direction. The American instructor is appointed, above all, because he is a good teacher; the German because he is an important contributor to the advancement of knowledge. He may be and not seldom is a poor teacher. Yet the German university ideal suggests that the true student will profit more from the contact with a man who has mastered the method of research than with any inferior scholar, however effective he may be as a teacher. The American is often no less surprised by the way in which the professors are chosen for ap- pointment. The American universities are monarchies. The president with his trustees elects a new member of the faculty without being de- pendent upon the vote of any professor. In the democratic life of the German university the government which has to make the appoint- ments is dependent upon the vote of the faculty itself. The professors choose their own colleagues. This again in principle indicates the de- sire to make the point of view of scholarship superior to every admin- istrative question. It can not be denied that in practise it frequently looks quite differently. The influence of the colleagues is too often exerted in the interest of some groups, cliques and petty prejudices. It would be a blessing for many a university faculty in Germany if an American president with his great powers stood above them. The Ger-

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606 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY mans themselves are far from considering their universities perfect. Intense reform movements are reshaping the entire university life, but it is characteristic that no so-called reform propositions are taking hold which limit in any way the freedom of study. The Germans do not want more examinations by which the student becomes more or less a school pupil, although they believe in thorough discipline and super- vision even in the highest classes of the Gymnasium, which corresponds to the average American college. The most wholesome change in the student life is the quiet but steady repression of the vulgar beer-drink- ing habits with all the noisy accessories. The entire student life has become cleaner and more modern. The old traditions had come from a time when the young academic scholar wanted to emphasize the con- trast between his eager life and the dullness of the philistine crowd. But modern times have changed this contrast by bringing life and interest and political activity into those crowds and the student has thus lost his right to live a life entirely different from that of his social surroundings. The rush of young Germany toward the university is still steadily increasing. There are about 63,000 students in the twenty- one high seats of learning, 12,000 in the law schools, 12,000 in the medical schools, about 4,000 students of divinity and the remainder in the so-called philosophical faculty which corresponds to the American graduate school. It is characteristic that the chief increase has come to the universities in the large cities in which the old-fashioned student life has always played a small rdle. In Berlin there are 14,000 persons attending the lectures and in Munich 7,000, in Leipzig 6,000. Yet espe- cially those universities in small towns which are famous for the beauty of landscape have had their proportionate growth. In lovely Freiburg in Baden the one thousandth student was welcomed with a celebration at the time when I came there as a young instructor. Recently they have celebrated the coming of the three thousandth student. The rapid growth of the academic communities strongly suggests the foundation of new universities. Miinster in Westphalia grew into a full-fledged university only a few years ago, Frankfort-on-Main is at present fight- ing with enthusiasm for the development of its academy into a univer- sity. The Prussian Diet is still seriously objecting to this ambition of the citizens of Frankfort, as it fears that the smaller universities in the neighborhood would be the sufferers, but the university of Frankfort is surely to come. The same may be said of the university of Hamburg, which so far consists of a number of interrelated institutes. But while the universities are growing in number and branching off in new and ever new specialties, they are also being supplemented by new forms of scholarly activity. The most characteristic new feature which gains increasing importance is the erection of research institutes, especially in the field of natural science and medicine. There investigations can

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THE GERMANS AT SCHOOL 607 be carried on without any reference to instruction, the scholars are dis- burdened from every educational responsibility, and the progress of knowledge becomes the only goal. At the same time the number of technical schools on the level of the universities has been increased to twelve, since those of Danzig and Breslau have recently come into existence, and Germany’s famous mining schools, forest schools, agri- cultural schools and veterinary schools show the same signs of flourish- ing life. The greatest change, however, in the academic life of the nation has come through the new regulations which link the university with the schools. The American schools have usually left a certain freedom in the choice of studies within a single institution. In the same high school the boy can take a classical course or a more realistic course. Germany has always had separate schools for the different schemes of preparation. The higher schools which engaged the boys to the nine- teenth or twentieth year have always been of three types, the Gymnasium which puts the chief emphasis on Latin and Greek, the Real gymnasium which omits the Greek and emphasizes modern languages and the Oberreal gymnasium which has very little Latin but much natural science. They correspond roughly to the American high school and a modest American college or the first two or three years of the best col- leges. The tradition allowed only those who had the certificate of the Gymnasium to take up the study of law, medicine, divinity and philol- ogy. The university study of natural sciences and of modern languages besides a number of practical callings were the only goals accessible to those who came from the other two types of schools. Long struggles which excited all Germany led to the abolition of this monopoly by classical education. With the year 1902 the great modern school re- form began and every year has brought new advance. ‘To-day prac- tically every boy who has passed through a school of any one of the three types finds the doors of the university wide open, whatever pro- fession he may choose. It may be too early to judge whether only ad- vantages will follow in the train of this reform. There are not a few who are afraid that the realistic schooling of the future lawyers and government officers may be a danger for the idealistic character of the national life, and there are many who believe that even the physician needs to read his Plato in school time more than to begin at once with the chemical laboratory. But in any case the great change has brought fresh air into the academic halls. The second great change was the full admission of women. For a long time they had the permission to at- tend lectures but no academic rights equal to those of men could be acknowledged for the women students until they should bring to the entrance door of the university the same certificate as the boys were expected to bring from their schools. The.real advance of the women

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608 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY in the university sphere depended upon the establishment of girls’ schools which would lead to exactly the same goal as the Gymnasium for boys. This was at last accomplished by the splendid organization of girls’ instruction of three years ago. Prussia has now four types of higher schools for girls, each of which may be divided into various independent departments. In the center stands the upper girls’ school, a somewhat revised edition of the tra- ditional German school for girls. There are ten classes which are usually passed through in the period from the sixth to the sixteenth year. The first three classes are preparatory, with eight to ten hours a week instruction in the mother tongue, three hours arithmetic every week, two to three hours writing, two hours needlework, three hours of religion, which is an organic part of every German school, two half hours of singing, two half hours of gymnastics and some drawing as well. In the seven upper classes the German language takes six, five and finally four hours a week, and French exactly the same number, altogether thirty-two hours each in those seven years. English is taught in the four upper classes only four hours a week, mathematics three hours a week throughout, geography two hours through the seven years, natural history two hours, religion two hours, drawing two hours, sing- ing two hours, gymnastic two hours, needlework two hours, but this is no longer obligatory in the four upper classes. Those who have passed through this ten years’ course may enter either the so-called Frauen- schule or the Seminary or the Studienanstalt. The first is planned to complete the education of a young woman who seeks a higher training without any professional aim. It is adjusted to the needs of women who are to play an intelligent réle, not only in the home, but also in social life. It is in no way a finishing school for one who aims to shine in society, but meant for those who really want to serve. It is usually a course of two years in which pedagogy, household economy, kinder- garten work, hygiene, political economy, civics, bookkeeping and needle- work stand in the foreground, while modern languages, history, litera- ture, natural science, art, drawing and music are relegated to the position of minor electives. The Seminary, on the other hand, is meant for those who aim to become teachers of the lower schools. It demands three years’ scholarly work and one year of practical training in schools. In those three years of theoretical study, French, English and mathe- matics take four hours a week each year, German, natural science and religion three hours a week, pedagogy, history and geography two hours. In their fourth year, the practical term, the candidates study pedagogy and methods of teaching seven hours, eight hours a week thesis writing, six hours training in practical class work and six hours training in the practical methods of the various subjects, including laboratory experiments. In addition to all this, through the four years

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THE GERMANS AT SCHOOL 609 there are three hours of gymnastics, two hours of drawing and one hour of singing. For the friends of women’s progress, however, the chief accent of the system lies on the Studienanstalt. It is a school of six classes demanding six years’ work open to those who have passed the first seven classes of the higher girls’ schools. The three highest classes of the girls’ school are then skipped, and instead of them the six years’ course undertaken. This, however, is again divided into three separate schools corresponding to the Gymnasium, the Real gymnasium and the Oberrealschule of the boys. In the Gymnasium course during those six years the girls have three hours a week German, six hours a week Latin, at first three, later two hours French, in the first two classes three hours a week English, in the last four classes eight hours a week Greek. Through all the years there is history two hours, mathematics first four, later two hours, religion two, geography one, gymnastics three and drawing three. In the Real gymnasium the girls have no Greek whatever, but throughout six hours Latin, three hours French, three hours English and somewhat more mathematics and natural science than in the Gymnasium course. Finally in the Oberrealschule Latin too is omitted while both French and English are increased to four hours a week, mathematics to five, natural science to four and German also to four. This new plan adapts itself most successfully to the vari- ous needs, and the only danger lies in the fact that inasmuch as these three last types of schools open wide the way to the professional studies of the universities the number of academically trained women may soon by far surpass the demand of the community. This vivid activity in the direction of liberal changes through gov- ernmental initiative does not exclude an abundance of efforts to break new educational paths. For instance much interest is centered nowa- days on the so-called reform schools. They aim toward postponing the decision for a particular type of school as late as possible. The usual schools are different from the start. The classical schools begin with their Latin in the lowest classes. The reform school systems, of which the model was the city school system of Frankfort, have a common foundation for all schools, reminding one in this respect of the Ameri- can principle. The much-discussed Frankfort plan in the first three classes gives to all the pupils in common five hours German, six hours French, two hours geography, five hours mathematics, two hours of natural science, two hours of writing, three to two hours of religion, three hours of gymnastics, two hours of drawing and two hours of sing- ing. Only with the fourth class does the bifurcation begin. In the classical course the fourth class begins at once with ten hours Latin and the sixth class with eight hours of Greek, while in the realistic course the Latin is started in the fourth class, with eight hours going down to six, and the English begins in the sixth class with six hours.

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610 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY There is still much distrust of this apparently very reasonable proced- ure. Every one feels that the momentous decision of the character of the education ought to be made at an age when the individual differ- ences show more clearly than in the first years of school life, but the friends of the traditional Gymnasium are still convinced that a thorough classical training in accordance with the old German ideals ought to shape the mind of the youth in the characteristic way from a tender age. There the German school men still stand in the midst of passionate discussions. But the intense pedagogical forward movement of the German people must not be studied only in the programs of the official schools. - After all they represent the conservative aspect. The most progressive changes which would upset the traditions altogether are expressed in private institutions, usually the creations of enthusiastic idealists. They feel that there is a deep-lying antagonism between the claims of the official school and hundreds of thousands of hopes. Undoubtedly a large part of the nation is convinced that the whole school system is antiquated and too little adjusted to the needs of the new Germany. The schools still carry with them too much of that Germany which lived and thought but which was politically powerless and in the practical world helpless. The new German who does not look into the clouds but prefers to stand with both feet firm on the ground wants knowledge of natural science instead of languages, wants development toward national patriotism instead of religion in school, and wants civics in- stead of archeology. The center of it all is the firm demand that the youth be prepared for the national life with its social demands and its realistic energies. The character is to be developed still more than the intellect, and the mind is to be schooled for a time which overstrains a man unless he is trained for concentration. Of course much super- ficiality and pedagogical amateurishness are in play there. Especially the educational value of the natural sciences is still a very doubtful claim in the eyes of those who have really watched the outcome. But in this point too the serious reformers propose a fundamental change. They say that natural sciences are indeed without fundamental signifi- cance for the mind of the youth if the instruction means only a heaping up of information. In these days of rapid naturalistic progress the temptation is always great to bring the boy in contact with as many fields of positive knowledge as possible. But there is too much kaleido- scopic unrest in this superficial excitement of the intellect to bring any lasting gain. The new leaders therefore wish that knowledge be con- sidered as unimportant and that the mastery of method and of nat- uralistic thinking alone be emphasized. The boys are to learn how to learn from nature. And in a corresponding way these groups of re- formers wish to change the teaching of history. The children are not

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THE GERMANS AT SCHOOL 611 to learn the facts but the methods to find out the true facts from various sources. They are to be brought into contact with the old reports by which the events of the past are transmitted. The knowledge of the languages ought to be gained by practise in conversation, the knowledge of the earth by wandering and living in nature. This is typically combined in the much-admired institutions of Dr. Lietz, the so-called Landerziehungsheime, educational homes in the country. Lietz was a young enthusiastic teacher who was moved by the ideal of building up healthy, strong, joyful, energetic and judicial men who would be in sympathy with their fellow creatures and under- stand the needs of the common people, and yet who would be inspired by art and science and technique. He has created in the loveliest regions of Germany three national schools, for the youngest children between seven and twelve in Ilsenburg in the Hartz, the second in Haubinda in Thuringia for the boys between twelve and fifteen and the third in the castle of Bieberstein in the Rhén Mountains for boys between sixteen and twenty. All three places are far removed from the turmoil of the world, and the boys find there a most harmonious interconnection of intellectual training, handicraft work, agricultural activity, sport and inspiring social intercourse between teachers and pupils. It is a delight to see those happy youngsters under conditions in which their natural instincts for out-of-door life and for social com- panionship, for manual activity and for sport, are so wholesomely satis- fied and at the same time where their intellectual development is secured by individualizing training in scholarly method. They learn really to love the literature and the history of their country and to become personally interested in the political and the economic structure of their nation. Their minds are opened to music and art, to religion and morality. Small groups of them undertake walking trips not only into the near neighborhood, but to far-distant parts of the fatherland in a simple camping style. Sometimes even long journeys to Egypt and elsewhere have been undertaken in the vacation time. Truly it is an ideal method to develop a healthy mind in a healthy body. Whether it will become the crystallization point for general educational changes in Germany is, however, more than doubtful. So far these reforms are in an uphill fight. They suffer from that which they feel as an unfair- ness, namely, from the fact that their schools must lead the boys to the same examinations which the regular school boys have to pass if the pupils are to go over to the university or to any other official career. This demands that in the last years much cramming be introduced and that features be forced on these new boy paradises which seem very foreign to their spirit. They demand, accordingly, new regulations which will give to the new types of schools more appropriate examina- tions as end points. As long as this is not granted, these schools remain

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To ARNE REE A Tr 2 rare 612 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY confined to narrow circles. But more important perhaps is the second fact. The Germans feel on the whole very unwilling to give their sons and daughters out of the house, if the education can possibly be obtained in the neighborhood. The system of the American academies and boarding schools is contrary to all German traditions. Especially in the large cities in which the Americans are most readily inclined to send their children away for the educational years, the Germans would least think of separating the youth from the home. It may seem surprising to American observers that in the abundance of educational schemes which recent times have ripened in Germany nowhere has a serious movement toward coeducation been started. In a very modest way it has been forced on the communities in those places in which girls want to be prepared for the university but where no special Gymnasium classes for girls have been arranged. Just these exceptional cases however hasten the establishment of special Gym- nasiums for women. The German community is decidedly unwilling to gather in one schoolroom boys and girls beyond the age of the ele- mentary school. They do not object to the coeducational instruction of small children in rural schools. This is a frequent practise. Nor do they object to the comradeship of young men and women on the level of the highest university work. But in the broad period of the development of adolescence they believe in strict bieducation. Even when the material of study is the same, differentiation of method is demanded and German pedagogues decidedly object to women teachers for grown-up boys. The fact is that the new girls’ school plans, even where they lead to exactly the same goal as the Gymnasium or the Real- schule, distribute the material in a characteristically different way from the program of the boys’ schools. They acknowledge the psychological laws of the different rhythm of the development of the two sexes. The well-known suggestion that the boys become refined and the girls strengthened through the presence of the other sex is the more power- less since the educators feel justified in reporting that even America, where the experiment has been tried most extensively, is in a stage of reaction against the coeducational enthusiasm. Whoever looks at the free play of educational energies in Germany’s social organism is probably most impressed by the strong activity out- side of the regular day schools. Instruction for those who go to school because they have not yet entered a practical life work is furnished everywhere in the world, but no country shows such systematic educa- tional planning for those who have left school and are at work in business or in factories, in agriculture or in any other calling. The splendid development which this type of pedagogical influence has found in recent times has been to a high degree due to a reaction against grave misuses in the past. In early times, to be sure, the boy who left the primary school was under the strict control of the master in the work-

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THE GERMANS AT SCHOOL 613 shop or in the business. But the nineteenth century changed those paternalizing conditions and brought complete freedom. The result. was a steadily growing insubordination and obstinacy, frivolous breaches of contracts and unreliability, together with a craving for enjoyment on the moral side, and a lack of careful training on the professional side. The community felt this inability to get hold of the boys who had left school as one of the most serious national dangers. In response to this need the continuation schools were founded which are to develop the youth after the school years in moral, practical and intellectual respects. The essential difference from all other schools lies of course in the fact that these take only a fraction of the boy’s time in order not to interfere with his work. But they receive their real social background by the legal obligation of the employer to give to every boy the opportunity to attend these school classes. Compared with the general elementary school, the continuation school is professional, while the other is a humanistic school. On the other hand, compared with the real tech- nical schools both lower and higher, it combines the technical instruc- tion with general education. But, above all, the technical schools de- mand for some years the whole working time of the pupils, while the continuation schools are only supplementary to the chief business of the boy. The technical schools, such as for instance all the agricultural schools or the special industrial schools or the commercial schools, are strictly professional; the continuation schools are essentially educa- tional. It may be said that even the technical element in them becomes subordinated to the aim of making a whole man and not only a skilful worker out of the boy who has left the school in his fourteenth year. The principle of this continuation school has conquered all Germany, but the realization of it looks very different in the various parts of the country. In some, the communities are forced by law to establish such schools, in other parts the towns are free to arrange them according to the local needs. On the whole this difference seems less important, as the continuation schools are flourishing wonderfully in some parts in which the laws give large freedom in the matter to the community. The point about which the discussion at present seems much more excited is the question whether the school teacher or the man of prac- tical life, the master in the arts and crafts, the business man, the farmer, the industrial specialist, is to be the decisive factor. The men of the workshop complain that these schools become worthless as soon as the methods and the points of view of the school teacher control them, and the opposite party believes that the highest value is missed if the spirit of the factory and not that of the schoolroom enters into them. As the continuation schools were to serve the needs of young people in many different walks of practical life, the schools themselves had to develop an almost unlimited manifoldness. A subtle adjustment to the local conditions as well as to the varieties of industry and trade had to

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2 aan nanan 614 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY be aimed at. Continuation schools for candy makers and continuation schools for shoe makers had to be different. There are five chief types: the general continuation school, the commercial, the industrial, the rural and, exclusively for girls, the household economy school. Each of these types is realized sometimes in schools of obligatory character, and sometimes in schools where the attendance is voluntary, as well as in schools with prescribed courses, and in others with great freedom of election. The most famous system of continuation schools, the discus- sion of which has had most valuable influence on the whole German situation, is that of the city of Munich, where the indefatigable superin- tendent of schools, Dr. Kerschensteiner, has succeeded in a perfect adjustment of educational needs to the practical requirements of the community. Particularly his industrial continuation schools have been organized in such a way that almost every important business is repre- sented by special classes for apprentices and special classes for journey- men and older working men. ‘There are classes for chimney sweepers and for cabinetmakers, for coachmen and for ivory carvers, for watch- makers and for photographers, for tailors and for locksmiths, for barbers and for gardeners, for office boys and for waiters. There are altogether two hundred and ninety-six classes for the first years and one hundred and thirteen classes for those who are beyond the years of apprentice- ship. About ten thousand boys are regularly attending. Every class has a careful program in which elements of general human education, elements of technical theoretical information and technical practical training, and finally elements of civic and sociological instruction, are harmoniously combined. This blending of different factors shows itself in the appointment of teachers. In the two hundred and ninety-six classes for the younger boys, for instance, we find seventy-seven general and thirty-seven technical teachers who devote to the work all their time and two hundred and twenty-one elementary-school teachers and one hundred and eleven technical and professional teachers who give instruction in their specialties as a side function, and one hundred and sixty teachers of religion. The essential point for an American spec- tator is, however, that the instruction for those thousands of young people in the midst of their practical life is given in the best hours of the day, either in the morning or in the afternoon, and that the employers are obliged to give them the opportunity to attend from six to ten hours a week for four years. Obligatory instruction in the evening when the young people come fatigued from their daily labor is excluded by the scheme. There is perhaps at present in the system of German school work no feature which so much deserves the attention of the American reformer as this whole plan of continuation schools as developed in the city of Munich and as more or less similarly organized in a large number of German cities.

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THE STATIONARY POPULATION OF FRANCE GERMANY and France have happily settled their differences in regard to Morocco; but the German chancellor is charged in his own country with yield- ing not to France, but to Great Britain. France, which a hundred years ago lorded it over the Germanic nations and forty years ago believed that its mili- | tary forces were superior to those of the German empire, has now almost lost its place among the great nations of Europe. Paris is nearly the same city it was forty years ago; Berlin is a new city. This alteration in the position of France is due to its stationary popula- tion. At the end of the last century the population of France formed one quarter of that of the civilized powers of the world, while at present it has THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE fallen to seven per cent. ; na teeei gta38 8 Peres RPE 8 Austria France BirtH RATES AND DEATH RATES. This state of affairs is causing much anxiety in France; it is discussed in detail in a recent book by Dr. Jacques Bertillon, chief of statistics for the city of Paris. The data which he reviews in detail deserve consideration not so much because, as he claims, they are peculiar to France, but rather because France has been first to exhibit a state of affairs likely soon to be evident everywhere. The charts here repro- duced show the birth rates and death rates of four nations during the second half of the nineteenth century and the birth rates in the different regions of France for the first and last decades of the nineteenth century. It is almost incredible that there should be depart- ments in which there are three deaths for every two births. In Lot the pop- ulation has in the .course of twenty years decreased from 271,514 to 216,- 611. a, TS 35. 34 a ‘ 2 sg sf $683 Italy England

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY ECHELLE DES TEINTES Commune és Gouna Carles CT ee 1438 de 19523 SEES ce 24388 BEB teogass GE ¢: Herp NATALITE 1801-1810 BIRTH RATES IN THE FRENCH DEPARTMENTS Every nation except France is in- creasing in population; but the birth rate is decreasing everywhere. Statis- ties can be misapplied to almost any purpose. Thus since 1876 the birth rate for France has decreased from 25 to 21 per thousand, whereas for England it has decreased from 36 to 27, and it might be alleged that, should the same decrease continue, the birth rate after an equal period would be about the same for France and England, and about a hundred years thereafter would be 5 in France and less than nothing in England. This is obviously absurd, but it is by no means unlikely that the birth rate will fall below the death rate in all civilized nations and later in other nations as they are brought within the circle of European civil- ization. The increase in population during recent years has been due to the de- creased death rate. This has resulted directly from the applications of sci- ence to medicine and hygiene and indi- rectly from the improved conditions of living which science has made possible. In all civilized countries the birth rate is now smaller than the death rate was formerly. But the death rate can not decrease indefinitely; it has indeed pos- sibly reached in Great Britain a lower level than can be maintained. A death rate of 16 per thousand in a stationary population means that the average length of life is over 60 years and as one fourth of those who die are under five years of age the average age at death of those surviving infancy would be about 80 years. Odd as it may ap- pear at first sight the decreased death rate of a country such as Great Britain is largely due to a decreasing birth rate combined with an increasing popula- tion. Such conditions give a popula- tion in which there are fewer children under five and fewer old people over sixty, in which groups the death rate is about 60 per thousand, whereas be- tween the ages of 5 and 35 it is below 5. In France there are fewer children than have ever existed in any popula- tion, which reduces the death rate; but there are more old people—twice as many as in Great Britain—which in- creases it. The proportion of old people will further increase in France,

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ECHELLE DES TEINTES commune wx deux cartes CJ ée 4818 FEZ) ce 19.323 GER ds 24:8 HEB cers a3s AT THE BEGINNING AND END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. | | | and will be tripled in Great Britain. It should also be remembered that the death rate of those over 45 has in- creased continually, owing mainly to the keeping alive of weakly people at earlier ages. | It seems unlikely that the death rate | will ever be considerably smaller than it now is in England, whereas the con- ditions which have lowered the birth rate seem destined not only to continue ' but to increase. The physiological lim- itations will doubtless increase as chil- dren grow up who could not be born naturally or be nursed naturally or live through the harsher conditions that formerly obtained. The economic and social causes—the increase and wider diffusion of wealth, prudence and | knowledge—will almost surely become more potent. Dr. Bertillon discusses in detail the eauses of the depopulation of France and the measures which he recommends to arrest it. The latter are indeed feeble in comparison with the former, and he puts on his title page the pessi- mistic motto VOL, LXX!Ix.—42. ‘‘Tl n’est pas besoin | d’espérer pour entrependre ni de réus- sir pour persévérer.’’ Apart from a moral regeneration leading people to want to do what they can rather than to get what they can, the remedy is in | the direction recommended in the book, but requires far more radical measures. Children are no longer a financial asset to their parents, but they are this to the state and to the world; the state must ultimately pay for their birth and rearing. THE ZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Four of the leading eastern univer- sities—Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and Yale—have provided new laboratories for their departments 'or zoology. At the Johns Hopkins the laboratory is part of buildings planned for the whole university on its removal to a new site. At Princeton great buildings have been erected for the natural sciences and for physics, and similar buildings are in course of erec- tion for Yale. The new building at the

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY ZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. University of Pennsylvania, shown in ences was wisely avoided. The elemen- the accompanying illustration, is the, tary work is confined to the first floor, largest and best equipped building in| with four laboratories for general zool- this country, if not in the world, de-| ogy, leaving the two upper floors for voted wholly to zoology. | advanced work and research. The base- The architecture is of early English | ment contains rooms for breeding, con- Renaissance, with walls of red brick in stant temperature, photography and a variety of shades trimmed with Indi- | other purposes, the heat and light being ana limestone. The front facade, supplied from a central station. facing the north, is 216 feet in length;| The United States would make un- the south wing connects with the vi- paralleled contributions to the advance- varium erected in 1900. The form of | ment of science if these follow in pro- the building and the large windows | portion to the material equipment of its give ample light to all rooms. Excel-| universities and government bureaus. lent as are the architectural effects they | But men are more important than their have in all cases been adjusted to the| tools. It happens that of the great needs of the scientific work. The unit | universities of the Atlantic seaboard system of construction has been fol- | the two—Harvard and Columbia— lowed, so that rooms are of standard | which lead all others in their zoological size and partitions can be readily added | work are the only ones not having new or removed. laboratories. They will doubtless soon The large lecture room seats 327 stu-| have them, but how much their investi- dents and the smaller sixty, while the | gations will be aided by the building, laboratories may also be used for lec- | equipment and care of new laboratories tures. Ample space is provided for the | is an open question. At Pennsylvania library and for a synoptical museum, | there is only one full professor of zool- but duplication of the exhibition mu- | ogy. The interest on the cost of the seums of the Academy of Natural Sci-| building and grounds and the charge

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for care and depreciation is much | larger than the salaries paid to the teachers and investigators who occupy the building. The writer has good reason to remember well the old Biolog- ical Hall of the University of Pennsyl- vania. It cost perhaps $30,000; it was likely not only to burn down but to tumble down. Yet in that building some twenty years ago worked Leidy, Cope and Ryder, with two other pro- fessors in the zoological sciences, two professors of botany and a professor of psychology, all actively engaged in re- search work. Our universities doubt- less need big buildings, but the need of great men is far more urgent. SCIENTIFIC ITEMS WE record with regret the deaths of the Rev. Henry C. McCook, of Philadel- phia, known for his publications on THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 619 Joseph Troost, the eminent French chemist; of. Professor August Michel- Levy, the distinguished French geolo- gist; of M. Alfred Binet, director of the psychological. laboratory of the University of Paris; of Dr. Wilhelm Dilthey, formerly professor of. philos- ophy in the. University of Berlin; of Dr. J. Hughlings-Jackson, F.R.8., .emi- ‘nent English neurologist, and:of Pro- fessor Florentino Ameghino, the well- known paleontologist and director of the Museo Nacional in Buenos Aires. Mr. ANDREW CARNEGIE has given $25,000,000 to’ the Carnegie -Corpora- tion of New York, incorporated by the legislatiure last June. The objects of the corporation are ‘‘receiving and maintaining a fund or funds and ap- plying the income thereof to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding among popular entomology; of M. Louis-; the people of the United States, by Noe als ecm OMe abe . WALK THE First FLOOR OF THE ZOOLOGICAL LABORATORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

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620 aiding technical schools, institutions of higher learning, libraries, scientific research, hero funds, useful publica- tions, and by such other means as shall from time to time be found appro- priate therefor.’’ By the will of Mr. Joseph Pulitzer the million dollars which he had set aside for a School. of Journalism at Columbia University is released, and the promise of an additional million on condition that the school be success- fully conducted for three years is con- firmed. $250,000 is bequeathed to Columbia University to continue the ‘special scholarships for students of the New York public schools. $500,000 is bequeathed to the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art and an equal sum to the Philharmonic Society of New York. The income to be paid to two of his sons is limited until they have reached the age of thirty, and the balance is to! mouth, Bowdoin, Hamilton and Glas- gow. be divided between Columbia Univer- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY sity, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Philharmonic Society. This ” amount may apparently exceed $500,- , 000 annually. THE will of Miss Emma Carola Woerishoffer leaves $750,000 to the trustees of Bryn Mawr College, of which she was a recent graduate. THE estate of John S. Kennedy is even larger than has been previously announced. The share of Columbia University is $2,429,943. The New York Public Library receives $2,779,- 790; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, $2,929,943; the Presbyterian Hospital, $1,514,086; New York University and the Presbyterian Board of Aid for Colleges, each $976,647; Robert Col- lege, Constantinople, $1,847,295. The specific bequests, not dependent on the size of the size of the estate, include $100,000 each to Yale, Amherst, Dart-

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INDEX NAMES OF CONTRIBUTORS ARE PRINTED IN SMALL CAPITALS Adamas, or the Symmetries of Isomet-| College, What makes af A. B. WouFs, rie Crystals, B. K. EMERSON, 581 | 151; Studies and Professional Train- Agriculture in the High School, JOSIAH | ing, 514 MAIN, 385 |Color Line, A World-wide, U. G. American, Museum of Natural History,| WEATHERLY, 474 The Extension of, 205, Director of, | Concealing Coloration, AssoTtr H. 414; Geographical Society, 310;| THAYER, 20 Mathematics, G. A. MILLER, 459 Conservation of the Food-supply, HENRY Amherst Idea, 102 | PRENTISS ARMSBY, 496 Animal Kingdom, The Narrowing | Conservatism, Constitutional, of Women, Circle of, THos. D. Eason, 272 Orto CHARLES GLASER, 299 Antiquity, Lack of Printing in, FREp-| Crossing of the Races, J. G. WILSON, ERIC DREW Bonn, 584 | 486 Aqueduct, The Catskill, 98 | Crystals, Isometric, Adamas or the Sym- ARMSBY, HENRY PRENTISS, Conserva-| metries of, B. K. EMERSON, 581 tion of the Food-supply, 496 | | Defi Mental, The Psychology of, Baker, SmitH, The Relative Impor- | peg re owe - “ sychology o tance of Mental Pain, 355 | Desert Plants, W ter’ Relati f, D. BALDWIN, Birp T., The Psychology of | T MacDovs AL "540 ree Mental Deficiency, 82 BatTESON, W., Genetics, 313 : : Bering ‘Bieae Gel. Field, Alaska, Eason, THOs. D., The Narrowing Circle GEORGE F. Kay, 417 of the Animal Kingdom, 272 | Economics A Bugbear of, HERBERT BOND, FREDERIC Drew, Lack of Print-| Apourats MiniEr, 594 ing in Antiquity 584 British Association, Address of the bar a K., Science among the President, 412; Portsmouth Meeting, | ,, ane 516 |Eutiott, Orris LE&siiz, University Buffon and the Problem of Species, p,vandards and Gindent Activites, 8 ArTHur O. LovEsoy, 464, 554 2 Bureau of Standards, "Henry 8. C oe metries of Isometric Crystals, 581 | Engineering and Mathematics in Na- HART, 209 ture, ARNOLD EmcH, 450 — Pa ge Ome Relanee and | English as an International Language, fined | AtBERT LEON GUERARD, 337 Environmental Influence, The Laws of, — ent N., Protozoan Germ Smmon N. Parren, 396 > CarHarT, Henry S., The Bureau of Standards, 209 | Fay, E. W., Language Study and Lan- Catskill Aqueduct, 98 guage Psychology, 369 Chinese, The Race Fiber of, EpwArp A. | | Feeling i in the Interpretation of Nature, Ross, 403; Seience among the, C. K.|__WiLtiam E. Errtbe, 126 EDMUNDS, 521 | Fiber, Race, of the Chinese, Epwarp A. Civilization and Vegetation, Gzorcz J.| Ross, 403 PEIRCE, 328 | Flight, "Mechanical, Langley Memoir on, CLARK, HUBERT LyMAN, The Purpose; 409 and Some Principles of Systematic | Floating Islands, SmNEY Powers, 303 Zoology, 261 | Fly, Typhoid, on the Minnesota Iron Classification of the Sciences, Ina Range, F. L. WASHBURN, 137 Woops HowertH, 165 | Food Preparation and Efficient Person- Coal Field, The Bering River, Alaska,, ality in the Home, LAURA CLARKE GrorGE F. Kay, 417 ROCKWOOD, 277 CocKERELL, T. D. A., University in| Food-supply, Conservation cf _ the, Politics, 160 i HENRY PRENTISS ARMSBY, 496

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622 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY France, Stationary Population of, 615 | Maize, Perfect Flowers in, E. G: Mont- Fur Seals, Protection of, 206 GOMERY, 346 Marine Biological Laboratory and Pro- Galton, Francis, J. ARTHUR. Harris, 171! fessor Whitman, 309 Genetics, W. BaTEsON, 313 |MarTIN, FERNANDO Woop, Pasteur, A Geographical Society, "American, 310 | Study in Greatness, 5 Germ Plasm, Protozoan, Gary N. Ca-| Mathematics, and Engineering in Na- KINS, 568 | ture, ARNOLD Emcu, 450; American, Germans at School, Hugo Miinster-| G. A. MILuEr, 459 BERG, 608 | Mechanical Flight, Langley Memoir on, GLASER, Orto CHARLES, Constitutional, 409 Conservatism of Women, 299 | Medicine, Internal, The History of, Gravitation, Attempts to explain, Mor-| JoHN BENJAMIN’ NICHOLS, 220 RIs V. WILSON, 252 Mental, Deficiency, The Psychology of, Greatness, Pasteur, a Study in, Fer-| Bip T. Batpwin, 82; Pain, The NANDO Woop Martin, 5 | Relative Importance of, SMITH Guf£RARD, ALBERT LEON, English as an, Baker, 355 International Language, 337 _Meteor Trains, Luminous, The Origin of, C. C. TROWBRIDGE, 191 Harris, J. ARTHUR, Francis Galton, 171 | | MILLER, G. A., American Mathematics, High School, Agriculture in the; Jostan|| 459 MAIN, 385 | MILLER, HERBERT ADOLPHUS, A Bug- HoweErtH, Ina Woops, Classification of |__ bear ‘of Economics, 594 the Sciences, 165 Minnesota Iron Range, Typhoid Fly on Human Speech, The History and Varie-|__the, F. L. WASHBURN, 137 ties of, Epwarp Sapir, 45 MONTGOMERY, E. G., Perfect Flowers in Maize, 346 Insect Parasitism and its Peculiarities,, MONT@OMERY, THoMas H., Jr., Expan- WILLIAM Morton WHEELER, 431 , sion of the Usefulness of Natural Internal Medicine, The History of, History Museums, 36 JOHN BENJAMIN NICHOLS, 220 been Witson V., Attempts to ex- International Language, English as an,|__ Plain Gravitation, 252 ALBERT LEON GUERARD, 337 | MUNSTERBERG, HuGo, The Germans at Islands, Floating, SDNEY Powers, 303 __School, 608° Isometric Crystals, Adamas or the Sym-| Museum, American, of Natural His- metries of, B. K. EMERSON, 581 tory, The Extension of, 205; Director ty) JONES, Harry C., Jacobus Henricus Museums, Natural History, Expansion vant Hoff, 94 | of the Usefulness of, THomas H. Kay, Grorcr F., The Bering River Coal) MoNtTGoMERy, Jr., 36 Field, Alaska, 417 Narrowing Circle of the Animal King- Langley Memoir. on Mechanical Flight,; dom, THos. D. Eason, 272 409 | Natural History, Museums, Expansion Language, International, English as an,|; of the Usefulness of, THomMas H. ALBERT LEON GUERARD, 337; Study| MontcomeEry, Jr., 36; The American and Language Psychology, E. W.| Museum of, 305 Fay, 369 Nature, Feeling in the Interpretation Laws of Environmental Influence, | of, Witu1am E. RITTER, 126; Engi- Srmon N. Parven, 396 neering and Mathematics in, ARNOLD Light, Production of, by Certain Living Emcu, 450 Forms, F. ALEX. McCDERMoTT, 532) NicHots, JoHN BENJAMIN, Logs, JACQUES, The Significance of | of Seisennl Medicine, 990 Tropisms for Psychology, 105 Pain, Mental, The Relative Importance LovEJoy, ARTHUR O., Buffon and the | of, Saver B AKER, 355 Problem of Species, 464, 554 ; are tg Sh Orgies Parasitism, Insect, and its Peculiari- ties, WILLIAM MorTON WHEELER, 431 MacDovaat, D. T., Water Relations of | Pasteur, a Study in Greatness, Frr- Desert Plants, 540 |__NaNDO Woop Martin, 5 McDermort, F. ALEX., Science among | PATTEN, Stmon N., The Laws of En- the Chinese, 521 vironmental Influence, 396 MAtIn, JostaH, Agriculture in the High | PEmcE, GEorRGE J., Vegetation and School, 385 Civilization, 328 The History PEA Senate WT ae is att tl Brass iS ak na eat Reonad apse tS oe ae ge ee ee eae

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seta A aporpes RES gle ie nth ig tay A ints S ho er ant NER OOS R e ia DN Gen Oe aE lee airs aCe TA TE PR ior seater Bt hak Se RAS Pennsylvania, University of, Zoological Laboratory, 617 Pension System, University, The Moral Influence of a, HENRY S. PRITCHETT, 502 Perfect Flowers in Maize, E. G. Mont- GOMERY, 346 Plants, Desert, Water Relations of, D. T. MacDoueat, 540 INDEX Politics, University in, T. D. A. Cock- ERELL, 160 Population of France, 615 Species, Buffon and the Problem of, ARTHUR O. LovEJoy, 464, 554 Speech, Human, The History and Varie- ties of, EDwarp Sapir, 45 Standards, Bureau of, Henry S. Car- © HART, 209 Student Activities and University Standards, Orrkis LESLIE ELLiort, 68 Systematic Zoology, The Purpose ‘and Some Principles of, HuBpert LyMANn CLARK, 261 PowErs, SIDNEY, Floating Islands, 303 | TAYLOR, ALonzo ENGLEBERT, Is Vege- Printing in Antiquity, Lack of, FRED- | ERIC DREW BonpD, 584 PRITCHETT, HENRY S., The Moral In- fluence of a University Pension Sys- | tem, 502 Professional Training and College Studies, 514 Progress of Science, 98, 205, 308, 409, | 514, 615 Protozoan Germ Plasm, Gary N. Cat | KINS, 568 Psychology, of Mental Deficiency, ‘oie T. BALDWIN, 82; The Significance of | Tropisms for, JACQUES LOEB, at Language and Language Study, E W. Fay, 369 tarianism capable of World-wide Ap- plication? 587 THAYER, ABBoTt, H., Concealing Color- ation, 20 | Tropisms, the Significance of, for Psy- chology, JACQUES LOEB, 105 | TROWBRIDGE, C. C., The Origin of Lu- minous Meteor Trains, 191 | Typhoid Fly on the Minnesota Iron Range, F. L. WASHBURN, 137 | University, Standards and Student Activities, Orris LEsLIE ELLIOTT, 68; in Politics, T. D. A. CocKERELL, 160; Pension System, The Moral In- fluence of a, HENRY S. PRITCHETT, 502 SON, 486 RITTER, WILLIAM E., Feeling in the In- | terpretation of, Nature, 126 Rockwoop, LauRA CLARKE, Food Prepa- ration and Efficient Personality in the Home, 277 Ross, Epwarp A., The Race Fiber of the Chinese, 403 Sapir, Epwarp, The History and Varie- ties of Human Speech, 45 School, The Germans at, Hugo Miwns- TERBERG, 608 Science, The Progress of, 98, 205) 308, 409, 514, 615; and Social gree Noa FREDERICK A. BusHEE, 236; among the Chinese, C. K. EpMuNDs, 521 Sciences, Classification of the, IRa Woops HoweErtH, 165 Scientific 1tems, 104, 208, 311, 416, 520, 624 SCRIPTURE, WINIFRED, The Sounds S¢eh?? coal Asa? 350 Seals, Fur, Protection of, 206 Social Progress and Science, FREDERICK | A BUSHEE, 236 Sounds ‘‘ch’’ and ‘‘j,’’? WINIFRED SCRIPTURE, 350 | ieaanaiec: F. L., The Typhoid Fly on the Minnesota Tron Range, 137 | Water Relations of Desert Plants, D. T. MacDovueat, 540 WEATHERLY, U. G., A World-wide Color Line, 474 Whitman, Charles Otis, and the Marine Biological Laboratory, 309 Witson, J. G., The Crossing of the Races, 486 Wotre, A. B., What makes a College? 151 Women, Constitutional Conservatism of, OTTO CHARLES GLASER, 299 World-wide Color Line, U. G. Weatx- ERLY, 474 Van’t Hoff, Jacobus Henricus, Harry | ©, JONEs, 94 Vegetarianism, Is it Capable of World- wide Application, A. E. TayLor, 587 Vegetation and Civilization, GrorGE J. PEIRCE, 328 | Zoological Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania, 617 Zoology, Systematic, The Purpose and some Principles of, HupErt LYMAN | CLARK, 261

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Page 105

ONTHLY Le “EDITED BY J. MoKEEN CATTELL 1 CONTENTS- : Science among the Chinese. Dr. 0. K.Epmunps . . Pita 3 521 ds | Why do Certain Living Forms Produce Light.” F. Aimx. McDermorr . 582 | The Water Relations of Desert Plants, Dn. D,T.MacDovean . . 540 | Buffon and the Problem of Species. Prormssor. Arruur 0. Lovgyoy . 564 4 Protozoan Germ Plasm. Prormsson Gary N. Carxins . . «. « 568 %: E Adamas, or the Symmetries of Isometric Crystals. Prormssor B. K. Ph e e ° e * ° J e ® s . > The Lack of Printing in Antiquity. Frepzrrio Drew BonD . . 4} _—sIs Vegetarianism Capable of World-wide Application? Pnormseon 7, Atonzo. Enerxesert TAYLOR. . ¢ 7 A Bugbear of Economics. Proressor Hersert Apotpavs Mriee . 504 oe The Germans at School. Prorzssor Hugo MtnsTerBerG- . : : 602. _ +; The Progress of Science : _ | The Stationary Population of France ; The poeegen Laborstory of * University. ¥ of Pennsylvania ; Scientific Items . 0 “ % Index to Volume LXXIK 2, ee sw ee OR 2 THE SCIENCE PRESS 1 LANCASTER, PA. _—. @ABRISON, &. Y, “NEW YORK: Svus-Srarion 84 Snare Nuwuee, 80 Carrs

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Foods and Their Adulteration A Scientific Book for the Household __| Giving the Origin, Manufacture and Composition of Food Products; | Be Infants’ and Invalids’ Foods; Detection of Cgmmon Adulterations, and | ae By sous W. Wiley, M.D., Ph.D. mS Chief Chemist, U. S. Department of Agriculture ~~} ~ , Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by over 100 pages of New Material j “See a 11 Colored Plates and 87 Other Illustrations be oh. Octavo. ; xiit+643 pages. Cloth, $4.00 net. BS 3 IS we In the kitchen at home as well as in the factory, cleanliness in the preparation Bane "| of food products is of the utmost importance, and the various laws relating to 1s "pure foods take this into consideration quite as much as the matter of adulteration. be. In this new book by Dr. Wiley, the proper methods of preparing, sverilising : a and canning meats, fruits and vegetables are very plainly and clearly set forth. B This book is not,.as some might suppose, a tirade against unclean or dishonest ei = manufacturers, but a dignified treatise telling what to do as well as what not to do. ie | 1 will prove-s great help to the public as well as to the manufacturer and inspector: it ms, Aes FROM THE NEW YORK SUN ‘+ 4} We notice that the colored illustrations of the various cuts of beef, by which the | Ds a *¢ The book is,a standard authority on all the solids that go into man’s stomach. . } Os | ‘housewife may judge the freshness of the beef her butcher offers her, are retained.’’ | Be | The Book will be sent free of transportation charges to any address, upon Fis 5 receipt of the price, $4.00. | _——~— he ome @8 fo os ws = oo at 3 o@& & 8425 = | P. BLAKISTON’S SON & COMPANY, Publishers “4012 WALNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA Soe eS

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COMPLETE PUBLICATION OF THE NEW ELEVENTH EDITION OF THE ncyclopaedia Bnitannica 20° Velma 40,000 Articles 44,000,000 Words and ja QO": 32,000 sets (value over $5,000,000) of the New 11th Edition — ¢ of this celebrated work were sold by The Cambridge University | Bia Press, of England, before publication, and were printed, bound and Bees delivered to subscribers within nine months. : 4 Prompt Delivery of the entire work is now assured to those who apply at once. The entire set of 29 volumes will be shipped (f. o. b. New York) shortly after receipt of a first payment of $5.00, or for cash in full. A New Binding (Prayer-book style). The publishers are glad to announce that, after many experiments, they have succeeded in producing a special _ binding for the India paper edition, which, they believe, will be found to be not only original and beautiful, but specially adapted to the India paper volumes, and very desirable for Christmas gifts. (Ready Nov. 20.) The new format, as well as the new case for holding the same, are shown by illustrations on this and the next page. The covers are of the finest im- ported leather, with a specially finished surface like a suede glove, leather lined, silk sewn, round corners, full gilt edges. It is believed that, while ig to §% the volume can be doubled up so as to be carried in the hand without injury ition tion to the book (see photograph), yet the strength of the binding is in no wise ee : impaired. The publishers are confident that no such binding has ever been izing produced before for a work of this nature. orth. — : meat An Ideal Christmas Present for odo. if a the Young HE supreme quality, however, of the Encyclopedia Britannica as a | gift, is that it gives to its-readers as complete a statement as possible of the present condition of knowledge. The recipient feels, especially if he is in the period of his mental growth, that the gift of a work of such learning and authority is stimulating to his intelligence and iach. a3 that, in accepting it, he incurs an obligation to use it for the purposes for h the — which it has been given. » The number of directions in which the systematic use of the Encyclopedia P 7? Britannica may influence for good a developing mind is legion. It is not The 29 volumes of the new intended for idle and listless reading, but supplies an accurate scrutiny of Encyclopedia Britannica in > . —@ the foundations of conclusions, opinions and beliefs. By its insistence on Full Limp Velvet Suede(Prayer- what is essential in every question, and by its elimination of all that is book style) in the special book- irrelevant, it promotes habits of concentration and analysis, and instils a case (mahogany) used only for spon sense of intellectual values. In its thousands of biographies of the men this binding. The volumes in ; and women who have figured prominently in the human story, it opens this beautiful format have per- new horizons and sets up new ideals. Tosome readers, it may even indicate fect flexibility (see photograph for the first time, their real vocation, for it is a fact that, in nearly every overleaf) and each rests on its efficient useful life, there is traceable, at some part:ng of the ways, the de- own shelf. Width of case, 16 pra termining influence of a book. ; inches. Height, 4 feet. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, (Encyclopaedia Britannica Dept.) 35 West 32d St. NEW YORK Royal Bank Building, TORONTO 149 Tremont Street, BOSTON (SEE NEXT THREE PAGES) —

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NEW FORMAT (On India Pa Prayer-book style) A volume printed as heretofore on ordinary book paper measures 2% inches in thickness and weighs 8 pounds Printed on India paper, the same volume is but x inch thick, andin the Full Limp Velvet Suede binding may be rolled up and held in one hand “THE MONARCH OF ENCYCLOPAEDIAS” (Hon. Whitelaw Reid, American Ambassador to Great Britain) HE "New Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, is a vast repository of human thought, learning and experience brought down te ] the summer of rgx0._ In virtue of its comprehensiveness and unfailing devotion to the exposition of knowledge, it combines three features of the widest usefulness to the present generation : 1—It is a register anddetailed summary of the world’s life and progress. 2—It is a complete inventory of extant knowledge reduced to an A, B, C simplicity of arrangement. It is an index to all recondite, not less than to allecommon things in which an intelligent person is likely to be interested. here are 28 volumes of text, aggregating 28,150 pages, which average 1,600 words to the page. Volume 2g consists of an Index contain- ing 500,000 references, and a complete Table of Contents giving every article-heading in the work under its proper classification. By the aid of this Index, which was carefully prepared at an expense of £15,000 ($75,000), it is believed that the reader will be able to find, in the body of the text, the answer to any conceivable question within the limits of reasonable inquiry. The 1,500 contributors include: x. Men of Learning (scientists, philosophers, divines, university professors, historians, economists), 2. Men of Action (soldiers, sailors, men of affairs, jurists, administrators, surgeons, architects, artists, invertors, archzologists, explor- ers, engineers, sportsmen, manufacturers, financiers). Practical Experts, men of special knowledge who are professionally engaged in the advancement of industrial undertakings for the welfare of mankind. The sum of £300,000 ($1,500,000) was paid to contributors and editors, as well as for maps, illustrations, typesetting, plates, etc., before a single copy was offered for sale. A large prospectus (India paper) post-free. HE Encyclopaedia Britannica, the only work which has summarised and elucidated universal knowledge in I successive editions during 140 years in a manner commensurate with the expansion and international . primacy of the two branches of the English speaking race, had come, by virtue of its acknowledged excel- lence, to be recognized as an institution, as one ‘of the most prized heritages of American and English scholars and readers. The sale of the previous edition had been even greater in the United States than in the mother country.” THREE NOTABLE NEW FEATURES The issue of the new edition (the eleventh since 1768-71), while it was a notable literary event in itself, was signalised by three unprecedented features: ! volumes measure but one inch in thickness instead of two and three-quarter inches as. heretofore, though containing identically the same matter and produced from identically the same plates as the familiar impres- sion on ordinary paper. i. The new edition bore the imprimatur of the University of Cambridge instead of being issued by a private firm of publishers as hitherto. This added endorsement of the authority of the 1,500 eminent specialists representing all civilised countries, who con- tributed to the book, served to confirm its status with a swiftness and a certainty not possible otherwise. 2. The work appeared in a revolutionary format which rendered the Encyclopedia Britannica for the first time a convenient book to hold and, therefore, agreeable to read. Printed on India paper (tough, light and thin, but, at the same time, opaque), the 3. The third new feature was the low price. The last completely new edition (the Ninth, 1875-1889) had been sold at $7.50 a volume, cloth bound, and.at $10.00 a volume in Half Russia. The 1ith Edition, on the other hand, is sold at prices averaging, in the several bindings, about 40 per cent. less. Re of fas to otl so att thi fro bel inc “ or

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AT Paper — ok style) but x inch binding id it down te ines t x contain- . By the ind, in the onomists), ts, explor- :ngaged in .» before a vledge in ‘national ed excels” } English an in the ice. The 375-1889) d, and. at . Edition, 1g, in the # 3] A Remarkably Successful Innovation—The India Paper Edition of the New Encyclopaedia Britannica ih remarkable improvement in the physical get-up of the vol- umes at once opened up limit- less possibilities for the reader. Reading an encyclopedia for the sake of reading became an enjoyable and fascinating experience hitherto denied to all users of this work. Yet no other book, as a matter of fact, offers so much that is calculated to arrest the attention and benefit the mind as does this one, which drafts its contributors from the whole world of scholarship, belles lettres and achievement, and which includes in its 44,000,000 words of text “everything that can possibly interest or concern a civilised people.”’ NOW A BOOK TO READ MERELY FOR PLEASURE It is open to question which of these new features— the sponsorship of the great English University, the use of India paper for a work traditionally regarded as a series of bulky and unattractive volumes, or the low price—contributed ‘most to the extraordinary suc- cess of the first distribution. ‘‘Nothing succeeds like success,” and so the novelty of the idea of the En- cyclopedia Britannica actually falling at last into the category of books that one likes to have close at hand —for arm-chair or fire-side reading, or handy enough “to tuck in a grip,”” as a New England college pro- fessor expressed it—quickly appealed to a wide circle of American and English book buyers, and ultimately forced the publishers to resort to the expedient of accepting thousands of orders subject to delay in manufacture. The manufacture of the 11th Edition exceeded all records in the printing and binding of hooks. 32,000 sets, 928.000 volumes, were printed, bound and de- livered between January 20th and October 25th. Of these, 90 per cent. were printed on India paper, and but 10 per cent. on ordinary book paper. the almost unanimous preference of the public for the convenient new India paper form testifying to the fact that a new standard in the technical production of books had been reached. It was necessary to purchase abroad 2,CC0 tons of India paper, none being made in this country. Interior View Showing the India Paper Edition in use in an English Country House 580,000 covers for the India paper volumes, bound in Full Flexible Sheepskin and Full Flexible Morocco, were also imported. PROMPT DELIVERY ASSURED The Cambridge University Press is now able to announce that all arrears in delivery have been caught up, the publishers having for some months devoted themselves uholly to the task of manufacturing, of dealing with the largest aggregate of sales in the history of publishing They are daily in receipt of evidence (in the form of appreciative and enthusiastic letters from subscribers in every walk of life) of the extended reputation of the work for every purpose of reading, reference and research. In view of this popular endorsement of the book as sustaining the fame of the university whose imprimatur it bears, as also the great tradition, extending over 140 years, of The Encyclopedia of which it constitutes the last edition, the publishers, in reopening the sub- scription lists, confidently anticipate a demand for the forthcoming issue which will rival that for the first. The printing and binding of so large a work are, necessarily, slow, especially in the case of the India paper edition, and the publishers are far from san- guine that the available supply will suffice to meet the orders due to the approaching Christmas season. ORDERS FOR CHRISTMAS PRESENTS Therefore, subscribers who contemplate presenting the 11th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as a Christ- mas gift—and, assuredly, no gift could be conceived which would be more prized, more useful, or which, in years of efficient service, would more frequently recall the donor—are advised to make immediate application, for only if they do so-can the publishers guarantee delivery on or before December 25th. Particularly is this advice offered in the case of subscribers living in remote parts cf the country, in shipping to whom allowance must be made for a considerable interval for trencport end fcr possible delays en route.

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HE complete work, in 28 volumes and index, is now ready. (1y On India Paper (very light and opaque) in four styles of binding: Cloth, Full Flexible Sheepskin, Full Limp Velvet Suede (Prayer-book style), and Full Flexible Morocco, the volumes being one inch thick (about 1,000 pages). he India paper impression bound in either Full Sheep, ull Limp Leather or Full Morocco is strongly recom- mended, (2) On-ordinary, book paper in three styles of bind- ing: Cloth, Half Morocco, and Full Morocco, the volumes being 234 inches thick (about 1,000 pages). CHEAPNESS OF THE 11TH EDITION AT THE PRESENT: PRICES In assuming control of the Encyclopedia Britannica the Syndics of The Cambridge University Press re- garded its sale at a low price as an inherent character- istic of the undertaking. They believe that in respect of cheapness no publica- tion can be compared with the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica at the present price. A single volume of the New 1ith Edition contains some 1,000 pages, and over 1,500,000 words, yet is sold at only $4.50 a volume in the cheaptst form. An ordinary book of travel, or of memoirs, a biog- raphy, historical or literary, a scientific manual or text book, if it contains as many as 200,000 words, usually costs about $5.00. A purchaser, therefore, obtains in a single volume of the new Encyclopaedia about eight times as much matter at a less cost that if he were buying ordinary books. The accepted scale of book prices is, in fact, too different to afford a satisfactory comparison, and the only true criterion in the matter is the price of the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. This was originally sold at 30s. ($7.50) a volume, although each volume contained 100 pages less than do those of the new edition, which may now be purchased (in the same style) at little more than half that price. To the former figure, however, of 30s. ($7.50) (which may be regarded as the normal, the standard, charge) the price of the new edition will eventually be raised. APPLICATION FOR THE NEW INDIA PAPER PROSPECTUS Full particulars of prices, deferred payments, book- cases, bindings (including the new Full Limp Leather, Prayer-book style), together with the prospectus de- scribed opposite, will be sent free, on application to CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS (Encyclopaedia Britannica Department) P.S.M.5 35 West 32d Street, NEW YORK Please send me the new India Paper Prospectus of the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Profession or Business Residence i HE NEW ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION A COMPLETE AND MODERN EXPOSITION OF HUMAN ‘THOUGHT, LEARNING AND ACHIEVEMENT UP TO 1910 ISSUED BY THE PRESS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (England) No. 2 Book-case showing the In- dia Paper Volumes bound in full Sheepskin. ‘The Index Volume(on ordinary paper) is seén on top. FIRST PAYMENT, $5.00 The present low price may the more easily be afforded, owing to the institution of serial payments. $5.00 is all the immediate outlay that is required to obtain delivery of the 29 volumes, and, after they have been received, purchase may be completed in monthly pa ments of the same amount. The work is, there placed within the reach of all. Should the subscriber, however, find that it betta suits his convenience to complete purchase in a shorter time, he may do so by making 4, 8 or 12 monthly payments, at practically the cash price. A 164-PAGE PROSPECTUS SIMILAR IN FORMAT THE WORK IT DESCRIBES=POST-FREE UPON APPLICATION The reduction in weight and bulk effected by the usé of India paper has been exemplified by the publishers of the new Encyclopedia Britannica in the preparation” of a new prospectus in which the book is described | with a fidelity and at a length attainable within ay reasonable compass in no other way. In format this prospectus is a replica of the India paper impressio and it has thus been possible not only to reproduce @ | large number of extracts from typical articles exactly as they appear in the original work, but to demonstrate” in the prospectus itself, which consists of 164 pages” of printed matter, together with numerous selec plates, maps, cuts, etc., the convenience and compa! ness of the India Paper Format.

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SCIENTIFIC BOOKS

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3 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE Edited by DAVID StaRR JORDAN, President of Stanford Univer- sity. A series of ree of leading Americans no longer liv- ing. The lives of seventeen scientific men are-written by different authors Pp. vii + 471. $1.75. Henry Holt & Company, New York City Re ON oe ee eek argh

: THE RACIAL ANATOMY OF THE : PHILIPPINE ISLANDERS By RoBERT BENNETT BEAN, B.S.,M.D., Associate Professor of Anatomy, Tulane University. » This book introduces new methods of pt shows their application to the Filipinos with a classification of human ears and a scheme for heredity. Pp. 236 J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa.

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BOTANY AND PHARMACOGNOSY By Dr. HENRY KRAEMER, Professor of Botany, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. A Text-book and a hand-book in the microscopic stud and analysis of drugs, foods, spices, etc. Fourth revised edi- ‘@ tion with a new chapter on Micro-Crystal Analysis. Pp. 900. | Price, $5.60. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa.

CONDITIONS OF LIFE IN THE SEA By JAMES JOHNSTONE, Fisheries Laboratory, University of Liverpool. A short account of quantitative marine biological research, and of the related results of hydrography and oceanography. Pp. xiv+332. . cher The University Press. Cambridge. England

DARWIN AND MODERN SCIENCE Edited by A. C. SEWARD, Professor of Botany in ee University, for the Cambridge Philosophical Society and the syndics of the University Press. Essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publi- cation of The Origin of Species. Pp. xvii+595. Cambridge University Press

CHARLES DARWIN AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES By EpwaRD BaGNALL PoutTon, D.Sc., Hope Professor of Zo- ology in the University of Ozford. Addresses, etc., in America and England in the year of the two anniversaries. Pp. 301+xv.

lescribed | within Longmans,.Green, and Co., New York City

*.* Advertisements of new hooks of interest to readers of the MONTHLY will be inserted on this page for one dollar. THE SUN By CHARLES G. ABBOT, S.M. Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory A text book containing the latest results in solar research including much hitherto unpublished material. Pp. viii+448, with 102 illustrations and 34 tables. $2.50 net. D. Appleton & Company, New York HERE DITY In Relation to Evolution and Animal Breeding By WILiIAM E. CAsTLE Professor of Zoology, Harvard University This book sum marizes in brief compass the more im portant evolutionary principles which have been brought to light through the re-discovery of Mendel’s Law in 1900 and its further development in the fruitful period of experimental study which followed. Pp. xii+184, with 54 illustrations. $1.50 net D Appleton and Company, New York THE PROBLEM OF AGE, GROWTH AND OEATH By CHar.es 8. Minot, LL.D., D.Sc., James Stillman Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the Harvard Medical School. This book is the outcome of an attempt to learn something as to the essential character and the cause of the gradual loss of the functional powers of the organism. Pp. xxii+280. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London FOODS AND THEIR ADULTERATION By Harvey W. WILEy, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry.

This manual aims to give as thoroughly and intelligibly as ible an account of the various food products in common use n their natural and manufactured conditions, with the usual adulterations that have been found therein. Pp xii + 625, with eleven colored plates and 86 other illustrations. P. Bilakiston’s Son and Co., Philadeiphia THE HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF MODERN KNUWLEDGE The Evolution of Plants, by DUKINFIELD HENRY ScoTr

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R FRIEDLANDER & SOHN, BERLIN, W. H. 6 JUST PUBLISHED Nomenclator animalium generum et subgenerum Specimen-Part Primatium genera et subgenera Im Auftrage der k. Preuss, Akademie der Wissen- schaften fiir Berlin herausgegeben von Fr. E. SCHULZE

Price of the Specimen-Part 17 pp. Royal 8vo, $0.25 Price of the Nomenclator 2 Vols. when complete, $24

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The Journal of Animal Behavi r_ An organ for the publication of studies of the in- stincts, habits, and intelligence of organisms. Contents of Specimen Numbers - Volume 1, No. 1. ‘The discriminative ability of the painted turtle.’’ | No. 1. | No. By D. B. Casteel. ‘The reactions of mosquitoes to light in different periods of their life-history.”” By S. J. Holmes.

The Eugenics and Biometric Laboratorie University College, Loudon, have recently issued KARL PEaRi the following : A Monograph on Aine in. Man. 4 FE. NETTLESHIP, and C. H. USHER, ‘ext, Part 1. Atlas Part I., with 52 Plates containing 185 Illustrations ¢ Albinism, Piebaldism, and Deucoderma. Price, 35s The ) renens? of human Inheritance. Parts Vand VE | Hemophilia. _By WILLIAM BULLOCH, M.D., and Pau FiLpgEs, M B., B.C. With 17 plates containing 236 Pedis grees, 1 Plate of Illustration, @ Bibliography of 911 Ti and critical discussion, Price, 15s net. Tu RA

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‘* A study of trial and error reactions in mammals.”’ | By G. V. Hamilton. ‘‘A note on learning in paramecium.”’ Day and Madison Bentley. ‘¢ Wheeler on ants’’ (a review). By R. M. Yerkes. Volume 1, No. 5. By A. A. Schaeffer. Part III. By Lucy M. ‘‘ Habit formation in frogs.” ‘“‘ Nests and nest- building in birds.’’ F. H. Herrick. By | ‘‘ Notes on the behavior of a parasitic bee of the | family Stelidae.’”? By C. H. Turner. Published bi-monthly at Cambridge, Boston, Mass., by Henry Holt & Company, New York. Each annual volume contains at least 450 pages with plates and text-figures. The subscription price is $3.00 per volume (foreign $3.50) postpaid. Manuscripts, subscriptions, and all business cor- respondence should be addressed to The Journal of Animal Behavior Emerson Hall, Cambridge, Mass.

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iW Sen Cat: ce a Specimen Numbers of Volume 1. ‘* The development of certain instincts ar habits in chicks.’”’ By F. S. Breed. Pp. iii+78) $1.00 postpaid. No. 2. ‘‘ Methods of ae vision in animals.” By R. M. Yerkesand J. B. Watson. Pp. iv 90. $1.25 postpaid. Published at irregular intervals at Cambridg Boston, Mass., in connection with the Journal of Animal Behavior by Henry Holt & Company, New York. E i Each volume contains approximately 450 pag with plates and text-figures. The subscription price is $3.00 per volume (foreign $3.50) postpaid. : The monographs may be purchased separately a§) tie “ - oo ~ waned thats nIEEE gn | prices varying with the cost of manufacture. che Manuscripts and inquiries concerning terms Benc publication should be addressed to the Editor, q @ John B. Watson, The Johns Hopkins Univer K sity, Baltimore, Maryland Bs Subscriptions should be sent to ae THE BEHAVIOR MONOGRAPHS abl Emerson Hall Cambridge, Mass: | wo oe

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ROMEIKE’S PRESS CLIPPINGS are now an absolute necessity for every scientific man. By methodical searching through the most important papers and periodicals published in this country and abroad we are able to supply you at short notice with information on any subject which perhaps you would be unable to find yourself in libraries or reference books after spending days or even weeks at such a task. Write for further information. HENRY ROMEIKE, Inc. 140-112 West 26th St., New York Citw PATENTS BALDWIN & WIGHT 25 Grant Place, Washington, D. C. Patents, Trade-Marks and Copyrights _ Practice before the Patent Office, Library of Congress. and Patent, Trade-Mark and Copyright Courts. Over 20 years’ experience. Reference: Columbia National Bank,Washington, D.C. Other references furnished if desired. STANDARD TEXTBOOKS METHODS IN PLANT HISTOLOGY By CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN 272 pages, 8vo, cloth. Postpaid, $2.39 ANIMAL MICROLOGY By MICHAEL F. GUYER 250 pages, 8vo, cloth. Postpaid $1.88 A LABORATORY GUIDE IN BACTERIOLOGY By PAUL G. HEINEMANN xiv+144 pages, 12mo, cloth. Postpaid $1.61 MORPHOLOGY OF GYMNOSPERMS By JOHN M. COULTER and CHARLES J. CHAMBERLAIN 470 pages, 462 illustrations, 8vo, cloth. Postpaid $4.22 Highest indorsements from gpecialists and teachers. Write for circulars. The University of Chicago Press, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS H. E. WIEDEMANN Consulting and Analytical Chemist Bacteriologist Suite 721 Holland Building Saint Louis MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY WOODS HOLE, MASS. SUPPLY DEPARTMENT ‘1. Zoology. Preserved material of all types of animals for class work or for the museum. 2. Embryological Material of some invertebrates, fishes (in- cluding Amia and Lepidosteus), Amphibia and some mam- mals. 3. Botany. Preserved mai of Algae, Fungi, Liverworts and Mosses., For price lists and information, address GEORGE M. GRAY, Curator, Woods Hole, Mass. Before Deciding and ins | reason WHERE TO ATTEND SCHOOL rna. Jt ; . e s TT eetcine o¢ Valparaiso University y.*jpers's 3 One of the Largest Universities and Training bs Schools in the United States. nets and 25 Departments Excellent Equipments iii a. 187 Instructors S. hoot the Entire Year ; s Expenses less than at any other schoo}. Catalog mailed imals.”” § tree. Address H. B. Brown, President, Pp. iv 4 or O. P. Kinsey, Vice-Pres. >§ Calendar for 1910-1911:—Thirty-Kighth Year will open Sep- nbridge, @ ember 20, 1910; Second Term, December 18, 1910; Third Term, irnal 7 § Mach 7, 1911; Fourth Term, May $0, 1911. ny, New) y q LEARN TO BE A WATCHMAKER 0 pagel | BRADLEY POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE “oo Horological Department > Peoria, Illinois (foreig Db Formerly Parsons Horological Inst. a Largest and Best Watch ly a School in America ... rate y © 4 We teach Watch Work, Jewelry, «ngraving, - Clock Work, Optics. Tuition reasonable. ')@ Board and rooms near school at moderate rates. This entire building used ex terms Send for Catalog of Information. clusively as a watch school. r, vsiveell Michigan College of Mi "\Michigan College of Mines 7 F. W. TIicNAIR, President | Located in Lake Superior district, Mines and Mills acces- able for college work. For Year Book and Record of Gradu- |] %tes apply to PRESIDENT or SFCRETARY, Georgetown Universily School of Medicine and ' Dental Department The Fifty-ninth Session will begin September 28, 1908, and continue eight and one-half months, tical laboratory work under special instructors, in Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry, Histology, Pathology and Bacteriology. Am facilities for clinical experience and practical! work in hos- pitals of city and in the University Hospital, containing im all over 3000 beds. For particulars address GEO. M. KOBER, M.D. Dean School of Medicine, 1819 g Street, WM. N. COGAN, D.D.S. Dean Dental Department, “‘The Sherman,” Washington, D. C. BACK OR CURRENT NUMBERS of any American or Foreign Magazine, technical or trade Journal furnished on short notice at moderate rates; also newspapers. Government and State Reports of all kinds in stock. Clippings on special subjects furnished abe tly. Large stock of Popular Science Monthly on hand. aga- zines, Books and papers of all kinds bought. Special subscription price list on request A. W. Castellanos 272A ase Sa FINE COLLECTION FOR SALE The splendid private Collection of W. O. Connor, Princi- of the Georgia School for the Deaf, at Cave consisting of Indian relics, Minerals, Geological specimens, a few Birds and Insects, and Curios, is off sale,as a whole. There is $3,000.00 Insurance on it. It is rmitted to refer to 8, W. McCallie, State Geologist, Atlanta. rgia. Address, W. 0. CONNOR, Cave Spring, Houghton, Michigan Georgi

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: fewel The Popular Science Mon | I y Entored in the Post Office in Lancaster, Pa,, as second-class mater, CONTENTS OF THE OCTOBER NUMBER Genetics. W. Bateson. i Civilization and Vegetation. Professor George J. Peirce. English as an International Language. Albert Leon Guerard. Perfect Flowers in Maize. Professor E. G. Mont- gomery. The Sounds “ch” and ‘‘j.” Winifred Scripture. The Relative Importance of Mental Pain. Dr. Smith Baker. Language Study and Language Fayebokey. Pro- fessor E. W. Fay. Agriculture in the High School: Josiah Main. The Laws of Environmental Influence. Simon N. Patten. The Races Fiber of the Chinese. Professor Edward A. Ross. The Progress of Science: The Langley Memoir on Mechanical Flight; Ad- dress of the President of the British Association ; The Director of the American Museum of Natural History ; Scientific Items. Professor Professor CONTENTS OF THE NOVEMBER NUMBER The Bering River Coal Field, Alaska. Professor George F. Kay. ws Insect Parasitism and its Peculiarities. Professor William Morton Wheeler. - Mathematics and Engineering in Nature. Professor Arnold Emch, American Mathematics. Professor G. A. Miller, Buffon and the Problem of Species, Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy. A World-wide Color Line: Professor U. G. Weatherly, The Crossing of the Races. Dr. J.G Wilson. The Conservation of the Food-supply Dr. Henry Prentiss Armsby. The Moral Influence of a University Pension System. Dr. Henry 8. Pritchett. The Progress of Science : College Studies and Professional Training; The Portsmouth Meeting of the British Association ; A Hand-book of Universities ; Scientific Items, To THE SCIENCE PRESS, December, 1911. Name sas The MONTHLY will be sent to new subscribers for six months for One Dollar. SUBSCRIPTION ORDER Publishers of THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, Sub-Station 84, New York City. Please find enclosed check or money order for three dollars, subscrip- tion.to THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for one year, beginning Please find enclosed from a new schieothae one dollar (sent at your risk), subscription for six months to THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, beginning December, 1911. d . Address Single Numbers 30 Cents Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y. Sub-Station 84; NEW YORK Yearly Subscription, $3.00 THE SCIENCE PRESS 41 North Queen St., Lancaster, Pa. Press OF THe New ERA Printina Company

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